Part 84 (1/2)

'The Labour members is sent to the 'Ouse of Commons,' said Harlow, 'and paid their wages to do certain work for the benefit of the working cla.s.ses, just the same as we're sent 'ere and paid our wages by the Bloke to paint this 'ouse.'

'Yes,' said Cra.s.s; 'but if we didn't do the work we're paid to do, we should b.l.o.o.d.y soon get the sack.'

'I can't see how we've got to keep the other members,' said Slyme; 'they're mostly rich men, and they live on their own money.'

'Of course,' said Cra.s.s. 'And I should like to know where we should be without 'em! Talk about us keepin' them! It seems to me more like it that they keeps us! The likes of us lives on rich people. Where should we be if it wasn't for all the money they spend and the work they 'as done? If the owner of this 'ouse 'adn't 'ad the money to spend to 'ave it done up, most of us would 'ave bin out of work this last six weeks, and starvin', the same as lots of others 'as been.'

'Oh yes, that's right enough,' agreed Bundy. 'Labour is no good without Capital. Before any work can be done there's one thing necessary, and that's money. It would be easy to find work for all the unemployed if the local authorities could only raise the money.'

'Yes; that's quite true,' said Owen. 'And that proves that money is the cause of poverty, because poverty consists in being short of the necessaries of life: the necessaries of life are all produced by labour applied to the raw materials: the raw materials exist in abundance and there are plenty of people able and willing to work; but under present conditions no work can be done without money; and so we have the spectacle of a great army of people compelled to stand idle and starve by the side of the raw materials from which their labour could produce abundance of all the things they need--they are rendered helpless by the power of Money! Those who possess all the money say that the necessaries of life shall not be produced except for their profit.'

'Yes! and you can't alter it,' said Cra.s.s, triumphantly. 'It's always been like it, and it always will be like it.'

''Ear! 'Ear!' shouted the man behind the moat. 'There's always been rich and poor in the world, and there always will be.'

Several others expressed their enthusiastic agreement with Cra.s.s's opinion, and most of them appeared to be highly delighted to think that the existing state of affairs could never be altered.

'It hasn't always been like it, and it won't always be like it,' said Owen. 'The time will come, and it's not very far distant, when the necessaries of life will be produced for use and not for profit. The time is coming when it will no longer be possible for a few selfish people to condemn thousands of men and women and little children to live in misery and die of want.'

'Ah well, it won't be in your time, or mine either,' said Cra.s.s gleefully, and most of the others laughed with imbecile satisfaction.

'I've 'eard a 'ell of a lot about this 'ere Socialism,' remarked the man behind the moat, 'but up to now I've never met n.o.body wot could tell you plainly exactly wot it is.'

'Yes; that's what I should like to know too,' said Easton.

'Socialism means, ”What's yours is mine, and what's mine's me own,”'

observed Bundy, and during the laughter that greeted this definition Slyme was heard to say that Socialism meant Materialism, Atheism and Free Love, and if it were ever to come about it would degrade men and women to the level of brute beasts. Harlow said Socialism was a beautiful ideal, which he for one would be very glad to see realized, and he was afraid it was altogether too good to be practical, because human nature is too mean and selfish. Sawkins said that Socialism was a lot of b.l.o.o.d.y rot, and Cra.s.s expressed the opinion--which he had culled from the delectable columns of the Obscurer--that it meant robbing the industrious for the benefit of the idle and thriftless.

Philpot had by this time finished his bread and cheese, and, having taken a final draught of tea, he rose to his feet, and crossing over to the corner of the room, ascended the pulpit, being immediately greeted with a tremendous outburst of hooting, howling and booing, which he smilingly acknowledged by removing his cap from his bald head and bowing repeatedly. When the storm of shrieks, yells, groans and catcalls had in some degree subsided, and Philpot was able to make himself heard, he addressed the meeting as follows:

'Gentlemen: First of all I beg to thank you very sincerely for the magnificent and cordial reception you have given me on this occasion, and I shall try to deserve your good opinion by opening the meeting as briefly as possible.

'Putting all jokes aside, I think we're all agreed about one thing, and that is, that there's plenty of room for improvement in things in general. (Hear, hear.) As our other lecturer, Professor Owen, pointed out in one of 'is lectures and as most of you 'ave read in the newspapers, although British trade was never so good before as it is now, there was never so much misery and poverty, and so many people out of work, and so many small shopkeepers goin' up the spout as there is at this partickiler time. Now, some people tells us as the way to put everything right is to 'ave Free Trade and plenty of cheap food. Well, we've got them all now, but the misery seems to go on all around us all the same. Then there's other people tells us as the 'Friscal Policy'

is the thing to put everything right. (”Hear, hear” from Cra.s.s and several others.) And then there's another lot that ses that Socialism is the only remedy. Well, we all know pretty well wot Free Trade and Protection means, but most of us don't know exactly what Socialism means; and I say as it's the dooty of every man to try and find out which is the right thing to vote for, and when 'e's found it out, to do wot 'e can to 'elp to bring it about. And that's the reason we've gorn to the enormous expense of engaging Professor Barrington to come 'ere this afternoon and tell us exactly what Socialism is.

''As I 'ope you're all just as anxious to 'ear it as I am myself, I will not stand between you and the lecturer no longer, but will now call upon 'im to address you.'

Philpot was loudly applauded as he descended from the pulpit, and in response to the clamorous demands of the crowd, Barrington, who in the meantime had yielded to Owen's entreaties that he would avail himself of this opportunity of proclaiming the glad tidings of the good time that is to be, got up on the steps in his turn.

Harlow, desiring that everything should be done decently and in order, had meantime arranged in front of the pulpit a carpenter's sawing stool, and an empty pail with a small piece of board laid across it, to serve as a seat and a table for the chairman. Over the table he draped a large red handkerchief. At the right he placed a plumber's large hammer; at the left, a battered and much-chipped jam-jar, full of tea.

Philpot having taken his seat on the pail at this table and announced his intention of bas.h.i.+ng out with the hammer the brains of any individual who ventured to disturb the meeting, Barrington commenced:

'Mr Chairman and Gentlemen. For the sake of clearness, and in order to avoid confusing one subject with another, I have decided to divide the oration into two parts. First, I will try to explain as well as I am able what Socialism is. I will try to describe to you the plan or system upon which the Co-operative Commonwealth of the future will be organized; and, secondly, I will try to tell you how it can be brought about. But before proceeding with the first part of the subject, I would like to refer very slightly to the widespread delusion that Socialism is impossible because it means a complete change from an order of things which has always existed. We constantly hear it said that because there have always been rich and poor in the world, there always must be. I want to point out to you first of all, that it is not true that even in its essential features, the present system has existed from all time; it is not true that there have always been rich and poor in the world, in the sense that we understand riches and poverty today.

'These statements are lies that have been invented for the purpose of creating in us a feeling of resignation to the evils of our condition.

They are lies which have been fostered by those who imagine that it is to their interest that we should be content to see our children condemned to the same poverty and degradation that we have endured ourselves.

I do not propose--because there is not time, although it is really part of my subject--to go back to the beginnings of history, and describe in detail the different systems of social organization which evolved from and superseded each other at different periods, but it is necessary to remind you that the changes that have taken place in the past have been even greater than the change proposed by Socialists today. The change from savagery and cannibalism when men used to devour the captives they took in war--to the beginning of chattel slavery, when the tribes or clans into which mankind were divided--whose social organization was a kind of Communism, all the individuals belonging to the tribe being practically social equals, members of one great family--found it more profitable to keep their captives as slaves than to eat them. The change from the primitive Communism of the tribes, into the more individualistic organization of the nations, and the development of private owners.h.i.+p of the land and slaves and means of subsistence. The change from chattel slavery into Feudalism; and the change from Feudalism into the earlier form of Capitalism; and the equally great change from what might be called the individualistic capitalism which displaced Feudalism, to the system of Co-operative Capitalism and Wage Slavery of today.'

'I believe you must 'ave swollered a b.l.o.o.d.y dictionary,' exclaimed the man behind the moat.