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LONDON
CLARION PRESS,72 Fleet Street, E. C.
CHICAGO
CHARLES H. KERR & COMPANY
56 Fifth Avenue

THE TITLE OF THIS BOOK

At present Britain does not belong to the British: it belongs to a fewof the British, who employ the bulk of the population as servants or as workers.

It is because Britain does not belong to the British that a few are veryrich and the many are very poor.

It is because Britain does not belong to the British that we findamongst theowning class a state of useless luxury and perniciousidleness, and amongst theworking classes a state of drudging toil, ofwearing poverty and anxious care.

This state of affairs is contrary to Christianity, is contrary tojustice, and contrary to reason. It is bad for the rich, it is bad forthe poor; it is against the best interests of the British nation and the human race.

The remedy for this evil state of things—theonly remedy yetsuggested—isSocialism. AndSocialism is broadly expressed in thetitle and motto of this book:Britain for the British.

THE PURPOSE OF THIS BOOK

The purpose of this book is to convert the reader toSocialism: toconvince him that the present system—political, industrial, andsocial—is bad; to explain to him why it is bad, and to prove to himthat Socialism is the only true remedy.

FOR WHOM THIS BOOK IS INTENDED

This book is intended for any person who does not understand, or has, sofar, refused to accept the principles ofSocialism.

But it is especially addressed, as my previous book,Merrie England,was addressed, toJohn Smith, a typical British working man, not yetconverted toSocialism.

I hope this book will be read by every opponent ofSocialism; and Ihope it will be read by all those good folks who, though not yetSocialists, are anxious to help their fellow-creatures, to do somegood in their own day and generation, and to leave the world a littlebetter than they found it.

I hope that all lovers of justice and of truth will read this book, andthat many of them will be thereby led to a fuller study ofSocialism.

To the Tory and the Radical; to the Roman Catholic, the Anglican, andthe Nonconformist; to the workman and the employer; to the scholar andthe peer; to the labourer's wife, the housemaid, and the duchess; to theadvocates of Temperance and of Co-operation; to the Trade Unionist andthe non-Unionist; to the potman, the bishop, and the brewer; to theartist and the merchant; to the poet and the navvy; to the Idealist andthe Materialist; to the poor clerk, the rich financier, the greatscientist, and the little child, I commend the following beautifulprayer from the Litany of the Church of England:—

I have italicised the word "all" in that prayer to emphasise the factthat mercy, succour, comfort, and pardon are here asked forall, andnot for a few.

I now ask the reader of this book, with those words of broad charity andsweet kindliness still fresh in mind, to remember the unmeritedmiseries, the ill-requited labour, the gnawing penury, and the lovelessand unhonoured lives to which an evil system dooms millions of Britishmen and women. I ask the reader to discover for himself how much pity webestow upon our "prisoners and captives," how much provision we make forthe "fatherless children and widows," what nature and amount of"succour, help, and comfort" we vouchsafe to "all who are in danger,necessity, and tribulation." I ask him to consider, with regard to those"kindly fruits of the earth," who produces, and who enjoys them; and Ibeg him next to proceed in a judicial spirit, by means of candour andright reason, to examine fairly and weigh justly the means proposed bySocialists for abolishing poverty and oppression, and for conferringprosperity, knowledge, and freedom uponall men.

Britain for the British: that is our motto. We ask for a fair and opentrial. We solicit an impartial hearing of the case forSocialism.Listen patiently to our statements; consider our arguments; accord to usa fair field and no favour; and may the truth prevail.

THE METHOD OF THIS BOOK

As to the method of this book, I shall begin by calling attention tosome of the evils of the present industrial, social, and political system.

I shall next try to show the sources of those evils, the causes fromwhich they arise.

And I shall, in conclusion, point out the chief ways in which I thinkthe reader of this book may help the cause ofSocialism if he believesthat cause to be just and wise.

FOREWORDS

Years ago, beforeSocialism had gained a footing in this country, someof us democrats used often to wonder how any working man could be a Tory.

To-day we Socialists are still more puzzled by the fact that themajority of our working men are not Socialists.

How is it that middle class and even wealthy people often acceptSocialism more readily than do the workers?

Perhaps it is because the men and women of the middle and upper classesare more in the habit of reading and thinking for themselves, whereasthe workers take most of their opinions at second-hand from priests,parsons, journalists, employers, and members of Parliament, whose littleknowledge is a dangerous thing, and whose interests lie in bolstering upclass privilege by darkening counsel with a multitude of words.

I have been engaged for more than a dozen years in studying politicaleconomy andSocialism, and in trying, as a Socialist, pressman, andauthor, to explainSocialism and to confute the arguments and answerthe objections of non-Socialists, and I say, without any hesitation,that I have never yet come across a single argument against practicalSocialism that will hold water.

I do not believe that any person of fair intelligence and education, whowill take the trouble to studySocialism fairly and thoroughly, willbe able to avoid the conclusion thatSocialism is just and wise.

I defy any man, of any nation, how learned, eminent, and intellectualsoever, to shake the case for practicalSocialism, or to refute thereasoning contained in this book.

And now I will address myself to Mr. John Smith, a typical Britishworkman, not yet converted toSocialism.

Dear Mr. Smith, I assume that you are opposed toSocialism, and Iassume that you would say that you are opposed to it for one or more ofthe following reasons:—

But I suspect that the real reason for your opposition toSocialism issimply that you do not understand it.

The reasons you generally give for opposingSocialism are reasonssuggested to you by pressmen or politicians who know very little aboutit, or are interested in its rejection.

I am strongly inclined to believe that theSocialism to which you areopposed is notSocialism at all, but only a bogey erected by theenemies ofSocialism to scare you away from the genuineSocialism,which it would be so much to your advantage to discover.

Now you would not take your opinions of Trade Unionism fromnon-Unionists, and why, then, should you take your opinions ofSocialism from non-Socialists?

If you will be good enough to read this book you will find out whatSocialism really is, and what it is not. If after reading this bookyou remain opposed toSocialism, I must leave it for some Socialistmore able than I to convert you.

When it pleases those who call themselves your "betters" to flatter you,Mr. Smith (which happens oftener at election times than during strikesor lock-outs), you hear that you are a "shrewd, hard-headed, practicalman." I hope that is true, whether your "betters" believe it or not.

I am a practical man myself, and shall offer you in this book nothingbut hard fact and cold reason.

I assume, Mr. Smith, that you, as a hard-headed, practical man, wouldrather be well off than badly off, and that with regard to your ownearnings you would rather be paid twenty shillings in the pound thanfive shillings or even nineteen shillings and elevenpence in the pound.

And I assume that as a family man you would rather live in acomfortable and healthy house than in an uncomfortable and unhealthyhouse; that you would be glad if you could buy beef, bread, gas, coal,water, tea, sugar, clothes, boots, and furniture for less money than younow pay for them; and that you would think it a good thing, and not abad thing, if your wife had less work and more leisure, fewer worriesand more nice dresses, and if your children had more sports, and betterhealth, and better education.

And I assume that you would like to pay lower rents, even if some richlandlord had to keep fewer race-horses.

And I assume that as a humane man you would prefer that other men andwomen and their children should not suffer if their sufferings could be prevented.

If, then, I assure you that you are paying too much and are being paidtoo little, and that many other Britons, especially weak women and youngchildren, are enduring much preventible misery; and if I assert,further, that I know of a means whereby you might secure more ease andcomfort, and they might secure more justice, you will, surely, as a kindand sensible man, consent to listen to the arguments and statements Ipropose to place before you.

Suppose a stranger came to tell you where you could get a better houseat a lower rent, and suppose your present landlord assured you that theman who offered the information was a fool or a rogue, would you takethe landlord's word without investigation? Would it not be morepractical and hard-headed to hear first what the bringer of such goodnews had to tell?

Well, the Socialist brings you better news than that of a lower rent.Will you not hear him? Will you turn your back on him for no betterreason than because he is denounced as a fraud by the rich men whosewealth depends upon the continuation of the present system?

Your "betters" tell you that you always display a wise distrust of newideas. But to reject an idea because it is new is not a proof ofshrewdness and good sense; it is a sign of bigotry and ignorance. TradeUnionism was new not so long ago, and was denounced, and is stilldenounced,[Pg 9] by the very same persons who now denounceSocialism. Ifyou find a newspaper or an employer to be wrong when he denounces TradeUnionism, which you do understand, why should you assume that the sameauthority is right in denouncingSocialism, which you do notunderstand? You know that in attacking Trade Unionism the employer andthe pressman are speaking in their own interest and against yours; why,then, should you be ready to believe that in counselling you againstSocialism the same men are speaking in your interest and not in their own?

I ask you, as a practical man, to forget both the Socialist and thenon-Socialist, and to consider the case for and againstSocialism onits merits. As I said inMerrie England—

When you understand it you will, I feel sure, agree with me that it isperfectly logical, and just, and practical; and you will, I hope,yourself become aSocialist, and will help to abolish poverty andwrong by securingBritain for the British.

CHAPTER ITHE UNEQUAL DIVISION OF WEALTH

Self-interest being the universal ruling motive, it behoves you, Mr.Smith, to do the best you can for yourself and family.

Self-interest being the universal ruling motive, it is evident that therich man will look out for his own advantage, and not for yours.

Therefore as a selfish man, alive to your own interests, it is clearthat you will not trust the rich man, nor believe in the unselfishnessof his motives.

As a selfish man you will look out first for yourself. If you can getmore wages for the work you do, if you can get the same pay for fewerhours and lighter work, self-interest tells you that you would be a foolto go on as you are. If you can get cheaper houses, cheaper clothes,food, travelling, and amusement than you now get, self-interest tellsyou that you would be a fool to go on paying present prices.

Your landlord, your employer, your tradesman will not take less work ormoney from you if he can get more.

Self-interest counsels you not to pay a high price if you can get whatyou want at a lower price.

Your employer will not employ you unless you are useful to him, nor willhe employ you if he can get another man as useful to him as you at a lower wage.

Such persons as landlords, capitalists, employers, and[Pg 11] contractors willtell you that they are useful, and even necessary, to the working class,of which class you are one.

Self-interest will counsel you, firstly, that if these persons arereally useful or necessary to you, it is to your interest to securetheir services at the lowest possible price; and, secondly, that if youcan replace them by other persons more useful or less costly, you willbe justified in dispensing with their services.

Now, the Socialist claims that it is cheaper and better for the peopleto manage their own affairs than to pay landlords, capitalists,employers, and contractors to manage their affairs for them.

That is to say, that as it is cheaper and better for a city to make itsown gas, or to provide its own water, or to lay its own roads, so itwould be cheaper and better for the nation to own its own land, its ownmines, its own railways, houses, factories, ships, and workshops, and tomanage them as the corporation tramways, gasworks, and waterworks arenow owned and managed.

Your "betters," Mr. Smith, will tell you that you might be worse offthan you are now. That is not the question. The question is, Might yoube better off than you are now?

They will tell you that the working man is better off now than he was ahundred years ago. That is not the question. The question is, Are theworkers as well off now as they ought to be and might be?

They will tell you that the British workers are better off than theworkers of any other nation. That is not the question. The question is,Are the British workers as well off as they ought to be and might be?

They will tell you that Socialists are discontented agitators, and thatthey exaggerate the evils of the present time. That is not the question.The question is, Do evils exist at all to-day, and if so, is no remedy available?

Your "betters" have admitted, and do admit, as I will show youpresently, that evils do exist; but they have no remedy to propose.

The Socialist tells you that your "betters" are deceived or aredeceiving you, and thatSocialism is a remedy, and the only one possible.

Self-interest will counsel you to secure the best conditions you canfor yourself, and will warn you not to expect unselfish service from selfish men.

Ask yourself, then, whether, since self-interest is the universalmotive, it would not be wise for you to make some inquiry as to whetherthe persons intrusted by you with the management of your affairs aremanaging your affairs to your advantage or to their own.

As a selfish man, is it sensible to elect selfish men, or to acceptselfish men, to govern you, to make your laws, to manage your business,and to affix your taxes, prices, and wages?

The mild Hindoo has a proverb which you might well remember in thisconnection. It is this—

Appealing, then, entirely to your self-interest, I ask you to considerwhether the workers of Britain to-day are making the best bargainpossible with the other classes of society. Do the workers receive theirfull due? Do evils exist in this country to-day? and if so, is there aremedy? and if there is a remedy, what is it?

The first charge brought by Socialists against the present system is thecharge of the unjust distribution of wealth.

The rich obtain wealth beyond their need, and beyond their deserving;the workers are, for the most part, condemned to lead laborious,anxious, and penurious lives. Nearly all the wealth of the nation isproduced by the workers; most of it is consumed by the rich, whosquander it in useless or harmful luxury, leaving the majority of thosewho produced it, not enough for human comfort, decency, and health.

If you wish for a plain and clear statement of the unequal distributionof wealth in this country, get Fabian Tract No. 5, price one penny, and study it well.

According to that tract, the total value of the wealth produced in thiscountry is £1,700,000,000. Of this total £275,000,000 is paid in rent,£340,000,000 is paid in interest, £435,000,000 is paid in profits and[Pg 13]salaries. That makes a total of £1,050,000,000 in rent, interest,profits, and salaries, nearly the whole of which goes to about 5,000,000of people comprising the middle and upper classes.

The balance of £650,000,000 is paid in wages to the remaining 35,000,000of people comprising the working classes. Roughly, then, two-thirds ofthe national wealth goes to 5,000,000 of persons, quite half of whom areidle, and one-third isshared by seven times as many people, nearlyhalf of whom are workers.

These figures have been before the public for many years, and so far asI know have never been questioned.

There are, say the Fabian tracts, more than 2,000,000 of men, women, andchildren living without any kind of occupation: that is, they live without working.

Ten-elevenths of all the land in the British Islands belong to 176,520persons. The rest of the 40,000,000 own the other eleventh. Or, dividingBritain into eleven parts, you may say that one two-hundredth part ofthe population owns ten-elevenths of Britain, while the other onehundred and ninety-nine two-hundredths of the population ownone-eleventh of Britain. That is as though a cake were divided amongst200 persons by giving to one person ten slices, and dividing one sliceamongst 199 persons. I told you just now that Britain does not belong tothe British, but only to a few of the British.

Half the wealth of Britain, then, is held by one fifteen-hundredth partof the population. It is as if a cake were cut in half, one half beinggiven to one man and the other half being divided amongst 1499 men.

In 1898 the estates of seven persons were proved at over £45,000,000.That is to say, those seven left £45,000,000 when they died.

Putting a workman's wages at £75 a year, and his working life at twentyyears, it would take 30,000 workmen all their lives toearn (not tosave) the money left by those seven rich men.

Many rich men have incomes of £150,000 a year. The skilled worker drawsabout £75 a year in wages.

Therefore one man with £150,000 a year gets more than 2000 skilledworkmen, and the workmen have to do more than 600,000 days' work fortheir wages, while the rich man doesnothing.

One of our richest dukes gets as much money in one year for doingnothing, as a skilled workman would get for 14,000 years of hard and useful work.

A landowner is a millionaire. He has £1,000,000. It would take anagricultural labourer, at 10s. a week wages, nearly 40,000 years to earn £1,000,000.

I need not burden you with figures. Look about you and you will seeevidences of wealth on every side. Go through the suburbs of London, orany large town, and notice the large districts composed of villas andmansions, at rentals of from £100 to £1000 a year. Go through thestreets of a big city, and observe the miles of great shops stored withflaming jewels, costly gold and silver plate, rich furs, silks,pictures, velvets, furniture, and upholsteries. Who buys all theseexpensive luxuries? They are not for you, nor for your wife, nor for your children.

You do not live in a £200 flat. Your floor is not covered with a £50Persian rug; your wife does not wear diamond rings, nor silkunderclothing, nor gowns of brocaded silk, nor sable collars, norMaltese lace cuffs worth many guineas. She does not sit in the stalls atthe opera, nor ride home in a brougham, nor sup on oysters andchampagne, nor go, during the heat of the summer, on a yachting cruisein the Mediterranean. And is not your wife as much to you as the duchess to the duke?

At present the average age at death among the nobility, gentry, andprofessional classes in England and Wales is fifty-five years; but amongthe artisan classes of Lambeth it only amounts to twenty-nine years; andwhilst the infantile death-rate among the well-to-do classes is suchthat only 8 children die in the first year of life out of 100 born, asmany as 30 per cent. succumb at that age among the children of the poorin some districts of our large cities.

Dr. Playfair says that amongst the upper class 18 per cent. of thechildren die before they reach five years of age; of the tradesman class36 per cent., and of the working class 55 per cent, of the children diebefore they reach five years of age.

Out of every 1000 persons 939 die without leaving any property at allworth mentioning.

About 8,000,000 persons exist always on the borders of starvation. About20,000,000 are poor. More than half the national wealth belongs to about25,000 people; the remaining 39,000,000 share the other half unequally amongst them.

About 30,000 persons own fifty-five fifty-sixths of the land and capitalof the nation; but of the 39,000,000 of other persons only 1,500,000earn (or receive) as much as £3 a week.

In London 1,292,737 persons, or 37.8 per cent. of the whole population,get less than a guinea a weekper family.

The number of persons in receipt of poor-law relief on any one day inthe British Islands is over 1,000,000; but 2,360,000 persons receivepoor-law relief during one year, or one in eleven of the whole manual labouring class.

In England and Wales alone 72,000 persons die each year in workhousehospitals, infirmaries, or asylums.

In London alone there are 99,830 persons in workhorses, hospitals,prisons, or industrial schools.

In London one person out of every four will die in a workhouse,hospital, or lunatic asylum.

It is estimated that 3,225,000 persons in the British Islands live inovercrowded dwellings, with an average of three persons in each room.

There are 30,000 persons in London alone whosehome is a commonlodging-house. In London alone 1100 persons sleep every night in casual wards.

A similar state of things exists in nearly all our large towns, thecolliery districts being amongst the worst.

The working class.—The great bulk of the British people areoverworked, underpaid, badly housed, unfairly taxed but besides allthat, they are exposed to serious risks.

In sixty years 60,000 colliers have been accidentally killed. In theSouth Wales coalfield in 1896, 232 were killed out of 71,000. In 1897,out of 76,000 no less than 10,230 were injured.

In 1897, of the men employed in railway shunting, 1 in 203 was killedand 1 in 12 was injured.

In 1897, out of 465,112 railway workers, 510 were killed, 828 werepermanently disabled, and 67,000 were temporarily disabled.

One workman in 1400 is killed annually. Let us say there are 6,000,000workmen in the British Islands, and we shall find that no less than 4280are killed, and 20,000 permanently or partially disabled.

But the high death-rate from accidents amongst the workers is not nearlythe greatest evil to which the poor are exposed.

In the poorest districts of the great towns the children die like flies,and diseases caused by overcrowding, insufficient or improper food,exposure, dirt, neglect, and want of fuel and clothing, play havoc withthe infants, the weakly, and the old.

What are the chief diseases almost wholly due to the surroundings ofpoverty? They are consumption, bronchitis, rheumatism, epilepsy, fevers,smallpox, and cancer. Add to those the evil influences with which sometrades are cursed, such as rupture, lead and phosphorous poisoning, andirritation of the lungs by dust, and you have a whole[Pg 18] arsenal of deadlyweapons aimed at the lives of the laborious poor.

The average death-rate amongst the well-to-do classes is less than 10 inthe thousand. Amongst the poorer workers it is often as high as 70 andseldom as low as 20.

Put the average at 25 in the thousand amongst the poor: put the numbersof the poor at 10,000,000. We shall find that the difference between thedeath-rates of the poor and the well-to-do, is 15 to the thousand or15,000 to the million.

We may say, then, that the 10,000,000 of poor workers lose every year150,000 lives from accidents and diseases due to poverty and to labour.

Taking the entire population of the British Islands, I dare assert thatthe excess death-rate over the normal death-rate, will show that everyyear 300,000 lives are sacrificed to the ignorance and the injustice ofthe inhuman chaos which we call British civilisation.

Some have cynically said that these lives are not worth saving, that thedeath-rate shows the defeat of the unfit, and that if all survived therewould not be enough for them to live on.

But except in the worst cases—where sots and criminals have bred humanweeds—no man is wise enough to select the "fit" from the "unfit"amongst the children. The thin, pale child killed by cold, by hunger, bysmallpox, or by fever, may be a seedling Stephenson, or Herschel, orWesley; and I take it that in the West End the parents would not beconsoled for the sacrifice of their most delicate child by the brutalsuggestion that it was one of the "unfit." The "fit" may be a hooligan,a sweater, a fraudulent millionaire, a dissolute peer, or a fool.

But there are two sides to this question of physical fitness. To excusethe evils of society on the ground that they weed out the unfit, is asfoolish as to excuse bad drainage on the same plea. In a low-lyingdistrict where the soil is marshy the population will be weeded swiftly;but who would offer that as a reason why the land should not be drained?This heartless, fatuous talk about the survival of the fittest is onlyanother example of the insults[Pg 19] to which the poor are subjected. Itfills one with despair to think that working men—fathers andhusbands—will read or hear such things said of their own class, and notresent them. It is the duty of every working man to fight against suchpitiless savagery, and to make every effort to win for his class and hisfamily, respect and human conditions of life.

Moreover, the shoddy science which talks so glibly about the "weedingout" of little helpless children is too blear-eyed to perceive that thesame conditions of inhuman life which destroy the "weeds,"breed theweeds. Children born of healthy parents in healthy surroundings are notweeds. But to-day the British race is deteriorating, and the nation isin danger because of the greed of money-seekers and the folly of rulersand of those who claim to teach. The nation that gives itself up to theworship of luxury, wealth, and ease, is doomed. Nothing can save theBritish race but an awakening of the workers to the dangerous pass towhich they have been brought by those who affect to guide and to govern them.

But the workers, besides being underpaid, over-taxed, badly housed, andexposed to all manner of hardship, poverty, danger, and anxiety of mind,are also, by those who live upon them, denied respect.

Do you doubt this? Do not the "better classes," as they call themselves,allude to the workers as "the lower orders," and "the great unwashed"?Does not the employer commonly speak of the workers as "hands"? Does thefine gentleman, who raises his hat and airs his nicest manners for a"lady," extend his chivalry and politeness to a "woman"? Do not the silkhats and the black coats and the white collars treat the caps and theoveralls and the smocks as inferiors? Do not the men of the "betterclass" address each other as "sir"? And when did you last hear a"gentleman" say "sir" to a train-guard, to a railway porter, or to the"man" who has come to mend the drawing-room stove?

Man cannot live by bread alone; neither can woman or child. And how muchhonour, culture, pleasure, rest, or love falls to the lot of the wivesand children of the poor?

Do not think I wish to breed class hatred. I do not. Doubtless the"better class" are graceful, amiable, honourable, and well-meaningfolks. Doubtless they honestly believe they have a just claim to alltheir wealth and privileges. Doubtless they are no more selfish, no morearrogant, no more covetous nor idle than any working man would be in their place.

What of that? It is nothing at all to you. They may be the finest peoplein the world. But does their fineness help you to pay your rent, or yourwife to mend the clothes? or does it give you more wages, or her morerest? or does it in any way help to educate, and feed, and make happy your children?

It does not. Nor do all the graces and superiorities of the West Endmake the lot of the East less bitter, less anxious, or more human.

If self-interest be the ruling motive of mankind, why do not the workingmen transfer their honour and their service from the fine ladies andfine gentlemen to their own wives and children?

These need every atom of love and respect the men can give them. Whyshould the many be poor, be ignorant, despised? Why should the richmonopolise the knowledge and the culture, the graces and elegancies oflife, as well as the wealth?

Ignorance is a curse: it is a deadlier curse than poverty. Indeed, butfor ignorance, poverty and wealth could not continue to exist side byside; for only ignorance permits the rich to uphold and the poor toendure the injustices and the criminal follies of British society, asnow to our shame and grief they environ us, like some loathly visionbeheld with horror under nightmare.

Is it needful to tell you more, Mr. Smith, you who are yourself aworker? Have you not witnessed, perhaps suffered, many of these evils?

Yes; perhaps you yourself have smarted under "the insolence of office,and the spurns which patient merit of the unworthy takes"; perhaps youhave borne the tortures of long suspense as one of the unemployed;perhaps on some weary tramp after work you have learned what it is to bea[Pg 21] stranger in your own land; perhaps you have seen some old veteranworker, long known to you, now broken in health and stricken in years,compelled to seek the shameful shelter of a workhouse; perhaps you havehad comrades of your own or other trades, who have been laid low bysickness, sickness caused by exposure or overstrain, and have died whatcoroners' juries call "natural deaths," or, in plain English, have beenkilled by overwork; perhaps you have known widows and little children,left behind by those unfortunate men, and can remember how much succourand compassion they received in this Christian country; perhaps as youthink of the grim prophecy that one worker in four must die in aworkhouse, you may yourself, despite your strength and your skill,glance anxiously towards the future, as a bold sailor glances towards a stormy horizon.

Well, Mr. Smith, will you look through a book of mine calledDismalEngland, and there read how men and women and children of your classare treated in the workhouse, in the workhouse school, in the policecourt, in the chain works, on the canals, in the chemical hells, and inthe poor and gloomy districts known as slums? I would quote somepassages fromDismal England now, but space forbids.

Or, maybe, you would prefer the evidence of men of wealth and eminencewho are not Socialists. If so, please read the testimony given in the next section.

The Salvation Army see a great deal of the poor. Here is the evidence of General Booth—

Here is the evidence of the Colonial Secretary, the Right Hon. JosephChamberlain, M.P.—

You have read what these eminent men have said, Mr. Smith, as to theevils of the present time.

How is it, friend John Smith, that with all our energy, all ourindustry, all our genius, and all our machinery, there are 8,000,000 ofhungry poor in this country?

If five men can produce bread for a thousand, and one man can produceshoes for a thousand, how is it we have so many British citizenssuffering from hunger and bare feet?

Meanwhile, if you have any doubts as to the verity of my statements ofthe sufferings of the poor, or as to the urgent need for your immediateand earnest aid, read the following books, and form your own opinion:—

Labour and Life of the People. Charles Booth. To be seen at most free libraries.

Pictures and Problems from the Police Courts. By T. Holmes. Ed.Arnold, Bedford Street, W.C.

CHAPTER IIWHAT IS WEALTH? WHERE DOES IT COME FROM? WHO CREATES IT?

Those who have read anything about political economy orSocialism mustoften have found such thoughts as these rise up in their minds—

How is it some are rich and others poor? How is it some who are able andwilling to work can get no work to do? How is it that some who work veryhard are so poorly paid? How is it that others who do not work at allhave more money than they need? Why is one man born to pay rent andanother to spend it?

It has been said that poverty is due to drink. But that is not true, forwe find many sober people poor, and we find awful poverty in countrieswhere drunkenness is almost unknown.

Drink does not cause the poverty of the sober Hindoos. Drink does notcause the poverty of our English women workers.

It has been said that poverty is due to "over-production," and it hasbeen said that it is due to "under-consumption." Let us see what these phrases mean.

First, over-production. Poverty is due to over-production—ofwhat? Ofwealth. So we are to believe that the people are poor because they maketoo much wealth, that they are hungry because they produce too muchfood, naked because they make too many clothes, cold because they gettoo much coal, homeless because they build too many houses!

Next, under-consumption. We are told that poverty is due tounder-consumption—under-consumption ofwhat? Of wealth. The peopleare poor because they do not destroy enough wealth. The way for them togrow rich is by consuming riches. They are to make their cake larger by eating it.

Alas! the trouble is that they can get no cake to eat; they can get nowealth to consume.

But I think the economists mean that the poor will grow richer if therich consume more wealth.

A rich man has two slaves. The slaves grow corn and make bread. The richman takes half the bread and eats it. The slaves have only one man'sshare between two.

Will it mend matters here if the rich man "consumes more"? Will it bebetter for the two slaves if the master takes half the bread left tothem, and eats that as well as the bread he has already taken?

See what a pretty mess the economists have led us into. The rich havetoo much and the poor too little. The economist says, let the poorproduce less and the rich consume more, and all will be well!

Wonderful! But if the poor produce less, there will be less to eat; andif the rich eat more, the share of the poor will be smaller than ever.

Let us try another way. Suppose the poor produce more and the richconsume less! Does it not seem likely that then the share of the poorwould be bigger?

Well, then, we must turn the wisdom of the economists the other way up.We must say over-production of wealthcannot make poverty, for thatmeans that the more of a thing is produced the less of that thing thereis; and we must say that under-consumptioncannot cause poverty, forthat means that the more of a loaf you eat the more you will have left.

Such rubbish as that may do for statesmen and editors, but it is of nouse to sensible men and women. Let us see if we cannot think a littlebetter for ourselves than these very superior persons have thought forus. I think that we, without being at all clever or learned, may getnearer to the truth than some of those who pass for great men.

Now, what is it we have to find out? We want to know[Pg 28] how the Britishpeople may make the best of their country and themselves.

There must, therefore, be something wrong. Our business is to find outwhat is wrong, and how it may be righted.

We will begin by asking ourselves three questions, and by trying to answer them.

First, then, whatis wealth? There is no need to go into long andconfusing explanations; there is no use in splitting hairs. We want ananswer that is short and simple, and at the same time good enough for the purpose.

Mr. Ruskin uses two words, "wealth" and "illth." He divides the thingswhich it is good for us to have from the things which it is not good forus to have, and he calls the good things "wealth" and the bad things"illth"—or ill things.

Thus opium prepared for smoking is illth, because it does harm or works"ill" to all who smoke it; but opium prepared as medicine is wealth,because it saves life or stays pain.

A dynamite bomb is "illth," for it is used to destroy life, but adynamite cartridge is wealth, for it is used in getting slate or coal.

Mr. Ruskin is right, and if we are to make the best of our country andof ourselves, we ought clearly to give up producing bad things, or"illth," and produce more good things, or wealth.

But, for our purpose, it will be simpler and shorter to call all thingswe use wealth.

Thus a good book is wealth and a bad book "illth"; but as it is not easyto agree as to which books are good, which bad, and which indifferent,we had better call all books wealth.

By this word wealth, then, when we use it in this book, we shall meanall the things we use.

Thus we shall put down as wealth all such things as food, clothing,fuel, houses, ornaments, musical instruments, arms, tools, machinery,books, horses, dogs, medicines, toys, ships, trains, coaches, tobacco,churches, hospitals, lighthouses, theatres, shops, and all other thingsthat weuse.

Because the question, "Where does wealth come from?" really means, "Howis wealth produced?"

All food comes from the land—all flesh is grass. Vegetable food comesdirectly from the land; animal food comes indirectly from the land, allanimals being fed on the land.

So the stuff of which we make our clothing, our houses, our fuel, ourtools, arms, ships, engines, toys, ornaments, is all got from the land.For the land yields timber, metals, vegetables, and the food on whichfeed the animals from which we get feathers, fur, meat, milk, leather,ivory, bone, glue, and many other things.

Even in the case of the things that come from the sea, as sealskin,whale oil, fish, iodine, shells, pearls, and other things, we are toremember that we need boats, or nets, or tools to get them with, andthat boats, nets, and tools are made from minerals and vegetables got from the land.

This brings us to the second part of our question: "Who produceswealth?" or "How is wealth produced?"

Wealth is produced by human beings. It is the people of a country whoproduce the wealth of that country.

Wealth is produced by labour. Wealth cannot be produced by any othermeans or in any other way.All wealth is producedfrom theLandbyhumanLabour.

A coal seam is not wealth; but a coalmine is wealth. Coal is not wealthwhile it is in the bowels of the earth; but coal is wealth as soon as itis brought up out of the pit and made available for use.

And now we come to the first error of the economists. There are someeconomists who tell us that wealth is not produced by labour, but by "capital."

"Capital" is only another word forstores. Adam Smith calls capital"stock." Capital is any tools, machinery, or other stores used inproducing wealth. Capital is any food, fuel, shelter, clothing suppliedto those engaged in producing wealth.

The hunter, before he can shoot game, needs weapons. His weapons are"capital." The farmer has to wait for his wheat and potatoes to ripenbefore he can use them as food. The stock of food and the tools he usesto produce the wheat or potatoes, and to live on while they ripen, are"capital."

Robinson Crusoe's capital was the arms, food, and tools he saved fromthe wreck. On these he lived until he had planted corn, and tamed goatsand built a hut, and made skin clothing and vessels of wood and clay.

Capital, then, is stores. Now, where do the stores come from? Stores arewealth. Stores, whether they be food or tools, come from the land, andare made or produced by human labour.

There is not an atom of capital in the world that has not been produced by labour.

Every spade, every plough, every hammer, every loom, every cart, barrow,loaf, bottle, ham, haddock, pot of tea, barrel of ale, pair of boots,gold or silver coin, railway sleeper or rail, boat, road, canal, everykind of tools and stores has been produced by labour from the land.

It is evident, then, that if there were no labour there would be nocapital. Labour isbefore capital, for labourmakes capital.

Now, what folly it is to say that capital produces wealth. Capital isused by labour in the production of wealth, but[Pg 31] capital itself isincapable of motion and can produce nothing.

A spade is "capital." Is it true, then, to say that it is not the navvybut the spade that makes the trench?

A plough is capital. Is it true to say that not the ploughman but theplough makes the furrow?

A loom is capital. Is it true to say that the loom makes the cloth? Itis the weaver who weaves the cloth. Heuses the loom, and the loom wasmade by the miner, the smith, the joiner, and the engineer.

There are wood and iron and brass in the loom. But you would not saythat the cloth was produced by the iron-mine and the forest! It isproduced by miners, engineers, sheep farmers, wool-combers, sailors,spinners, weavers, and other workers. It is produced entirely by labour,and could not be produced in any other way.

How can capital produce wealth? Take a steam plough, a patent harrow, asack of wheat, a bankbook, a dozen horses, enough food and clothing tolast a hundred men a year; put all that capital down in a forty-acrefield, and it will not produce a single ear of corn in fifty yearsunless you send aman tolabour.

But give a boy a forked stick, a rood of soil, and a bag of seed, and hewill raise a crop for you.

If he is a smart boy, and has the run of the woods and streams, he willalso contrive to find food to live on till the crop is ready.

We find, then, that all wealth is producedfrom the landby labour,and that capital is only a part of wealth, that it has been produced bylabour, stored by labour, and is finally used by labour in theproduction of more wealth.

This is not easy to answer. But we may say that the wealth is dividedinto three parts—notequal parts—called Rent, Interest, and Wages.

Rent is wealth paid to the landlords for the use of the land. Interestis wealth paid to the capitalists (the owners of tools and stores) forthe use of the "capital."

Wages is wealth paid to the workers for their labour in producingall the wealth.

There are very many workers, but they do not get much more than a thirdshare of the wealth they produce.

The landlord producesnothing. He takes part of the wealth forallowing the workers to use the land.

The capitalist produces nothing. He takes part of the wealth forallowing the workers to use the capital.

The workers produceall the wealth, and are obliged to give a greatdeal of it to the landlords and capitalists who produce nothing.

Socialists claim that the landlord is useless underany form ofsociety, that the capitalist is not needed in a properly orderedsociety, and that the people should become their own landlords and theirown capitalists.

If the people were their own landlords and capitalists,all the wealthwould belong to the workers by whom it is all produced.

Now, a word of caution. We say thatall wealth is produced by labour.What is labour?

Labour is work. Work is said to be of two kinds: hand work and brainwork. But really work is of one kind—the labour of hand and braintogether; for there is hardly any head work wherein the hand has noshare, and there is no hand work wherein the head has no share.

The hand is really a part of the brain, and can do nothing without thebrain's direction.

So when we say that all wealth is produced by labour, we mean by thelabour of hand and brain.

I want to make this quite plain, because you will find, if you come todeal with the economists, that attempts have been made to use the wordlabour as meaning chiefly hand labour.

When we say labour produces all wealth, we do not mean that all wealthis produced by farm labourers, mechanics, and navvies, but that it isall produced byworkers—that is, by thinkers as well as doers; byinventors and directors as well as by the man with the hammer, the file,or the spade.

CHAPTER IIIHOW THE FEW GET RICH AND KEEP THE MANY POOR

We have already seen that most of the wealth produced by labour goesinto the pockets of a few rich men: we have now to find out how it gets there.

By what means do the landlords and the capitalists get the meat andleave the workers the bones?

The landlord owns the land, the labourer owns no land. The labourercannot get food except from the land. The landlord will not allow him touse the land unless he pays rent. The labourer has no money. How can he pay rent?

He must first raise a crop from the land, and then give a[Pg 34] part of thecrop to the landlord as rent; or he may sell the crop and give to thelandlord, as rent, part of the money for which the crop is sold.

We find, then, that the labourer cannot get food without working, andcannot work without land, and that, as he has no land, he must pay rentfor the use of land owned by some other person—a landlord.

We find that the labourer produces the whole of the crop, and that thelandlord produces nothing; and we find that, when the crop is produced,some of it has to be given to the landlord.

Thus it is clear that where one man owns land, and another man owns noland, the landless man is dependent upon the landed man for permissionto work and to live, while the landed man is able to live without working.

Each piece of land is owned and worked by two men. The fielda isdivided into two equal parts, each part owned and worked by one man. Thefieldb is owned and worked by two men jointly.

In the case of fielda each man has what he produces, andall heproduces. In the case of fieldb each man takes half ofall thatboth produce.

But now suppose that fieldb does not belong to two men, but to oneman. The same piece of land will be there, but only one man will beworking on it. The other does not work: he lives by charging rent.

Therefore if the remaining labourer, now atenant, is to live as wellas he did when he was part owner, and pay the rent, he must work twiceas hard as he did before.

Take the fielda (Fig. 2). It is divided into two equal parts, and oneman tills each half. Remove one man and compel the other to pay half theproduce in rent, and you will find that the man who has become landlordnow gets as much without working as he got when he tilled half thefield, and that the man left as tenant now has to till the whole fieldfor the same amount of produce as he got formerly for tilling half of it.

We see, then, that the landlord is a useless and idle burden upon theworker, and that he takes a part of what the worker alone produces, andcalls it rent.

The defence set up for the landlord is (1) that he has a right to theland, and (2) that he spends his wealth for the public advantage.

Let us now turn to the capitalist. What is a capitalist? He is really amoney-lender. He lends money, or machinery, and he charges interest on it.

Suppose Brown wants to dig, but has no spade. He borrows a spade ofJones, who charges him a price for the use of the spade. Then Jones is acapitalist: he takes part of the wealth Brown produces, and calls itinterest.

Suppose Jones owns a factory and machinery, and suppose Brown is aspinner, who owns nothing but his strength and skill.

In that case Brown the spinner stands in the same relation to Jones thecapitalist as the landless labourer stands in to the landlord. That isto say, the spinner cannot get food without money, and he can only getmoney by working as a spinner for the man who owns the factory.

Therefore Brown the spinner goes to Jones the capitalist, who engageshim as a spinner, and pays him wages.

There are many other spinners in the same position. They work for Jones,who pays them wages. They spin[Pg 36] yarn, and Jones sells it. Does Jonesspin any of the yarn? Not a thread: the spinners spin it all. Do thespinners get all the money the yarn is sold for? No. How is the moneydivided? It is divided in this way—

A quantity of yarn is sold for twenty shillings, but of that twentyshillings the factory owner pays the cost of the raw material, the wagesof the spinners, the cost of rent, repairs to machinery, fuel and oil,and the salaries and commissions of clerks, travellers, and managers.What remains of the twenty shillings he takes for himself asprofit.

This "profit," then, is the difference between the cost price of theyarn and the sale price. If a certain weight of yarn costs nineteenshillings to produce, and sells for twenty shillings, there is a profitof one shilling. If yarn which cost £9000 to produce is sold for£10,000, the profit is £1000.

This profit the factory owner, Jones the capitalist, claims as intereston his capital. It is then a kind of rent charged by him for the use ofhis money, his factory, and his machinery.

Now we must be careful here not to confuse the landlord with the farmer,nor the capitalist with the manager. I am, so far, dealing only withthose whoown andlet land or capital, and not with those who managethem.

A capitalist is one who lends capital. A capitalist may use capital, butin so far as he uses capital he is a worker.

So a landlord may farm land, but in so far as he farms land he is afarmer, and therefore a worker.

The man who finds the capital for a factory, and manages the businesshimself, is a capitalist, for he lends his factory and machines to themen who work for him. But he is also a worker, since he conducts themanufacture and the sale of goods. As a capitalist he claims interest,as a worker he claims salary. And he is as much a worker as a general isa soldier or an admiral a sailor.

Well, theidle landlord and theidle capitalist charge rent orinterest for the use of their land or capital.

The landlord justifies himself by saying that the land is[Pg 37]his, andthat he has a right to charge for it the highest rent he can get.

The capitalist justifies himself by saying that the capital ishis,and that he has a right to charge for it the highest rate of interest hecan get.

Both claim that it is better for the nation that the land and thecapital should remain in their hands; both tell us that the nation willgo headlong to ruin if we try to dispense with their valuable services.

I am not going to denounce either landlord or capitalist as a tyrant, ausurer, or a robber. Landlords and capitalists may be, and very oftenare, upright and well-meaning men. As such let us respect them.

Neither shall I enter into a long argument as to whether it is right orwrong to charge interest on money lent or capital let, or as to whetherit is right or wrong to "buy in the cheapest market and sell in the dearest."

The non-Socialist will claim that as the capital belongs to thecapitalist he has a right to ask what interest he pleases for its use,and that he has also a perfect right to get as much for the goods hesells as the buyer will give, and to pay as little wages as the workers will accept.

But those claims being granted to the capitalist, the counter-claims ofthe worker and the buyer—the producer and the consumer—must berecognised as equally valid.

If the capitalist is justified in paying the lowest wages the workerwill take, the worker is justified in paying the lowest interest thecapitalist will take.

If the seller is justified in asking the highest price for goods, thebuyer is justified in offering the lowest.

If a capitalist manager is justified in demanding a big salary for hisservices of management, the worker and the consumer are justified ingetting another capitalist or another manager at a lower price, if they can.

A capitalist owns a large factory and manages it. He pays his spinnersfifteen shillings a week; he sells his goods to the public at the bestprice he can get; and he makes an[Pg 38] income of £10,000 a year. He makeshis money fairly and lawfully.

But if the workers and the users of yarn can find their own capital,build their own factory, and spin their own yarn, they have a perfectright to set up on their own account.

And if by so doing they can pay the workers better wages, sell the yarnto the public at a lower price, and have a profit left to build otherfactories with, no one can accuse them of doing wrong, nor can anyonedeny that the workers and the users have proved that they, the producersand consumers, have done better without the capitalist (or middleman)than with him.

But there is another kind of capitalist—the shareholder. A company isformed to manufacture mouse-traps. The capital is £100,000. There areten shareholders, each holding £10,000 worth of shares. The companymakes a profit of 10 per cent. The dividend at 10 per cent. paid to eachshareholder will be £1000 a year.

The shareholders do no more than find the capital. They do not managethe business, nor get the orders, nor conduct the sales, nor make themouse-traps. The business is managed by a paid manager, the sales areconducted by paid travellers, and the mouse-traps are made by paid workmen.

Let us now see how it fares with any one of these shareholders. He lendsto the company £10,000. He receives from the company 10 per cent.dividend, or £1000 a year. In ten years he gets back the whole of his£10,000, but he still owns the shares, and he still draws a dividend of£1000 a year. If the company go on working and making 10 per cent. for ahundred years they will still be paying £1000 a year for the loan of the£10,000. It will be quite evident, then, that in twenty years thisshareholder will have received his money twice over; that is to say, his£10,000 will have become £20,000 without his having done a stroke ofwork or even knowing anything about the business.

On the other hand, the manager, the salesman, and the workman, who havedone all the work and earned all the[Pg 39] profits, will receive no dividendat all. They are paid their weekly wages, and no more. A man who startsat a pound a week will at the end of twenty years be still working for a pound a week.

The non-Socialist will claim that this is quite right; that theshareholder is as much entitled to rent on his money as the worker isentitled to wages for his work. We need not contradict him. Let us keep to simple facts.

Suppose the mouse-trap makers started a factory of their own. Supposethey fixed the wages of the workers at the usual rate. Suppose theyborrowed the capital to carry on the business. Suppose they borrowed£100,000. They would not have to pay 10 per cent. for the loan, theywould not have to pay 5 per cent. for the loan. But fix it at 5 percent. interest, and suppose that, as in the case of the company, themouse-trap makers made a profit of 10 per cent. That would give them aprofit of £10,000 a year. In twenty years they would have made a profitof £200,000. The interest on the loan at 5 per cent. for twenty yearswould be £100,000. The amount of the loan is £100,000. Therefore afterworking twenty years they would have paid off the whole of the moneyborrowed, and the business, factory, and machinery would be their own.

Thus, instead of being in the position of the men who had worked twentyyears for the mouse-trap company, these men, after receiving the samewages as the others for twenty years, would now be in possession of thebusiness paying them £10,000 a year over and above their wages.

But, the non-Socialist will object, these working men could not borrow£100,000, as they would have no security. That is quite true; but theCorporation of Manchester or Birmingham could borrow the money to startsuch a work, and could borrow it at 3 per cent. And by making their ownmouse-traps, or gas, or bread, instead of buying them from a privatemaker or a company, and paying the said company or maker £10,000 a yearfor ever and ever amen, they would, in less than twenty years, becomepossessors of their own works and machinery, and be in a position tosave £10,000 a year on the cost of mouse-traps or gas or bread.

This is what the Socialist means by saying that the capitalist isunnecessary, and is paid too much for the use of his capital.

Against the capitalist or landlord worker or manager the same complaintholds good; the large profits taken by these men as payment formanagement or direction are out of all proportion to the value of theirwork. These profits, or salaries, called by economists "the wages ofability," are in excess of any salary that would be paid to a farmer,engineer, or director of any factory either by Government, by the CountyCouncil, by a Municipality, or by any capitalist or company engagingsuch a person at a fixed rate for services. That is to say, thecapitalist or landlord director is paid very much above the market valueof the "wages of ability."

These facts generally escape the notice of the worker. As a rule hisattention is confined to his own wages, and he thinks himself well offor ill off as his wages are what he considers high or low. But there aretwo sides to the question of wages. It is not only the amount of wagesreceived that matters, but it is also the amount of commodities thewages will buy. The worker has to consider how much he spends as well ashow much he gets; and if he can got as much for 15s. as he used to getfor £1, he is as much better off as he would be were his wages raised 25 per cent.

Now on every article the workman uses there is one profit or a dozen;one charge or many charges placed upon his food, clothing, house, fuel,light, travelling, and everything he requires by the landlord, thecapitalist, or the shareholders.

Take the case of the coal bought by a poor London clerk at 30s. a ton.It pays a royalty to the royalty owner, it pays a profit to the mineowner, it pays a profit to the coal merchant, it pays a profit to therailway company, and these profits are over and above the cost in wagesand wear and tear of machinery.

Yet this same London clerk is very likely a Tory, who says many bitterthings againstSocialism, but never thinks of resenting the heavytaxes levied on his small income by[Pg 41] landlords, railway companies, watercompanies, building companies, ship companies, and all the othercompanies and private firms who live upon him.

Imagine this poor London clerk, whose house stands on land owned by apeer worth £300,000 a year, whose "boss" makes £50,000 a year out oftimber or coals, whose pipe pays four shillings taxes on everyshilling's worth of tobacco (while the rich man's cigar pays a tax offive shillings in the pound), whose children go to the board school,while those of the coalowner, the company promoter, the railwaydirector, and the landlord go to the university. Imagine this man,anxious, worried, overworked, poor, and bled by a horde of richparasites. Imagine him standing in a well-dressed crowd, amongst thediamond shops, fur shops, and costly furniture shops of Regent Street,and asking with a bitter sneer where John Burns got his new suit of clothes.

Is it not marvellous? He does not ask who gets the 4s. on his pound ofsmoking mixture! Nor why he pays 4s. a thousand for bad gas (as I did inFinchley) while the Manchester clerk gets good gas for 2s. 2d.! Nor doeshe ask why the Duke of Bedford should put a tax on his wife's applepudding or his children's bananas! He does not even ask what became ofthe £80,000,000 which the coal-owners wrung out of the public when he,the poor clerk, was paying 2s. per cwt. for coal for his tiny parlourgrate! No. The question he asks is: Where Ben Tillett got his new straw hat!

How the Duke, and the Coalowner, and the Money-lender, and theJerry-builder must laugh!

Yet so it is. It is not the landlord, the company promoter, thecoalowner, the jerry-builder, and all the other useless rich who preyupon his wife and his children whom he mistrusts. His enemies, poor man,are the Socialists; the men and women who work for him, teach him,sacrifice their health, their time, their money, and their prospects toawaken his manhood, to sting his pride, to drive the mists of prejudicefrom his worried mind and give his common sense a chance.These arethe men and women he despises and mistrusts. And he reads theDailyMail, and[Pg 42] shudders at the name of theClarion; and he votes for Mr.Facing-both-ways and Lord Plausible, and is filled with bitternessbecause of honest John's summer trousers.

Again I tell you, Mr. Smith, that I do not wish to stir up class hatred.Lady Dedlock, wife of the great ground landlord, is a charming lady,handsome, clever, and very kind to the poor.

But if I were a docker, and if my wife had to go out in leaky boots, orif my delicate child could not get sea air and nourishing food, I shouldbe apt to ask whether his lordship, the great ground landlord, could notdo with less rent and his sweet wife with fewer pearls. I should askthat. I should not think myself a man if I did not ask it; nor should Ifeel happy if I did not strain every nerve to get an answer.

Non-Socialists often reproach Socialists for sentimentality. But surelyit is sentimentality to talk as the non-Socialist does about thepersonal excellences of the aristocracy. What have Lady Dedlock'samiability and beauty to do with the practical questions of gas rates and wages?

I am "setting class against class." Quite right, too, so long as oneclass oppresses another.

But let us reverse the position. Suppose you go to the Duke of HebdenBridge and ask for an engagement as clerk in his Grace's colliery at asalary of £5000 a year. Will the duke give it to you because your wifeis pretty and your daughter thinks you are a great man? Not at all. HisGrace would say, "My dear sir, you are doubtless an excellent citizen,husband, and father; but I can get a better clerk at a pound a week,sir; and I cannot afford to pay more, sir."

The duke would be quite correct. He could get a better clerk for £1 aweek. And as for the amiability of your family, or your own personalmerits, what have they to do with business?

As a business man the duke will not pay £2 a week to a clerk if he canget a man as good for £1 a week.

Then why should the clerk pay 4s. a thousand for his gas if he can getit for 2s. 2d.? Or why should the docker pay the duke 5s. rent if he canget a house for 2s. 6d.?

Should I be offended with the duke for refusing to pay me more than Iam worth? Should I accuse him of class hatred? Not at all. Then whyshould I be blamed for suggesting that it is folly to pay a duke morethan he is worth? Or why should the duke mutter about class hatred if Isuggest that we can get a colliery director at a lower salary than hisGrace? Talk about sentimentality! Are we to pay a guinea each for dukesif we can get them three a penny? It is not business.

I grudge no man his wealth nor his fortune. I want nothing that is his.I do not hate the rich: I pity the poor. It is of the women and childrenof the poor I think when I am agitating forSocialism, not of thecoffers of the wealthy.

I believe in universal brotherhood; nay, I go even further, for Imaintain that the sole difference between the worst man and the best isa difference of opportunity—that is to say, that since heredity andenvironment make one man amiable and another churlish, one generous andanother mean, one faithful and another treacherous, one wise and anotherfoolish, one strong and another weak, one vile and another pure,therefore the bishop and the hooligan, the poet and the boor, the idiot,the philosopher, the thief, the hero, and the brutalised drab in thekennelare all equal in the sight of God and of justice, and thatevery word of censure uttered by man is a word of error, growing out ofignorance. As the sun shines alike upon the evil and the good, so mustwe give love and mercy to all our fellow-creatures. "Judgment is mine,saith the Lord."

But that does not prevent me from defending a brother of the East Endagainst a brother of the West End. Truly we should love all men. Let us,then, begin by loving the weakest and the worst, for they have so littlelove and counsel, while the rich and the good have so much.

We will not, Mr. Smith, accuse the capitalist of base conduct. But wewill say that as a money-lender his rate of interest is too high, andthat as a manager his salary is too large. And we will say that if bycombining we can, as workers, get better wages, and as buyers getcheaper[Pg 44] goods, we shall do well and wisely to combine. For it is to ourinterest in the one case, as it is to the interest of the capitalist inthe other case, to "buy in the cheapest market and to sell in the dearest."

So much for the capitalist; but, before we deal with the landlord, wehave to consider another very important person, and that is theinventor, or brain-worker.

CHAPTER IVTHE BRAIN WORKER, OR INVENTOR

It has, I think, never been denied that much wealth goes to thecapitalist, but it has been claimed that the capitalist deserves all hegets because wealth is produced by capital. And although this is asfoolish as to say that the tool does the work and not the hand thatwields it, yet books have been written to convince the people that it is true.

Some of these books try to deceive us into supposing that capital andability are interchangeable terms. That is to say, that "capital," whichmeans "stock," is the same thing as "ability," which means cleverness orskill. We might as well believe that a machine is the same thing as thebrain that invented it. But there is a trick in it. The trick lies infirst declaring that the bulk of the national wealth is produced by"ability," and then confusing the word "ability" with the word "capital."

But it is one thing to say that wealth is due to the man whoinventeda machine, and it is quite another thing to say that wealth is due tothe man whoowns the machine.

In his book calledLabour and the Popular Welfare, Mr. Mallock assuresus that ability produces more wealth than is produced by labour.

He says that two-thirds of the national wealth are due to ability andonly one-third to labour. A hundred years ago, Mr. Mallock says, thepopulation of this country was 10,000,000 and the wealth producedyearly; £140,000,000, giving an average of £14 a head.

The recent production is £350,000,000 for every 10,000,000 of thepopulation, or £35 a head.

The argument is thatlabour is only able to produce as much now as itcould produce a hundred years ago, for labour does not vary. Therefore,the increase from £14 a head to £35 a head is not due to labour but tomachinery.

Now, we owe this machinery, not to labour, but to invention. Thereforethe various inventors have enabled the people to produce more than twiceas much as they produced a century back.

Therefore, according to Mr. Mallock, all the extra wealth, amounting to£800,000,000 a year, is earned by themachines, and ought to be paidto the men whoown the machines.

Pretty reasoning, isn't it? And Mr. Mallock is one of those who talkabout the inaccurate thinking of Socialists.

Let us see what it comes to. John Smith invents a machine which makesthree yards of calico where one was made by hand. Tom Jones buys themachine, or the patent, to make calico. Which of these men is the causeof the calico output being multiplied by three? Is it the man who ownsthe patent, or the man who invented the machine? It is the man whoinvented the machine. It is the ability of John Smith which caused theincrease in the calico output. It is, therefore, the ability of JohnSmith which earns the extra wealth. Tom Jones, who bought the machines,is no more the producer of thatextra wealth than are the spinners andweavers he employs.

To whom, then, should the extra wealth belong? To the man who createsit? or to the man who does not create it? Clearly the wealth shouldbelong to the man who creates it. Therefore, the whole of the extrawealth should go to the inventor, to whose ability it is due, andnotto the mere capitalist, who only uses the machine.

"But," you may say, "Jones bought the patent from Smith." He did. And healso buys their labour and skill from the spinners and weavers who workfor him, and in all three cases he pays less than the thing he buys is worth.

Mr. Mallock makes a great point of telling us that men are not equallyclever, that cleverness produces more wealth[Pg 47] than labour produces, andthat one man is worth more than another to the nation.

Labour, he says, is common to all men, but ability is the monopoly ofthe few. The bulk of the wealth is produced by the few, and ought bythem to be enjoyed.

But I don't think any Socialist ever claimed that all men were of equalvalue to the nation, nor that any one man could produce just as muchwealth as any other. We know that one man is stronger than another, thatone is cleverer than another, and that an inventor or thinker may designor invent some machine or process which will enable the workers toproduce more wealth in one year than they could by their own methodsproduce in twenty.

Now, before we go into the matter of the inventor, or of the value ofgenius to the nation, let us test these ideas of Mr. W. H. Mallock's andsee what they lead to.

A man invents a machine which does the work of ten handloom weavers. Heis therefore worth more, as a weaver, than the ordinary weaver whoinvents nothing. How much more?

If his machine does the work of ten men, you might think he was worthten men. But he is worth very much more.

Suppose there are 10,000 weavers, and all of them use his machine. Theywill produce not 10,000 men's work, but 100,000 men's work. Here, then,our inventor is equal to 90,000 weavers. That is to say, that histhought, his idea, his labourproduces as much wealth as could beproduced by 100,000 weavers without it.

On no theory of value, and on no grounds of reason that I know, can weclaim that this inventor is of no more value, as a producer, than anordinary, average handloom weaver.

Granting the claim of the non-Socialist, that every man belongs tohimself; and granting the claim of Mr. Mallock, that two-thirds of ournational wealth are produced by inventors; and granting the demand ofexact mathematical justice, that every man shall receive the exact valueof the[Pg 48] wealth he produces; it would follow that two-thirds of thewealth of this nation would be paid yearly to the inventors, or to theirheirs or assigns.

The wealth isnot to be paid to labour; that is Mr. Mallock's claim.And it is not to be paid to labour because it has been earned byability. And Mr. Mallock tells us that labour does not vary nor increasein its productive power. Good.

Neither does the landlord nor the capitalist increase his productivepower. Therefore it is not the landlord nor the capitalist who earns—orproduces—this extra wealth; it is the inventor.

And since the labourer is not to have the wealth, because he does notproduce it, neither should the landlord or capitalist have it, becausehe does not produce it.

So much for theright of the thing. Mr. Mallock shows that theinventor creates all this extra wealth; he shows that the inventor oughtto have it. Good.

Now, how is it that the inventor doesnot get it, and how is it thatthe landlord and the capitalistdo get it?

Just because the laws, which have been made by landlords andcapitalists, enable these men to rob the inventor and the labourer with impunity.

Thus: A man owns a piece of land in a town. As the town increases itsbusiness and population, the owner of the land raises the rent. He canget double the rent because the town has doubled its trade, and the landis worth more for business purposes or for houses. Has the landlordincreased the value? Not at all. He has done nothing but draw the rent.The increase of value is due to the industry or ability of the peoplewho live and work in the town, chiefly, as Mr. Mallock claims, todifferent inventors. Do these inventors get the increased rent? No. Dothe workers in the town get it? No. The landlord demands this extrarent, and the law empowers him to evict if the rent is not paid.

Next, let us see how the inventor is treated. If a man invents a machineand patents it, the law allows him to charge a royalty for its use forthe space of fourteen years.

At the end of that time the patent lapses, and the invention may beworked by anyone.

Observe here the difference of the treatment given to the inventor and the landlord.

The landlord does not make the land, he does not till the land, he doesnot improve the land; he only draws the rent, and he draws thatforever.His patent never lapses; and the harder the workers work, andthe more wealth inventors and workers produce, the more rent hedraws—for nothing.

The inventordoes make his invention. He is, upon Mr. Mallock'sshowing, the creator of immense wealth. And, even if he is lucky, he canonly draw rent on his ability for fourteen years.

But suppose the inventor is a poor man—and a great many inventors arepoor men—his chance of getting paid for his ability is very small.Because, to begin with, he has to pay a good deal to patent hisinvention, and then, often enough, he needs capital to work the patent,and has none.

What is he to do? He must find a capitalist to work the patent for him,or he must find a man rich enough to buy it from him.

And it very commonly happens, either that the poor man cannot pay therenewal fees for his patent, and so loses it entirely, or that thecapitalist buys it out and out for an old song, or that the capitalistobliges him to accept terms which give a huge profit to the capitalistand a small royalty to the inventor.

The patent laws are so constructed as to make the poor inventor an easyprey to the capitalist.

Many inventors die poor, many are robbed by agents or capitalists, manylose their patents because they cannot pay the renewal fees. Even whenan inventor is lucky he can only draw rent for fourteen years. We see,then, that the men who make most of the wealth are hindered and robbedby the law, and we know that the law has been made by capitalists and landlords.

Apply the same law to land that is applied to patents, and the wholeland of England would be public property in fourteen years.

Apply the same law to patents that is applied to land, and everyarticle we use would be increased in price, and we should still bepaying royalties to the descendants, or to their assigns, of James Watt,George Stephenson, and ten thousand other inventors.

And now will some non-Socialist, Mr. Mallock or another, write a nicenew book, and explain to us upon what rules of justice or of reason thepresent unequal treatment of the useless, idle landlord and the valuableand industrious inventor can be defended?

CHAPTER VTHE LANDLORD'S RIGHTS AND THE PEOPLE'S RIGHTS

Socialists are often accused of being advocates of violence and plunder.You will be told, no doubt, that Socialists wish to take the land fromits present owners, by force, and "share it out" amongst the landless.

Socialists have no more idea of taking the land from its present holdersand "sharing it out" amongst the poor than they have of taking therailways from the railway companies and sharing the carriages andengines amongst the passengers.

When the London County Council municipalised the tram service they didnot rob the companies, nor did they share out the cars amongst the people.

Socialism does not mean the "sharing out" of property; on thecontrary, it means the collective ownership of property.

"Britain for the British" does not mean one acre and half a cow for eachsubject; it means that Britain shall be owned intact by the wholepeople, and shall be governed and worked by the whole people, for thebenefit of the whole people.

Just as the Glasgow tram service, the Manchester gas service, and thegeneral postal service are owned, managed, and used by the citizens ofManchester and Glasgow, or by the people of Britain, for the general advantage.

You will be told that the present holders of the land have as much rightto the land as you have to your hat or your boots.

Now, as a matter of law and of right, the present holders of the landhave no fixed title to the land. But moderation, it has been well said,is the common sense of[Pg 52] politics, and if we all got bare justice, "who,"as Shakespeare asks, "would 'scape whipping?"

Socialists propose, then, to act moderately and to temper justice withamity. They do not suggest the "confiscation" of the land. They dosuggest that the land should be taken over by the nation, at a fair price.

But what is a fair price? The landlord, standing upon his allegedrights, may demand a price out of all reason and beyond all possibility.

Therefore I propose here to examine the nature of those alleged rights,and to compare the claims of the landholders with the practice of law asit is applied to holders of property in brains; that is to say, as it isapplied to authors and to inventors.

Let us deal first with the rights of gift and purchase. It is manifestthat no man can have a moral right to anything given or sold to him byanother person who had no right to the thing given or sold.

He who buys a watch, a horse, a house, or any other article from one whohas no right to the horse, or house, or watch, must render up thearticle to the rightful owner, and lose the price or recover it from the seller.

If a man has no moral right to own land, he can have no moral right tosell or give land.

If a man has no moral right to sell or to give land, then another mancan have no moral right to keep land bought or received in gift from him.

So that to test the right of a man to land bought by or given to him, wemust trace the land back to its original title.

Now, the original titles of most land rest upon conquest or theft.Either the land was won from the Saxons by[Pg 53] William the Conqueror, andby him given in fief to his barons, or it has been stolen from thecommon right and "enclosed" by some lord of the manor or other brigand.

I am sorry to use the word brigand, but what would you call a man whostole your horse or watch; and it is a far greater crime to steal land.

Now, stolen land carries no title, except one devised by landlords. Thatis, there is nomoral title.

So we come to the land "won" from the Saxons. The title of this land isthe title of conquest, and only by that title can it be held, and onlywith that title can it be sold. What the sword has won the sword musthold. He who has taken land by force has a title to it only so long ashe can hold it by force.

The tramp was quite logical. Land won by the sword may be rewon by thesword, and the right of conquest implies the right of any party strongenough for the task to take the conquered land from its original conqueror.

And yet the very men who claim the land as theirs by right of ancientconquest would be the first to deny the right of conquest to others.They claim the land as theirs because eight hundred years ago theirfathers took it from the English people, but they deny the right of theEnglish people to take it back from them. A duke holds lands taken bythe Normans under William. He holds them by right of the fact that hisancestor stole them, or, as the duke[Pg 54] would say, "won" them. But let aparty of revolutionaries propose to-day to win these lands back from himin the same manner, and the duke would cry out, "Thief! thief! thief!"and call for the protection of the law.

It would be "immoral" and "illegal," the duke would say, for the Britishpeople to seize his estates.

Should such a proposal be made, the modern duke would not defendhimself, as his ancestors did, by force of arms, but would appeal to thelaw. Who made the law? The law was made by the same gentlemen whoappropriated and held the land. As the Right Hon. Joseph Chamberlainsaid in his speech at Denbigh in 1884—

Well, then, the duke may defend his right by duke-made law. We do notobject to that, for it justifies us in attacking him by Parliament-madelaw: by new law, made by a Parliament of the people.

Is there any law of equity which says it is unjust to take by force froma robber what the robber took by force from another robber? Or is thereany law of equity which says it is unjust that a law made by aParliament of landlords should not be reversed by another law made by aParliament of the people?

The landlords will call this an "immoral" proposal. It is based upon theclaim that the land is wanted for the use and advantage of the nation.Their lordships may ask for precedent. I will provide them with one.

But if a man invent a new machine or a new process, or if he write apoem or a book, he may claim to have made[Pg 55] the invention or the book,and may justly claim payment for the use of them by other men.

An inventor or an author has, therefore, a better claim to payment forhis work than a landlord has to payment for the use of the land he callshis. Now, how does the law act towards these men?

The landlord may call the land his all the days of his life, and at hisdeath may bequeath it to his heirs. For a thousand years the owners ofan estate may charge rent for it, and at the end of the thousand yearsthe estate will still be theirs, and the rent will still be running onand growing ever larger and larger. And at any suggestion that theestate should lapse from the possession of the owners and become theproperty of the people, the said owners will lustily raise the cry of "Confiscation."

The patentee of an invention may call the invention his own, and maycharge royalties upon its use fora space of fourteen years. At theend of that time his patent lapses and becomes public property, withoutany talk of compensation or any cry of confiscation. Thus the law holdsthat an inventor is well paid by fourteen years' rent for a thing hemade himself, while the landlord isnever paid for the land he did not make.

The author of a book holds the copyright of the book for a period offorty-four years, or for his own life and seven years after, whicheverperiod be the longer. At the expiration of that time the book becomespublic property. Thus the law holds that an author is well paid byforty-four years' rent for a book which he has made, but that thelandlord isnever paid for the land which he did not make.

If the same law that applies to the land applied to books and toinventions, the inheritors of the rights of Caxton and Shakespeare wouldstill be able to charge, the one a royalty on every printing press inuse, and the other a royalty on every copy of Shakespeare's poems sold.Then there would be royalties on all the looms, engines, and othermachines, and upon all the books, music, engravings, and what not; sothat the cost of education, recreation, travel, clothing, and nearlyeverything else we use would be enhanced enormously. But, thanks to avery wise and fair arrangement[Pg 56] an author or an inventor has a goodchance to be well paid, and after that the people have a chance to enjoythe benefits of his genius.

Now, if it is right and expedient thus to deprive the inventor or theauthor of his own production after a time, and to give the use thereofto the public, what sense or justice is there in allowing a landowner tohold land and to draw an ever-swelling rent to the exclusion,inconvenience, and expense of the people for ever? And by what processof reasoning can a landlord charge me, an author, with immorality orconfiscation for suggesting that the same law should apply to the landhe did not make, that I myself cheerfully allow to be applied to thebooks I do make?

For the landlord to speak of confiscation in the face of the laws ofpatent and of copyright seems to me the coolest impudence.

But there is something else to be said of the landlord's title to theland. He claims the right to hold the land, and to exact rent for theland, on the ground that the land is lawfully his.

There is no such thing, and there never was any such thing, in Englishlaw as private ownership of land. In English law the land belongs to theCrown, and can only be held in trust by any subject.

Allow me to give legal warranty for this statement. The great lawyer,Sir William Blackstone, says—

I explained at first that I do not suggest confiscation. Really the landis the King's, and by him can be claimed; but we will let that pass.Here we will speak only of what is reasonable and fair. Let me give amore definite idea of the hardships imposed upon the nation by the landlords.

We all know how the landlord takes a part of the wealth produced bylabour and calls it "rent." But that is only simple rent. There is aworse kind of rent, which I will call "compound rent." It is known toeconomists as "unearned increment."

I need hardly remind you that rents are higher in large towns than insmall villages. Why? Because land is more "valuable." Why is it morevaluable? Because there is more trade done.

Thus a plot of land in the city of London will bring in a hundredfoldmore rent than a plot of the same size in some Scottish valley. Forpeople must have lodgings, and shops, and offices, and works in theplaces where their business lies. Cases have been known in which landbought for a few shillings an acre has increased within a man's lifetimeto a value of many guineas a yard.

This increase in value is not due to any exertion, genius, or enterpriseon the part of the landowner. It is entirely due to the energy andintelligence of those who made the trade and industry of the town.

The landowner sits idle while the Edisons, the Stephensons, theJacquards, Mawdsleys, Bessemers, and the thousands of skilled workersexpand a sleepy village into a thriving town; but when the town isbuilt, and the trade is flourishing, he steps in to reap the harvest. Heraises the rent.

He raises the rent, and evermore raises the rent, so that the harder thetownsfolk work, and the more the town prospers, the greater is the pricehe charges for the use of his land. This extortionate rent is really afine inflicted by idleness on industry. It is simpleplunder, and isknown by the technical name of unearned increment.

It is unearned increment which condemns so many of[Pg 58] the workers in ourBritish towns to live in narrow streets, in back-to-back cottages, inhideous tenements. It is unearned increment which forces up thedeath-rate and fosters all manner of disease and vice. It is unearnedincrement which keeps vast areas of London, Glasgow, Liverpool,Manchester, and all our large towns ugly, squalid, unhealthy, and vile.And unearned increment is an inevitable outcome and an invariablecharacteristic of the private ownership of land.

The volume of this unearned increment is tremendous. Mr. H. B. Haldane,M.P., speaking at Stepney in 1894, declared that the land upon whichLondon stands would be worth, apart from its population and specialindustries, "at the outside not more than £16,000 a year." Instead ofwhich "the people pay in rent for the land alone £16,000,000, and, withthe buildings, £40,000,000 a year." Those £16,000,000 constitute a finelevied upon the workers of London by landlords.

A similar state of affairs exists in the country, where the farms arelet chiefly on short leases. Here the tenant having improved his landhas often lost his improvements, or, for fear of losing theimprovements, has not improved his land nor even farmed it properly. Ineither case the landlord has been enriched while the tenant or thepublic has suffered.

A landlord has an estate which no farmer can make pay. A number oflabourers take small plots at £5 an acre, and go in for flower culture.They work so hard, and become so skilful, that they get £50 an acre fortheir produce. And the landlord raises the rent to £40 an acre.

That is "unearned increment," or "compound rent." The landlord could notmake the estate pay, the farmer could not make it pay. The labourer, byhis own skill and industry, does make it pay, and the landlord takes the proceeds.

Do I blame the landlord? Not very much. But I blame the people forallowing him to deprive their wives and children of the necessaries, thedecencies, and the joys of life.

But if you wish to know more about the treatment of tenants by landlordsin England, Scotland, and Ireland, get a book calledLandNationalisation, by Dr. Alfred Russell Wallace, published by SwanSonnenschein, at 1s.

That private landowners should be allowed to take millions out of thepockets of the workers is neither just nor reasonable. There is noargument in favour of landlordism that would not hold good in the caseof a private claim to the sea and the air.

Imagine a King or Parliament granting to an individual the exclusiveownership of the Bristol Channel or the air of Cornwall! Such a grantwould rouse the ridicule of the whole nation. The attempt to enforcesuch a grant would cause a revolution.

But in what way is such a grant more iniquitous or absurd than is theclaim of a private citizen to the possession of Monsall Dale, orSherwood Forest, or Covent Garden Market, or the corn lands of Essex, orthe iron ore of Cumberland?

The Bristol Channel, the river Thames, all our high roads, and most ofour bridges are public property, free for the use of all. No power inthe kingdom could wrest a yard of the highway nor an acre of green seafrom the possession of the nation. It is right that the road and theriver, the sea and the air should be the property of the people; it isexpedient that they should be the property of the people. Then by whatright or by what reason can it be held that the land—Britainherself—should belong to any man, or by any man be withheld from thepeople—who are the British nation?

But it may be thought, because I am a Socialist, and neither rich norinfluential, that my opinion should be regarded with suspicion. Allow meto offer the authority of more eminent men.

These views of the land question are not merely the views of ignorantdemagogues, but are fully indorsed by great lawyers, great statesmen,great authors, great divines, and great economists.

What is the principle which these eminent men teach? It is the principleenforced in the patent law, in the income tax, and in the law ofcopyright, that the privileges and claims, even therights of the few,must give way to the needs of the many and the welfare of the whole.

What, then, do we propose to do? I think there are very few Socialistswho wish to confiscate the land without any kind of compensation. Butall Socialists demand that the land shall return to the possession ofthe people. Britain for the British! What could be more just?

How are the people to get the land? There are many suggestions. Perhapsthe fairest would be to allow the landowner the same latitude that isallowed to the inventor, who, as Mr. Mallock claims, is really thecreator of two-thirds of our wealth.

We allow the inventor to draw rent on his patent for fourteen years. Whynot limit the private possession of land to the same term? Pay thepresent owners of land the full rent for fourteen or, say, twenty years,or, in a case where land has been bought in good faith, within the pastfifty years, allow the owner the full rent for thirty years. This wouldbe more than we grant our inventors, though theyadd to the nationalwealth, whereas the landlord simply takes wealth away from the national store.

The method I here advise would require a "Compulsory Purchase Act" tocompel landowners to sell their land at a fair price to the nation whenand wherever the public convenience required it.

This view is expressed clearly in a speech made by the Right Hon. JosephChamberlain at Trowbridge in 1885—

Others, again, recommend a land tax, and with perfect justice. If theCity Council improves a street, at the cost of the ratepayer, thelandlord raises his rent. What does that mean? It means that theratepayer has increased the value of the landlord's property at the costof the rates. It would only be just, then, that the whole increaseshould be taken back from the landlord by the city.

Therefore, it would be quite just to tax the landlords to the fullextent of their "unearned increment."

InProgress and Poverty, and in the book on[Pg 62]Land Nationalisation byDr. Alfred Russell Wallace, you will find these subjects of the taxationand the purchase of land fully and clearly treated.

My object is to show that it is to the interest of the nation that theprivate ownership of land should cease.

Five Precursors of Henry George. By J. Morrison Davidson. London,Labour Leader Office, 1s.

CHAPTER VILUXURY AND THE GREAT USEFUL EMPLOYMENT FRAUD

There is one excuse which is still too often made for the extravaganceof the rich, and that is the excuse that "The consumption of luxuriesby the rich finds useful employment for the poor."

It is a ridiculous excuse, and there is no eminent economist in theworld who does not laugh at it; but the capitalist, the landlord, andmany pressmen still think it is good enough to mislead or silence the people with.

As it is theonly excuse the rich have to offer for their wastefulexpenditure and costly idleness, it is worth while taking pains toconvince the workers that it is no excuse at all.

It is a mere error or falsehood, of course, but it is such anold-established error, such a plausible lie, and is repeated so oftenand so loudly by non-Socialists, that its disproof is essential. Indeed,I regard it as a matter of great importance that this subject of luxuryand labour should be thoroughly understanded of the people.

Here is this rich man's excuse, or defence, as it was stated by the Dukeof Argyll about a dozen years ago. So slowly do the people learn, and soignorant or dishonest does the Press remain, that the foolish statementis still quite up to date—

I have no doubt at all that the duke honestly believed that statement,and I daresay there are hundreds of eminent persons still alive who areno wiser than he.

The duke is quite correct in saying that "the more the wants of the richare stimulated" the more employment there will be for the people. Butafter all, that only means that the more the rich waste, the harder thepoor must work.

The fact is, the duke has omitted the most essential factor from thesum: he does not say how the rich man gets his money, nor fromwhom hegets his money. A ducal landlord draws, say, £100,000 a year in rentfrom his estates.

Who pays the rent? The farmers. Who earns the rent? The farmers and the labourers.

What does the duke do with the rent? He spends it. We are told that hespends it in finding useful employment for the poor, and one intelligent newspaper says—

That implies that the poor live on the rich. Now, I maintain that therich live on the poor. Let us see.

The duke buys food, clothing, and lodging for himself, for his family,and for his servants. He buys, let us say, a suit of clothes forhimself. That finds work for a tailor. And we are told that but for theduke the tailor must starve.Why?

The agricultural labourer is badly in want of clothes; cannothe findthe tailor work? No. The labourer wants clothes, but he has no money.Why has he no money?Because the duke has taken his clothing money for rent!

Then in the first place it is because the duke has taken the labourer'smoney that the tailor has no work. Then if the duke did not take thelabourer's money the labourer could buy clothes? Yes. Then if the dukedid not take[Pg 65] the labourer's money the tailorwould have work? Yes.Then it is not the duke's money, but the labourer's money, which keepsthe tailor from starving? Yes. Then in this case the duke is no use? Heis worse than useless. The labourer, whoearns the money, has noclothes, and the idle duke has clothes.

So that what the duke really does is to take the earnings of thelabourer and spend them on clothes forhimself.

Well, suppose I said to a farmer, "You give me five shillings a week outof your earnings, and I will find employment for a man to make cigars,I will smoke the cigars."

What would the farmer say? Would he not say, "Why should I employ you tosmoke cigars which I pay for? If the cigar maker needs work, why shouldI not employ him myself, and smoke the cigars myself, since I am to pay for them?"

Would not the farmer speak sense? And would not the labourer speak senseif he said to the duke, "Why should I employ you to wear out breecheswhich I pay for?"

My offer to smoke the farmer's cigars is no more impudent than theassertion of the Duke of Argyll, that he, the duke, finds employment fora tailor by wearing out clothes for which the farmer has to pay.

If the farmer paid no rent,he could employ the tailor, and he wouldhave the clothes. The duke does nothing more than deprive the farmer of his clothes.

But this is not the whole case against the duke. The duke does not spendall the rent in finding work for the poor. He spends a good deal of iton food and drink for himself and his dependants. This wealth isconsumed—it iswasted, for it is consumed by men who produce nothing.And it all comes from the earnings of the men who pay the rent.Therefore, if the farmer and his men, instead of giving the money to theduke for rent, could spend it on themselves, they would find moreemployment for the poor than the duke can, because they would be able tospend all that the duke and his enormous retinue of servants waste.

Although the duke (with the labourer's money) does find work for sometailors, milliners, builders, bootmakers, and[Pg 66] others, yet he does notfind work for them all. There are always some tailors, bootmakers, andbuilders out of work.

Now, I understand that in this country about £14,000,000 a year arespent on horse-racing and hunting. This is spent by the rich. If it werenot spent on horse-racing and hunting, it could be spent on usefulthings, and then, perhaps, there would be fewer tailors and otherworking men out of work.

But you may say, "What then would become of the huntsmen, jockeys,servants, and others who now live on hunting and on racing?" A verynatural question. Allow me to explain the difference between necessaries and luxuries.

All the things made or used by man may be divided into two classes,under the heads of necessaries and luxuries.

I should count as necessaries all those things which are essential tothe highest form of human life.

All those things which are not necessary to the highest form of humanlife I should call luxuries, or superfluities.

For instance, I should call food, clothing, houses, fuel, books,pictures, and musical instruments, necessaries; and I should calldiamond ear-rings, racehorses, and broughams luxuries.

Now it is evident that all those things, whether luxuries ornecessaries, are made by labour. Diamond rings, loaves of bread, grandpianos, and flat irons do not grow on trees; they must be made by thelabour of the people. And it is very clear that the more luxuries apeople produce, the fewer necessaries they will produce.

If a community consists of 10,000 people, and if 9000 people are makingbread and 1000 are making jewellery, it is evident that there will bemore bread than jewellery.

If in the same community 9000 make jewellery and only 1000 make bread,there will be more jewellery than bread.

In the first case there will be food enough for all, though jewels bescarce. In the second case the people must starve, although they weardiamond rings on all their fingers.

In a well-ordered State no luxuries would be produced until there wereenough necessaries for all.

Robinson Crusoe's first care was to secure food and[Pg 67] shelter. Had heneglected his goats and his raisins, and spent his time in makingshell-boxes, he would have starved. Under those circumstances he wouldhave been a fool. But what are we to call the delicate and refinedladies who wear satin and pearls, while the people who earn them lack bread?

Take a community of two men. They work upon a plot of land and growgrain for food. By each working six hours a day they produce enough food for both.

Now take one of those men away from the cultivation of the land, and sethim to work for six hours a day at the making of bead necklaces. What happens?

This happens—that the man who is left upon the land must now worktwelve hours a day. Why? Because although his companion has ceased togrow grain he has not ceased toeat bread. Therefore the man who growsthe grain must now grow grain enough for two. That is to say, that themore men are set to the making of luxuries, the heavier will be theburden of the men who produce necessaries.

But in this case, you see, the farmer does get some return for his extralabour. That is to say, he gets half the necklaces in exchange for halfhis grain; for there is no rich man.

Suppose next a community of three—one of whom is a landlord, while theother two are farmers.

The landlord takes half the produce of the land in rent, but does no work. What happens?

We saw just now that the two workers could produce enough grain in sixhours to feed two men for one day. Of this the landlord takes half.Therefore, the two men must now produce four men's food in one day, ofwhich the landlord will take two, leaving the workers each one. Well, ifit takes a man six hours to produce a day's keep for one, it will takehim twelve hours to produce a day's keep for two. So that our twofarmers must now work twice as long as before.

But now the landlord has got twice as much grain as he can eat. Hetherefore proceeds tospend it, and in spending it he "finds usefulemployment" for one of the farmers.[Pg 68] That is to say, he takes one of thefarmers off the land and sets him to building a house for the landlord.What is the effect of this?

The effect of it is that the one man left upon the land has now to findfood for all three, and in return gets nothing.

Consider this carefully. All men must eat, and here are two men who donot produce food. To produce food for one man takes one man six hours.To produce food for three men takes one man eighteen hours. The one manleft on the land has, therefore, to work three times as long, or threetimes as hard, as he did at first. In the case of the two men, we sawthat the farmer did get his share of the bead necklaces, but in the caseof the three men the farmer gets nothing. The luxuries produced by theman taken from the land are enjoyed by the rich man.

The landlord takes from the farmer two-thirds of his produce, andemploys another man to help him to spend it.

Now, all the peoples of Europe, if not of the world, are divided intothose three classes.

And it ismost important that you should thoroughly understand thosethree classes, never forget them, and never allow the rich man, nor thechampions of the rich man, to forget them.

The jockeys, huntsmen, and flunkeys alluded to just now, belong to theclass who work, but whose work is all done for the benefit of the idle.

Do not be deceived into supposing that there are buttwo classes:there arethree. Do not believe that the people may be divided intoworkers and idlers: they must be divided into (1) idlers, (2) workerswho work for the idlers, and (3) workers who support the idlers andthose who work for the idlers.

These three classes are a relic of the feudal times: they represent thebarons, the vassals, and the retainers.

The rich man is the baron, who draws his wealth from the workers; thejockeys, milliners, flunkeys, upholsterers, designers, musicians, andothers who serve the rich man, and live upon his custom and employment,are the retainers; the workers, who earn the money upon which the richman and his following exist, are the vassals.

Remember thethree classes: the rich, who produce nothing; theemployees of the rich, who produce luxuries for the rich; and theworkers, who find everything for themselves and all the wealth for theother two classes.

It is like two men on one donkey. The duke rides the donkey, and boaststhat he carries the flunkey on his back. So he does. But the donkeycarries both flunkey and duke.

Clearly, then, the duke confers no favour on the agricultural labourerby employing jockeys and servants, for the labourer has to pay for them,and the duke gets the benefit of their services.

But the duke confers a benefit on the men he employs as huntsmen andservants, and without the duke they would starve? No; without him theywould not starve, for the wealth which supports them would still exist,and they could be found other work, and could even add to the generalstore of wealth by producing some by their own labour.

The same remark applies to all those of the second class, from thefashionable portrait-painter and the diamond-cutter down to thescullery-maid and the stable-boy.

Compare the position of an author of to-day with the position of anauthor in the time of Dr. Johnson. In Johnson's day the man of geniuswas poor and despised, dependent on rich patrons: in our day the man ofgenius writes for the public, and the rich patron is unknown.

The best patron is the People; the best employer is the People; theproper person to enjoy luxuries is the man who works for and creates them.

My Lady Dedlock finds useful employment for Mrs. Jones. She employs Mrs.Jones to make her ladyship a ball-dress.

Where does my lady get her money? She gets it from[Pg 70] her husband, SirLeicester Dedlock, who gets it from his tenant farmer, who gets it fromthe agricultural labourer, Hodge.

Then her ladyship orders the ball-dress of Mrs. Jones, and pays her withHodge's money.

But if Mrs. Jones were not employed making the ball-dress for my LadyDedlock, she could be making gowns for Mrs. Hodge, or frocks for Hodge's girls.

Whereas now Hodge cannot buy frocks for his children, and his wife is adowdy, because Sir Leicester Dedlock has taken Hodge's earnings andgiven them to his lady to buy ball costumes.

Take a larger instance. There are many yachts which, in building anddecoration, have cost a quarter of a million.

Average the wages of all the men engaged in the erection and fitting ofsuch a vessel at 30s. a week. We shall find that the yacht has "foundemployment" for 160 men for twenty years. Now, while those men wereengaged on that work they produced no necessaries for themselves. Buttheyconsumed necessaries, and those necessaries were produced by thesame people who found the money for the owner of the yacht to spend.That is to say, that the builders were kept by the producers ofnecessaries, and the producers of necessaries were paid for thebuilders' keep, with money which they, the producers of necessaries, hadearned for the owner of the yacht.

The conclusion of this sum being that the producers of necessaries hadbeen compelled to support 160 men, and their wives and children, fortwenty years; and for what?

Would those yacht builders have starved without the rich man? Not atall. But for the rich man, the other workers would have had more money,could afford more holidays, and that quarter of a million spent on theone yacht would have built a whole fleet of pleasure boats.

And note also that the pleasure boats would find more employment thanthe yacht, for there would be more to spend on labour and less on costly materials.

So with other dependants of the rich. The duke's[Pg 71] gardeners could findwork in public parks for the people; the artists, who now sell theirpictures to private collections, could sell them to public galleries;and some of the decorators and upholsterers who now work on the richmen's palaces might turn their talents to our town halls and hospitalsand public pavilions. And that reminds me of a quotation from Mr.Mallock, cited inMerrie England. Mr. Mallock said—

Now, isn't that a precious piece of nonsense? There are two things to besaid about that rich man's cabinet. The first is, that it was made bysome workman who, if he had not been so employed, might have beenproducing whatwould be useful to the poor. So that the cabinet hascost the poor something. The second is, that a priceless buhl cabinetcan be divided. Of course, it would be folly to hack it into shavingsand serve them out amongst the mob; but if that cabinet is a thing ofbeauty and worth the seeing, it ought to be taken from the richbenefactor, whose benefaction consists in his having plundered it fromthe poor, and it ought to be put into a public museum where thousandscould see it, and where the rich man could see it also if he chose.This, indeed, is the proper way to deal with all works of art, and thisis one of the rich man's greatest crimes—that he keeps hoarded up inhis house a number of things that ought to be the common heritage of the people.

Every article of luxury has to be paid for not inmoney, but inlabour. Every glass of wine drunk by my lord, and every diamond starworn by my lady, has to be paid for with the sweat and the tears of thepoorest of our people. I believe it is a literal fact that many of theartificial flowers[Pg 72] worn at Court are actually stained with the tears ofthe famished and exhausted girls who make them.

To say that the extravagance of the rich finds useful employment for thepoor, is more foolish than to say that the drunkard finds usefulemployment for the brewers.

The drunkard may have a better defence than the duke, because he mayperhaps have produced, or earned, the money he spends in beer, whereasthe duke's rents are not produced by the duke nor earned by him.

That is clear, is it not? And yet a few weeks since I saw an article ina London weekly paper in which we were told that the thief was anindispensable member of society, because he found employment forpolicemen, gaolers, builders of gaols, and other persons.

The excuse for the thief is as valid as the excuse for the duke. Thethief finds plenty of employment for the people. But whopays thepersons employed?

The police, the gaolers, and all the other persons employed in catching,holding, and feeding the thief, are paid out of the rates and taxes. Whopays the taxes? The British public. Then the British public have tosupport not only the police and the rest, but the thief as well.

What do the police, the thief, and the gaoler produce? Do they produceany wealth? No. They consume wealth, and the thief is so useful that ifhe died out for ever, it would pay us better to feed the gaolers andpolice for doing nothing than to fetch the thief back again to feed him as well.

Work is useless unless it be productive work. It would be work for a manto dig a hole and then fill it up again; but the work would be of nobenefit to the nation. It would be work for a man to grow strawberriesto feed the Duke of Argyll's donkey on, but it would be useless work,because it would add nothing to the general store of wealth.

Policemen and gaolers are men withdrawn from the work of producingwealth to wait upon useless criminals. They, like soldiers and manyothers, do not produce wealth, but they consume it, and the greater thenumber of producers and the smaller the number of consumers the richerthe[Pg 73] State must be. For which family would be the better off—the familywherein ten earned wages and none wasted them, or the family in whichtwo earned wages and eight spent them?

Do not imagine, as some do, that increased consumption is a blessing. Itis the amount of wealth you produce that makes a nation prosperous; andthe idle rich man, who produces nothing, only makes his crime worse byspending a great deal.

The great mass of the workers lead mean, penurious, and joyless lives;they crowd into small and inconvenient houses; they occupy the darkest,narrowest, and dirtiest streets; they eat coarse and cheap food, whenthey do not go hungry; they drink adulterated beer and spirits; theywear shabby and ill-made clothes; they ride in third-class carriages,sit in the worst seats of the churches and theatres; and they stinttheir wives of rest, their children of education, and themselves ofcomfort and of honour, that they may pay rent, and interest, and profitsfor the idle rich to spend in luxury and folly.

And if the workers complain, or display any signs of suspicion ordiscontent, they are told that the rich are keeping them.

CHAPTER VIIWHAT SOCIALISM IS NOT

It is no use telling you whatSocialism is until I have told you whatit is not. Those who do not wish you to be Socialists have given youvery false notions aboutSocialism, in the hope of setting you againstit. They have brought many false charges against Socialists, in the hopeof setting you against them. So you have come to think ofSocialism asa thing foolish, or vile, and when it is spoken of, you turn up yournoses (instead of trying to see beyond them) and turn your backs on it.

A friend offers to give you a good house-dog; but someone tells you itis mad. Your friend will be wise to satisfy you that the dog isnotmad before he begins to tell you how well it can guard a house. Because,as long as you think the dog will bite you, you are not in the frame ofmind to hear about its usefulness.

A sailor is offering to sell an African chief a telescope; but the chiefhas been told that the thing is a gun. Then before the sailor shows thechief what the glass is good for, he will be wise to prove to him thatit will not go off at half-cock and blow his eye out.

So withSocialism: before I try to show you what it really is, I musttry to clear your mind of the prejudice which has been sown there bythose who wish to make you hate Socialism because they fear it.

As a rule, my friends, it will be wise for you to look very carefullyand hopefully at anything which Parliament men, or employers, orpressmen, call bad or foolish, because what helps you hinders them, andthe stronger you grow the weaker they become.

Well, the men who have tried to smash your unions, who[Pg 75] have writtenagainst you, and spoken against you, and acted against you in all greatstrikes and lock-outs, are the same men who speak and write againstSocialism.

And what have they told you? Let us take their commonest statements, andsee what they are made of.

They say that Socialists want to get up a revolution, to turn thecountry upside down by force, to seize all property, and to divide itequally amongst the whole people.

As toRevolution. I think I shall be right if I say that not oneSocialist in fifty, at this day, expects or wishes to getSocialism byforce of arms.

In the early days ofSocialism, when there were very few Socialists,and some of those rash, or angry, men, it may have been true thatSocialism implied revolution and violence. But to-day there are veryfew Socialists who believe in brute force, or who think a revolutionpossible or desirable. The bulk of our Socialists are for peaceful andlawful means. Some of them hope to bringSocialism to pass by means ofa reformed Parliament; others hope to bring it to pass by means of anewer, wiser, and juster public opinion.

I have always been dead against the idea of revolution, for manyreasons. I do not think a revolution ispossible in Britain. Firstly,because the people have too much sense; secondly, because the people areby nature patient and kindly; thirdly, because the people are toofreeto make force needful.

I do not think a revolution isadvisable. Because, firstly, it wouldbe almost sure to fail; secondly, if it did not fail it would put theworst kind of men into power, and would destroy order and method beforeit was ready to replace them; thirdly, because a State built up on forceis very likely to succumb to fraud; so that after great bloodshed,trouble, labour, and loss the people would almost surely slip down intoworse evils than those against which they had fought, and would findthat they had suffered and sinned in vain.

I do not believe in force, and I do not believe in haste. What we wantisreason andright; and we can only hope to get reason and right byright and reasonable means.

The men who would come to the top in a civil war[Pg 76] would be fighters andstrivers; they would not be the kind of men to wisely model andpatiently and justly rule or lead a new State. Your barricade man may bevery useful—at the barricades; but when the fighting is over, and hiswork is done, he may be a great danger, for he is not the man, usually,to stand aside and make way for the builders to replace by right lawsthe wrong laws which his arms have destroyed.

Revolution by force of arms is not desirable nor feasible; but there isanother kind of revolution from which we hope great things. This is arevolution ofthought. Let us once get the people, or a big majorityof the people, to understandSocialism, to believe inSocialism, andto work forSocialism, and thereal revolution is accomplished.

In a free country, such as ours, the almighty voice is the voice ofpublic opinion. What the publicbelieve in anddemand has got to begiven. Who is to refuse? Neither King nor Parliament can stand against aunited and resolute British people.

And do not suppose, either, that brute force, which is powerless to getgood or to keep it, has power to resist it or destroy it. Neithertruncheons nor bayonets can kill a truth. The sword and the cannon areimpotent against the pen and the tongue.

Believe me, we can overcome the constable, the soldier, the Parliamentman, the landlord, and the man of wealth, without shedding one drop ofblood, or breaking one pane of glass, or losing one day's work.

Our real task is to win the trust and help of thepeople (I don't meanthe workers only, but the British people), and the first thing to bedone is to educate them—to teach them and tell them what we mean; tomake quite clear to them whatSocialism is, and what it isnot.

One of the things it is not, is British imitation of the FrenchRevolution. Our method is persuasion; our cause is justice; our weaponsare the tongue and the pen.

Next: As to seizing the wealth of the country and sharing it out amongstthe people. First, we do not propose toseize anything. We do proposeto get some things,—the land, for instance,—and to make them theproperty of the[Pg 77] whole nation; but we mean that to be done by Act ofParliament, and by purchase. Second, we have no idea of "sharing out"the land, nor the railways, nor the money, nor any other kind of wealthor property, equally amongst the people. To share these things out—iftheycould be shared, which they could not be—would be to make themprivate property, whereas we want them to bepublic property, theproperty of the Britishnation.

Yet, how often have you been told that Socialists want to have thewealth equally divided amongst all? And how often have you been toldthat if you divided the wealth in that way it would soon cease to beequally divided, because some would waste and some would save?

"Make all men equal in possessions," cry the non-Socialists, "and in avery short time there would be rich and poor, as before."

This is no argument againstSocialism, for Socialists do not seek anysuch division. But I want to point out to you that though itlookstrue, it isnot true.

It is quite true that, did we divide all wealth equally to-morrow, therewould in a short time be many penniless, and a few in a way of gettingrich; but it is only true if we suppose that after the sharing weallowed private ownership of land and the old system of trade andcompetition to go on as before. Change those things: do away with thebad system which leads to poverty and to wealth, and we should have nomore rich and poor.

Destroy all the wealth of England to-morrow—we will not talk of"sharing" it out, butdestroy it—and establishSocialism on theruins and the bareness, and in a few years we should have a prosperous,a powerful, and a contented nation. There would be no rich and therewould be no poor. But the nation would be richer and happier than it ever has been.

Another charge against Socialists is that they areAtheists, whose aimis to destroy all religion and all morality.

This is not true. It is true that some Socialists are Agnostics and someare Atheists. But Atheism is no more a part of Socialism than it is apart of Toryism, or of Radicalism, or of Liberalism. Many prominentSocialists[Pg 78] are Christians, not a few are clergymen. Many Liberal andTory leaders are Agnostics or Atheists. Mr. Bradlaugh was a Radical, andan Atheist; Prof. Huxley was an opponent of Socialism, and an Agnostic.Socialism does not touch religion at any point. It deals with laws, andwithindustrial andpolitical government.

It is not sense to say, because some Atheists are Socialists, that allSocialists are Atheists.

Christ's teaching is often said to be socialistic. It is notsocialistic; but it is communistic, and Communism is the most advancedform of the policy generally known asSocialism.

The charge ofImmorality is absurd. Socialists demand a highermorality than any now to be found. They demand perfecthonesty.Indeed, it is just the stern morality ofSocialism which causesambitious and greedy men to hateSocialism and resist it.

Socialists, it has been said, want to destroy home life, to abolishmarriage, to take the children from their parents, and to establish "FreeLove."

"Free Love," I may say, means that all men and women shall be free tolove as they please, and to live with whom they please. Therefore, thatthey shall be free to live as "man and wife" without marriage, to partwhen they please without divorce, and to take other partners as theyplease without shame or penalty.

Now, I say of this charge, as I have said of the others, that there maybe some Socialists in favour of free love, just as there are someSocialists in favour of revolution, and some who are not Christians; butI say also that a big majority of Socialists are not in favour of freelove, and that in any case free love is no more a part ofSocialismthan it is a part of Toryism or of Liberalism.

It is not sense to say, because some Free-Lovers are Socialists, thatall Socialists are Free-Lovers.

I believe there is not one English Socialist in a hundred who would votefor doing away with marriage, or for handing over the children to theState. I for one would see the[Pg 79] State farther before I would part with achild of mine. And I think you will generally find that those who arereally eager to have all children given up to the State are men andwomen who have no children of their own.

Now, I submit that a childless man is not the right man to make laws about children.

As for the questions of free love and legal marriage, they are very hardto deal with, and this is not the time to deal with them. But I shallsay here that many of those who talk the loudest about free love do noteven know what loveis, or have not sense enough to see that just aslove and lust are two very different things, so are free love and freelust very different things.

Again, you are not to fall into the error of supposing that therelations of the sexes are all they should be at present. Freelove,it is true, is not countenanced; but freelust is very common.

And although some Socialists may be in favour of freelove, I neverheard of a Socialist who had a word to say in favour of prostitution. Itmay be a very wicked thing to enable a free woman togive her lovefreely; but it is a much worse thing to allow, and even at times compel(for it amounts to that, by force of hunger) a free woman tosell herlove—no, not herlove, poor creature; the vilest never sold that—butto sell her honour, her body, and her soul.

I would do a great deal forSocialism if it were only to do that onegood act of wiping out for ever the shameful sin of prostitution. Thisthing, indeed, is so horrible that I never think of it without feelingtempted to apologise for calling myself a man in a country where it isso common as it is in moral Britain.

There are several other common charges against Socialists; as that theyare poor and envious—what we may call Have-nots-on-the-Have; that theyare ignorant and incapable men, who know nothing, and cannot think;that, in short, they are failures and wasters, fools and knaves.

These charges are as true and as false as the others. There may be someSocialists who are ignorant and stupid; there may be some who are poorand envious; there may be some who are Socialists because they likecakes and ale[Pg 80] better than work; and there may be some who are clever,but not too good—men who will feather their nests if they can find anygeese for the plucking.

But I don't think thatall Tories and Liberals are wise, learned,pure, unselfish, and clever men, eager to devote their talents to thegood of their fellows, and unwilling to be paid, or thanked, or praised,for what they do.

I think there are fools and knaves,—even in Parliament,—and that someof the "Bounders-on-the-Bounce" find it pays a great deal better totoady to the "Haves" than to sacrifice themselves to the "Have-nots."

And I think I may claim that Socialists are in the main honest andsensible men, who work forSocialism because they believe in it, andnot because it pays; for its advocacy seldom pays at all, and it neverpays well; and I am sure thatSocialism makes quicker progress amongstthe educated than amongst the ignorant, and amongst the intelligent thanamongst the dull.

As for brains: I hope such men as William Morris, Karl Marx, andLiebknecht are as well endowed with brains as—well, let us be modest,and say as the average Tory or Liberal leader.

But most of the charges and arguments I have quoted are not aimed atSocialism at all, but at Socialists.

Now, to prove that some of the men who espouse a cause are unworthy, isnot the same thing as proving that the cause is bad.

Some parsons are foolish, some are insincere; but we do not thereforesay that Christianity is unwise or untrue. Even ifmost parsons werereally bad men we should only despise and condemn the clergy, and notthe religion they dishonoured and misrepresented.

The question is not whether all Socialists are as wise as Mr. SamuelWoods, M.P., or as honest as Jabez Balfour;the question is whetherSocialism is a thing in itself just, and wise, andpossible.

If you find a Socialist who is foolish, laugh at him; it you find onewho is a rogue, don't trust him; if you find one "on the make," stop hismaking. But as forSocialism, if it be good, accept it; if it be bad, reject it.

And now, having told you whatSocialism is not, it remains for me totell you whatSocialism is.

CHAPTER VIIIWHAT SOCIALISM IS

To those who are writing about such things asSocialism or PoliticalEconomy, one of the stumbling-blocks is in the hard or uncommon words,and another in the tediousness—the "dryness"—of the arguments and explanations.

It is not easy to say what has to be said so that anybody may see quiteclearly what is meant, and it is still harder to say it so as to holdthe attention and arouse the interest of men and women who are not usedto reading or thinking about matters outside the daily round of theirwork and their play. As I want this book to be plain to all kinds ofworkers, even to those who have no "book-learning" and to whom a "hardword" is a "boggart," and a "dry" description or a long argument aweariness of the flesh, I must beg those of you who are more used tobookish talk and scientific terms (or names) to bear with me when I stopto show the meaning of things that to you are quite clear.

If I can make my meaning plain to members of Parliament, bishops,editors, and other half-educated persons, and to labouring men and womenwho have had but little schooling, and have never been used to think orcare aboutSocialism, or Economics, or Politics, or "any such dryrot"—as they would call them—if I can catch the ear of the heedlessand the untaught, the rest of you cannot fail to follow.

The terms, or names, used in speaking of Socialism—that is to say, thenames given to ideas, or "thoughts," or to kinds of ideas, or "schools"of thought, are not easy to put into the plain words of common speech.To an untaught labourerSocialism is a hard word, so isCo-operation; and[Pg 83] such a phrase, or name, asPolitical Economy isenough to clear a taproom, or break up a meeting, or close a book.

So I want to steer clear of "hard words," and "dry talk," andlong-windedness, and I want to tell my tale, if I can, in "tinker's English."

There is more than one kind ofSocialism, for we hear of StateSocialism, of PracticalSocialism, of CommunalSocialism; andthese kinds differ from each other, though they are allSocialism.

So you have different kinds of Liberals. There are old-school Whigs, andadvanced Whigs, and Liberals, and Radicals, and advanced Radicals; butthey are allLiberals.

So you have horse soldiers, foot soldiers, riflemen, artillery, andengineers; but they are allsoldiers.

Amongst the Liberals are men of many minds: there are Churchmen,Nonconformists, Atheists; there are teetotalers and there are drinkers;there are Trade Union leaders, and there are leaders of the Masters'Federation. These men differ on many points, but they all agree uponone point.

Amongst the Socialists are many men of many minds: there are parsons,atheists, labourers, employers, men of peace, and men of force. Thesemen differ on many points, but they all agree uponone point.

A principle is a main idea, or main thought. It is like the keelson of aship or the backbone of a fish—it is the foundation on which the thing is built.

Thus, theprinciple of Trade Unionism is "combination," the combining,or joining together, of a number of workers, for the general good of all.

Theprinciple of Democratic (or Popular) Government is the law thatthe will of the majority shall rule.

So if we can find theprinciple ofSocialism, if we can find[Pg 84] theone point on which all kinds of Socialists agree, we shall be able tosee whatSocialism really is.

Now, here in plain words is theprinciple, or root idea, on whichall Socialists agree—

That the country, and all the machinery of production in the country,shall belong to the whole people (the nation), and shall be usedbythe people andfor the people.

This is the principle of collective, or national, ownership, andco-operative, or national, use and control.

Socialism may, you see, be summed up in one line, in four words, as really meaning

I will make all this as plain as the nose on your face directly. Let usnow look at theother side.

To-day Britain doesnot belong to the British; it belongs to a few ofthe British. There are bits of it which belong to the whole people, asWimbledon Common, Portland Gaol, the highroads; but most of it is "private property."

Now, as there are Liberals and Tories, Catholics and Protestants,Dockers' Unions and Shipping Federations in England; so there areSocialists and non-Socialists.

And as there are different kinds of Socialists, so there are differentkinds of non-Socialists.

As there is one point, orprinciple, on which all kinds of Socialistsagree; so there is one point, orprinciple, on which all kinds ofnon-Socialists agree.

Amongst the non-Socialists there are Liberals and Tories, Catholics andProtestants, masters and workmen, rich and poor, lords and labourers,publicans and teetotalers; and these folks, as you know, differ in theirideas, and quarrel with and go against each other; but they are allnon-Socialists, they are all againstSocialism, and they all agreeuponone point.

So, if we can find the one point on which all kinds of non-Socialistsagree, we shall find theprinciple, or root idea, of non-Socialism.

Well, the "principle" of non-Socialism is just the opposite of the"principle" ofSocialism. As the "principle" ofSocialism isnational ownership, so the "principle" of non-Socialism isprivateownership. As the principle ofSocialism isBritain for the British,so the principle of non-Socialism isEvery Briton for Himself.

Again, as the principle ofSocialism means two things, so does theprinciple of non-Socialism mean two things.

As the principle ofSocialism means national ownership andco-operative national management, so the principle of non-Socialismmeansprivate ownership andprivate management.

Socialism says that Britain shall be owned and managedby the peoplefor the people.

Non-Socialism says Britain shall be owned and managedby some personsfor some persons.

Under non-Socialism you have all thepersons workingseparately (andmostlyagainst each other), each for the good ofhimself.

Co-operation, as here used, means operating or working together for acommon end or purpose.

I'm afraid that is all as "dry" as bran, and as sad as a half-boileddumpling; but I want to make it quite plain.

You know that to-day most of the land in Britain belongs to landlords,who let it to farmers or builders, and chargerent for it.

Socialists (all Socialists) say thatall the land should belong tothe British people, to the nation.

You know that the railways belong to railway companies, who carry goodsand passengers, and charge fares and rates, to makeprofit.

Socialistsall say that the railways should be bought by the people.Some say that fares should be charged, some that the railways should befree—just as the roads, rivers, and bridges now are; but all agree thatany profit made by the railways should belong to the whole nation. Justas do the profits now made by the post office and the telegraphs.

You know that cotton mills, coalmines, and breweries now belong to richmen, or to companies, who sell the coal, the calico, or the beer, for profit.

Socialists say that all mines, mills, breweries, shops, works, ships,and farms should belong to the whole people, and should be managed bypersons chosen by the people, or chosen by officials elected by thepeople, and that all the bread, beer, calico, coal, and other goodsshould be eithersold to the people, orgiven to the people, or soldto foreign buyers for the benefit of the British nation.

Some Socialists wouldgive the goods to the people, some wouldsellthem; butall agree that any profit on such sales should belong to thewhole people—just as any profit made on the sale of gas by theManchester Corporation goes to the credit of the city.

To-day the nation ownssome things; under Socialism the nation wouldownall things.

To-day the nation owns the ships of the navy, the forts, arsenals,public buildings, Government factories, and some other things.

To-day the Government,for the nation, manages the post[Pg 87] office andtelegraphs, makes some of the clothes and food and arms for the army andnavy, builds some of the warships, and oversees the Church, the prisons, and the schools.

Socialists want the nation to ownall the buildings, factories, lands,rivers, ships, schools, machines, and goods, and to manageall theirbusiness and work, and to buy and sell and make and useall goods for themselves.

To-day some cities (as Manchester and Glasgow) make gas, and supply gasand water to the citizens. Some cities (as London) let their citizensbuy their gas and water from gas and water companies.

Socialists wantall the gas and water to be supplied to the people bytheir own officials, as in Glasgow and Manchester.

UnderSocialism all the work of the nation would beorganised—thatis to say, it would be "ordered," or "arranged," so that no one need beout of work, and so that no useless work need be done, and so that nowork need be done twice where once would serve.

At present the work isnot organised, except in the post office and inthe various works of the Corporations.

To-day the industries of England are not ordered nor arranged, but areleft to be disordered by chance and by the ups and downs of trade.

So we have at one and the same time, and in one and the same trade, and,often enough, in one and the same town, some men working overtime andother men out of work.

We have at one time the cotton mills making more goods than they cansell, and at another time we have them unable to fulfil their orders.

We have in one street a dozen small shops all selling the same kind ofgoods, and so spending in rent, in fittings, in wages of servants, andother ways, about four times as much as would be spent if all the workwere done in one big shop.

We have one contractor sending men and tools and bricks and wood fromnorth London to build a house in south London, and another contractor insouth London going to the same trouble and expense to build a house in north London.

We have in Essex and other parts of England thousands[Pg 88] of acres of goodland lying idle because it does notpay to till it, and at the sametime we have thousands of labourers out of work who would be only tooglad to till it.

So in one part of a city you may see hundreds of houses standing empty,and in another part of the same city you may see hard-working peopleliving three and four families in a small cottage.

Then, under competition, where there are many firms in the same trade,and where each firm wants to get as much trade as it can, a great dealof money is spent by these firms in trying to get the trade from each other.

Thus all the cost of advertisements, of travellers' wages, and a lot ofthe cost of book-keeping, arise from the fact that there are many firmsall trying to snatch the trade from each other.

Non-Socialists claim that this clumsy and costly way of going to work isreally the best way there is. They say that competition gets the workdone by the best men and at the lowest rate.

Perhaps some of them believe this; but it is not true. The mistake iscaused by the fact thatcompetition is better thanmonopoly.

That is to say, if there is only one tram company in a town the fareswill be higher than if there are two; because when there are two onetries to undersell the other.

But take a town where there are two tram companies undercutting andworking against each other, and hand the trams over to the Corporation,and you will find that the work is done better, is done cheaper, and themen are better paid than under competition.

This is because the Corporation is at less cost, has less waste, anddoes not wantprofits.

Well, underSocialism all the work of the nation would be managed bythe nation—or perhaps I had better say by "the people," for some of thework would belocal and some would benational. I will show you whatI mean.

It might be better for each town to manage its own gas and water, tobake its own bread and brew its own beer. But it would be better for thepost office to be managed by the nation, because that has to do withall the towns.

So we should find that some kinds of work were best done locally—thatis, by each town or county—and that some were best done nationally,that is, by a body of officials acting for the nation.

For instance, tramways would be local and railways national; gas andwater would be local and collieries national; police would be local andthe army and navy national.

The kind ofSocialism I am advocating here is Collectivism, orPractical Socialism. Motto: Britain for the British, the land and allthe instruments of production, distribution, and exchange to be theproperty of the nation, and to be managedby the nationfor the nation.

The land and railways, collieries, etc., to bebought from the presentowners, but not at fancy prices.

Thus, you see, Collectivism is really an extension of theprinciples,or ideas, of local government, and of the various corporation and civil services.

And now I tell you that is Socialism, and I ask you what is there in itto prevent any man from being a Christian, or from attending a place ofworship, or from marrying, or being faithful to his wife, or fromkeeping and bringing up his children at home?

There is nothing in it to destroy religion, and there is nothing in itto destroy the home, and there is nothing in it to foster vice.

But thereis something in it to kill ignorance and to destroy vice.There is something in it to shut up the gaols, to do away withprostitution, to reduce crime and drunkenness, and wipe out for ever thesweater and the slums, the beggars and the idle rich, the useless fineladies and lords, and to make it possible for sober and willing workersto live healthy and happy and honourable lives.

For Socialism would teach and train all children wisely; it would fostergenius and devotion to the common good; it would kill scamping andloafing and jerrymandering; it would give us better health, betterhomes, better work, better food, better lives, and better men and women.

CHAPTER IXCOMPETITIONv. CO-OPERATION

A comparison of competition with co-operation is a comparison ofnon-Socialism with Socialism.

For the principle of non-Socialism is competition, and the principle ofSocialism is co-operation.

Non-Socialists tell us that competition is to the general advantage,because it lowers prices in favour of the consumer.

But competition in trade only seems desirable when we contrast it withprivate monopoly.

When we compare the effects of trade competition with the effects ofState or Municipal co-operation, we find that competition is badly beaten.

The claim for the superior cheapness of competition rests on the theorythat where two sellers compete against each other for trade each triesto undersell the other.

This sounds plausible, but, like many other plausible things, it isuntrue. It is a theory, but the theory is incomplete.

If business men were fools the theory would work with mathematicalprecision, to the great joy and profit of the consumer; but business menare not built on those lines.

The seller of any article does not trade for trading's sake; he trades for profit.

It is a mistake to suppose that undercutting each other's prices is theonly method of competing between rival firms in trade. There are other ways.

As to underselling. This is not carried on to such extremes as thetheorists would have us believe.

The object of a trader is to make money. He only desires increased tradeif it brings more money.

Brown and Jones make soap for sale. Each desires to get as much of thetrade as he can, consistently with profits.

It will pay Brown better to sell 1000 boxes of soap at a profit ofsixpence on each box than to sell 2000 boxes at a profit of twopence abox, and it will pay him better to sell 4000 boxes at a profit oftwopence each than it will to sell 1000 boxes at a profit of sixpence each.

Now, suppose there is a demand for 20,000 boxes of soap in a week. IfBrown and Jones are content to divide the trade, each may sell 10,000boxes at a profit of sixpence, and so may clear a total profit of £250.

If, by repeated undercutting, the profit falls to a penny a box, Brownand Jones will have very little more than £80 to divide between them.And it is clear that it will pay them better to divide the trade, for itwould pay either of them better to take half the trade at even athreepenny profit than to secure it all at a profit of one penny.

Well, Brown and Jones have the full use of their faculties, and are wellaware of the number of beans that make five.

Therefore they will not compete beyond the point at which competitionwill increase their gross profits.

And so we shall find in most businesses, from great railways down totooth brushes, that the difference in prices, quality being equal, isnot very great amongst native traders, and that a margin of profit is always left.

At the same time, so far as competitiondoes lower prices withoutlowering quality, the benefit is to the consumer, and that much is to beput to the credit of competition.

But even there, on its strongest line, competition is beaten by Stateor Municipal co-operation.

Because, assuming that the State or Municipality can produce any articleas cheaply as a private firm, the State or the Municipality can alwaysbeat the private trader in price to the extent of the trader's profit.

For no trader will continue to trade unless he makes some profit,whereas the State or Municipality wants no profit, but works for use or for service.

Therefore, if a private trader sells soap at a profit of one farthing abox, the State or Municipality can sell soap one farthing a box cheaper,other things being equal.

It is evident, then, that the trader must be beaten unless he canproduce more cheaply than the State or Municipality.

Can he produce more cheaply? No. The State or Municipality can alwaysproduce more cheaply than the private trader, under equal conditions.Why? For the same reason that a large firm can beat a small one, or atrust can beat a number of large firms.

Suppose there are three separate firms making soap. Each firm must haveits separate factory, its separate offices, its separate management, itsseparate power, its separate profits, and its separate plant.

But if one firm made all the soap, it would save a great deal ofexpense; for one large factory is cheaper than two of half its size, andone manager costs less than three.

If the London County Council made all the soap for London, it could makesoap more cheaply than any one of a dozen private firms; because itwould save so largely in rent, plant, and management.

Thus the State or Municipality scores over the private firm, andco-operation scores over competition in two ways: first, it cuts off theprofit; and, second, it reduces the cost of production.

But that does not exhaust the advantages of co-operation overcompetition. There are two other forms of competition still to examine:these are adulteration and advertisement.

We all know the meaning of the phrase "cheap and nasty." We can getpianos, bicycles, houses, boots, tea, and many other things at variousprices, and we find that many of the cheap pianos will not keep in tune,that the bicycles are always out of repair, that the houses fall down,the boots let in water, and the tea tastes like what itis—a mixtureof dried tea leaves and rubbish.

Adulteration, as John Bright frankly declared, is a form of competition.It is also a form of rascality and fraud. It is a device for retainingprofits for the seller, but it is seriously to the disadvantage of the consumer.

And the absence of this form of competition has to be put to the creditof the State or the Municipal supply. For since the State orMunicipality has no competitor to displace, it never descends to thebaseness of adulteration.

The London County Council would not build jerry houses for the citizens,nor supply them with tea leaves for tea, nor logwood and water for port wine.

The sale of wooden nutmegs is a species of enterprise confinedexclusively to the private trader. It is a form of competition, butnever of commercial co-operation. It is peculiar to non-Socialism:Socialists would abolish it entirely.

We come now to the third device of the private trader in competition:the employment of commercial travellers and advertisement.

Of two firms selling similar goods, of equal quality, at equal prices,that firm will do the larger trade which keeps the greater number ofcommercial travellers and spends the greater sum upon advertisement.

But travellers cost money, and advertising costs money. And so we findthat travellers and advertisements add to the cost of distribution.

Therefore competition, although by underbidding it has a limitedtendency to lower the prices of goods, has also a tendency to increasethe price in another way.

If Brown lowers the price of his soap the user of soap is the gainer.But if Brown increases the cost of his[Pg 94] advertisements and his staff oftravellers, the user is the loser, because the extra cost has to be paidfor in the price of soap.

Under a system of trade competition all those four items (plus theeffects of adulteration) have to be paid for by the consumer, that is tosay, by the users of soap.

That is why the Municipal gas, water, and tram services are better andcheaper than the same services under the management of private companies.

As an example of the difference between private and Municipal works, letus take the case of the gas supply in Liverpool and Manchester. Thesecities are both commercial, both large, both near the coalfields.

The gas service in Liverpool is a private monopoly, for profit; that ofManchester is a co-operative monopoly, for service.

In Liverpool (figures of 1897) the price of gas was 2s. 9d. per thousandfeet. In Manchester the price of gas was 2s. 3d.

In Liverpool the profit on gas was 8-1/2d. per thousand feet. InManchester the profit was 7-1/2d. per thousand feet.

In Liverpool the profits went to the company. In Manchester the profitswent to the ratepayers.

Thus the Manchester ratepayer was getting his gas for 2s. 3d. less7-1/2d., which means that he was getting it at 1s. 7-1/2d., while theLiverpool ratepayer was being charged 2s. 9d. The public monopoly ofManchester was, therefore, beating the private monopoly of Liverpool by1s. 1-1/2d. per thousand feet in the price of gas.

InTo-day's Work, by George Haw, and inDoes Municipal ManagementPay? by R. B. Suthers, you will find many examples as striking andconclusive as the one I have suggested above.

The waste incidental to private traders' competition is enormous. Takethe one item of advertisement alone. There are draughtsmen,paper-makers, printers, billposters, painters, carpenters, gilders,mechanics, and a perfect army of other people all employed in makingadvertisement bills, pictures, hoardings, and other abominations—forwhat? Not to benefit the consumer, but to enable one private dealer tosell more of his wares than another. InMerrie England I dealt withthis question, and I quoted from an excellent pamphlet by Mr.Washington, a man of splendid talents, whose death we have unfortunatelyto deplore. Mr. Washington, who was an inventor and a thoroughlypractical man of business, spoke as follows:—

All this expense would be saved by State or Municipal production foruse. The New York Milk Trust, I understand, on its formation dispensedwith the services of 15,000 men.

You may ask what is to become of these men, and of the immense numbersof other men, now uselessly employed, who would not be needed under Socialism.

Well! What are these men now doing? Are they adding to the wealth of thenation? No. Are they not[Pg 96] doing work that is unnecessary to the nation?Yes. Are they not now being paid wages? Yes.

Then, since their work is useless, and since they are now being paid, isit not evident that under Socialism we could actually pay them theirfull wages for doingnothing, and still be as well off as we are now?

But I think under Socialism we could, and should, find a very great manyof them congenial and useful work.

Under the "Trusts" they will be thrown out of work, and it will benobody's business to see that they do not starve.

Yes: Socialism would displace labour. But does not non-Socialism displace labour?

Why was the linotype machine adopted? Because it was a saving of cost.What became of the compositors? They were thrown out of work. Didanybody help them?

Well, Socialism would save cost. If it displaces labour, as the machinedoes, should that prevent us from adopting Socialism?

But will the Trusts do that? No. And the Trusts are coming; the Trustswhich will swallow up the small firms and destroy competition; theTrusts which will use their monopolies not to lower prices, but to make profits.

You will have your choice, then, between the grasping and grinding Trustand the beneficent Municipality.

Can any reasonable, practical, hard-headed man hesitate for one moment over his choice?

CHAPTER XFOREIGN TRADE AND FOREIGN FOOD

We have heard a great deal lately about the danger of losing our foreigntrade, and it has been very openly suggested that the only hope ofkeeping our foreign trade lies in reducing the wages of our Britishworkers. Sometimes this idea is wrapped up, and called "reducing thecost of production."

Now, if we must have foreign trade, and as much of it as we have now,and if we can only keep it by competing against foreign dealers inprice, then it is true that we must try to reduce the cost of production.

But as there are more ways of killing a dog besides that of choking himwith butter, so there are other ways of reducing the cost of productionbesides that of reducing the wages of our British workers.

But on that question I will speak in the next chapter. Here I want todeal with foreign trade and foreign food.

It is very important that every worker in the kingdom should understandthe relations of our foreign trade and our native agriculture.

The creed of the commercial school is that manufacturespay us betterthan agriculture; so that by making goods for export and buying foodfrom abroad we are doing good business.

The idea is, that if by making cloth, cutlery, and other goods, we canbuy more food than we can produce at home with the same amount oflabour, itpays us to let the land go out of cultivation and makeBritain the "workshop of the world."

Now, assuming that wecan keep our foreign trade, and assuming that wecan get more food by foreign trade than[Pg 98] we could produce by the sameamount of work, is it quite certain that we are making a good bargainwhen we desert our fields for our factories?

Suppose mencan earn more in the big towns than theycould earn inthe fields, is the differenceall gain?

Rents and prices are higher in the towns; the life is less healthy, lesspleasant. It is a fact that the death-rates in the towns are higher,that the duration of life is shorter, and that the stamina and physiqueof the workers are lowered by town life and by employment in the factories.

And there is another very serious evil attached to the commercial policyof allowing our British agriculture to decay, and that is the evil ofour dependence upon foreign countries for our food.

Of every 30 bushels of wheat we require in Britain, more than 23 bushelscome from abroad. Of these 23 bushels 19 bushels come from America, andnearly all the rest from Russia.

You are told at intervals—when more money is wanted forbattle-ships—that unless we have a strong fleet we shall, in time ofwar, be starved into surrender.

But the plain and terrible truth is that even if we have a perfectfleet, and keep entire control of the seas, we shall still be exposed tothe risk of almost certain starvation during a European war.

Nearly four-fifths of our bread come from Russia and America. Suppose weare at war with France and Russia. What will happen? Will not the corndealers in America put up the price? Will not the Russians stop theexport of corn from their ports? Will not the French and RussianGovernments try to corner the American wheat?

Then one-seventh of our wheat would be stopped at Russian ports, and theAmerican supply, even if it could be safely guarded to our shores, wouldbe raised to double or treble the present price.

What would our millions of poor workers do if wheat went up to 75s. or100s. a quarter?

And every other article of food would go up in price at the same time:tea, coffee, sugar, meat, canned goods, cheese, would all double their prices.

And we must not forget that we import millions of pounds' worth ofeggs, butter, and cheese from France, all of which would be stopped.

Nor is that all. Do we not pay for our imported food in exported goods?Well, besides the risk and cost of carrying raw material to this countryand manufactured goods to other countries across the seas, we shouldlose at one blow all our French and Russian trade.

That means that with food at famine prices many of our workers would beout of work or on short time.

The result would be that in less than half a year there would be1,000,000 unemployed, and ten times that number on the borders of starvation.

And all these horrors might come upon us without a single shot beingfired by our enemies. Talk about invasion! In a big European war weshould be half beaten before we could strike a blow, and even if ourfleets were victorious in a dozen battles we must starve or make peace.

Or suppose such a calamity as war with America! The Americans couldclose their ports to food and raw material, and stop half our food and alarge part of our trade at one blow. And so we should be half beatenbefore a sword was drawn.

All these dangers are due to the commercial plan of sacrificingagriculture to trade. All these dangers must be placed to the debit sideof our foreign trade account.

But apart from the dangers of starvation in time of war, and apart fromall the evils of the factory system and the bad effects of overcrowdingin the towns, it has still to be said that foreign trade only beatsagriculture as long as it pays so well that we can buy more food withour earnings than we could ourselves produce with the same amount of labour.

Are we quite sure that it pays us as well as thatnow? And if it doespay as well as that now, can we hope that it will go on paying as wellfor any length of time.

In the early days of our great trade the commercial school wishedBritain to be the "workshop of the world"; and for a good while she wasthe workshop of the world.

But now a change is coming. Other nations have opened world-workshops,and we have to face competition.

France, Germany, Holland, Belgium, and America are all eager to take ourcoveted place as general factory, and China and Japan are changingswiftly from customers into rival dealers.

Is it likely, then, that we can keep all our foreign trade, or that whatwe keep will be as profitable as it is at present?

During the last few years there have emanated from the Press and fromChambers of Commerce certain ominous growlings about the evils of TradeUnionism. What do these growls portend? Much the same thing as themutterings about the need for lowering wages.

Do we not remember how, when the colliers were struggling for a "livingwage," the Press scolded them for their "selfishness"? The Pressdeclared that if the colliers persisted in having a living wage weshould be beaten by foreign competitors and must lose our foreign trade.

That is what is hanging over us now. A demand for a general reduction ofwages. That is the end of the fine talk about big profits, nationalprosperity, and the "workshop of the world." The British workers are toemulate the thrift of the Japanese, the Hindoos, and the Chinese, andlearn to live on boiled rice and water. Why? So that they can acceptlower wages and retain our precious foreign trade.

Yes; that is the latest idea. With brutal frankness the workers ofBritain have been told again and again that "if we are to keep ourforeign trade the British workers must accept the conditions of their foreign rivals."

And that is the result of our commercial glory! For that we havesacrificed our agriculture and endangered the safety of our empire.

They tell us first that the workers must abandon the land and go intothe factories, because there they can earn a better living.

They tell us now that the British worker must be content[Pg 101]with the wagesof a coolie, because foreign trade will pay no more.

We are to give up agriculture because we can buy more food with exportedgoods than we can grow; and we must learn to live on next to nothing, orlose our foreign trade.

Well, since we left the land in the hope that the factories would feedus better, why not go back to the land if the factories fail to feed us at all?

Ah! but the commercial school have another string to their bow: "Youcannot go back to the land, for it will not feed you all. This countrywill not produce enough food for its people to live upon."

So the position in which the workers are placed, according to thecommercial school, is this: You cannot produce your own food; thereforeyou must buy it by export trade. But you will lose your export tradeunless you work for lower wages.

In my next chapter I will deal with the question of foreign trade andthe workers' wages. We will then go on to consider the question of the food supply.

For the argument as to our defencelessness in time of war through theinevitable rise in the price of corn, I am indebted to a pamphlet byCaptain Stewart L. Murray of the Gordon Highlanders. I stronglyrecommend all working men and women to read that pamphlet. It isentitledOur Food Supply in Time of War, and can be ordered throughtheClarion. The price is 6d.

CHAPTER XIHOW TO KEEP FOREIGN TRADE

We are told that unless we can compete in price with foreign nations wemust lose our foreign trade; and we are told that the only means ofcompeting with foreign nations in price is to lower the wages of the British worker.

We will test these statements by looking into the conditions of one ofour great industries, an industry upon which many other industries moreor less depend: I mean the coal trade.

At the time of the great coal strike the colliers were asked to accept areduction of wages because their employers could not get the price theywere asking for coal.

The colliers refused, and demanded a "living wage." And they wereseverely censured by the Press for their "selfishness" in "keeping upthe price of coal," and thereby preventing other trades, in which coalwas largely used, from earning a living. They were reproached also withkeeping the price of coal so high that the poor could not afford fires.

Now, if those other trades which used coal, as the iron and the cottontrades, could not carry on their business with coal at the price it wasthen at, and if those trades had no other ways and means of reducingexpenses, and if the only factor in the price of coal had been the wagesof the collier, there might have been some ground for the arguments ofthe Press against the colliers.

But in the iron trade one item of the cost of production is theroyalty on the iron. Royalty is a kind of rent paid to the landlordfor getting the iron from his land.

Now, I want to ask about the iron trade, Would it not be[Pg 103] as just and aspossible to reduce the royalty on iron in order to compete with foreigniron dealers as to reduce the wages of the iron-worker or the collier?

The collier and the iron-worker work, and work hard, but the royaltyowner does nothing.

The twenty-five per cent. reduction in the colliers' wages demandedbefore the great strike would not have made a difference of sixpence aton in the cost of coal.

Now the royalties charged upon a ton of manufactured pig iron inCumberland at that time amounted to 6s. 3d.; whereas the royalties on aton of manufactured pig iron in Germany were 6d., in France 8d., inBelgium 1s. 3d. Now read this—

The royalties were more than twice the amount of the wages, and yet weare to believe that we can only keep our iron trade by lowering the wages.

The fact is that in the iron trade our export goods are taxed by theidle royalty owner to an amount varying from five to twelve times thatof the royalty paid by our French, German, and Belgian competitors.

Now think over the iron and cotton and other trades, and remember theanalysis we made of the cost of production, and tell me why, since therich landlord gets his rent, and since the rich capitalist gets hisinterest or profits out of cotton, wool, or iron, the invariablesuggestion of those who would retain our foreign trade by reducing thecost of production amounts to no more nor less than a reduction of thepoor workers' wages.

Let us go back to the coal trade. The collier was called selfish becausehis demand for a living wage kept up the price of coal. The reductionasked would not have come to 6d. a ton. Could not that sixpence havebeen saved[Pg 104] from the rents, or interest, or profits, or royalties paidat the cost of the production of other goods? I think you will find that it could.

But leave that point, and let us see whether there are not other factorsin the cost of coal which could more fairly be reduced than could thewages of the collier.

Coals sells at prices from 10s. to 30s. a ton. The wages of the collierdo not add up to more than 2s. 6d. a ton.

In the year before the last great coal strike 300,000 miners were paid£15,000,000, and in the same time £6,000,000 were paid in royalties. SirG. Elliot's estimate of coal owners'profits for the same year was£11,000,000. This, with the £6,000,000 paid in royalties, made£17,000,000 taken by royalty owners and mine owners out of the coaltrade in one year.

So there are other items in the price of coal besides the wages of thecolliers. What are they? They may be divided into nine parts, thus—

The prices of coal fluctuate (vary), and the changes in the prices ofcoal cause now a rise and now a fall in the wages and profits of coalmasters, railway shareholders, merchants, and retailers.

But the fluctuations in the prices of coal cause very little fluctuationin rent andnone in royalties.

Again, no matter how low the price of coal may be, the agents,travellers, and other salesmen always get a living wage, and the coalowners, railway shareholders, merchants, landlords, and royalty ownersalways get a great deal more than a living wage.

But what about the colliers and the carriers' labourers, such as railwaymen, dischargers, and carters?

These men perform nearly all the work of production and ofdistribution. They get the coal, and they carry the coal.

Their wages are lower than those of any of the other seven classesengaged in the coal trade.

They work harder, they work longer hours, and they run more risk to lifeand limb than any other class in the trade; and yet!——

And yet the only means of reducing the price of coal is said to beareduction in the collier's wage.

Now, I say that in reducing the price of coal thelast thing we shouldtouch is the collier's wage.

If wemust reduce the price of coal, we should begin with the ownersof royalties. As to the "right" of the royalty owner to exact a finefrom labour, I will content myself with making two claims—

Next to the landlords and royalty owners I should place the railwaycompanies. The prices charged for the carriage of coal are very high,and if the price of coal must be reduced, the profits made on thecarriage should be reduced.

Third in order come the coal owners, with what they call "a fair rate ofinterest on invested capital."

How is it that the Press never reproaches any of those four idle andoverpaid classes with selfishness in causing the poor workers of othertrades to go short of fuel?

How is it that the Press never chides these men for their[Pg 106] folly intrying to keep up profits, royalties, and interest in a "falling market"?

It looks as if the "immutable laws" of political economy resemble thelaws of the land. It looks as if there is one economic law for the richand another for the poor.

The merchants, commission agents, and other middlemen I leave out of thequestion. These men are worse than worthless—they are harmful. Theythwart; and hinder, and disorder the trade, and live on the colliers,the coal masters, and the public. There is no excuse, economic or moral,for their existence. But there is only one cure for the evil they do,and that is to drive them right out of the trade.

I claim, then, that if the price of coal must be reduced, the sums paidto the above-named three classes should be cut down first, because theyget a great deal more, and do a great deal less, than the carriers'labourers and the colliers.

First as to the coal owners and the royalty owners. We see that thewhole sum of the wages of the colliers for a year was only £6,000,000,while the royalty owners and the coal owners took £17,000,000, or nearlythree times as much.

And yet we were told that theminers, the men whowork, were"selfish" for refusing to have their wages reduced.

Nationalise the land and the mines, and you at once save £17,000,000,and all that on the one trade.

So with the railways. Nationalise the railways, and you may reduce thecost of the carriage of coal (and of all goods and passengers) by theamount of the profits now made by the railway companies, plus a gooddeal of the expense of management.

For if the Municipalities can give you better trams, pay the guards anddrivers better wages for shorter hours, and reduce penny fares tohalfpenny fares, and still clear a big profit, is it not likely that theState could lower the freights of the railways, and so reduce the costof carrying foods and manufactured goods and raw material?

Our foreign trade, and our home industries also, are taxed andhandicapped in their competition by every[Pg 107] shilling paid in royalties,in rents, in interest, in profits, and in dividends to persons who do nowork and produce no wealth; they are handicapped further by the salariesand commissions of all the superfluous managers, canvassers, agents,travellers, clerks, merchants, small dealers, and other middlemen whonow live upon the producer and consumer.

Socialism would abolish all these rents, taxes, royalties, salaries,commissions, profits, and interests, and thereby so greatly reduce thecost of production and of carriage that in the open market we should beable to offer our goods at such prices as to defy the competition of anybut a Socialist State.

But there is another way in which British trade is handicapped incompetition with the trade of other nations.

It is instructive to notice that our most dangerous rival is America,where wages are higher and all the conditions of the worker better thanin this country.

Is it not notorious that the reason given for America's success is thesuperior energy and acuteness of the American over the British managerand employer? American firms are more pushing, more up-to-date. Theyseek new markets, and study the desires of consumers; they use moremodern machinery, and they produce more new inventions. Are the paucityof our invention and the conservatism of our management due to the"invincible ignorance" or restrictive policy of the British working man?They are due to quite other causes. The conservatism and sluggishness ofour firms are due to British conceit: to the belief that when "Britainfirst at Heaven's command arose from out the azure main" she wasinvested with an eternal and unquestionable charter to act henceforthand for ever as the "workshop of the world"; and say what they will intheir inmost hearts, her manufacturers still have unshaken faith intheir destiny, and think scorn of any foreigner who presumes to crosstheir path. Therefore the British manufacturer remains conservative, andgets left by more enterprising rivals.

A word as to the superior inventiveness of the Americans. There are twogreat reasons why America produces more new and valuable patents. Thefirst cause is the eagerness of the American manufacturer to secure thenewest and the best machinery, and the apathetic contentment of theBritish manufacturer with old and cheap methods of production. There isa better market in America for inventions. The second cause is thesuperiority of the American patent law and patent office.

In England a patentee has to pay £99 for a fourteen years' patent, andeven then gets no guarantee of validity.

In England, out of 56,000 patents more than 54,000 were voided and lessthan 2000 survived.

One of the consequences of this is that American firms have a choice ofthirty-two patents where our firms haveone.

According to the American patent office report for 1897, the Americanpatents had, in seventeen years, found employment for 1,776,152 persons,besides raising wages in many cases as much as 173 per cent.

These few figures only give a view of part of the disadvantage underwhich British inventors and British manufacturers suffer.

I suggest, as the lawyers say, that British commercial conservatism andthe British patent law have as much to do with the success of our cleverand energetic American rivals as has what theTimes calls the"invincible ignorance" of the British workman who declines to sacrificehis Union to atone by longer hours and lower wages for the apathy of hisemployers and the folly of his laws.

I submit, then, that the remedy is not the destruction of the TradeUnions, nor the lowering of wages, nor the lengthening of hours, but thenationalisation of the land, the abolition of royalties, the restorationof agriculture, and the municipalisation or the nationalisation of thecollieries, the iron mines, the steel works, and the railways.

The trade of this countryis handicapped; but it is not handicapped bythe poor workers, but by the rich idlers,[Pg 109] whose enormous rents andprofits make it impossible for England to retain the foremost place inthe markets of the world.

So I submit to the British workman that, since the Press, with some fewexceptions, finds no remedy for loss of trade but in a reduction of hiswages, he would do well to look upon the Press with suspicion, and,better still, to study these questions for himself.

CHAPTER XIICAN BRITAIN FEED HERSELF?

We cannot produceall our food. We cannot produce our own tea, coffee,cocoa, oranges, lemons, currants, raisins, figs, dates, bananas,treacle, tobacco, sugar, and many other things not suitable to ourclimate. But at a pinch, as during a war, we could do without most of these.

Can we produce our own bread, meat, and vegetables? Can we produce all,or nearly all, our butter, milk, eggs, cheese, and fruit?

The great essential is bread. Can we grow our own wheat? On this point Ido not see how there can be any doubt whatever.

In 1841 Britain grew wheat for 24,000,000 of people, and at that timenot nearly all her land was in use, nor was her farming of the best.

Now we have to find food, or at any rate bread and meat and vegetables, for 40,000,000.

Wheat, then, for 40,000,000. At present we consume 29,000,000 quarters.Can we grow 29,000,000 quarters in our own country?

Certainly we can. Theaverage yield per acre in Britain is 28 bushels,or 3½ quarters. That is theaverage yield on British farms. It canbe increased; but let us take it first upon that basis.

At 3½ quarters to the acre, 8,000,000 acres would produce 28,000,000quarters; 9,000,000 acres would produce 31,500,000 quarters.

Therefore we require less than 9,000,000 acres of wheat land to grow ayear's supply of wheat for 40,000,000 persons.

Now we have in Great Britain and Ireland about 33,000,000 acres ofcultivatable land. Deduct 9,000,000 for wheat, and we have 24,000,000acres left for vegetables, fruit, cattle, sheep, pigs, and poultry.

Can any man say, in the face of these figures, that we are incapable ofgrowing our own wheat?

Suppose the average is put too high. Suppose we could only average ayield of 20 bushels to the acre, or 2½ quarters, we could still grow29,000,000 quarters on less than 12,000,000 acres.

Here I shall quote from an excellent book,Fields, Factories, andWorkshops, by Prince Kropotkin. Having gone very carefully into thefacts, the Prince has arrived at the following conclusions:—

Why, indeed, should we not be able to raise 29,000,000 quarters ofwheat? We have plenty of land. Other European countries can produce, anddo produce, their own food.

Take the example of Belgium. In Belgium the people produce their ownfood. Yet their soil is no better than ours, and their country is moredensely populated, the figures being: Great Britain, per square mile,378 persons; Belgium, per square mile, 544 persons.

Does that silence the commercial school? No. They have still oneargument left. They say that even if we can grow our own wheat we cannotgrow it as cheaply as we can buy it.

Suppose we cannot. Suppose it will cost us 2s. a quarter more to growit than to buy it. On the 23,000,000 quarters we now import we should besaving £2,000,000 a year.

Is that a very high price to pay for security against defeat bystarvation in time of war?

A battle-ship costs £1,000,000. If we build two extra battle-ships in ayear to protect our food supply we spend nearly all we gain by importingour wheat, even supposing that it costs us 2s. a quarter more to growthan to buy it.

But is it true that we cannot grow wheat as cheaply as we can buy it? Ifit is true, the fact may doubtless be put down to two causes. First,that we do not go to work in the best way, nor with the best machinery;second, that the farmer is handicapped by rent. Of course if we have topay rent to private persons for the use of our own land, that adds tothe cost of the rent.

One acre yields 28 bushels, or 3½ quarters of wheat in a year. If theland be rented at 21s. an acre that will add 6s. a quarter to the cost of wheat.

In theIndustrial History of England I find the question of why theEnglish farmer is undersold answered in this way—

If the rents were as high as £2 an acre when our poor farmers werestruggling to make both ends meet, it is little wonder they failed. Arent of £2 an acre means a land tax of more than 11s. a quarter onwheat. The price of wheat in the market at present is about 25s. aquarter. A rent charge of 21s. per acre would amount to more than£10,000,000 on the 9,000,000 we should need to grow all our wheat. Arent charge of £2 an acre would amount to[Pg 113] £18,000,000. That would be aheavy sum for our farmers to lift before they went to market.

Moreover, agriculture has been neglected because all the mechanical andchemical skill, and all the capital and energy of man, have been throwninto the struggle for trade profits and manufacturing pre-eminence. Wewant a few Faradays, Watts, Stephensons, and Cobdens to devote theirgenius and industry to the great food question. Once let the publicinterest and the public genius be concentrated upon the agriculture ofEngland, and we shall soon get silenced the croakers who talk about theimpossibility of the country feeding her people.

But is it true that under fair conditions wheat can be brought from theother side of the world and sold here at a price with which we cannotcompete? Prince Kropotkin thinks not. He says the French can producetheir food more cheaply than they can buy it; and if the French can dothis, why cannot we?

But in case it should be thought that I am prejudiced in favour ofPrince Kropotkin's book or against the factory system, I will here printa quotation from a criticism of the book which appeared in theTimesnewspaper, which paper can hardly be suspected of any leanings towardsPrince Kropotkin, or of any eagerness to acknowledge that the presentindustrial system possesses "acknowledged evils."

Just notice what the ToryTimes says about "the tenacity ofvestedinterests" and the "acknowledged evils of the present industrialsystem." It is a great deal for theTimes to say.

Prince Kropotkin deals as satisfactorily with the question[Pg 114] ofmeat-growing as with that of growing wheat, and his conclusion is this—

I have, I think, quoted enough to show that there is no natural obstacleto our production in this country of all the food our people need.Britaincan feed herself, and therefore, upon the ground of her usefor foreign-grown food, the factory system is not necessary.

But I hope my readers will buy this book of Prince Kropotkin, and readit. For it is a very fine book, a much better book than I can write.

It can be ordered from theClarion Office, 72 Fleet Street, and theprice is 1s. 3d. post free.

As to the vegetables and the fruit, I must refer you to the Prince'sbook; but I shall quote a few passages just to give an idea of whatcan be done, andis being done, in other countries in the way ofintensive cultivation of vegetables and fruit.

Prince Kropotkin says that the question of soil is a commonstumbling-block to those who write about agriculture. Soil, he says,does not matter now, nor climate very much. There is a quite new scienceof agriculture whichmakes its own soil and modifies its climate. Cornand fruit can be grown onany soil—on rock, on sand, on clay.

These arefacts, not theories. Here is another quotation from PrinceKropotkin's book. It also relates to America—

I shall only make one more quotation. It alludes to the intensivewheat-growing on Major Hallett's method in France, and is as follows:—

Now remember that our agricultural labourers crowd into the towns andcompete with the town labourers for work. Remember that we have millionsof acres of land lying idle, and generally from a quarter tothree-quarters of a million of men unemployed. Then consider this position.

Here we have a million acres of good land producing nothing, and half amillion men also producing nothing. Land and labour, the two factors ofwealth production, both[Pg 116] idle. Could we not set the men to work? Ofcourse we could. Would it pay? To be sure it would pay.

In America, on soil no better than ours, one man can by one day's labourproduce one man's year's bread. That is, 8½ bushels of wheat.

Suppose we organise our out-of-works under skilled farmers, and givethem the best machinery. Suppose they only produce one-half the Americanproduct. They will still be earning more than their keep.

Or set them to work, under skilled directors, on the French or theBelgian plan, at the intensive cultivation of vegetables. Let them growhuge crops of potatoes, carrots, beans, peas, onions; and in the coalcounties, where fuel is cheap, let them raise tomatoes and grapes, underglass, and they will produce wealth, and be no longer starvelings or paupers.

Another good plan would be to allow a Municipality to obtain land, undera Compulsory Purchase Act, at a fair rent and near a town, and to reletthe land to gardeners and small farmers, to work on the French andBelgian systems. Let the local Corporation find the capital to make soiland lay down heating and draining pipes. Let the Corporation charge rentand interest, buy the produce from the growers and resell it to thecitizens, and let the tenant gardeners be granted fixity of tenure andfair payment for improvements, and we shall increase and improve ourfood supply, lessen the overcrowding in our towns, and reduce theunemployed to the small number of lazy men whowill not work.

It is the imperative duty of every British citizen to insist upon theGovernment doing everything that can be done to restore the nationalagriculture and to remove the dreadful danger of famine in time of war.

National granaries should be formed at once, and at least a year'ssupply of wheat should be kept in stock.

What is Protection? It is a tax on foreign wheat. What would be theresult of Protection? The result would be[Pg 117] that the landowner would gethigher rents and the people would get dearer bread.

How true is Tolstoy's gibe, that "the rich man will do anything for thepoor man—except get off his back." "Our agriculture," the Toryprotectionist shrieks, "is perishing. Our farmers cannot make a living.Our landlords cannot let their farms. The remedy is Protection." A trulypractical Tory suggestion. "The farmers cannot pay our rents. Britishagriculture is dying out. Let us put a tax upon the poor man's bread."

Yes; Protection is a remedy, but it must be the protection of the farmeragainst the landlord. Give our farmers fixity of tenure, compensationfor improvements, and prevent the landlord from taxing the industry andbrains of the farmer by increase of rent, and British agriculture willsoon rear its head again.

Quite recently we have had an example of Protection. The coal ownerscombined and raised the price of coal some 6s. to 10s. a ton. It is saidthey cleared more than £60,000,000 sterling on the deal. What good didthat do the workers? Did the colliers get any of the spoil in wages? No;that money is lying up ready to crush the colliers when they next strike.

It is the same story over and over again. We cannot have cheap coalbecause the rich owners demand big fortunes; we cannot have cheap housesor decent homes because the landlords raise the rents faster than thepeople can increase our trade; we cannot grow our food as cheaply as wecan buy it because the rich owners of the land squeeze the farmer dryand make it impossible for him to live. And the harder the collier, theweaver, the farmer, and the mechanic work, the harder the landlord andthe capitalist squeeze. The industry, skill, and perseverance of theworkers avail nothing but to make a few rich and idle men richer and more idle.

As I have repeatedly pointed out before, we have by sacrificing ouragriculture destroyed our insular position. As an island we may be, orshould be, free from serious danger of invasion. But of what avail isour vaunted silver shield of the sea if we depend upon other nations forour[Pg 118] food? We are helpless in case of a great war. It is not necessaryto invade England in order to conquer her. Once our food supply isstopped we are shut up like a beleagured city to starve or to surrender.

Stop the import of food into England for three months, and we shall beobliged to surrender at discretion.

And our agriculture is to be ruined, and the safety and honour of theEmpire are to be endangered, that a few landlords, coal owners, andmoney-lenders may wax fat upon the vitals of the nation.

So, I say, we do need Protection; but it is the protection of ourfarmers and colliers, our weavers and our mechanics, our homes, ourhealth, our food, our cities, our children and women, yes, our nationalexistence—against the rapacity of the rich lords, employers, andmoney-lenders, who impudently pose as the champions of patriotism andthe expansion of the Empire.

Again, I recommend every Socialist to read the new edition of PrinceKropotkin'sFields, Factories, and Workshops.

CHAPTER XIIITHE SUCCESSFUL MAN

There are many who believe that if all the workers became abstainers,worked harder, lived sparely, and saved every penny they could; and thatif they avoided early marriages and large families, they would all behappy and prosperous without Socialism.

And, of course, these same persons believe that the bulk of thesuffering and poverty of the poor is due to drink, to thriftlessness,and to imprudent marriages.

I know that many, very many, do believe these things, because I used tomeet such persons when I went out lecturing.

Now I know that belief to be wrong. I know that if every working man andwoman in England turned teetotaler to-morrow, if they all remainedsingle, if they all worked like niggers, if they all worked for twelvehours a day, if they lived on oatmeal and water, and if they saved everyfarthing they could spare, they would, at the end of twenty years, be agreat deal worse off than they are to-day.

Sobriety, thrift, industry, skill, self-denial, holiness, are all goodthings; but they would, if adopted byall the workers, simply enrichthe idle and the wicked, and reduce the industrious and the righteous to slavery.

Teetotalism will not do; industry will not do; saving will not do;increased skill will not do; keeping single will not do; reducing thepopulation will not do. Nothingwill do butSocialism.

I will begin by answering a statement made by a Tory M.P. As reported inthe Press, the M.P. said, "There[Pg 120] was nothing to prevent the son of acrossing-sweeper from rising to be Lord Chancellor of England."

This, at first sight, would seem to have nothing to do with the theoriesregarding thrift, temperance, and prudent marriages. But we shall findthat it arises from the same error.

This error has two faces. On one face it says that any man may do wellif he will try, and on the other face it says that those who do not dowell have no one but themselves to blame.

The error rises from a slight confusion of thought. Men know that a manmay rise from the lowest place in life to almost the highest, and theysuppose that because one man can do it,all men can do it; they knowthat if one man works hard, saves, keeps sober, and remains single, hewill get more money than other men who drink and spend and take lifeeasily, and they suppose because thrift, single life, industry, andtemperance spell success to one man, they would spell success toall.

I will show you that this is a mistake, and I will show you why it is amistake. Let us begin with the crossing-sweeper.

We are told that "there is nothing to prevent the son ofacrossing-sweeper from becoming Lord Chancellor of England." But our M.P.does not mean that there is nothing to prevent the son of some oneparticular crossing-sweeper from becoming Chancellor; he means thatthere is nothing to preventany son ofany crossing-sweeper, or theson ofany very poor man, from becoming rich and famous.

There are in all England, let us say, some 2,000,000 of poor andfriendless and untaught boys.

And there isone Lord Chancellor. Now, it is just possible foroneboy out of the 2,000,000 to become Lord Chancellor; but it is quiteimpossible forall the boys, or even for one boy in 1000, or for oneboy in 10,000, to become Lord Chancellor.

Our M.P. means that if a boy is clever and industrious he may become Lord Chancellor.

But supposeall the boys are as clever and as industrious as he is,they cannotall become chancellors.

The one boy can only succeed because he is stronger, cleverer, morepushing, more persistent, or morelucky than any other boy.

In my story,Bob's Fairy, this very point is raised. I will quote itfor you here. Bob, who is a boy, is much troubled about the poor; hisfather, who is a self-made man and mayor of his native town, tells Bobthat the poor are suffering because of their own faults. The parson thentries to make Bob understand—

Do you see the idea? The poor cannotall be mayors and chancellors andmillionaires, because there are too many of them and not enough highplaces.

But they can all be asses, and they will be asses, if they listen tosuch rubbish as that uttered by this Tory M.P.

You have twenty men starting for a race. You may say, "There is nothingto prevent any man from winning the race," but you mean any one man whois luckier or swifter than the rest. You would never be foolish enoughto believe thatall the men could win. You know that nineteen of themenmust lose.

So we know that in a race for the Chancellorshiponly one boy can win,and the other 1,999,999must lose.

It is the same thing with temperance, industry, and cleverness. Of10,000 mechanics one is steadier, more industrious, and more skilfulthan the others. Therefore he will get work where the others cannot. Butwhy? Because he is worth more as a workman. But don't you see that ifall the others were as good as he, he wouldnot be worth more?

Then you see that to tell 1,000,000 men that they will get more work ormore wages if they are cleverer, or soberer, or more industrious, is asfoolish as to tell the twenty men starting for a race that they can allwin if they will all try.

If all the men were just as fast as the winner, the race would end in a dead heat.

There is a fire panic in a big hall. The hall is full of people, andthere is only one door. A rush is made for that door. Some of the crowdget out, some are trampled to death, some are injured, some are burned.

Those nearest to the door have a better chance than those farthest, havethey not?

And the men have a better chance than the women, and the children theworst chance of all. Is it not so?

Then, again, which is most likely to be saved—the selfish man whofights and drags others down, who stands upon the fallen bodies of womenand children, and wins his way by force; or the brave and gentle man whotries to help the women and the children, and will not trample upon the wounded?

Don't you know that the noble and brave man stands a[Pg 123] poor chance ofescape, and that the selfish, brutal man stands a good chance of escape?

Well, now, suppose a man to have got out, perhaps because he was nearthe door, or perhaps because he was very strong, or perhaps because hewas very lucky, or perhaps because he did not stop to help the women andchildren, and suppose him to stand outside the door, and cry out to thestruggling and dying creatures in the burning hall, "Serves you jollywell right if youdo suffer. Why don't you get out?I got out. Youcan get out if youtry.There is nothing to prevent any one of youfrom getting out."

Suppose a man talked like that, what would you say of him? Would youcall him a sensible man? Would you call him a Christian? Would you call him a gentleman?

You will say I am severe. I am. Every time a successful man talks asthis M.P. talks he inflicts a brutal insult upon the unsuccessful, manythousands of whom, both men and women, are worthier and better than himself.

But let us go back to our subject. That fire panic in the big hall is apicture oflife as it is to-day.

It is a scramble of a big crowd to get through a small door. Those whoget through are cheered and rewarded, and few questions are asked as tohow they got through.

Suppose the hall to be divided into three parts. First the stalls, thenthe pit stalls, then the pit. Suppose the only door is the door in thestalls. Suppose the people in the pit stalls have to climb a highbarrier to get to the stalls. Suppose those in the pit have to climb ahigh barrier to get to the pit stalls, and then the high barrier thatparts the pit stalls from the stalls. Suppose there is, right at theback of the pit, a small, weak boy. Now, I ask you, as sensible men, isthere "nothing to prevent" that boy from getting through that door? Youknow the boy has only the smallest of chances of getting out of thathall. But he has a thousand times a better chance of getting safely outof[Pg 124] that door than the son of a crossing-sweeper has of becoming LordChancellor of England.

In our hall the upper classes would sit in the stalls, the middleclasses in the pit stalls, and the workers in the pit.Whose son wouldhave the best chance for the door?

I compared the race for the Chancellorship just now to a foot-race oftwenty men; and I showed you that if all the runners were as fleet asgreyhounds only one could win, and nineteenmust lose.

But the M.P.'s crossing-sweeper's son has to enter a race where thereare millions of starters, and where the race is ahandicap in which heis on scratch, with thousands of men more than half the course in frontof him.

For don't you see that this race which the lucky or successful men tellus we canall win is not a fair race?

The son of the crossing-sweeper has terrible odds against him. The sonof the gentleman has a long start, and carries less weight.

What are the qualities needed in a race for the Chancellorship? The boywho means to win must be marvellously strong, clever, brave, and persevering.

Now, will he be likely to be strong? Hemay be, but the odds areagainst him. His father may not be strong nor his mother, for they mayhave worked hard, and they may not have been well fed, nor well nursed,nor well doctored. They probably live in a slum, and they cannot train,nor teach, nor feed their son in a healthy and proper way, because theyare ignorant and poor. And the boy gets a few years at a board school,and then goes to work.

But the gentleman's son is well bred, well fed, well nursed, welltrained, and lives in a healthy place. He goes to good schools, and fromschool to college.

And when he leaves college he has money to pay fees, and he has a name,and he has education; and I ask you, what are the odds against the sonof a crossing-sweeper in a race like that?

Well, there is not a single case where men are striving for wealth orfor place where the sons of the workers are not handicapped in the sameway. Now and again a[Pg 125] worker's son wins. He may win because he is agenius like Stephenson or Sir William Herschel; or he may win because heis cruel and unscrupulous, like Jay Gould; or he may win because he is lucky.

But it is folly to say that there is "nothing to prevent him" fromwinning. There is almost everything to prevent him. To begin with, hischances of dying before he's five years old are about ten times asnumerous as the chances of a rich man's son.

Look at Lord Salisbury. He is Prime Minister of England. Had he beenborn the son of a crossing-sweeper do you think he would have been Prime Minister?

I would undertake to find a hundred better minds than Lord Salisbury'sin any English town of 10,000 inhabitants. But will any one of the boysI should select become Prime Minister of England? You know they willnot. But yet they ought to, if "there is nothing to prevent them."

But there is something to prevent them. There is poverty to preventthem, there is privilege to prevent them, there is snobbery to preventthem, there is class feeling to prevent them, there are hundreds ofother things to prevent them, and amongst those hundreds of other thingsto prevent them from becoming Prime Ministers I hope that their ownhonesty and goodness and wisdom may be counted; for honesty and goodnessand true wisdom are things which will often prevent a poor boy who islucky enough to possess them from ever becoming what the world ofpolitics and commerce considers a "successful man."

Do not believe the doctrine that the rich and poor, the successful andthe unsuccessful, get what they deserve. If that were true we shouldfind intelligence and virtue keeping level with income. Then themechanic at 30s. a week would be half as good again as the labourer at20s. a week; the small merchant, making £200 a year, would be a farbetter man than one mechanic; the large merchant, making £2000 a year,would be ten times as good as the small merchant; and the millionairewould be too intellectual, too noble, and too righteous for this sinful world.

But don't you know that there are stupid and drunken mechanics, andsteady and intelligent labourers? And[Pg 126] don't you know that somesuccessful men are rascals, and that some very wealthy men are fools?

Take the story of Jacob and Esau. After Jacob cheated his hungry brotherinto selling his birthright for a mess of pottage, Jacob was rich andEsau poor. Did each get what he deserved? Was Jacob the better man?

Christ lived poor, a homeless wanderer, and died the death of a felon.Jay Gould made millions of money, and died one of the wealthiest men inthe world. Did each get what he deserved? Did the wealth of Gould andthe poverty of Christ indicate the intellectual and moral merits ofthose two sons of men?

Some of us would get whipped if all of us got our deserts; but who woulddeserve applause and wealth and a crown?

In a sporting handicap the weakest have the most start: in real life thestrongest have the start and the weakest are put on scratch.

And Ihave heard it hinted that the man who runs the straightest doesnot always win.

CHAPTER XIVTEMPERANCE AND THRIFT

I said in the previous chapter that ifall the workers were verythrifty, sober, industrious, and abstemious they would be worse off inthe matter of wages than they are now.

This, at first sight, seems strange, because we know that the sober andthrifty workman is generally better off than the workman who drinks orwastes his money.

But why is he better off? He is better off because, being a steady man,he can often get work when an unsteady man cannot. He is better offbecause he buys things that add to his comfort, or he saves money, andso grows more independent. And he is able to save money, and to make hishome more cosy, because, while he is more regularly employed than theunsteady men, his wages remain the same, or, perhaps, are somethinghigher than theirs.

That is to say, he benefits by his own steadiness and thrift because hissteadiness makes him a more reliable, and therefore a more valuable,workman than one who is not steady.

But, you see, he is only more valuable because other men are lesssteady. If all the other workmen were as steady as he is he would be nomore valuable than they are. Not being more valuable than they are, hewould not be more certain of getting work.

That is to say, if all the workers were sober and thrifty, they wouldall be of equal value to the employer.

But you may say they would still be better off than if they drank andwasted their wages. They would have better health, and they would havehappier lives and more comfortable homes.

Yes, so long as their wages were as high as before. But their wageswouldnot be as high as before.

You must know that as things now are, where all the work is in the giftof private employers, and where wages and prices are ruled bycompetition, and where new inventions of machinery are continuallythrowing men out of work, and where farm labourers are always driftingto the towns, there are more men in need of work than work can be found for.

Now, under competition, where two men offer themselves for one place,you know that the place will be given to the man who will take the lower wage.

And you know that the thrifty and the sober man can live on less thanthe thriftless man.

And you know that where two or more employers are offering their goodsagainst each other for sale in the open market, the one who sells hisgoods the cheapest will get the trade. And you know that in order tosell their goods at a cheaper rate than other dealers, the employerswill try toget their goods at the cheapest rate possible.

And you know that with most goods the chief cost is the cost of thelabour used in the making—that is to say, the wages of the workers.

Very well, you have more workers than are needed, so that there iscompetition amongst those workers as to who shall be employed.

And all the workers being sober and thrifty, they can all live on lessthan when many of them were wasteful and fond of drink.

Then, on the other hand, all the employers are competing for the trade,and so are all wanting cheap labour; and so are eager to lower wages.

Therefore wages will come down, and the general thrift and steadiness ofthe workers will make them poorer. Do you doubt this? What is that talethe masters so often tell[Pg 129] you? Do they not tell you that Englanddepends upon her foreign trade for her food? And do they not tell youthat foreign traders are stealing the trade from the English traders?And do they not tell you that the foreign traders can undersell us inthe world's markets because their labour is cheaper? And do they not saythat if the British workers wish to keep the foreign trade they willhave to be as thrifty and as industrious and as sober as the foreign workers?

Well, what does that mean? It means that if the British workers were asthrifty and sober and industrious as the foreign workers, they couldlive on less than they now need. It means that if you were allteetotalers and all thrifty, you could work for less wages than they nowpay, and so they would be able to sell their goods at a lower price thanthey can now; and thus they would keep the foreign trade.

Is not that all quite clear and plain? And is it not true that inFrance, in Germany, and all other countries where the workers live moresparely, and are more temperate than the workers are in England, thewages are lower and the hours of work longer?

And is it not true that the Chinese and the Hindoos, who are the mosttemperate and the most thrifty people in the world, are always the worst paid?

And do you not know very well that the "Greeners"—the foreign Jews whocome to England for work and shelter—are very sober and very thriftyand very industrious men, and that they are about the worst-paid workersin this country?

Take now, as an example, the case of the cotton trade. The masters tellyou that they find it hard to compete against the Indian factories, andthey say if Lancashire wants to keep the trade the Lancashire workersmust accept the conditions of the Indian workers.

The Indian workers live chiefly on rice and water, and work far longerhours than do the English workers.

And don't you see that if the Lancashire workers would live upon riceand water, the masters would soon have their wages down to rice and water point?

And then the Indians would have to live on less, or work still longerhours, and so the game would go on.

And who would reap the benefit? The English masters and the Indianmasters (who are often one and the same) would still take a large share,but the chief benefit of the fall in price would go to the buyers—orusers, or "consumers"—of the goods.

That is to say, that the workers of India and of England would bestarved and sweated, so that the natives of other countries could have cheap clothing.

If you doubt what I say, look at the employers' speeches, read thenewspapers which are in the employers' pay, add two and two together,and you will find it all out for yourselves.

To return to the question of temperance and thrift. You see, I hope,that ifall the people were sober and thrifty they would be reallyworse off than they now are. This is because the workers must have work,must ask the employers to give them work, and must ask employers who,being in competition with each other, are always trying to get the workdone at the lowest price.

And the lowest price is always the price which the bulk of the workersare content to live upon.

In all foreign nations where the standard of living is lower than inEngland, you will find that the wages are lower also.

Have we not often heard our manufacturers declare that if the Britishworkers would emulate the thrift and sobriety of the foreigner theymight successfully compete against foreign competition in the foreignmarket? What does that mean, but that thrift would enable our people tolive on less, and so to accept less wages?

It is because capitalism always keeps the wages down to the loweststandard of subsistence which the people will accept.

So long as our English women will consent to work long hours, and liveon tea and bread, the "law of supply and demand" will maintain thepresent condition of sweating in the shirt trade.

If all our women became firmly convinced that they could not existwithout chops and bottled stout, the wagesmust go up to a price topay for those things.

Because there would be no women offering to live on tea and bread; andshirtsmust be had.

But what is the result of the abstinence of these poor sisters of ours?Low wages for themselves, and, for others?——

A young merchant wants a dozen shirts. He pays 10s. each for them. Hemeets a friend who only gave 8s. for his. He goes to the 8s. shop andsaves 2s. This is clear profit, and he spends it in cigars, orchampagne, or in some other luxury;and the poor seamstress lives on toast and tea.

But although I say that sobriety and thrift, if adopted byall theworkers, would result in lower wages, you are not to suppose that Iadvise you all to be drunkards and spendthrifts.

No. The proper thing is to do away with competition. At present theemployers, in the scramble to undersell each other, actually fine youfor your virtue and self-denial by lowering your wages, just as thelandlords fine a tenant for improving his land or enlarging his house orextending his business—fine him by raising his rent.

The idea seems to be that a man should not marry until he is "in aposition to keep a wife." And it is a very common thing for employers,and other well-to-do persons, to tell working men that they "have noright to bring children into the world until they are able to provide for them."

Now let us clear the ground a little before we begin to deal with thisquestion on its economic side—that is, as it affects wages.

It is bad for men and women to marry too young. It is bad for tworeasons. Firstly, because the body is not mature; and secondly, becausethe mind is not settled. That is to say, an over-early marriage has abad effect on the health; and since young people must, in the nature[Pg 132] ofthings, change very much as they grow older, an over-early marriage is often unhappy.

I think a woman would be wise not to marry before she is aboutfour-and-twenty; and I think it is better that the husband should befrom five to ten years older than the wife.

Then it is very bad for a woman to have many children; and not only isit bad for her health, but it destroys nearly all the pleasure of herlife, so that she is an enfeebled and weary drudge through her bestyears, and is old before her time.

That much conceded, I ask you, Mr. John Smith, what do you think of therequest that you shall work hard, live spare, and give up a man's rightto love, to a home, to children, in order that you may be able to "makea living"? Such a living is not worth working for. It would be a manlierand a happier lot to die.

I cannot really understand aman selling his love and his manhood, andtalking like a coward or a slave about "imprudent marriages"; and allfor permission to drudge at an unwelcome task, and to eat and sleep fora few lonely and dishonourable years in a loveless and childless world.

You don't thinkthat is going to save you, men, do you? You don'tthink you are going to make the best of life by selling for the sake ofdrudgery and bread and butter your proud man's right to work for, fightfor, and die for the woman you love?

For, having sold your love for permission to work, how long will you bebefore you sell your honour? Nay, is it not true that many of you havesold it already?

For every man who works at jerry work, or takes a part[Pg 133] in any kind ofadulteration, scampery, or trade rascality, is selling his honour forwages, and is just as big a scamp and a good deal more of a coward thana burglar or a highwayman.

And the commercial travellers and the canvassers and the agents who gettheir living by telling lies,—as some of them do,—do you call thosemen?

And the gentlemen of the Press who write against their convictions for asalary, and for the sake of a suburban villa, a silk hat, and some cheapclaret, devote their energies and talents to the perpetuation offalsehood and wrong—do you callthose men?

If we cannot keep our foreign trade without giving up our love and ourmanhood and our honour, it is time the foreign trade went to the deviland took the British employers with it.

If the state of things in England to-day makes it impossible for men andwomen to love and marry, then the state of things in England to-day will not do.

Well, do you still think that single life, a crust of bread, and rags,will alone enable you to hold your own and to keep your foreign trade?And do you still think that poverty is a mark of unworthiness, andwealth the sure proof of merit? If so, just read these few lines from anarticle by a Tory Minister, Sir John Gorst—

Now, contrast those sensible and kindly words with the followingquotation from a mercantile journal:—

Yes! But he has other "rights." He has the right to combine to defeatattempts to rob him of work or to lower his wages; he has the right tovote for parliamentary and municipal candidates who will alter the lawsand the conditions of society which enable a few greedy and heartlessmen to disorganise the industries of the nation, to keep the Briton offthe land which is his birthright, to exploit the brain and the sinew ofthe people, and to condemn millions of innocent and helpless women andchildren to poverty, suffering, ignorance, and too often to disgrace or early death.

A man, John Smith, has the right tobe a man, and, if he is a Briton,has a right to be a free man. It is to persuade every man in Britain toexercise this right, and to do his duty to the children and the women ofhis class and family, that I am publishing this book.

"The right to do work if he can get it," John, and to starve if he cannot get it.

How long will you allow these insolent market-men to insult you? Howlong will you allow a mob of money-lending, bargain-driving,dividend-snatching parasites to live on you, to scorn you, and to treatyou as "live stock"? How long? How long?

CHAPTER XVTHE SURPLUS LABOUR MISTAKE

Many non-Socialists believe that the cause of poverty is "surpluslabour," or over-population, and they tell us that if we could reduceour population we should have no poor.

If this were true, we should find that in thinly populated countries theworkers fare better than in countries where the population is more dense.

The population of Ireland is thin. There are more people in London thanin all Ireland. Yet the working people of Ireland are worse off than theworking people of England.

The population of Scotland is thinner than that of England, but wagesrule higher in England.

In Australia there is a large country and a small population, but thereis plenty of poverty.

In the Middle Ages the entire population of England would only be a fewmillions—say four or five millions—whereas it is now nearly thirtymillions. Yet the working classes are very much better off to-day thanthey were in the eighth and ninth centuries.

Reduce the population of Britain to one million and the workers would bein no better case than they are now. Increase the population to sixtymillions and the workers will be no worse off—at least so far as wagesare concerned.

I will give you the reason for this in a few words, using anillustration which used to serve me for the same purpose in one of my lectures.

No one will deny that all wealth—whether food, tools, clothing,furniture, machines, arms, or houses—comes fromthe land.

For we feed our cattle and poultry on the land, and get from the landcorn, malt, hops, iron, timber, and every other thing we use, exceptfish and a few sea-drugs; and we could not get fish without nets andboats, nor make nets and boats without fibre and wood and metals.

Stand a decanter and a tumbler on a bare table. Call the table Britain,call the decanter a landlord, and call the tumbler a labourer.

Now no man can produce wealth without land. If, then, Lord de Canterowns all the land, and Tommy Tumbler owns none, how is Tommy Tumbler toget his living?

He will have to work for Lord de Canter, and he will have to take thewage his lordship offers him.

Now you cannot say that Britain is over-populated with only two men, northat it is suffering from a superfluity of labour when there is only onelabourer. And yet you observe that with only two men in the country oneis rich and the other poor.

Look at this diagram. A square board, with two men on it; one is blackand one is white.

Call the board England, the black pawn a landlord, and the white pawn a labourer.

Let me repeat that every useful thing comes out of the land, and thenask this simple question: Ifall the land—the whole ofEngland—belongs to the black man, how is the white man going to get his living?

You see, although the population of England consists of[Pg 137] only two men,if one of these men ownsall the land, the other man must starve, orsteal, or beg, or work for wages.

Now, suppose our white man works for wages—works for the blackman—what is going to regulate the wages? Will the fact that there isonly one beggar make that beggar any richer? If there were ten whitemen, andall the land belonged to the black man, the ten whites wouldbe as well off as the one white was, for the landowner could find themall work, and could get them to work for just as much as they could live on.

No: that idea of raising wages by reducing the population is a mistake.Do not the workersmake the wealth? They do. And is it not odd to saythat we will increase the wealth by reducing the number of the wealth makers?

But perhaps you think the workers might get a biggershare of thewealth if there were fewer of them.

How? Our black man owns all England. He has 100 whites working for himat wages just big enough to keep them alive. Of those 100 whites 50 die.Will the black man raise the wages of the remaining 50? Why should he?There is no reason why he should. But there is this reason why he shouldnot, viz. that as he has now only 50 men working for him, he will onlybe half as rich as he was when he had 100 men working for him. But theland is still his, and the whites are still in his power. He will stillpay them just as much as they can live on, and no more.

But you may say that if the workers decreased and the masters did notdecrease in numbers, wages must rise.

Suppose you have in the export cotton trade 100 masters and 100,000workers. Half the workers die. You have now 100 masters and 50,000 workers.

Then you may say that, as foreign countries would still want the work of100,000 workers, the 100 masters would compete as to which got thebiggest orders, and so wages would rise.

But bear in mind two things. First, if the foreign workers were asnumerous as before, the English masters could import hands; second, ifthe foreign workers died out as fast[Pg 138] as the English, there would onlybe half as many foreigners needing shirts, and so the trade would keeppace with the decrease in workers, and the wages would remain as they were.

To improve the wages of the English workers the price of cotton goodsmust rise or the profits of the masters must be cut down.

But now go back to our England with the three men in it. Here is theblack landlord, rich and idle; and the two white workers, poor andindustrious. One of the workers dies. The landlord gets less money, butthe remaining worker gets no more.There are only two men in allEngland, and one of them is poor.

But suppose we have one black landlord and 100 white workers, and theworkers adopt Socialism. Then every man of the 101 will have just whathe earns, andall that he earns, and all will be free men.

Thus you see that under Socialism a big population will be better offthan the smallest population can be under non-Socialism.

But, the non-Socialist objects, wages are ruled by competition, and mustfall when the supply of labour exceeds the demand; and when that happensit is because the country is over-populated.

I admit that the supply of labour often exceeds the demand, and thatwhen it does, wages may come down. But I deny that an excess of labourover the demand for labour proves the country to be over-populated. Whatit does prove is that the country is badly governed andunder-cultivated.

A country is over-populated when its soil cannot yield food for itspeople. At present our population is about 40,000,000 and our soil wouldsupport more than double the number.

There are, let us say, more shoemakers and tailors than there isemployment for. But are there no bare feet and[Pg 139] ill-clothed backs?Certainly. The bulk of our workers are not properly shod or clothed. Itis not, then, true to say that we have more tailors and shoemakers thanwe require; but we ought to say instead that our tailors and shoemakerscannot live by their trades because the rest of the workers are too poorto pay them. Now, why are the rest of the workers too poor to buy bootsand clothing? Is it because there are too many of them? Let us take aninstance: the farm labourer. He cannot afford boots. Why? He is toopoor. Why? Not because there are too many farm labourers,—for there aretoo few,—but because the wages of farm labourers are low. Why are theylow? Because agriculture is neglected, and because rents are high. So wecome back to my original statement, that the evil is due to the privateownership of land.

But, again, it may be asserted that we have always about half a millionof men unemployed, and that these men prove the existence of superfluous labour.

Not at all. There are half a million of men out of work, but there aremany millions of acres idle. Abolish private ownership of land, and thenation, being now owner ofall land, can at once find work for thatso-called "superfluous labour."

All wealth comes from the land. All wealth must be got from the land bylabour. Given a sufficient quantity of land, one man can produce fromthe land more wealth than one man can consume. Therefore, as long asthere is a sufficiency of land there can be no such thing as"superfluous labour," and no such thing as over-population. Givenmachinery and combination, and probably one man can produce from theland enough wealth for ten to consume. Why, then, should there be anysuch thing as poverty?

One fundamental truth of economics is that every able-bodied and willingworker is worth more than his keep.

There is such a thing as locked-out labour, but there is no such thingin this country as useless labour. While we have land lying idle, andwhile we have to import our food, how can we be so foolish as to call aman who is excluded[Pg 140] from the land superfluous? He is one of the factorsof wealth, and land is the other. Set the man on the land and he willproduce wealth. At present he is out of work and the land out of use.But are either of them superfluous? No; we need both.

CHAPTER XVIIS SOCIALISM POSSIBLE, AND WILL IT PAY?

Non-Socialists assert with the utmost confidence that Socialism isimpossible. Let us consider this statement in a practical way.

We are told that Socialism is impossible. That means that the peoplehave not the ability to manage their own affairs, and must, perforce,give nearly all the wealth they produce to the superior persons who atpresent are kind enough to own, to govern, and to manage Britain for the British.

A bold statement! The peoplecannot manage their own business: it isimpossible. They cannot farm the land, and build the factories, andweave the cloth, and feed and clothe and house themselves; they are notable to do it. They must have landlords and masters to do it for them.

But the joke is that these landlords and masters donot do it for thepeople. The people do it for the landlords and masters; and the lattergentlemen make the people pay them for allowing the people to work.

But the people can only produce wealth under supervision; they must havesuperior persons to direct them. So the non-Socialist declares.

Another bold assertion, which is not true. For nearly all those thingswhich the non-Socialist tells us are impossibleare being done. Nearlyall those matters of management, of which the people are said to beincapable, are being accomplished by the peoplenow.

For if the nation can build warships, why can they not build cargoships? If they can make rifles, why not sewing machines or ploughs? Ifthey can build forts, why not[Pg 142] houses? If they can make policemen'sboots and soldiers' coats, why not make ladies' hats and mechanics'trousers? If they can pickle beef for the navy, why should they not makejam for the household? If they can run a railway across the Africandesert, why should they not run one from London to York?

Look at the Co-operative Societies. They own and run cargo ships. Theyimport and export goods. They make boots and foods. They build their ownshops and factories. They buy and sell vast quantities of useful things.

Look at the post office. If the nation can carry its own letters, whynot its own coals? If it can manage its telegraphs, why not itsrailways, its trams, its cabs, its factories?

Look at the London County Council and the Glasgow and ManchesterCorporations. If these bodies of public servants can builddwelling-houses, make roads, tunnels, and sewers, carry water fromThirlmere to Manchester, manage the Ship Canal, make and supply gas, ownand work tramways, and take charge of art galleries, baths, wash-houses,and technical schools, what is there that landlords or masters do, orget done, which the cities and towns cannot do better and more cheaply for themselves?

What sense is there in pretending that the colliers could not get coalunless they paid rent to a lord, or that the railways could not carrycoal unless they paid dividends to a company, or that the weaver couldnot make shirtings, nor the milliners bonnets, nor the cutlers blades,just as well for the nation as for Mr. Bounderby or my Lord Tomnoddy?

Do not believe them. Youhave got the capital. Where? In your brainsand in your arms, whereall the capital comes from.

Why, if what the "Impossibles" tell us be true—if the people are notable to do anything for themselves as well as the private dealers ormakers can do it for them—the gas[Pg 143] and water companies ought to have nofear of being cut out in price and quality by any County Council or Corporation.

But the "Impossibles" know very well that, directly the people set up ontheir own account, the private trader or maker is beaten. Let onedistrict of London begin to make its own gas, and see what will happenin the other districts.

Twenty years ago this cry of "Impossible" was not so easy to dispose of,but to-day it can be silenced by the logic of accomplished facts. Forwithin the last score of years the Municipalities of London, Glasgow,Liverpool, Manchester, Bradford, Birmingham, Bolton, Leicester, andother large towns haveproved that the Municipalities can manage largeand small enterprises efficiently, and that in all cases it is to theadvantage of the ratepayers, of the consumers, and of the workers thatprivate management should be displaced by management under the Municipality.

Impossible? Why, the capital already invested in municipal works amountsto nearly £100,000,000. And the money is well invested, and all the work is prosperous.

Municipalities own and manage waterworks, gasworks, tramways,telephones, electric lighting, markets, baths, piers, docks, parks,farms, dwelling-houses, abattoirs, cemeteries, crematoriums, libraries,schools, art galleries, hotels, dairies, colleges, and technicalschools. Many of the Municipalities also provide concerts, open-airmusic, science classes, and lectures; and quite recently the AlexandraPalace has been municipalised, and is now being successfully run by thepeople and for the people.

How, then, canSocialism be called impossible? As a matter of factSocialism is only a method of extending State management, as in thePost Office, and Municipal management, as in the cases above named,until State and Municipal management becomes universal all through the kingdom.

Where is the impossibility of that? If a Corporation can manage trams,gas, and water, why can it not manage bread, milk, meat, and beer supplies?

If Bradford can manage one hotel, why not more than one? If Bradford canmanage more than one hotel, why[Pg 144] cannot London, Glasgow, Leeds, andPortsmouth do the same?

If the German, Austrian, French, Italian, Belgian, and other Governmentscan manage the railway systems of their countries, why cannot theBritish Government manage theirs?

If the Government can manage a fleet of war vessels, why not fleets ofliners and traders? If the Government can manage post and telegraphservices, why not telephones and coalmines?

The answer to all these questions is that the Government and theMunicipalities have proved that they can manage vast and intricatebusinesses, and can manage them more cheaply, more efficiently, and moreto the advantage and satisfaction of the public than the same class ofbusiness has ever been managed by private firms.

But, will itpay? What!Will it pay? Itdoes pay. ReadTo-Day'sWork, by George Haw, Clarion Press, 2s. 6d., andDoes MunicipalManagement Pay? by R. B. Suthers, Clarion Press, 6d., and you will besurprised to find how well these large and numerous Municipalexperiments inSocialism do pay.

From the book on Municipal Management, by R. B. Suthers, abovementioned, I will quote a few comparisons between Municipal and privatetram and water services.

"In Glasgow they devote all profits to making the services cheaper andto paying off capital borrowed.

"Thus, since the Glasgow Municipality took control of the water supply,forty years ago, they have reduced the price of water from 1s. 2d. inthe pound rental to 5d. in the pound rental for domestic supply.

"Compare that with the price paid by the London consumer under private enterprise.

"And so on. The London consumer pays from two to five times as much asthe Glasgow consumer. He does not get as much water, he does not get asgood water, and a large part of the money he pays goes into the pocketsof the water lords.

"Last year the water companies took just over a million in profits fromthe intelligent electors of the Metropolis.

"In Glasgow a part of the 5d. in the pound goes to paying off thecapital borrowed to provide the waterworks. £2,350,000 has been sospent, and over one million of this has been paid back.

"Look at Liverpool. The private companies did not give an adequatesupply, so the Municipality took the matter in hand. What is the result?

"The charge for water in Liverpool is a fixed rate of 3d. in the poundand a water rate of 7½d. in the pound.

"For this comparatively small amount the citizen of Liverpool, as SirThomas Hughes said, "can have as many baths and as many water closets ashe likes, and the same with regard to water for his garden."

"In London the water companies make high charges for every separate bathand water closet."

"In Glasgow from 1871 to 1894 a private company had a lease of thetramways from the Corporation.

"When the lease was about to expire the Corporation tried to arrangeterms with the company for a renewal, but the company would not acceptthe terms offered.

"Moreover, there was a strong public feeling in favour of theCorporation working the tramways. The company service was not efficient;it was dear, and their bad treatment of their employees had rousedgeneral indignation.

"So the Corporation decided to manage the tramways,[Pg 146] and the day afterthe company's lease expired they placed on the streets an entirely newservice of cars, cleaner, handsomer, and more comfortable in every waythan their predecessors'.

"The result of the first eleven months' working was a triumph forMunicipal management.

"The Corporation had many difficulties to contend with. Their horseswere new and untrained, their staff was larger and new to the work, andthe old company flooded the routes with 'buses to compete with the trams.

"Notwithstanding these difficulties, they introduced halfpenny fares,they lengthened the distance for a penny, they raised the wages of themen and shortened their hours, they refused to disfigure the cars withadvertisements, thus losing a handsome revenue, and in the end were ableto show a profit of £24,000, which was devoted to the common-good fundand to depreciation account.

"The private company during the last four weeks of their reign carried4,428,518 passengers.

"The citizens of Glasgow have a much better service than the privatecompany provided, the fares are from 30 to 50 per cent. lower, the menwork four hours a day less, and get from 5s. a week more wages, and freeuniforms, and the capital expended is being gradually wiped out.

"In thirty-three years the capital borrowed will be paid back from asinking fund provided out of the receipts.

"But the Corporation have, in addition, written off £153,796 fordepreciation, they have placed £91,350 to a Permanent Way Renewal Fund,and they have piled up a general reserve fund of £183,428.

"Under a private company £100,000 would have gone into the pockets of afew shareholderson last year's working—even if the private companyhad charged the same fares and paid the same wages as the Corporationdid, which is an unlikely assumption."

If you will read the two books I have mentioned, by Messrs. Haw andSuthers, you will be convinced byfacts thatSocialism is possible,and that itwill pay.

Bear in mind, also, that in all cases where the Municipality has takenover some department of public service and supply, the decrease in costand the improvement in service which the ratepayers have secured are notthe only improvements upon the management of the same work by privatecompanies. Invariably the wages, hours, and conditions of men employedon Municipal work are superior to those of men employed by companies.

Another thing should be well remembered. The private trader thinks onlyof profit. The Municipality considers the health and comfort of thecitizens and the beauty and convenience of the city.

Look about and see what the County Council have done and are doing forLondon; and all their improvements have to be carried out in the face ofopposition from interested and privileged parties. They have to improveand beautify London almost by force of arms, working, as one might say,under the guns of the enemy.

But if the citizens were all united, if the city had one will to workfor the general boon, as underSocialism happily it should be, Londonwould in a score of years be the richest, the healthiest, and the mostbeautiful city in the world.

Socialism, Mr. Smith, is quite possible, and will not only pay butbless the nation that has the wisdom to afford full scope to its beneficence.

CHAPTER XVIITHE NEED FOR A LABOUR PARTY

I am now to persuade you, Mr. John Smith, a British workman, that youneed a Labour Party. It is a queer task for a bookish man, a literarystudent, and an easy lounger through life, who takes no interest inpolitics and needs no party at all. To persuade you, a worker, that youneed a worker's party, is like persuading you that you need food,shelter, love, and liberty. It is like persuading a soldier that heneeds arms, a scholar that he needs books, a woman that she needs ahome. Yet my chief object in writing this book has been to persuade youthat you need a Labour Party.

Why should Labour have a Labour Party? I will put the answer first intothe words of the anti-Socialist, and say, Because "self-interest is thestrongest motive of mankind."

That covers the whole ground, and includes all the arguments that Ishall advance in favour of a Labour Party.

For if self-interest be the leading motive of human nature, does it notfollow that when a man wants a thing done for his own advantage he willbe wise to do it himself.

An upper-class party may be expected to attend to the interests of theupper class. And you will find that such a party has always done whatmight be expected. A middle-class party may be expected to attend to theinterests of the middle class. And history and the logic of currentevents prove that the middle class has done what might have been expected.

And if you wish the interests of the working class to be attended to,you will take to heart the lesson contained in those examples, and willform a working-class party.

Liberals will declare, and do declare, in most pathetic tones,[Pg 149] thatthey have done more, and will do more, for the workers than the Torieshave done or will do. And Liberals will assure you that they are reallymore anxious to help the workers than we Socialists believe.

But those are side issues. The main thing to remember is, that even ifthe Liberals are all they claim to be, they will never do as much forLabour as Labour could do for itself.

Is not self-interest the ruling passion in the human heart? Then howshouldany party be so true to Labour and so diligent in Labour'sservice as a Labour Party would be?

What is a Trade Union? It is a combination of workers to defend theirown interests from the encroachments of the employers.

Well, a Labour Party is a combination of workers to defend their owninterests from the encroachments of the employers, or theirrepresentatives in Parliament and on Municipal bodies.

Do you elect your employers as officials of your Trade Unions? Do yousend employers as delegates to your Trade Union Congress? You wouldlaugh at the suggestion. You know that the employercould not attendto your interests in the Trade Union, which is formed as a defence against him.

Do you think the employer is likely to be more useful or moredisinterested in Parliament or the County Council than in the Trade Union?

Whether he be in Parliament or in his own office, he is an employer, andhe puts his own interest first and the interests of Labour behind.

Yet these men whom as Trade Unionists you mistrust, you actually send aspoliticians to "represent" you.

A Labour Party is a kind of political Trade Union, and to defend TradeUnionism is to defend Labour representation.

If a Liberal or a Tory can be trusted as a parliamentary representative,why cannot he be trusted as an employer?

If an employer's interests are opposed to your interests in business,what reason have you for supposing that his interests and yours are notopposed in politics?

Am I to persuade you to join a Labour Party? Then why should I notpersuade you to join a Trade Union? Trade Union and Labour Party areboth class defences against class aggression.

If you oppose a man as an employer, why do you vote for him as a Memberof Parliament? His calling himself a Liberal or a Tory does not alterthe fact that he is an employer.

To be a Trade Unionist and fight for your class during a strike, and tobe a Tory or a Liberal and fight against your class at an election, isfolly. During a strike there are no Tories or Liberals amongst thestrikers; they are all workers. At election times there are no workers;only Liberals and Tories.

During an election there are Tory and Liberal capitalists, and all ofthem are friends of the workers. During a strike there are no Tories andno Liberals amongst the employers. They are all capitalists and enemiesof the workers. Is there any logic in you workers? Is there anyperception in you? Is there anysense in you?

As I said just now, you never elect an employer as president of aTrades' Council, or a chairman of a Trade Union Congress, or as a memberof a Trade Union. You never ask an employer to lead you during a strike.But at election times, when you ought to stand by your class, the wholebody of Trade Union workers turn into black-legs, and fight for thecapitalist and against the workers.

Even some of your Labour Members of Parliament go and help thecandidature of employers against candidates standing for Labour. That isa form of political black-legging which I am surprised to find you allow.

But besides the conflict of personal interests, there are other reasonswhy the Liberal and Tory parties are useless to Labour.

One of these reasons is that the reform programmes of the old parties,such as they are, consist almost entirely of political reforms.

But the improvement of the workers' condition depends more upon industrial reform.

The nationalisation of the railways and the coalmines,[Pg 151] the taxation ofthe land, and the handing over of all the gas, water, and food supplies,and all the tramway systems, to Municipal control, would do more goodfor the workers than extension of the franchise or payment of members.

The old political struggles have mostly been fought for politicalreforms or for changes of taxation. The coming struggle will be for industrial reform.

We want Britain for the British. We want the fruits of labour for thosewho produce them. We want a human life for all. The issue is not onebetween Liberals and Tories; it is an issue between the privilegedclasses and the workers.

Neither of the political parties is of any use to the workers, becauseboth the political parties are paid, officered, and led by capitalistswhose interests are opposed to the interests of the workers. TheSocialist laughs at the pretended friendship of Liberal and Tory leadersfor the workers. These party politicians do not in the least understandwhat the rights, the interests, or the desires of the workers are; ifthey did understand, they would oppose them implacably. The demand ofthe Socialist is a demand for the nationalisation of the land and allother instruments of production and distribution. The party leaders willnot hear of such a thing. If you want to get an idea how utterlydestitute of sympathy with Labour the privileged classes really are,read carefully the papers which express their views. Read the organs ofthe landlords, the capitalists, and the employers; or read the Liberaland the Tory papers during a big strike, or during some bye-electionwhen a Labour candidate is standing against a Tory and a Liberal.

It is a very common thing to hear a party leader deprecate the increaseof "class representation." What does that mean? It means Labourrepresentation. But the "class" concerned in Labour representation isthe working class, a "class" of thirty millions of people. Observe thecalm effrontery of this sneer at "class representation." The thirtymillions of workers are not represented by more than a dozen members.The other classes—the landlords, the capitalists, the military, thelaw, the brewers, and idle[Pg 152] gentlemen—are represented by something likesix hundred members. This is class representation with a vengeance.

It is colossalimpudence for a party paper to talk against "classrepresentation." Every class is over-represented—except the greatworking class. The mines, the railways, the drink trade, the land,finance, the army (officers), the navy (officers), the church, the law,and most of the big industries (employers), are represented largely inthe House of Commons.

And nearly thirty millions of the working classes are represented byabout a dozen men, most of whom are palsied by their allegiance to the Liberal Party.

And, mind you, this disproportion exists not only in Parliament, but inall County and Municipal institutions. How many working men are there onthe County Councils, the Boards of Guardians, the School Boards, and the Town Councils?

The capitalists, and their hangers-on, not only make the laws—theyadminister them. Is it any wonder, then, that laws are made andadministered in the interests of the capitalist? And does it not seemreasonable to suppose that if the laws were made and administered byworkers, they would be made and administered to the advantage of Labour?

Well, my advice to working men is to return working men representatives,with definite and imperative instructions, to Parliament and to allother governing bodies.

Some of the old Trade Unionists will tell you that there is no need forparliamentary interference in Labour matters. The Socialist does not askfor "parliamentary interference"; he asks for Government by the peopleand for the people.

The older Unionists think that Trade Unionism is strong enough in itselfto secure the rights of the worker. This is a great mistake. The rightsof the worker are the whole of the produce of his labour. Trade Unionismnot only cannot secure that, but has never even tried to secure that.The most that Trade Unionism has secured, or can ever hope to secure,for the workers, is a comfortable subsistence wage. They have not alwayssecured even that much, and,[Pg 153] when they have secured it, the cost hasbeen serious. For the great weapon of Unionism is a strike, and a strikeis at best a bitter, a painful, and a costly thing.

Do not think that I am opposed to Trade Unionism. It is a good thing; ithas long been the only defence of the workers against robbery andoppression; were it not for the Trade Unionism of the past and of thepresent, the condition of the British industrial classes would be one ofabject slavery. But Trade Unionism, although some defence, is notsufficient defence.

You must remember, also, that the employers have copied the methods ofTrade Unionism. They also have organised and united, and, in the future,strikes will be more terrible and more costly than ever. The capitalistis the stronger. He holds the better strategic position. He can alwaysoutlast the worker, for the worker has to starve and see his childrenstarve, and the capitalist never gets to that pass. Besides, capital ismore mobile than labour. A stroke of the pen will divert wealth andtrade from one end of the country to the other; but the workers cannotmove their forces so readily.

One difference between Socialism and Trade Unionism is, that whereas theUnions can only marshal and arm the workers for a desperate trial ofendurance, Socialism can get rid of the capitalist altogether. Theformer helps you to resist the enemy, the latter destroys him.

I suggest that you should join a Socialist Society and help to getothers to join, and that you should send Socialist workers to sit uponall representative bodies.

The Socialist tells you that you are men, with men's rights and withmen's capacities for all that is good and great—and you hoot him, andcall him a liar and a fool.

The Politician despises you, declares that all your sufferings are dueto your own vices, that you are incapable of managing your own affairs,and that if you were intrusted with freedom and the use of the wealthyou create you would degenerate into a lawless mob of drunken loafers;and you cheer him until you are hoarse.

The Politician tells you thathis party is the people's party, andthathe is the man to defend your interests; and[Pg 154] in spite of all youknow of his conduct in the past, you believe him.

The Socialist begs you to form a party of your own, and to do your workyourselves; and you call him adreamer. I do not know whether theworking man is a dreamer, but he seems to me to spend a good deal of his time asleep.

Still, there are hopeful signs of an awakening. The recent decision ofthe miners to pay one shilling each a year into a fund for securingparliamentary and other representation, is one of the most hopeful signsI have yet seen.

The matter is really a simple one. The workers have enough votes, andthey can easily find enough money.

The 2,000,000 of Trade Unionists could alone find the money to elect andsupport more than a hundred labour representatives.

Say that election expenses for each candidate were £500. A hundredcandidates at £500 would cost £50,000.

Pay for each representative at £200 a year would cost for a hundredM.P.s £20,000.

If 2,000,000 Unionists gave 1s. a year each, the sum would be £100,000.That would pay for the election of 100 members, keep them for a year,and leave a balance of £30,000.

With a hundred Labour Members in Parliament, and a proportionaterepresentation of Labour on all County Councils, City, Borough, andParish Councils, School Boards and Boards of Guardians, the interests ofthe workers would begin, for the first time in our history, to receivesome real and valuable attention.

But not only is it desirable that the workers should strive for solidreforms, but it is also imperative that they should prepare to defendthe liberties and rights they have already won.

A man must be very careless or very obtuse if he does not perceive thatthe classes are preparing to drive the workers back from the positions they now hold.

Two ominous words, "Conscription" and "Protection" are being freelybandied about, and attacks, open or covert, are being made upon TradeUnionism and Education. If the workers mean to hold their own they mustattack as[Pg 155] well as defend. And to attack they need a strong and unitedLabour Party, that will fight for Labour in and out of Parliament, andwill stand for Labour apart from the Liberal and the Tory parties.

And now let us see what the Liberal and Tory parties offer the worker,and why they are not to be trusted.

CHAPTER XVIIIWHY THE OLD PARTIES WILL NOT DO

Liberal and Tory politicians call us Socialistsdreamers. They claimto be practical men. They say theories are no use, that reform can onlybe secured by practical men and practical means, and for practical menand practical means you must look to the great parties.

Being anxious to catch even the faintest streak of dawn in the drearypolitical sky, wedo look to the great parties. I have been looking tothem for quite twenty years. And nothing has come of it.

Whatcan come of it? What are the "practical" reforms about which wehear so much?

Putting the broadest construction upon them, it may be said that thepractical politics of both parties are within the lines of the followingprogramme:—

And it is alleged by large numbers of people, all of them, for someinexplicable reason, proud of their hard common sense, that the passingof this programme into law would,[Pg 157] in some manner yet to be expounded,make miserable England into merry England, and silence the visionariesand agitators for ever.

Now, with all deference and in all humility, I say to these practicalpoliticians that the above programme, if it became law to-morrow, wouldnot, for any practical purpose, be worth the paper it was printed on.

There are seven items, and not one of them would produce the smallesteffect upon the mass of misery and injustice which is now crushing thelife out of this nation.

No. All those planks are political planks, and they all amount to thesame thing—the shifting of political power from the classes to themasses. The idea being that when the people have the political powerthey will use it to their own advantage.

A false idea. The people would not knowhow to use the power, and ifthey did know how to use it, it by no means follows that they would use it.

Some of thereal evils of the time, the real causes of England'sdistress, are:—

There I will stop. Against the seven remedies I will put seven evils,and I say that not one of the remedies can cure any one of the evils.

The seven remedies will give increased political power to the people.So. But, assuming that political power is the one thing needful, I saythe people have it now.

Supposing the masses in Manchester were determined to return toParliament ten working men. They have an immense preponderance of votes.They could carry the day at every poll? Butdo they? If not, why not?

Then, as to expenses. Assuming the cost to be £200 a member, that wouldmake a gross sum of £2000 for ten members, which sum would not amount toquite fivepence a head for 100,000 voters. But do voters find thismoney? If not, why not?

Then, as to maintenance. Allowing each member £200 a year, that wouldmean another fivepence a year for the 100,000 men. So that it is not toomuch to say that, without passing one of the Acts in the seven-branchedprogramme, the workers of Manchester could, at a cost of less than onepenny a month per man, return and maintain ten working men Members of Parliament?

Now, my practical friends, how many working-class members sit forManchester to-day?

And if the people, having so much power now, make no use of it, why arewe to assume that all they need is a little more power to make themhealthy, and wealthy, and wise?

In the first place, I assume that in America the electoral power of thepeople is much greater than it is here. I will give one or two examples.In America, I understand, they have:—

I cannot answer; but these do not seem to have done quite as much forFrance as our practical men expect them to do for England.

Very well, America has nearly all that our practical politicians promiseus. Is America, therefore, so much better off as to justify us inaccepting the seven-branched programme as salvation?

Some years ago I read a book calledHow the Other Half Lives, writtenby an American citizen, and dealing with the conditions of the poor in New York.

We should probably be justified in assuming that just as London is asomewhat intensified epitome of England, so is New York of America; butwe will not assume that much. We will look at this book together, and wewill select a few facts as to the state of the people in New York, andthen I will ask you to consider this proposition:—

About thirty years ago there was a committee appointed in New York toinvestigate the "great increase in crime." The Secretary of the New YorkPrison Association, giving evidence, said:—

These tenements, it seems, are slums. Of the evil of these places, ofthe miseries of them, we shall hear more presently. Our author, Mr.Jacob A. Riis, asserts again and again that the slums make the disease,the crime, and the wretchedness of New York:—

Well, that is what the American writer thinks of the tenementsystem—of the New York slums.

Now comes the important question, What is the extent of these slums?And on this point Mr. Riis declares more than once that the extent isenormous:—

So much, then, for the extent of these slums. Now for the nature ofthem. A New York doctor said of some of them—

And Mr. Riis goes on to tell of the police finding 101 adults and 91children in one Crosby Street House, 150 "lodgers" sleeping "on filthyfloors in two buildings."

But the most striking illustration I can give you of the state of theworking-class dwellings in New York is by placing side by side thefigures of the population per acre in the slums of New York and Manchester.

The Manchester slums are bad—disgracefully, sinfully bad—and theovercrowding is terrible. But referring to the figures I took fromvarious official documents when I was writing on the Manchester slums afew years ago, I find the worst cases of overcrowding to be:—

These are the worst cases from some of the worst English slums. Now letus look at the figures for New York—

The population of these three wards in the same year was over 179,000.The population of New York in 1890 was 1,513,501. In 1888 there were inNew York 1,093,701 persons living in tenement houses.

Then, in 1889, there died in New York hospitals 6102; in lunaticasylums, 448; while the number of pauper funerals was 3815.

In 1890 there were in New York 37,316 tenements, with a gross populationof 1,250,000.

But these are not all the facts. No. In this book about New York I findcareful plans and drawings of the slums, and I can assure you we havenothing so horrible in all England. Nor do the revelations of Mr. Riisstop there. We have full details of the sweating shops, the men andwomen crowded together in filthy and noisome dens, working at starvationprices, from morning until late on in the night, "until brain and musclebreak down together." We have pictures of the beggars, the tramps, theseamstresses, the unemployed, the thieves, the desperadoes, the lostwomen, the street arabs, the vile drinking and opium dens, and we havefacts and figures to prove that this great capital of the great Republicis growing worse; and all this, my practical friends, in spite of thefact that in America they have

which is more than our most advanced politicians claim as the fullextent to which England can be taken by means of practical politics—asunderstood by the two great parties.

Now, I want to know, and I shall be glad if some practical friend willtell me, whether a programme of practical politics which leaves themetropolis of a free and democratic nation a nest of poverty, commercialslavery, vice, crime, insanity, and disease, is likely to make theEnglish people healthy, and wealthy, and wise? And I ask you to considerwhether this seven-branched programme is worth fighting for, if it is toresult in a density of slum population nearly twice as great as that ofthe worst districts of the worst slums of Manchester?

It seems to me, as an unpractical man, that a practical programme whichresults in 522 persons to the acre, 18 hours a day for bread and butter,and nearly 4000 pauper funerals a year in one city, is a programme whichonlyvery practical men would be fools enough to fight for.

At anyrate, I for one will have nothing to say to such a despicablesham. A programme which does not touch the sweater nor the slum; whichdoes not hinder the system of fraud and murder called free competition;which does not give back to the English people their own country ortheir own earnings, may be good enough for politicians, but it is no useto men and women.

No, my lads, there is no system of economics, politics, or ethicswhereby it shall be made just or expedient to take that which you havenot earned, or to take that which another man has earned; there can beno health, no hope in a nation where everyone is trying to get more thanhe has earned, and is hocussing his conscience with platitudes aboutGod's Providence having endowed men with different degrees of intellect and virtue.

How many years is it since the Newcastle programme was issued? What diditpromise that the poor workers of America and France have notalready obtained? What good would it do you if you got it?And when doyou think you are likely to get it? Is it any nearer now than it wasseven years ago? Will it be any nearer ten years hence than it is now ifyou wait for the practical politicians of the old parties to give it to you?

One of the great stumbling-blocks in the way of all[Pg 163] progress for Labouris the lingering belief of the working man in the Liberal Party.

In the past the Liberals were regarded as the party of progress. Theywon many fiscal and political reforms for the people. And now, when theywill not, or cannot, go any farther, their leaders talk about"ingratitude" if the worker is advised to leave them and form a Labour Party.

But when John Bright refused to go any farther, when he refused to go asfar as Home Rule, did the Liberal Party think of gratitude to one oftheir greatest men? No. They dropped John Bright, and they blamedhimbecause he had halted.

They why should they demand that you shall stay with them out ofgratitude now they have halted?

The Liberal Party claim to be the workers' friends. What have they donefor him during the last ten years? What are they willing to do for himnow, or when they get office?

Here is a quotation from a speech made some years ago by Sir William Harcourt—

You may say that is old. Try this new one. It is from the lips of Mr.Harmsworth, the "official Liberal candidate" at the last by-election inNorth-East Lanark—

Provided, "of course," thatthey are not tainted with[Pg 164]Socialistdoctrines. With Socialist doctrines Sir William Harcourt and Mr.Harmsworth will have no dealings.

Now, if you read what I have written in this book you will see thatthere is no possible reform that can do the workers any real or lastinggood unless that reform istainted with Socialist doctrines.

Only legislation of a socialistic nature can benefit the working class.And that kind of legislation the Liberals will not touch.

It is true there are some individual members amongst the Radicals whoare prepared to go a good way with the Socialists. But what can they do?In the House they must obey the Party Whip, and the Party Whip nevercracks for socialistic measures.

I wonder how many Labour seats have been lost through Home Rule. Timeafter time good Labour candidates have been defeated because Liberalworking men feared to lose a Home Rule vote in the House.

Let me give you a typical case. A Liberal Unionist lost his seat. He atonce became a Home Ruler, and was adopted as Liberal candidate to standagainst a Labour candidate and against a Tory. The Labour candidate wasa Home Ruler, and had been a Home Ruler when the Liberal candidate was a Unionist.

But the Liberal working men would not vote for the Labour man. Why?Because they were afraid he would not get in. If he did not get in theTory would get in, and the Home Rule vote would be one less in the House.

They voted for the Liberal, and he was returned. That is ten years ago.What good has that M.P. done for Home Rule, and what has he done for Labour?

The Labour man could have done no more for Home Rule, but he would haveworked hard for Labour, and no Party Whip would have checked him.

Well, during those ten years it is not too much to say that fifty Labourcandidates have been sacrificed in the same way to Home Rule.

In ten years those men would have done good service.And they were allHome Rulers.

Such is the wisdom of the working men who cling to the tails of the Liberal Party.

Return a hundred Labour men to the House of Commons, and the LiberalParty will be stronger than if a hundred Liberals were sent in theirplace, for there is not a sound plank in the Liberal programme which theLabour M.P. would wish removed.

But do you doubt for a moment that the presence in the House of ahundred Labour members would do no more for Labour than the presence intheir stead of a hundred Liberals? A working man must be very dull if he believes that.

That is my case against the old parties. I could say no more if I tried.If you want to benefit your own class, if you want to hasten reform, ifyou want to frighten the Tories and wake up the Liberals, put your handsin your pockets, find afarthing a week for election and forparliamentary expenses, send a hundred Labour men to the House, andwatch the effects. I think you will be more than satisfied. Andthatis whatI call "practical politics."

Finally, to end as I began, if self-interest is the strongest motive inhuman nature, the man who wants his own advantage secured will be wiseto attend to it himself.

The Liberal Party may be a better party than the Tory Party, but thebest party for Labour is aLabour Party.

CHAPTER XIXTO-DAY'S WORK

Self-interest being the strongest motive in human nature, he who wisheshis interests to be served will be wise to attend to them himself.

If you, Mr. Smith, as a working man, wish to have better wages, shorterhours, more holidays, and cheaper living, you had better take a hand inthe class war by becoming a recruit in the army of Labour.

If working men desire to improve their conditions they will be wise toserve their own interests by using the Trade Unions, the Municipalities,and the House of Commons for all they are worth; and they are worth a lot.

Votes you have in plenty, for all practical purposes, and of money youcan yourselves raise more than you need, without either hurtingyourselves or incurring obligations to men of other classes.

One penny a week from 4,000,000 of working men would mean a yearlyincome of £866,000.

We are always hearing that the working classes cannot find enough moneyto pay the election expenses of their own parliamentary candidates norto keep their own Labour members if elected.

If 4,000,000 workers paid one penny a week (the price of a Sunday paper,or of one glass of cheap beer) they would have £866,000 at the end of a year.

Election expenses of 2000 candidates for School Board, MunicipalCouncils, and Boards of Guardians at £50 per man would be £100,000.Leaving a balance of £626,000.

Now the cause of Labour has very few friends amongst the newspapers. AsI have said before, at times of strikes and other industrial crises, thePress goes almost wholly against the workers.

The 4,000,000 men I have supposed to wake up to their own interest couldestablish weekly and daily papers oftheir own at a cost of £50,000for each paper. Say one weekly paper at a penny, one daily paper at apenny, or one morning and one evening paper at a halfpenny each.

These papers would have a ready-made circulation amongst the men whoowned them. They could be managed, edited, and written by trainedjournalists engaged for the work, and could contain all the bestfeatures of the political papers now bought by working men.

Say, then, that the weekly paper cost £50,000 to start, and that themorning and evening papers cost the same. That would be £150,000, andthe papers would pay in less than a year.

You see, then, that 4,000,000 of men could finance 3 newspapers, 200parliamentary and 2000 local elections, and pay one year's salary to 200Members of Parliament for £390,000, or less thanone halfpenny a weekfor one year.

If you paid the full penny a week for one year you could do all I havesaid and have a balance in hand of £476,000.

Surely, then, it is nonsense to talk about the difficulty of findingmoney for election expenses.

Then you could produce the same result ifone million (half yourpresent Trade Union membership) pay twopence a week.

And even at a cost of twopence a week do you not think the result wouldbe worth the cost? Imagine the effect on the Press, and on Parliament,and on the employers, and on public opinion of your fighting 200parliamentary and[Pg 168] 2000 municipal elections, and founding threenewspapers. Then the moral effect of the work the newspapers would dowould be sure to result in an increase of the Trade Union membership.

A penny looks such a poor, contemptible coin, and even the poor laboureroften wastes one. But remember that union is strength, and pennies makepounds. 1000 pennies make more than £4; 100,000 pennies come to morethan £400; 1,000,000 pennies come to £4000; 1,000,000 pennies a week fora year give you the enormous sum of £210,000.

WeClarion men founded a paper called theClarion with less than£400 capital, and with no friends or backers, and although we have nevergiven gambling news, nor general news, and had no Trade Unions behindus, we have carried our paper on for ten years, and it is stronger now than ever.

Why, then, should the working classes, and especially the Trade Unions,submit to the insults and misrepresentations of newspapers run bycapitalists, when they can have better papers of their own to plead their own cause?

Suppose it cost £100,000 to start a first-class daily Trade Union organ.How much would that mean to 2,000,000 of Unionists? If it cost £100,000to start the paper, and if it lost £100,000 a year, it would only meanone halfpenny a week for the first year, and one farthing a week for thenext. But I am quite confident that if the Unions did the thing inearnest they could start a paper for £50,000, and run it at a profitafter the first six months.

Do not forget the power of the penny. If 10,000,000 of working men andwomen gaveone penny a year it would reach a yearly income offortythousand pounds. A good deal may be done with £40,000, Mr. Smith.

Now a few words as to the three lines of operations. You have your TradeUnions, and you have a very modest kind of Federation. If your 2,000,000Unionists were federated at a weekly subscription of one penny per man,your yearly income would be nearly half a million: a very useful kind offund. I should strongly advise you to strengthen your Trades Federation.

Next as to Municipal affairs. These are of more[Pg 169]importance to you thanParliament. Let me give you an idea. Suppose, as in the case ofManchester and Liverpool, the difference between a private gas companyand a Municipal gas supply amounts to more than a shilling on each 1000feet of gas. Setting the average workman's gas consumption at 4000 feetper quarter, that means a saving to each Manchester working man ofsixteen shillings a year, or just about fourpence a week.

Suppose a tram company carries a man to his work and back at one penny,and the Corporation carries him at one halfpenny. The man saves a pennya day, or 25s. a year. Now if 100,000 men piled up their tram savingsfor one year as a labour fund it would come to £125,000.

All that money those men are now giving to tram companiesfor nothing.Is that practical?

You may apply the same process of thought to all the other things youuse. Just figure out what you would save if you had Municipal or State managed

On all those needful things you are now paying big percentages of profitto private dealers, all of which the Municipality would save you.

And you can municipalise all those things and save all that money bysticking together as a Labour Party, and by payingone penny a week.

Again I advise you to read those books by George Haw and R. B. Suthers.Read them, and give them to other workers to read.

Next as to Parliament. You ought to put at least 200 Labour members intothe House. Never mind Liberalism and Toryism. Mr. Morley said in Januarythat what[Pg 170] puzzled him was to "find any difference between the newLiberalism and the new Conservatism." Do not try to find a difference,John. Have a Labour Party.

"Self-interest is the strongest motive in human nature." Take care ofyour own interests and stand by your own class.

You will ask, perhaps, what these 200 Labour representatives are to do.They should do anything and everything they can do in the House ofCommons for the interests of the working class.

But if you want programmes and lists of measures, get the FabianParliamentary and Municipal programmes, and study them. You will findthe particulars as to price, etc., at the end of this book.

But here are some measures which you might be pushing and helpingwhenever a chance presents itself, in Parliament or out of Parliament.

Removal of taxation from articles used by the workers, such as tea andtobacco, and increase of taxation on large incomes and on land.

You may perhaps wonder why I do not ask you to found a Socialist Party.I do not think the workers are ready for it. And I feel that if youfound a Labour Party every step you take towards the emancipation ofLabour will be a step towardsSocialism.

But I should like to think that many workers will become Socialists atonce, and more as they live and learn.

The fact is, Mr. Smith, I do not want to ask too much of the mass ofworking folks, who have been taught little, and mostly taught wrong, andwhose opportunities of getting knowledge have been but poor.

I am not asking working men to be plaster saints nor stained-glassangels, but only to be really what their flatterers are so fond oftelling them they are now: shrewd, hard-headed men, distrusting theoriesand believing in facts.

For the statement that private trading and private management ofproduction and distribution are the best, and the only "possible," waysof carrying on the business of the nation is only atheory, Mr. Smith;but the superiority of Municipal management in cheapness, in efficiency,in health, in comfort, and in pleasantness is a solidfact, Mr. Smith,which has been demonstrated just as often as Municipal and privatemanagement have been contrasted in their action.

One other question I may anticipate. How are the workers to form a Labour Party?

The Independent Labour Party is organised and united, but is weak innumbers and poor in funds.

I should like to see the Trade Unions fully federated, and formed into apolitical as well as an Industrial Labour Party on lines similar tothose of the Independent Labour Party.

Or I should like to see the whole of your 2,000,000 of Trade Unionistsjoin the Independent Labour Party.

Or, best of all, I should like to see the Unions, the Independent LabourParty, and the great and growing body of unorganised and unattachedSocialists formed into one grand Socialist Party.

Meanwhile, I ask you, as a reader of this book, not to sit down indespair with the feeling that the workers will not move, but to try tomove them. Be youone, John Smith. Be you the first. Then you shallsurely win a few, and each of those few shall win a few, and so aremultitudes composed.

Let us make a long story short. I have here given you, as briefly and asplainly as I can, the best advice of which I am capable, after a dozenyears' study and experience of Labour politics and economics and thelives of working men and women.

If you approve of this little book I shall be glad if you will recommendit to your friends.

You will find Labour matters treated of every week in theClarion,which is a penny paper, published every Friday, and obtainable at 72Fleet Street, London, E.C., and of all newsagents.

Heaven, friend John Smith, helps those who help themselves; but Heavenalso helps those who try to help their fellow-creatures.

If you are shrewd and strong and skilful, think a little and work alittle for the millions of your own class who are ignorant and weak andfriendless. If you have a wife and children whom you love, remember themany poor and wretched women and children who are robbed of love, ofleisure, of sunshine and sweet air, of knowledge and of hope, in thepent and dismal districts of our big, misgoverned towns. If you as aBriton are proud of your country and your race, if you as a man have anypride of manhood, or as a worker have any pride of class, come over tous and help in the just and wise policy of winning Britain for theBritish, manhood forall men, womanhood forall women, and loveto-day and hope to-morrow for the children whom[Pg 173] Christ loved, but whoby many Christians have unhappily been forgotten.

I end as I began, by quoting those beautiful words from the Litany. Ifwe would realise the prayer they utter, we must turn toSocialism; ifwe would win defence for the fatherless children and the widows,succour, help, and comfort forall that are in danger, necessity, ortribulation, and mercy forall men, we must win Britain for the British.

Without the workers we cannot win, with the workers we cannot fail. Willyou be one to help us—now?

WHAT TO READ

The following books and pamphlets treat more fully the various subjectsdealt with inBritain for the British.

APPENDIX.

The American workingman will not find it very hard to see that thelesson of "Britain for the British" applies with even greater force tothe conditions in his own country.

American railroads, mines, and factories exploit, cripple and killAmerican laborers on an even larger scale than the British ones. We haveeven less laws for the protection of the workers and their children andwhat we have are not so well enforced.

No one will deny the ability of America to feed herself. She feeds theworld to-day save that some American workers and their families arerather poorly fed. The great problem with American capitalists is how toget rid of the wealth produced and given to them by American laborers.

Where Liberal and Conservative parties are mentioned every Americanreader will find himself unconsciously substituting Democratic and Republican.

It will do the average American good to "see himself as others see him"and to know that manhood suffrage, freedom from established Church andRepublican institutions do not prevent his becoming an economic slaveand living in a slum.

But we fear that some American readers will be shrewd enough to callattention to the fact that municipal ownership has not abolished, or toany great extent improved the slums of London, Glasgow and Birmingham.It is certain some of the thousands of German laborers who are living inAmerica would be quick to point out that although Bismark hasnationalized the railroads and telegraphs of Germany this has notaltered the fact of[Pg 177] the exploitation of German workingmen. Worst ofall, it would be hard to explain to the multitude of Russian exiles nowliving in America that they would have been better off had they remainedat home, because the Czar has made more industries government propertythan belong to any other nation in the world.

Even native Americans would find it somewhat hard to understand howmatters would be improved by transferring the ownership of the coalmines, for example, from a Hanna-controlled corporation to aHanna-directed government. There would be one or two different links inthe chain of connection uniting Hanna to the mines and the miners butthey would be as well forged and as capable of holding the laborer inslavery as the present ones.

Happily the chapter on "Why the old Parties will not do" gives us a clueto the way out. While the government is controlled by capitalist partiesgovernment ownership of industries does little more than simplify theprocess of reorganization to be performed when a real labor party shallgain control. The victory of such a party will for the first time meanthat government-owned industries will be owned and controlled by all theworkers (who will also be all the people, since idlers will have disappeared).

American workers are fortunate in that there is a political partyalready in the field which exactly meets the ideal described in the lastthree chapters. The Socialist Party is a trade-union party, a laborparty and the political expression of all the workers in America whohave become intelligent enough to understand their own self-interest.Those who feel that they wish to lend a hand in securing the triumph ofthe ideas set forth in "Britain for the British" should at once jointhat party and work for its success.

BOOKS BY ROBERT BLATCHFORD("NUNQUAM.")

A book on sociology. Called by the Review of Reviews: "The Poor Man'sPlato." Over a million copies sold. Translated into Welsh, Dutch,French, Spanish, German, Hebrew, Norwegian, and Swedish.

"This volume contains a batch of stories ('cuffers,' we understand isthe correct technical term) supposed to be told by soldiers in thebarrack-room after lights are out; and capital stories they are. If wewere to call them 'rattling' and also 'ripping' we should not be sayinga word too much. For our own part we never want to see a better fightthan that between the bayonet and the sword in 'The Mousetrap,' or toread a sounder lecture on social philosophy than that delivered bySergeant Wren in 'Dear Lady Disdain.' Mr. Blatchford knows thebarrack-room from the inside, and obviously from the inside has learnedto love and to enjoy it."

JULIE.—A Study of a Girl by a Man. Nunquam's Story of Slum Life. Price2/6; by post, 2/8.

"'Julie,' unlike 'The Master Christian,' is beautiful inside as well asout. Nunquam, like Corelli, has a mission to perform—to utilize romanceas a finger-post to indicate social wrongs; but, unlike Corelli, hesucceeds in his purpose. And why does he succeed where she fails?Because he goes at his task sympathetically, with a warm heart; whereasshe goes at it sourly, with a pen dipped in gall. It is all a questionof temperament. If you want an object-lesson in the effect whichtemperament has upon artistic achievement, read 'The Master Christian'and follow it up with 'Julie.'"

THE BOUNDER.—The Story of a Man by his Friend. By Nunquam. Price 2/6;by post, 2/8.

All who loved the Bounder and admired his work should avail themselvesof the opportunity to possess this record of both, before the edition isexhausted.

"The swift interchange of thought and repartee in the conversationsremind one of the brilliant 'Dolly Dialogues'; but there is anunderlying earnestness and a deeper meaning in Mr. McGinnis's seeminglycareless story than in Mr. Anthony Hope's society pictures."

MY FAVORITE BOOKS.—By Nunquam. Price 2/6; by post, 2/8. With Portraitof the Author.

"Instinct with generous and eloquent appreciation of what is brightestand best in our literature, we have only to complain that there is solittle of it after all. Again we feel the spell of old times in thecharmed garden; the breeze blows fresh, sweet is the odor of the roses,and we wander with our guide wherever it pleases him to lead us. We cangive the author no higher praise. May his book prosper as it deserves."

TOMMY ATKINS.—By Nunquam. Price 2/6; by post, 2/8. Paper, 1/-; by post,1/3.

A soldier story of great popularity which has already gone throughseveral editions, and was long ago pronounced by Sir Evelyn Wood, andother great authorities on the army, to be the best story on army lifeever written.

DISMAL ENGLAND.—By Nunquam. Price 2/6; by post, 2/8. Paper, 1/-; bypost, 1/2.

PINK DIAMONDS.—A Wild Story. By Nunquam. Cloth, 2/-; by post, 2/2.Paper, 6d.; by post, 8d.

A MAN, A WOMAN, AND A DOG.—By The Whatnot. Cloth and gold, 2/6; bypost, 2/8.

TO-DAY'S WORK.—Municipal Government the Hope of Democracy. By GeorgeHaw, author of "No Room to Live." Price 2/6; by post, 2/8.

A reprint, with revisions and additional chapters, of The Outlaw'sarticles on Local Government, published in the Clarion under theheading, "What we can do to-day."

THE ART OF HAPPINESS.—By Mont Bloug. With portrait of the Author.Cloth, 2/-; by post, 2/2.

A mixture of fun and philosophy, of which the large edition is nearlyexhausted, and is not likely to be reprinted. Those who have neglectedto get it should do so while there is yet time. It is a book that anyreader will be thankful for.

Capital examples of Dangular humor, of which it can be truthfully saidthat each is better than the other, while both are amusing enough tobring out a cheerful smile upon the glummest face.

*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BRITAIN FOR THE BRITISH ***

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In the year 1895-6 the Corporation carried	87,000,000
In the year 1899-1900	127,000,000
In the year 1900-1	132,000,000
In 1895-6 the receipts were	£222,121
In 1899-1900 the receipts were	£464,886
In 1900-1 the receipts were	£484,872
In 1895 there were	31 miles of tramway
In 1901 there were	44½ miles of tramway
In 1895 the number of cars was	170
In 1901 the number of cars was	322

	District.	Pop. per Acre.
Ancoats	No. 3	256
Deansgate	No. 2	266
London Road	No. 3	267
Hulme	No. 3	270
St. George's	No. 6	274

Density of Population Per Acre in 1890
Tenth Ward	522
Eleventh Ward	386
Thirteenth Ward	428

Railways	Coalmines
Tramways	Omnibuses
Gas	Water
Milk	Bread
Meat	Butter and cheese
Vegetables	Beer
Houses	Shops
Boots	Clothing

Movatterモバイル変換

The Project Gutenberg eBook ofBritain for the British

BRITAIN
FOR THE BRITISH
BYROBERT BLATCHFORD

THE TITLE OF THIS BOOK

THE PURPOSE OF THIS BOOK

FOR WHOM THIS BOOK IS INTENDED

THE METHOD OF THIS BOOK

FOREWORDS

CHAPTER ITHE UNEQUAL DIVISION OF WEALTH

CHAPTER IIWHAT IS WEALTH? WHERE DOES IT COME FROM? WHO CREATES IT?

CHAPTER IIIHOW THE FEW GET RICH AND KEEP THE MANY POOR

CHAPTER IVTHE BRAIN WORKER, OR INVENTOR

CHAPTER VTHE LANDLORD'S RIGHTS AND THE PEOPLE'S RIGHTS

CHAPTER VILUXURY AND THE GREAT USEFUL EMPLOYMENT FRAUD

CHAPTER VIIWHAT SOCIALISM IS NOT

CHAPTER VIIIWHAT SOCIALISM IS

CHAPTER IXCOMPETITIONv. CO-OPERATION

CHAPTER XFOREIGN TRADE AND FOREIGN FOOD

CHAPTER XIHOW TO KEEP FOREIGN TRADE

CHAPTER XIICAN BRITAIN FEED HERSELF?

CHAPTER XIIITHE SUCCESSFUL MAN

CHAPTER XIVTEMPERANCE AND THRIFT

CHAPTER XVTHE SURPLUS LABOUR MISTAKE

CHAPTER XVIIS SOCIALISM POSSIBLE, AND WILL IT PAY?

CHAPTER XVIITHE NEED FOR A LABOUR PARTY

CHAPTER XVIIIWHY THE OLD PARTIES WILL NOT DO

CHAPTER XIXTO-DAY'S WORK

WHAT TO READ

APPENDIX.

BOOKS BY ROBERT BLATCHFORD("NUNQUAM.")

THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE

CHAP.		PAGE
	THE TITLE, PURPOSE, AND METHOD OF THIS BOOK	1
	FOREWORDS	6
I.	THE UNEQUAL DIVISION OF WEALTH	10
II.	WHAT IS WEALTH? WHERE DOES IT COME FROM? WHO CREATES IT?	26
III.	HOW THE FEW GET RICH AND KEEP THE MANY POOR	33
IV.	THE BRAIN-WORKER, OR INVENTOR	45
V.	THE LANDLORD'S RIGHTS AND THE PEOPLE'S RIGHTS	51
VI.	LUXURY AND THE GREAT USEFUL EMPLOYMENT FRAUD	63
VII.	WHAT SOCIALISM IS NOT	74
VIII.	WHAT SOCIALISM IS	82
IX.	COMPETITIONv. CO-OPERATION	90
X.	FOREIGN TRADE AND FOREIGN FOOD	97
XI.	HOW TO KEEP FOREIGN TRADE	102
XII.	CAN BRITAIN FEED HERSELF	110
XIII.	THE SUCCESSFUL MAN	119
XIV.	TEMPERANCE AND THRIFT	127
XV.	THE SURPLUS LABOUR MISTAKE	135
XVI.	IS SOCIALISM POSSIBLE, AND WILL IT PAY?	141
XVII.	THE NEED FOR A LABOUR PARTY	148
XVIII.	WHY THE OLD PARTIES WILL NOT DO	156
XIX.	TO-DAY'S WORK	166
	WHAT TO READ	174

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The Project Gutenberg eBook ofBritain for the British

BRITAINFOR THE BRITISHBYROBERT BLATCHFORD

THE TITLE OF THIS BOOK

THE PURPOSE OF THIS BOOK

FOR WHOM THIS BOOK IS INTENDED

THE METHOD OF THIS BOOK

FOREWORDS

CHAPTER ITHE UNEQUAL DIVISION OF WEALTH

CHAPTER IIWHAT IS WEALTH? WHERE DOES IT COME FROM? WHO CREATES IT?

CHAPTER IIIHOW THE FEW GET RICH AND KEEP THE MANY POOR

CHAPTER IVTHE BRAIN WORKER, OR INVENTOR

CHAPTER VTHE LANDLORD'S RIGHTS AND THE PEOPLE'S RIGHTS

CHAPTER VILUXURY AND THE GREAT USEFUL EMPLOYMENT FRAUD

CHAPTER VIIWHAT SOCIALISM IS NOT

CHAPTER VIIIWHAT SOCIALISM IS

CHAPTER IXCOMPETITIONv. CO-OPERATION

CHAPTER XFOREIGN TRADE AND FOREIGN FOOD

CHAPTER XIHOW TO KEEP FOREIGN TRADE

CHAPTER XIICAN BRITAIN FEED HERSELF?

CHAPTER XIIITHE SUCCESSFUL MAN

CHAPTER XIVTEMPERANCE AND THRIFT

CHAPTER XVTHE SURPLUS LABOUR MISTAKE

CHAPTER XVIIS SOCIALISM POSSIBLE, AND WILL IT PAY?

CHAPTER XVIITHE NEED FOR A LABOUR PARTY

CHAPTER XVIIIWHY THE OLD PARTIES WILL NOT DO

CHAPTER XIXTO-DAY'S WORK

WHAT TO READ

APPENDIX.

BOOKS BY ROBERT BLATCHFORD("NUNQUAM.")

THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE

BRITAIN
FOR THE BRITISH
BYROBERT BLATCHFORD