Britain for the British

by Robert Blatchford

That "principle," the root idea of Socialism, means two things—

1. That the land and all the machines, tools, and buildings used in making needful things, together with all the canals, rivers, roads, railways, ships, and trains used in moving, sharing (distributing) needful things, and all the shops, markets, scales, weights, and money used in selling or dividing needful things, shall be the property of (belong to) the whole people (the nation).

2. That the land, tools, machines, trains, rivers, shops, scales, money, and all the other things belonging to the people, shall be worked, managed, divided, and used by the whole people in such a way as the greater number of the whole people shall deem best.

This is the principle of collective, or national, ownership, and co-operative, or national, use and control.

Socialism may, you see, be summed up in one line, in four words, as really meaning

BRITAIN FOR THE BRITISH.

I will make all this as plain as the nose on your face directly. Let us now look at the other side.

To-day Britain does not belong to the British; it belongs to a few of the British. There are bits of it which belong to the whole people, as Wimbledon Common, Portland Gaol, the highroads; but most of it is "private property."

Now, as there are Liberals and Tories, Catholics and Protestants, Dockers' Unions and Shipping Federations in England; so there are Socialists and non-Socialists.

And as there are different kinds of Socialists, so there are different kinds of non-Socialists.