Page:The ways of war - Kettle - 1917.pdf/172

 various heads of taxation, and by the provision of cheap loans. It will be found in the end that this accessibility to land, to land in fee-simple, is the real solution of half our labour difficulties, and the real counter-programme to Socialism. And the nation that pioneered it will enjoy deserved honour. Like other Latin countries Belgium has what we, to our shame, have not: a Homestead and Household Protection Act, the only bulwark against usury.

As to the particular points in which Belgian experience may enlighten ours, there is one which ought to be mentioned. Cheap fee-simple land for industrial workers plus cheap railways, has done a great deal to break the isolation of country and town, and to solve housing difficulties. There is also a distinct human gain. Your industrial worker who grows his own vegetables on his own land is a very different man from the unit of your propertyless proletariat. The railway policy of Belgium is generally misunderstood. In the first instance, only the main lines are owned by the State; in the second, the complaint that the State Railways "do not pay" misses the whole essence of the matter. They are not run as dividend-producing concerns; they are run as one of the fundamental public utilities. Roads used to "pay"; now they are paid for out of the public purse. Who complains? The Belgian State Railways did certainly not lose money; further, their policy was not controlled by the neces