XIV. The establishment of a national monetary system, in which a circulating medium in necessary quantity shall issue direct to the people, without the intervention of banks; that all the national issue shall be full legal tender in payment of all debts, public and private; and that the Government shall not guarantee or recognise any private banks, or create any banking corporations. XV. That interest-bearing bonds, bills of credit or notes shall never be issued by the Government, but that, when need arises, the emergency shall be met by issue of legal tender, non-interest-bearing money. XVI. That the importation of foreign labour under contract be prohibited. XVII. That in connection with the post-office, the Government shall organise financial exchanges, safe deposits and facilities for deposit of the savings of the people in small sums. XVIII. That the Government shall obtain possession, by purchase, under the rights of eminent domain, of all telegraphs, telephones, and railroads, and that hereafter no charter or licence be issued to any corporation for construction or operation of any means of transporting intelligence, passengers or freight. And while making the foregoing demands upon the State and National Government, we will endeavour to associate our own labours: XIX. To establish co-operative institutions such as will tend to supersede the wage system, by the introduction of a co-operative industrial system. XX. To secure for both sexes equal pay for equal work. XXI. To shorten the hours of labour by a general refusal to work for more than eight hours. XXII. To persuade employers to agree to arbitrate all differences which may arise between them and their employees, in order that the bonds of sympathy between them may be strengthened and that strikes may be rendered unnecessary. BASIS OF THE FABIAN SOCIETY The Fabian Society consists of socialists. It therefore aims at the reorganisation of society by the emancipation of Land and Industrial Capital from individual and class ownership, and the vesting of them in the community for the general benefit. In this way only can the natural and acquired advantages of the country be equitably shared by the whole people. The Society accordingly works for the extinction of private property in land and of the consequent individual appropriation, in the form of rent of the price paid for permission to use the earth, as well as for the advantages of superior soils and sites. The Society, further, works for the transfer to the community of the administration of such industrial capital as can conveniently be managed socially. For, owing to the monopoly of the means of production in the past, industrial inventions and the transformation of surplus income into capital have mainly enriched the proprietary class, the worker being now dependent on that class for leave to earn a living.