Note 49 — FROM THE PRINTING PRESS

Without venturing my own opinion, I must say that in this work Kropotkin enunciates a theory which few radicals accept—the Decentralisation of Industries. Briefly stated, the doctrine is this: It is untrue that certain nations are specialised either for industry or for agriculture. Countries which economists have declared to be merely agricultural lands, have recently advanced so rapidly in industries that the supremacy of the champions is seriously threatened. No one or two nations can again secure a monopoly of industry, for the tendency of modern civilization is towards a spreading and scattering of industries all over the earth. Not a mere shifting of the center of gravity from one country to another, as formerly happened in Europe when the commercial hegemony migrated from Italy to Spain, then to Holland, and finally to Britain, but an actual and permanent decentralisation of industry, by its very nature making it impossible for any nation to gain industrial ascendancy. Even the most backward nations will soon manufacture almost everything they need. There is much advantage in this combination of industrial with agricultural pursuits. It is well to have production for home use—each region producing and consuming its own manufactured goods and its own agricultural product.——Of course the Socialists are diametrically opposed to this contention, and they answer it with one word—the trusts.—When I spoke with Leonard D. Abbott about Kropotkin, he told me his high opinion of him, but soon referred to this hypothesis, and laughed. It was the same when I mentioned the point to Dr. Antoinette Konikov, etc. See Abbott's "A Visit to Prince Kropotkin," (Twentieth Century, October 2, 1897).