coercion, would prove as effectual stimulants to exertion and industry as interest and necessity had done under the system of private ownership. Those who relied on the refutation of this theory forgot that with poor and suffering men who look to no future, and acknowledge no law but such as is created by their own capricious will and pleasure, envy is even a more powerful passion than greed. The Many preferred that wealth and luxury should be destroyed, rather than that they should be the exclusive possession of the Few. The first and most visible effect of Communism was the utter disappearance of all perishable luxuries, of all food, clothing, furniture, better than that enjoyed by the poorest. Whatever could not be produced in quantities sufficient to give each an appreciable share was not produced at all. Next, the quarrels arising out of the apportionment of labour were bitter, constant, and savage. Only a grinding despotism could compose them, and those who wielded such despotism for a short time excited during the period of their rule such fierce and universal hatred, that they were invariably overturned and almost invariably murdered before their very brief legal term of office had closed. It was not only that those engaged in the same kind of labour quarrelled over the task assigned to each, whether allotted in proportion to his strength, or to the difficulty of his labour, or by lot equally to all. Those to whom the less agreeable employments were assigned rebelled or murmured, and at last it was necessary to substitute rotation for division of labour, since no one would admit that he was best fitted for the lower or less agreeable. Of course we thus wasted silver tools in doing the work of iron, and reduced enormously the general production of wealth. Next, it was found that since one man's industry or idleness could produce no appreciable effect upon the general wealth, still less upon the particular share assigned to him, every man was as idle as the envy and jealousy of his neighbours would allow. Finally, as the produce annually diminished and the number of mouths to be fed became a serious consideration, the parents of many children were regarded as public enemies. The entire independence of women, as equal citizens, with no recognised relation to individual men, was the inevitable outcome, logically and practically, of the Communistic principle; but this only made matters worse. Attempts were of course made to restrain multiplication by law, but this brought about inquisitions so utterly intolerable that human nature revolted against them. The sectaries I have mentioned—around whom, without adopting or even understanding their principles, gradually gathered all the better elements of society, every man of intellect and spirit who had not been murdered, with a still larger proportion of women—seceded separately or in considerable numbers at once; established themselves in those parts of