A report was received from Denmark referring chiefly to the 
condition of the agricultural labourers, and the agitation taking 
place amongst them. In Denmark there are but two official 
political parties—the “Doctrinaires” who represent the capitalist 
class, and the “Peasants Friends’, as they call themselves, who 
represent the landed proprietors including the landed nobility, 
and the large peasant owner. They also pretend to represent the 
agricultural labourers, but as a matter of course nothing was ever 
done for them. The nobility are comparatively powerless in 
Denmark, so the large peasant holders form the bulk of the 
‘Peasants Friends” party. The small farmers and labourers have 
hitherto been led by them, for though a few representatives of the 
latter class had been elected to Parliament, they acted under the 
influence of the large peasant holders, and were used as mere 
instruments by them. 

The International aims at freeing the small peasants and 
agricultural labourers from this submission to the men who grow 
rich out of their labour, and is endeavouring to form them into an 
independent party—distinct from the so-called “ Peasants Friends”’, 
but in intimate union with the working men of the towns. This 
new labourer’s party starts with the basis laid down by the 
Congress of Basle, the Nationalisation of the Land.*° 

“It is a truth more and more acknowledged,” says Socialisten, our Copenhagen 
organ, “that the land is the common property of the people, that the people ought 

to cultivate it in common, enjoy its common produce, and hand over its excess 
(rent) to the state for common purposes.” ? 

a L. Pio, “Om vore Landboforhold”’, Socialisten, No. 17, November 4, 1871.— Ed. 

But as the land in Denmark is principally the property of a 
numerous class of Peasant Proprietors, each holding from 50 to 
100 acres of good soil, the immediate expropriation of such a 
considerable body would be impossible. A plan has therefore been 
proposed, which offers many advantages to the holder as well as 
to the labourers, that is, to establish Agricultural Co-operative 
Societies consisting of peasant holders and labourers, for the 
common cultivation of the land, now cultivated by them individu- 
ally. The small and medium farms would thus be replaced by 
farms of 500 acres and upwards, and would allow of the 
introduction of agricultural implements, steam culture, and other 
modern improvements, which cannot be taken advantage of, when 
agriculture is conducted on a small scale. The necessary capital is 
to be advanced by the state on the security of the land belonging 
to each association; these propositions are necessarily of a very 
elementary character, but they appear to be well adapted to the 
intellect and capacity of the agricultural population, whilst the 
constant reference to the Nationalisation of the land as the ultimate 
end of the movement, will powerfully assist in breaking up that 
political subserviency in which the large landowners, with the help 
of the parson, the village schoolmaster, and the government 
official, have hitherto held the agricultural labourers.