civilisation, those condemned to wretchedness by the incapacity, the
vice, the folly, or the sheer misfortune of themselves or their
relations. It suggested a method by which wealth would correspond
approximately with worth; by which the reward of labour would go to
those that laboured; the idleness alike of rich and poor would cease;
the abundant wealth created by modern industry would be distributed with
something like fairness and even equality, amongst those who contributed
to its production. Above all, this tremendous revolution was to be
accomplished by a political method, applicable by a majority of the
voters, and capable of being drafted as an Act of Parliament by any
competent lawyer.

To George belongs the extraordinary merit of recognising the right way
of social salvation. The Socialists of earlier days had proposed
segregated communities; the Co-operators had tried voluntary
associations; the Positivists advocated moral suasion; the Chartists
favoured force, physical or political; the Marxists talked revolution
and remembered the Paris Commune. George wrote in a land where the
people ruled themselves, not only in fact but also in name. The United
States in the seventies was not yet dominated by trusts and controlled
by millionaires. Indeed even now that domination and control, dangerous
and disastrous as it often is, could not withstand for a moment any
widespread uprising of the popular will. Anyway, George recognised that
in the Western States political institutions could be moulded to suit
the will of the electorate; he believed that the majority desired to
seek their own well-being and this could not fail to be also the
well-being of the community as a whole. From Henry George I think it may
be taken that the early Fabians learned to associate the new gospel with
the old political method.