[221] H. G. Wells, "This Misery of Boots," p. 34.
[222] Karl Kautsky, "The Social Revolution," p. 51.
CHAPTER II
THE AGRICULTURAL CLASSES AND THE LAND QUESTION
I have pointed out the relation of the Socialist movement to all classes but one,—the agriculturists,—a class numerically next in importance to the industrial wage earners.
On the one hand most agriculturists are small capitalists, who, even when they do not own their farms, are often forced to-day to invest a considerable sum in farm animals and machinery, in rent and interest and in wages at the harvest season; on the other hand, a large part of the farmers work harder and receive less for their work than skilled laborers, while the amount they own, especially when tenants, scarcely exceeds what it has cost many skilled workers to learn their trade. Are the great majority of farmers, then, rather small capitalists or laborers?
For many years Socialists paid comparatively little attention to the problem. How was it then imagined that a political program could obtain the support of the majority of the voters without presenting to the agricultural population as satisfactory a solution of their difficulties as that it offered to the people of the towns? On the other hand, how was it possible to adapt a program frankly "formulated by or for the workingmen of large-scale industry" to the conditions of agriculture?
The estimate of the rural population that has hitherto prevailed among the Socialists of most countries may be seen from the following language of Kautsky's:—