1 . n ■ M. o 
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES 
 
 "«-==>
 
 MERRIE ENGLAND 
 
 BY 
 
 ROBERT BLATCHFORD 
 
 (NUNQUAM). 
 
 DEDICATED TO 
 
 A. M. THOMPSON 
 
 (DANGLE). 
 
 " laaorbs ougbt not to be acceptefe because uttcre^ bs tbe loft^, nor rejectcb 
 because uttered bs tbe lowls."— Co«/MaMs. 
 
 1895. 
 LONDON : 
 
 Clarion Newspaper Company, Limited, 72, Fleet Street, E.G.; 
 Waltek Scott, Ltd., Paternoster Square, E.G.
 
 ATA, 
 
 I & J 5 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 The sale of " Mcrrie England " has been so large that a few 
 words of preface, by way of thanks and explanation, are 
 considered by my partners to be necessary'. 
 
 " Merrie England " first appeared as a series of articles in 
 The Clarion. These articles, with some revisions and additions, 
 were afterwards produced in volume form at a shilling. The 
 book met with immediate success, some 25,000 copies being sold. 
 
 In October, 1894, we published the same book, uniform in 
 size and type with the shilling edition, at one penny. As the 
 book contained 206 pages, and was printed by trade-union 
 labour and on English-made paper, it could only be produced 
 at a loss, and to save mistakes I may as well say here that 
 this loss is borne, and the whole enterprise financed and 
 managed, by myself and partners, not a single penny of outside 
 help having been asked for or accepted. 
 
 The sale of the penny edition was an agreeable surprise. 
 At the outside we did not expect to sell more than 100,000 
 copies, and 100,000 constitiited the first edition. 
 
 Twice that number were ordered before a copy was 
 published, and since then the sale of the penny edition has 
 reached 700,000 copies. 
 
 This threepenny edition has been produced specially for 
 the benefit of the newsagents, who were only able to make a 
 very narrow profit on the sale of the pennj' edition. 
 
 When this edition is sold out, the gross sale of " Merrie 
 England " will have reached 875,000 copies. 
 
 Besides this, there is an American Edition, sold at ten 
 cents, which, I am told, is selling rapidlj'. 
 
 "Merrie England" is also being translated into Welsh, 
 Dutch, German, Scandinavian, and Spanish. 
 
 Now we should be something more, or less, than men if we 
 were not proud of this success. For, bo it said, that this great 
 sale of 700,000 penny copies, and 25,000 copies at a shilling or 
 eighteenpence, has been accomplished without a shilling spent 
 in advertisements, without any pufi"s or logrolling in the press, 
 with very few reviews, and in face of the bitter hostility and 
 prejudice with which Socialist books are conunonly received. 
 
 Not only th;it ; the book has had but a very lultewarra 
 support from the trade ; indeed I doubt if we have sold 50,000 
 copies through the newsagents. 
 
 Hence the true significance of the success of " Merrie 
 England." This immense issue has been accomplished in less 
 than nine months by the Clarion newspaper, and the Socialist 
 organisations of England and Scotland. 
 
 541084
 
 MERRIE ENGLAND. 
 
 Two things are hereby made evident. Firstly, that there 
 must be a great demand for SociaHst literature in this country; 
 secondly, that the distributing powers of Socialism are very 
 formidable. 
 
 And here let me do justice and express my sincere gratitude 
 to my partners, A. M. Thompson, E. F. Fay, M. J. Blatchford, 
 and W. Eanstead for their enterprise and loyal help, to 
 W. T. Wilkinson and R. B. Suthers who, with only occasional 
 help, have actually pubUshed three-quarters of a million 
 206 page books in nine months, besides attending to their 
 ordinary duties, and to the Clarion Scouts and the members of 
 the I.L.P. and S.D.F. Branches and Fabian Societies in the 
 three Kingdoms, for their untiring zeal and industry in selling 
 and distributing the penny edition of my book. How hard all 
 these men have worked I know, and I know, also, that not 
 one of them is a penny the richer for his laboiu*. It has been 
 throughout a labour of love. 
 
 For my part, though a poor man, I can say in all sincerity 
 that I have been repaid a thousand-fold. The wealth of 
 kindness, sympathy, gratitude, and loyal aid which has been 
 showered upon me by these good men and women, is more than 
 any single human service ever merited. 
 
 And this brings me naturally to the consideration of the 
 book itself. 
 
 And first of all I want to say that " Merrie England " is not 
 intended as a text-book. It was written to give the general 
 public an idea of what Socialism is, to remove the prejudices 
 existing against Socialism, and to answer the arguments 
 commonly brought forward by its opponents. 
 
 It was written hurriedly, and amid the pressure of other 
 work, and I have never been able to afford the time to revise 
 and amend it. 
 
 No one can be more conscious of its imperfections than I 
 am. I should like to sit down and write it all over again, but 
 Socialist Journalism is no Tom Tiddler's ground, and my 
 partners and I have to keep our noses pretty close to the 
 grindstone in oi'der to earn a living. 
 
 " Merrie England " miyht have been a better book. Things 
 being as they are, I can only say of it what I say in its final 
 chapter : — 
 
 So here is " Merrie England ; " the earnest though weak effort of this 
 poor clod of wayward marl, this little pinch of valiant dust. If it does 
 good — well ; if not — well. I will try again. 
 
 Finally, may I say that if every reader who thinks " Merrie 
 England " worth reading will buy The Clarion, we shall not 
 be oflended. 
 
 London, IIOBEIIT BLATCHFOllU. 
 
 1895.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CaiPTEB. Pace. 
 
 L— The Problem of Life 9 
 
 II.— The Practical School 13 
 
 III.— Town V. Country 19 
 
 IV.— Can England Feed Herself? 28 
 
 v.— The Life of the Worker 37 
 
 VL— The Bitter Cost of a Bad System 45 
 
 VIL— Who Makes the Wealth and Who Gets It? 54 
 
 VIII. — Rent and Interest 65 
 
 IX.— The Self-made Man 71 
 
 X. — Industrial Competition 78 
 
 XL— Waste 87 
 
 XII.— Cheapness 92 
 
 XIIL— Socialism 1 93 
 
 XIV.— What are We to Do? 104 
 
 XV.— The Incentive of Gain 109 
 
 XVL— A House Divided Against Itself 121 
 
 XVIL— The Survival of the Fittest 129 
 
 XVIII. — Socialism and Progress 134 
 
 XIX. — Socialism and Slavery 143 
 
 XX.— Industry 150 
 
 XXL — Environment 157 
 
 XXIL— The Rights of the Individual 164 
 
 XXIII.— Luxury 172 
 
 XXIV.— Minor Questions 185 
 
 XXV.— Paid Agitators 191 
 
 XXVI. — Labour Representation 197 
 
 SXVIL— Is it Nothing to You? 201
 
 TO READERS OF 
 
 'CEep^i^ie England." 
 
 This book appeared originally in the "Clarion." If 
 after reading it you feel interested in Socialism, 
 you will find the "Claeion" a useful paper. 
 
 It is published every Friday, price One Penny, 
 and can be ordered through any Newsagent ; but if 
 you find any difficulty in getting it, I shall be 
 glad if you will write at once to the " Clabion " 
 Office, 72, Fleet Steeet, London, E.G. 
 
 The " Claeion " contains Special Articles on 
 Labour Questions — Personal Investigations of Labour 
 Disputes — Lucid Expositions of Labour Problems — 
 Original Poems and Essays — Topical Interviews and 
 Portraits — Dramatic Criticism and Gossip — Sketches 
 of London Life — Notes on Current Events — Notes 
 on Football and Cricket — Serial Stories : Short 
 Stories — Cartoons and Pictures — Comic and Satirical 
 Articles — and a Weekly Eecord of the Progress of 
 Sociahsm at Home and Abroad. 
 
 Yours truly, 
 
 EGBERT BLATCHFORD, 
 
 Editor of the "Clarion."
 
 MERRIE ENGLAND. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 The Problem oe Liee. 
 
 We are lovers of the beautiful, yet simple in our tastes, and we 
 cultivate the mind without loss of manliness. Wealth we employ, not 
 for talk and ostentation, but when there is real use for it. To avow 
 poverty with us is no disgrace ; the true disgrace is in doing nothing to 
 avoid it. An Athenian Citizen does not neglect the state because ho 
 takes care of his own household. We regard a man who takes no 
 interest in public affairs not as harmless, but as a useless character. The 
 great impediment to action is not discussion, but the want of that know- 
 ledge which is gained by discussion preparatory to action. We make 
 friends by conferring, not by receiving favours. The love of honour 
 alone is ever young, and not riches, as some say, but honour is the delight 
 of men when they are old and viseless. — Thxicydides. 
 
 Dear Mr. Smith, I am sorry to hear that you look upon 
 Socialism as a vile and senseless thing, and upon Socialists 
 as wicked or foolish men. 
 
 Nevertheless, as you have good metal in you, and are 
 very numerous, I mean to argue the point with you. 
 
 Tou are a staunch Liberal, and you pride yourself upon 
 being "a shrewd, hard-headed, practical man." You would 
 not pride yourself upon that, for you are naturally over 
 modest, had you not been told by political orators that you 
 are that kind of man. 
 
 Hence you have come to believe that you " entertain a 
 wholesome contempt for theories," and have contracted a 
 habit of calling for "Pacts" in a peremptory manner, like a 
 stage brigand calling for " Wine. " 
 
 Now, Mr. Smith, if you really are a man of hard, shrewd 
 sense, we shall get on very well. I am myself a plain, 
 practical man. I base my beliefs upon what I know and 
 see, and respect " a fact" more than a Lord Mayor. 
 
 In these letters I shall stick to the hardest of hard facts, 
 and the coldest of cold reason ; and I shall appeal to that
 
 10 MERRIE ENGLAND. 
 
 robust commonsense and English love of fairplay for which, 
 1 understand, you are more famous than for your ability to 
 see beyond the end of your free and independent nose at 
 election times. 
 
 I assume, Mr. Smith, that you, as a hard-headed, practical 
 man, would rather be well ofi than badly off, and that, with 
 regard to your own earnings, you would rather be paid 
 twenty shillings in the pound than four shillings in the 
 pound. 
 
 And I assume that, as a humane man, you woidd rathei 
 that others should not suffer, if their suffering can be 
 prevented. 
 
 If then, I assert that you are being defrauded, and that 
 others, especially weak women and young children, are 
 enduring much misery and wrong, and if 1 assert, farther, 
 that I know a means whereby you may obtain justice, and 
 they may secure peace, you will surely, as a kind and sensible 
 man, consent to hear me. 
 
 If your roof were leaky, or yoiu- business bad, if there 
 were a plague in your city, and all regular remedies had 
 failed, you woidd certainly give a hearing to any creditable 
 person who claimed to have found a cure. 
 
 I don't mean that you would accept his remedy without 
 thinking about it ; that would be foolish, but you would let 
 him explain it, and if it seemed reasonable you would 
 try it. 
 
 To reject an idea because it is new is not a proof of 
 shrewd sense, it is a proof of bigoted ignorance. Trade 
 unionism was new once, and was denounced by the very 
 same people who now denounce the views I advocate. There 
 were many prominent politicians and writers who declared 
 the railway train and the telegraph to be impossible. 
 There were many who condemned the Factory Acts. 
 There wei'e many who laughed at the idea of an Atlantic 
 cable, and I remember when it was prophesied of the ballot 
 that it would lead to anax'cliy and revolution. 
 
 To say that an idea is new is not to prove that it is 
 untrue. The oldest idea was new once ; and some of my 
 ideas — as, for instance, the idea that justice and health are 
 precious things — are considerably older than the House o£ 
 Commons or Adam Smith's " Wealth of Nations."
 
 MERRIE ENGLAND. ll 
 
 If you wish for an instance of the value of new ideas, 
 Mr. Smith, get a good life of Charles Darwin, and another 
 of George Stephenson, and read them. 
 
 I ask you, then, as a practical man, to forget me, and to 
 consider my arguments on their merits. 
 
 But I must also ask you to forget yourself. One of the 
 ancients, I think it was Pythagoras, said it was necessary 
 to " get out of the body to think. " That means that when 
 a problem is before you you should not let any personal 
 prejudice, or class feeling, come between that problem and 
 your mind — that you should consider a case upon the 
 evidence alone, as a jury should. 
 
 Forget, then, that you are a joiner or a spinner, a 
 Catholic or a Freethinker, a Liberal or a Tory, a moderate 
 di'inker or a teetotaler, and consider the problem as a man. 
 
 If you had to do a problem in arithmetic, or if you were 
 cast adrift in an open boat at sea, you would not set to 
 work as a "Wesleyan, or a Liberal Unionist ; but you would 
 tackle the sum by the rules of arithmetic, and would row 
 the boat by the strength of your own manhood, and keep a 
 look-out for passing ships under any flag. I ask you, then, 
 Mr. Smith, to hear what I have to say, and to decide by 
 your own judgment whether I am right or wrong. 
 
 Now then, what is the problem? I call it the problem 
 of life. We have here a Country and a People. The 
 problem is — Given a Country and a People, find how the 
 People may make the lest of the Country and of Themselves. 
 
 First, then, as to the capacities of the coimtry and the 
 people. 
 
 The country is fertile and fruitful, and well stored with 
 nearly all the things that the people need. 
 
 The people are intelligent, industrious, strong, and 
 famous for their perseverance, their inventiveness and 
 resource. 
 
 It looks, then, as if such a people in such a country must 
 certainly succeed in securing health, and happiness, and 
 plenty for all. 
 
 But we know very well that our people, or at least the 
 bulk of them, have neither health, nor pleasure, nor plenty. 
 
 These are fads ; and so fur, I assume, you and I are quite 
 in accord.
 
 12 MERRIE ENGLAND. 
 
 Now I assert that if the labour of the British people were 
 properly organised and wisely applied, this country woidd, in 
 return for very little toil, yield abundance for all. 
 
 I assert that the labour of the British people is not 
 properly organised, nor wisely applied ; and I undertake to 
 show how it might and should be organised and applied, 
 and what would be the results if it were organised and 
 applied in accordance with my suggestions. 
 
 The ideal of British Society to-day is the ideal of 
 individual effort, or competition. That is to say, every 
 man for himself. Each citizen is to try as hard as he can 
 to get for himself as much money as he can, and to use it 
 for his oven pleasure, and leave it for his own children. 
 
 That is the present personal ideal. The present national 
 ideal is to become " The Workshop of the World." That 
 is to say, the British people are to manufacture goods for 
 sale to foreign countries, and in return for those goods are 
 to get more money than they could obtain by developing 
 the resources of their own country for their own use. 
 
 My ideal is that each individual should seek his advantage 
 in co-operation with his fellows, and that the people should 
 make the best of their own country before attempting to 
 trade with other people's. 
 
 I propose, Mr. Smith, and I submit the proposal to 
 you, who are a sensible and practical man, as a sensible 
 and practical proposal, that we should first of all 
 ascertain what things are desirable for our health and 
 happiness of body and mind, and that we should then 
 organise our people with the object of producing those 
 things in the best and easiest way. 
 
 The idea being to get the best results with the least 
 labour. 
 
 And, now, Mr. Smith, if you will read the following 
 books for yourself, you will be in a better position to follow 
 me in my future letters : — 
 
 Thoieau's "Waldcn." Loudon: WaUcr Scott, Is. 
 
 "Problems of Poverty," John Hobson, M.A. London : Methuen, 
 2s. 6d. 
 
 "Industrial History of England," H. do B. Gibbins, M.A. 
 London : Methuen, 2s. Gd. 
 
 There are also a Fabian tract called "Facts for Socialists,"
 
 MERRIE ENGLAND. 13 
 
 price one penny, and a pamphlet called " Socialism," a reply 
 to the Pope, price one penny, which will be useful. The 
 last-named pamphlet is by Eobert Blatchford, and can be 
 had at the Clarion office. 
 
 CHAPTEE II. 
 
 The Peacxical School. 
 
 Their land also is full of silver and gold, neither is there any end of 
 their treasures ; their land also is full of horses, neither is there any end 
 of their chariots. Their land also is full of idols : they worship the work 
 of their own hands, that which their own fingers have made. — Isaiah. 
 
 As I said in my first chapter, the problem we have to 
 consider is: — 
 
 Given a country and a people, find how the people 
 may make the best of the country and themselves. 
 
 Before we can solve this problem, we must understand 
 the country and the people. We must find out their 
 capacities ; that is to say, what can be got from the country; 
 what it will yield; and what can be got from ourselves; 
 what we can do and be. 
 
 On these points I differ fi'om the so-called practical 
 people of the Manchester School, for I believe that 
 this country will yield a great deal more of the good 
 things of life than the people need; and that the 
 people can be much happier, healthier, richer, and better 
 than they now are. 
 
 But the Manchester School would have us believe that 
 our own coimtry is too barren to feed us, and that our 
 people are too base and foolish to lead pure, wise, and 
 honest lives. 
 
 This is a difference as to facss. I will try, presently, to 
 show you that the facts are in my favour. 
 
 You, Mr. Smith, are a practical man ; you have reason 
 and judgment. Therefore you would do a pleasant thing in 
 preference to an unpleasant thing. Tou would choose a 
 healthy and agreeable occupation in preference to an 
 unhealthy and disagreeable occupation. You would rather 
 live in a healthy and agreeable place than in an unhealthy 
 and disagreeable place. You would rather work four hours 
 a day than twelve hours a day. You would rather do the
 
 14 MERE IE ENGLAND. 
 
 tilings you would like to do, and have the things you wish 
 for, than do the things you dislike to do, and lack the 
 things you wish for. 
 
 You live in Oldham, and you are a spinner. If I ask you 
 why you live in Oldham, and why you work in the factory, 
 you will say that you do it in order to "get a living." 
 
 I think also that you will agree with me on three points ; 
 Firstly, that Oldham is not a nice place to live in ; secondly, 
 that the factory is not a nice place to work in; thirdly, 
 that you don't get as good a living as you desire. 
 
 There are some things you do, v^hich you would rather 
 not do ; and there are some things you wish for and cannot 
 get. 
 
 Now suppose we try to find out what are the things it is 
 best for us to have, and which is the best and easiest way 
 to get them. 
 
 I hope that up to this point I have been quite clear, and 
 practical, and truthful. 
 
 Of course you have read Eobinson Crusoe. Tou know 
 that he was shipwrecked upon an island, and had to provide 
 for himself. He raised corn, tamed goats, dried raisins, 
 built himself a house, and made vessels of clay, clothing of 
 skins, a boat, and other useful things. If he had set to 
 work making bead necklaces and feather fans before he 
 secured fo'hi and lodging you would say he was a fool, and 
 that he did not make the most of his time and his island. 
 But what would you call him if he had starved and stinted 
 himself in order to make bead necklaces and feather fans 
 for some other person who was too lazy to work? 
 
 Whatever you call him, you may call yourself, for you 
 are wasting your time and your chances in the effort to 
 support idle people and vain things. 
 
 Now, to our problem. How are we to make the best of 
 our country, and of om* lives? "What things do we need 
 in order to secure a happy, healthy, and worthy human 
 life? 
 
 We may divide the things needful into two kinds: 
 Mental and physical. That is to say, the things needful 
 for the body and the things needful for the mind. 
 
 Here again I differ very much from the self-styled prac- 
 tical people of the Manchester School.
 
 MERRIE ENGLAND. 15 
 
 My ideal is frugality of body and opulence of mind. I 
 suggest that we should be as temperate and as simple as 
 possible in our use of mere bodily necessaries, so that we 
 may have as much time as possible to enjoy pleasui-es of a 
 higher, purer, and more delightful kind. 
 
 Tour Manchester School treat all Social and Industrial 
 problems from the standpoint of mere animal subsistence. 
 They do not seem to think that you have any mind. With 
 them it is a question of bread and cheese and be thankful. 
 They are like the man in "Our Mutual Priend" who 
 estimated the needs of the ferryman's daughter in beef and 
 beer. It was a question, he said, "of so many pounds of 
 beef, and so many pints of porter." That beef and that 
 porter were "the fuel to supply that woman's engine," 
 and, of course, she was only to have "just as much fuel as 
 would keep the engine working at high pressure. But I 
 submit to you that such an estimate would be an insult to 
 a horse. 
 
 Tour Manchester School claim to be practical men, and 
 always swear by facts. As I said before, I reverence facts ; 
 but I want all the facts ; not a few of them. If I am to 
 give a verdict, I must hear the whole of the evidence. 
 
 Suppose a gardener imagined that all a flower needed was 
 earth and manure, and so planted his ferns on the sunny 
 side and his peaches on the shady side of his garden. 
 "Would you call him a practical man? 
 
 Tou will see what I mean. Soil is a "fact," and manure 
 is a " fact. " But the habit of a plant is a " fact" also, and 
 so are sunshine and rain "facts." 
 
 Turn, then, trom plants to men, and teU me are appetites 
 the only facts of human nature? Do men need nothing 
 but food, and shelter, and clothes? 
 
 It is true that bread, and meat, and wages, and sleep are 
 " facts, " but they are not the only facts of life. Men have 
 imaginations and passions as well as appetites. 
 
 I must ask you to insist upon hearing all the evidence. 
 1 must ask you to use your eyes and ears, to examine your 
 memory, to consult your own experience and the experience 
 of the best and wisest men who have lived, and to satisfy 
 yoiu'self that although wheat and cotton and looms and 
 ploughs and bacon and blankets and hunger and thirst and
 
 16 MERRIE ENGLAND. 
 
 heat and cold are facts, they are not the only facts, nor eren 
 the greatest facts of life. 
 
 For love is a fact, and hope is a fact, and rest, and 
 laughter, and music, and knowledge are facts; and facta 
 which have to be remembered and have to be reckoned with 
 before we can possibly solve the problem of how the British 
 people are to make the best of their country and themselves. 
 
 A life which consists of nothing but eating, and drinking, 
 and sleeping, and working is not a human life — it is the 
 life of a beast. Such a life is not worth living. If Ave are 
 to spend all our days and nights in a kind of penal servi- 
 tude, continually toiling and suffering in order to live, we 
 had better break at once the chains of our bitter slavery, 
 and die. 
 
 What, then, are the things needful for the body and the 
 mind of man? 
 
 The bodily needs are two : — 
 
 Health and Sustenance. 
 
 The mental needs are three : — 
 Knowledge, 
 Pleasure, 
 Intercourse. 
 
 We will consider the bodily needs first, and we will 
 begin by finding out what things ensure good bodily health. 
 
 To ensure good health we must lead a "natural" life. 
 The farther we get from nature, — the more artificial our 
 lives become, — the worse is our health. 
 
 The chief ends to health are pure air, pure water, pure 
 and sufficient food, cleanliness, exercise, rest, warmth, and 
 ease of mind. 
 
 The chief obstacles to health are impure air, impure 
 water, bad or insufficient food, gluttony, drunkenness, vice, 
 dirt, heavy labour, want of rest, exposure, and anxiety of 
 mind. 
 
 The siu*e marks of good health are physical strength and 
 beauty. 
 
 Look at the statue of an Ancient Greek Athlete, and 
 then at the form of a Modern Sweater's Slave, and you will 
 see how true this is. 
 
 These are facts. Any doctor, or scientist, or artist, or 
 athlete will confirm these statements.
 
 MERRIE ENGLAND. 17 
 
 Now, I shall show you, later, that hardly any of our 
 people lead natural and healthy lives. I shall show you 
 that the average Briton might be very much healthier, 
 handsomer, and stronger than he is ; and 1 shall show you 
 that the average duration of life might easily be dmibled. 
 
 Next, as to Sustenance. There are four chief things 
 needed to sustain life in a civilised community: — 
 Food, 
 Clothing, 
 Shelter, and 
 Fuel. 
 All these things should be used temperately. Enough is 
 letter than a feast. Luxurious living is a bad and not a 
 good thing. Tou know that when a man is training for 
 any feat of strength or of endurance he takes plain and 
 pure food, and abundant rest and exercise. A rowing man, 
 a running man, a boxer, a cricketer, or an athlete of any 
 kind would never think of training on turtle soup, game 
 pies, and champagne. Again I say that any doctor, 
 scientist, artist, or athletic trainer will endorse my 
 statement. 
 
 Now I shall show you, later, that o?\r people are badly 
 clothed, and badly fed, and badly housed. That some have 
 more, but most have less, than is good for them ; and that 
 with a quarter of the labour now expended in getting 
 improper sustenance we might produce proper sustenance, 
 and plenty of it, for all. 
 
 Meanwhile, let us consider the mental needs of life. 
 These are 
 
 Knowledge, Pleasure, and Intercourse. 
 Tou may describe all these things as pleasures, or as recrea- 
 tions, if you choose. 
 
 • Of Knowledge there are almost numberless branches, 
 and all of them fascinating. Modern science alone is a 
 vast storehouse of interest and delight. Astronomy, 
 physiology, botany, chemistry, these words sound dry and 
 forbidding to the man who knows nothing at all of the 
 science ; but to the student they are more fascinating, more 
 thrilling, and more marvellous than any romance. 
 
 But science is only one branch of knowledge. There is 
 literature, thei'e is history, there are foreign countries and
 
 18 MERRIE ENGLAND. 
 
 peoples, there are languages, and laws, and philosophies 
 to interest and to inform us. Solomon spoke well when 
 he said that wisdom is better than rubies. As a mere 
 amusement the acquirement of knowledge is above price. 
 But it has another value, it enables us to help our fellow 
 creatures, and to leave the world better than we found it. 
 
 As for Pleasures their name is legion. There are such 
 pleasures as walking, rowing, swimming, football, cricket. 
 There are the arts, and the drama. There are the beauties 
 of nature. There are travel and adventure. Mere words 
 cannot convey an idea of the intensity of these pleasures. 
 Music alone is more delightfid and more precious than all 
 the vanities wealth can buy, or all the carnal luxuries that 
 folly can desire. The varieties of pure and healthy pleasures 
 are infinite. 
 
 Then as to Intercourse. I mean by that all the exaltation 
 and all the happiness that we can get from friendship, from 
 love, from comradeship, and from family ties. These are 
 amongst the best and the sweetest things that life can give. 
 
 Now, Mr. Smith, you are a practical and a sensible man. 
 I ask you to look about you and to think, and then to tell 
 me what share of all these things falls to the share of the 
 bulk of the British people ; but especially to the share of 
 the great working masses. 
 
 In the average lot of the average British workman how 
 much knowledge and culture, and science and art, and 
 music and the drama, and literatiu-e and poetry, and field 
 sports and exercise, and travel and change of scene? 
 
 You know very well that our working people get little 
 of these things, and you know that such as they get are of 
 inferior quality. 
 
 Now I say to you that the people do not get enough of 
 the things needful for body and mind, that they do not get 
 them of the best, and that they do not get them because 
 they have neither money to pay for them nor leisure to 
 enjoy them. 
 
 I say, farther, that they ought to have and might have 
 abundance of these things, and I undertake to show you 
 how they can obtain them, 
 
 "We hear a great deal, Mr. Smith, about the " Struggle for 
 Jlxisteiice,"
 
 MERRTE ENGLAND, 19 
 
 Well, I say there is no need for any "struggle for 
 existence." 1 have shown you what things are necessary 
 to a happy and noble existence, and I say to you now that 
 all these things can be easily and abundantly produced. 
 
 Given our country and our people, 1 maintain that the 
 people, if rightly organised and directed, can get from the 
 country all that is good for them, with very little labour. 
 
 The work needed to supply the bodily and mental needs 
 above named is very slight. The best things of life — • 
 knowledge, art, recreation, friendship, and love — are all 
 cheap ; that is to say they can all be got with little labour. 
 
 "Why then the "struggle for existence"? 
 
 So far, Mr. Smith, 1 have, I hope, been practical and 
 plain. I have indulged in no fine writing, I have used no 
 hard words, I have kept close to facts. There has been 
 nothing "windy" or "sentimental" up to now. I shall 
 be still more practical as we go on. 
 
 In the meantime, if you can find Euskin's Modern 
 Painters in your free library, I should advise you to 
 read it. 
 
 There are two other books that woidd be valuable ; these 
 are "England's Ideal," by Edward Carpenter, and "Signs 
 of Change," by Wm. Morris. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 Town v. Couxxnr. 
 
 I would not have the labourer sacrificed to the result. I would not have 
 the labourer sacrificed to ray convenience and pride, nor to that of a great 
 class of such as rae. Let there be worse cotton and better men. The 
 weaver should not be bereaved of his superiority to his work. — Emerson. 
 
 The substantial wealth of man consists in the earth he cultivates, with 
 its pleasant or serviceable animals and plants, and in the rightly produced 
 
 work of his own hands The material wealth of any country 
 
 is the portion of its possessions wliicli feeds and educates good men and 
 
 women in it In fact it may be discovered that thy true veins 
 
 of wealth are purple — and not in Rock, but in Flesh — perliaps even that 
 the final outcome and consummation of all wealth is in the producing as 
 many as possible full-breathed, bright-eyed, and happy-hearted human 
 creatures. — Iiiidin. 
 
 Before we begin this chapter I must ask you to keep in 
 mind the fact that a man's bodily wants are few.
 
 20 MERRTE ENGLAND. 
 
 I shall be well outside the mark if I say that a full grown 
 healthy man can be well fed upon a daily ration of 
 1 lb. of bread, 
 1 lb. of vegetables, 
 1 lb. of meat. 
 Add to this a few groceries, a little fruit, some luxuries, 
 in the shape of wine, beer, and tobacco ; a shelter, a bed, 
 some clothing, and a few tools and articles of furniture, 
 and you have all the material things you need. 
 
 Eemember, also, that when you have got these things 
 you have got all the material things you can use. A 
 millionaire or a monarch could hardly use more, or if he 
 did use more would use them to his hurt and not to his 
 advantage. 
 
 You live in Oldham and work in the factory in order to 
 get a living. *'A living" consists of the things above 
 named. 
 
 I ask you, as a practical, sensible man, whether it is not 
 possible to get those few simple things with less labour; 
 and whether it is not possible to add to them health and 
 the leisure to enjoy life and develop the mind? 
 
 The Manchester School will tell you that you are very 
 fortunate to get as much as you do, and that he is a dreamer 
 or a knave who persuades you that you can get more. 
 
 The Manchester School is the Commercial School. The 
 supporters of that school will tell you that you cannot 
 prosper, that is to say you cannot "get a living," without 
 the capitalist, without open competition, and without a 
 great foi'eign trade. 
 
 They will tell you that you would be very foolish to 
 raise your own food stuffs here in England so long as you 
 can buy them more cheaply from foreign nations. They 
 will tell you that this country is incapable of producing 
 enough food for her present population, and that therefore 
 your very existence depends upon keeping the foreign 
 trade in your hands. 
 
 Now, I shall try to prove to you that every one of these 
 Btatements is untrue. I shall try to satisfy you that : — 
 
 1. The capitalist is a curse, and not a blessing. 
 
 2. That competition is wasteful, and cruel, and 
 wrong.
 
 MERRIE ENGLAND. 21 
 
 3. That no foreign country can sell us food more 
 cheaply than we can produce it ; and 
 
 4. That this country is capable of feeding more 
 than treble her present population. 
 
 We hear a great deal about the value and extent of our 
 foreign trade, and are always being reminded how much we 
 owe to our factory system, and how proud of it we ought 
 to be. 
 
 I despise the factory system, and denounce it as a hideous, 
 futile, and false thing. This is one of the reasons why 
 the Manchester School call me a dreamer and a dangerous 
 agitator. 1 will state my case to you plainly, and ask you 
 for a verdict in accordance with the evidence. 
 
 My reasons for attacking the factory system are : — 
 
 1. Because it is ugly, disagreeable, and mechanical. 
 
 2. Because it is injurious to public health. 
 
 3. Because it is unnecessary. 
 
 4. Because it is a danger to the national existence. 
 
 The iManchester School will tell you that the destiny of 
 this country is to become "The Workshop of the World." 
 
 I say that is not true; and that it would be a thing to 
 deplore if it were true. The idea that this country is to 
 be the " Workshop of the World" is a wilder dream than 
 any that the wildest Socialist ever cherished. But if this 
 country did become the " Workshop of the World" it would 
 at the same time become the most horrible and the most 
 miserable country the world has ever known. 
 
 Let us be practical, and look at the facts. 
 
 First, as to the question of beauty and pleasantness. Tou 
 know the factory districts of Lancashire. I ask you is it not 
 true tiiat they are ugly, and dirty, and smoky, and dis- 
 agreeable? Compare the busy towns of Lancashire, of 
 Staffordshire, of Durham, and of South Wales, with the 
 country towns of Surrey, Suifolk, and Hants. 
 
 In the latter counties you will get pure air, bright skies, 
 clear rivers, clean streets, and beautiful fields, woods, and 
 gardens; you will get cattle and streams, and birds and 
 flowers, and you know that all these things are well worth 
 having, and that none of them can exist side by side with 
 the factory system.
 
 22 MERRIE ENGLAND. 
 
 I know that the Manchester School will tell you that tins 
 is mere "sentiment." But compare their actions with 
 their words. 
 
 Do you find the champions of the factory system despising 
 nature, and beauty, and art, and health — except in their 
 speeclies and lectures to you? 
 
 No. Tou will find these people living as far from the 
 factories as they can get ; and you will find them spending 
 their long holidays in the most beautiful parts of England, 
 Scotland, Ireland, or the Continent. 
 
 The pleasures they enjoy are denied to you. They preach 
 the advantages of the factory system because they reap the 
 benefits while you bear the evils. 
 
 To make wealth for themselves they destroy the beauty 
 and the health of your dwelling-places ; and then they sit 
 in their suburban villas, or on the hills and terraces of the 
 lovely southern countries, and sneer at the " sentimentality" 
 of the men who ask you to cherish beauty and to prize 
 health. 
 
 Or they point out to you the value of the " wages" which 
 the factory system brings you, reminding you that you have 
 carpets on your floors, and pianos in your parlours, and a 
 week's holiday at Blackpool once a year. 
 
 But how much health or pleasure can you get out of a 
 cheap and vulgar carpet? And what is the use of a piano 
 if you have neither leisure nor means to learn to play it? 
 And why should you prize that one week in the crowded, 
 noisy watering-place, if health and fresh air and the great 
 salt sea are mere sentimental follies? 
 
 And let me ask you is any carpet so beautiful or so 
 pleasant as a carpet of grass and daisies? Is the fifth-rate 
 music you play upon your cheap pianos as sweet as the 
 songs of the gushing streams and joyous birds? And does 
 a week at a spoiled and vulgar watering-place repay you for 
 fifty-one weeks' toil and smother in a hideous and stinking 
 town? 
 
 As a practical man, would you of your own choice convert 
 a healthy and beautiful country like Surrey into an unhealthy 
 and hideous country like Wigan or Cradley, just for the 
 sake of being able once a year to go to Blackpool, and once 
 a night to listen to a cracked piano?
 
 MERRIE ENGLAND. 23 
 
 Now I tell you, my practical friend, that you ought to 
 have, and may have, good music, and good homes, and a fair 
 and healthy country, and more of all the things that make 
 life sweet; that you may have them at less cost of labour 
 than you now pay for the privilege of existing in Oldham ; 
 and that you can never have them if England becomes "the 
 "Workshop of the World." 
 
 But the relative beauty and pleasantness of the factory 
 and country districts do not need demonstration. The 
 ugliness of Widnes and Sheffield and the beauty of Dorking 
 and Monsal Dale are not matters of sentiment nor of 
 argument — they are matters of fact. The value of beauty 
 is not a matter of sentiment: it is a fact. Tou would 
 rather see a squirrel than a sewer rat. Tou would rathei 
 bathe in the Avon than in the Irwell. Tou would prefer 
 the fragrance of a rose-garden to the stench of a sewage 
 works. Tou would prefer Bolton Woods to Ancoata 
 slums. 
 
 As for those who sneer at beauty, as they spend fortunes 
 on pictures, on architecture, and on foreign tours, they put 
 themselves out of court. 
 
 Sentiment or no sentiment, beauty is better than ugli- 
 ness, and health is better than disease. 
 
 Now under the factory system you must sacrifice both 
 health and beauty. 
 
 As to my second objection — the evil effect of the factory 
 system on the public health. What are the chief means to 
 health? 
 
 Pure air, pure water, pure and sufficient food, cleanliness, 
 exercise, rest, warmth, and ease of mind. 
 
 What are the invariable accompaniments of the factory 
 system? 
 
 Foul air, foul water, adulterated foods, dirt, long hours 
 of sedentary labour, and continual anxiety as to wages and 
 employment in the present, added to a terrible uncertainty 
 as to existence in the future. 
 
 Look through any great industrial town in the colliery, 
 the iron, the silk, the cotton, or the woollen industries, 
 and you will find hard work, unhealthy work, vile air, over- 
 crowding, disease, ugliness, di'unkenness, and a high death- 
 rate. These are facts.
 
 24 
 
 MERRIB ENGLAND. 
 
 To begin with, I give you outline maps, copied from 
 Bartholomew's Gazetteer of the British Islands, which is 
 the best work of its class extant. 
 
 Map 1 shows the death-rates in the British Isles. 
 
 Map 2 shows the distribution of manufactures in the 
 British Isles. 
 
 aiAP 1. 
 
 HEALTH MAP 
 
 or THE 
 
 BRITISH ISLES >1 
 
 Rtr£REHC£ 
 
 r-jfROM 10 To 20 
 
 AEOV& as 
 
 PEA lOOO
 
 MERRIE ENGLAND. 
 
 25 
 
 Map 2. 
 
 DENSITY OF 
 INDUSTRIAL & COMMERCIAL 
 
 POPUUKTION OF 
 BRJTJ3H ISUES 
 
 fJEFERENCE. 
 DfROM 10 To too 
 To Sq. MILE 
 
 ABOVt ISO 
 To SQ.MILE. 
 
 H ABOVE. 500 
 ■• To 99. MILE. 
 
 Examine these maps and you will find that where the 
 manufactures are the greatest the death-rate is the highest, 
 and the population the most dense. 
 
 Turn from Bartholomew's Gazetteer to the Registrar- 
 General's returns. The average death-rate for England and 
 Wales from 1881 to 1890 was 19-1 in the thousand. The 
 death-rate of Lancashire for the same period was 22*5 per 
 thousand. But to get a fair idea of the difference between 
 town and country we must contrast Lancashire with the
 
 26 MERRIE ENGLAND. 
 
 agricultural counties. Here are eight county death-rates 
 from 1381 to 1890:— 
 
 Surrey 16 1 
 
 Kent 16-6 
 
 Sussex 157 
 
 Hants 16-8 
 
 Berks 16-2 
 
 Wilts 16-9 
 
 Dorset 16-2 
 
 Lancashire 22-5 
 
 In 1887, the latest year for which I have the figures, the 
 death-rates in some of the principal Lancashire towns 
 were : — 
 
 Bolton 21-31 
 
 Oldham 23-84 
 
 Salford 2395 
 
 Preston 27-0 
 
 Blackburn 25-48 
 
 Manchester 28-67 
 
 And in that year the average death-rate in Surrey and 
 Sussex was 16 "3. 
 
 Now observe the difference between Lancashire and 
 Surrey. It is a , difference of 6 to the thousand. Lanca- 
 shire in 1881 contained 3| millions of people, or 3,500 
 thousands, so that the excess of deaths in the cotton county 
 reaches the total of 21,000. 
 
 But again, in the Kegistrar-General's returns for 1891 I 
 find two tables showing the annual deaths per 100,000 of 
 children under one year, for 1889, 1890, 1891. The first 
 table shows the figures for the three counties of Hertford, 
 Wilts, and Dorset; the second for the three towns, Preston, 
 Leicester, and Blackburn. 
 
 Three farming counties 9,717 
 
 Three manufacturing towns 21,803 
 
 That is to say that the death-rate of children in those three 
 towns is more than twice as high as the death-rate of 
 children in those three counties. 
 
 But, again. Dr. Marshall, giving statistics of recruiting 
 in this country, shows that not only were the country 
 recruits taller than those from the towns, but he adds that 
 " in every case the men born in the country were found to 
 have better chests than those born in towns, the difference
 
 MERRIE ENGLAND. 27 
 
 in chest measurement being proportionately greater than 
 the difference in stature. " According to Dr. Beddoe : — 
 
 The natives of Edinburgh and Glasgow are on an average from 
 one to two inches shorter, and about fifteen to twenty pounds 
 lighter, than the rural population of various parts of Scotland. 
 The statistics of the Northumberland Light Infantry give 5ft. Gin. 
 as the height of the natives of Newcastle ; while the rural 
 volunteers have an average height of from 5ft. Sin. to 5ft. lOin., 
 and are "of course much heavier than the townsmen." 
 
 Drs. Chassagne and Dally, in a work on gymnasia, givo 
 tables comparing the rustics and townsmen of Trance, which 
 show the former to be taller and more robust. Indeed, as 
 j\Ir. Gattie, in an article on the physique of European 
 armies, says: — 
 
 A glance at the tables suffices to show the physical superiority 
 of the countrymen at all points. Looking more closely, we Ihid 
 that, although the townsmen who had followed outdoor pursuits 
 were shorter and lighter than the rest, they were able to lift and 
 carry much greater weights. 
 
 Again, the official statistics of Switzerland tell the same 
 
 story, thus: — 
 
 The butchers and bakers have much the best development, both 
 of arm and chest ; the carpenters, blacksmiths, and masons coming 
 next. The bakers are not so tall as the butchers, blacksmiths, 
 and cai-penters, and the masons are very much shorter, but their 
 arms are proportionately better developed than those of the 
 carpenters and blacksmiths. Tho agricultural labourers and 
 checsemen are next in order, and then follow the wheelwrights, 
 saddlers, and sedentary operatives, the weakest men of all being 
 the weavers; while the tailors are the shortest, and are scarcely 
 less feeble. 
 
 These are fads ; and they seem to prove my second point, 
 that the factory system is bad for the public health.
 
 28 MERRIE ENGLAND. 
 
 CIIAPTES IV. 
 
 Can England Feeb Herself? 
 
 This our earth this day produces sufBcient for our existence, this our 
 earth produces not only a sufficiency, but a superabundauce, and pours a 
 cornucopia of good things down upon us. rurthci", it produces sufficient 
 for stores and granaries to be filled to the roof-tree for years ahead. I 
 verilj' believe that the earth in one year produces enough food to last for 
 thirty. Why, then have we not enough? Why do people die of starva- 
 tion, or lead a miserable existence on the verge of it? Why have millions 
 upon millions to toil from morning to evening just to gain a mere crust 
 of bread? Because of the abfolute lack of organisation by which such 
 labour should produce its effect, the absolute lack of distribution, the 
 absolute lack, even, of the very idea that such things are possible. Nay, 
 even to mention such things, to say that they are possible, is criminal 
 with many. Madness could hardly go farther. — Richard Jefferies. 
 
 If England were swallowed up by the sea to-morrow, which of the two, 
 a hundred years hence, would most excite the love, interest, and admira- 
 tion of mankind — would most, therefore, show the evidences of having 
 possessed greatness — the England of the last twenty years, or the England 
 of Elizabeth, of a time of splendid spiritual effort, but when our coal, and 
 our industrial operations depending on coal, were very little developed? — 
 Matthew Arnold. 
 
 The absurdity of the attempt as yet to measure the power of subsistence 
 and to declare it to be limited can be demonstrated in two or three simple 
 ways suitable to the use of a statistician like myself. First, no man yet 
 knows the productive capacity of a single acre of laud anywhere in respect 
 to food ; second, the whole existing population of the globe, estimated at 
 1,400,000,000 persons, could lind comfortable standing room within the 
 limits of a field ten miles Sixuare. The land capable of producing wheat 
 is not occupied to anything like one-twentieth of its extent. We caa 
 raise grain enough on a small part of the territory of the United States to 
 feed the world. — Ed. Atkinson. 
 
 We come now to the third objection to the factory 
 system — that it is unnecessary. It is often asserted that 
 this country could not feed all her present population. I 
 \^ill try to show you that this is absurd. But first of 
 all let me recommend to you Sketchley's "Eeview of 
 European Society," price Is. Gd. (William Beeves, 
 London) ; and " Poverty and the State, " by Herbert 
 V. Mills (Kegan Paul, Trench, & Co.). 
 
 We have to prove that the British Islands can grow 
 wheat enough to feed 36 millions of people. 
 
 In Hoyle's " Sources of Wealth" it is stated that Great 
 Britain and Ireland contain about 50 millions of acres of 
 good land, unbuilt upon and available for agriculture.
 
 ME ERIE ENGLAND. 29 
 
 Lord Lauderdale estimates that 500 acres will feed 2,000 
 people, that is four to the acre. Therefore if we used all 
 our available land we could feed 200 millions of people. 
 
 Take a lower estimate. Allison estimates, in his 
 "Principles of Population," that, after allowing for bad 
 land and pasture land, these islands could feed the following 
 numbers : — 
 
 En£jlanfl and Wnles G0,000,000 
 
 Scotland 15,000, (XIO 
 
 Ireland 48,000,000 
 
 Total 123,000,000 
 
 But these are estimates. Take accomplished facts. The 
 Quarter! y Review said in 1873 that in the year 1841 England 
 grew wheat at home for 24 millions of people. 
 
 Now read this quotation, from a speech of Mr. Cobden's 
 at Manchester: — • 
 
 I have heard Mr. Oglivey say — and he is willing to go before a 
 committee of the House to prove it — that Cheshire, if properly 
 cultivated, is capable of producing three times as much as it now 
 produces from its surface . . . and there is not a higher 
 authority in the kingdom. 
 
 That was in 1844, at a time when England grew wheat for 
 24,000,000 of its people. 
 
 The Manchester School would have us believe tliat we 
 cannot feed 36 millions. "Well, in 1885 we imported 
 nearly £53,000,000 worth of foreign wheat. 
 
 Compare that sum with the following statement by Mr. 
 Mechi : — 
 
 I have tested this by comparative results, and find that if all 
 the land in this kingdom equal to my own, about 50 million acres, 
 produced as much per acre as mine docs, our agricultural produce 
 would be increased by the enormous amount of £421,000,000 
 annually. 
 
 So much for the possible yield of our land under ordinary 
 cultivation. 
 
 But now comes the most tremendous idea — the idea of 
 what is called "intensive agriculture." 
 
 In an article in the Forum in 1890, Prince Krapotkin 
 says that when we learn hov/ to use the soil we may feed 
 ten times our population with ease. This, he says, has 
 been proved in France. Note this : —
 
 30 MERRIE ENGLAND. 
 
 That, by combining a series of such simple operations as the 
 Belections of seeds, sowing in rows, and proper manuring, the 
 crops can be increased by at least 75 per cent, over the best 
 present average, while the cost of production can be i-educed by 
 60 per cent, by the use of some inexpensive machinery, to say 
 nothing of costly machines, like the steam digger, or the pul- 
 verisers which make the soil required for each special culture. 
 
 The Prince is right. Agriculture has been neglected because 
 all the mechanical and chemical skill, and all the capital 
 and energy of man, have been thrown into the struggle for 
 trade profits and manufacturing pre-eminence. We want 
 a few Paradays, Watts, Stephensons, and Cobdens to 
 demote their genius and industry to the great food question. 
 Once let the public interest and the public genius be con- 
 centrated upon the agriculture of England, and we shall 
 soon get silenced the croal^ers who talk about the impos- 
 sibility of the country feeding her people. 
 But, again. Prince Krapotkin says : — 
 
 Mr. Hallett, by a simple selection of grains, will obtain in a 
 few years a wheat which bears 10,840 grains on each stem grown 
 from a single seed ; so that from seven to eight hundred of his 
 Btems of wheat (which could be grown upon a score of squaro 
 yards) would give the yearly supply of bread for a full-grown 
 person. 
 
 Twenty square yards to feed one person. Then one aero 
 would feed 242 persons ; so that to find bread for our 
 entire population of 36 millions we need only 148,763 
 acres. 
 
 When I add that Devonshire contains 1,665,208 acres, 
 that Surrey contains 485,129 acres, and Kent 995,392 
 acres, I think you will see that we need not depend upon 
 America for our wheat. 
 
 Nor is that all. The Review of Reviews, in its notice on 
 this valuable paper of Prince Krapotkin's, says: — 
 
 Prince Krapotkin's chief illustrations, however, as to the 
 possibility of intansive agriculture are taken from the Channel 
 It-lands, and notably from Guei-nsey. Guernsey has 1,300 persons 
 to the square mile, and has more unproductive soil than Jersey ; 
 but Guernsey leads the world in the matter of advanced agri- 
 culture, because Guernsey is being practically roofed in. The 
 Guernsey kitchen garden is all under glass. Prince Krapotkin 
 found in one place three -fourths of an acre covered with glass ; 
 in another, in Jersey, he found vineries under glass covering 
 thirteen acres, and yielding more money return than that which
 
 MERE IE ENGLAND, 81 
 
 can be taken from an ordinary English farm of 1,300 acres. Each 
 acre of greenhouse employs three men. The cost of erecting them 
 is about ten shillings per square yard, excluding the cost of the 
 heating pipes. The thirteen acres are warmed by consuming a 
 thousand cart loads of coke and coal. Prince Krapotkin sees that 
 before long immense vineries will grow up round the coal pits of 
 Northumberland, where artificial heat can bo obtained from coala 
 selling at the cost of three shillings the ton. 
 
 Depend upon it, what I have told you is true, and that 
 England can feed her people as she has fed them in times 
 gone by, with never a factory flue to vomit foulness into 
 the air, and never a greedy money-grasper to poison her 
 streams with filth, or wither her woods and glades with 
 soot and sulphur. 
 
 We will next proceed to consider my fourth objection 
 to the factory system, when I think I shall be able to show 
 you, beyond all question, that besides being hideous, un- 
 pleasant, unhealthy, and unnecessary, the factories are a 
 serious danger to the existence of the Empire. 
 
 Granting that the factory system is an evil, is it a 
 necessary evil? 
 
 Why do we weave cloth and cotton? For two 
 purposes : — 
 
 1. To clothe ourselves. 
 
 2. To exchange for foreign produce. 
 
 To provide for our own needs we must make cotton or 
 linen fabrics. True. But we need not make them by 
 steam power. We could make them by water power, and 
 60 abolish the smoke nuisance. 
 
 Will you have the goodness, Mr. Smith, to cast your 
 eyes over the following statements, made, a few years ago, 
 by Prof. Thompson: — 
 
 The average rise and fall of the tide at the city of Bristol, five 
 miles from its mouth, is 23 feet. According to calculations I 
 have made from the average volume of water displaced up and 
 down each tide, there are no fewer than 20 billions foot-pounds 
 of energy wasted each year, or enough to charge 10 million Fauro 
 cells. At the mouth of the river the total annual energy thus 
 running to utter waste cannot be less than 60 billions foot- 
 pounds, and in the rapid currents of the river Severn, with their 
 enormous tides of great volume, the tidal energy must be practi- 
 cally unlimited, A tenth part of the tidal energy in the gorge 
 of the Avon would light the city of Bristol ; a tenth part of the
 
 32 MERRTE ENGLAND. 
 
 tidal energy in the channel of the Severn would light every city ; 
 and another tenth part v/ould turn every loom and spindle and 
 axle in Great Britain. 
 
 The power of water is tremendous ; the beauty of water is 
 sublime. Perhaps, when our practical men learn a little 
 common sense, we shall be able to grind an axe or throw a 
 shuttle without blackening the sky above or choking the 
 unhappy creatures who crawl upon the earth beneath. 
 Besides, the less coal needed, the fewer colliers needed, 
 and in the Clarion Tito has told us that ninety thousand 
 men and boys are killed and injured every year in the 
 mines. 
 
 Now, Mr. Smith, why should we make cotton goods for 
 foreign countries? 
 
 The Manchester School will tell you that we must do it 
 to buy corn. In 1885 we exported cotton goods to the 
 value of £66,000,000; and we imported corn and flour, in 
 the same year, to the value of <£53,000,000. 
 
 Why? The Manchester School will tell you that we 
 cannot grow our own corn. That is not true. 
 
 They will tell you that as foreigners can grow corn more 
 cheaply than we can, and as we can make cotton goods 
 more cheaply than they can, it is to the interest of both 
 parties to exchange. 
 
 I do not believe that any nation can sell corn more 
 cheaply than we cmild produce it ; and I am sure that even 
 if it cost a little more to grow our corn than to buy it, yet 
 it would be to our interest to grow it. First as to the cost 
 of growing corn. In the Industrial History of England I 
 find the question of why the English farmer is undersold 
 answered in this way : — 
 
 The answer is simple. His capital has been filched from him, 
 surely, but not always slowly, by a tremendous increase in his 
 rent The landlords of the eighteenth century made the English 
 farmer the foremost agriculturist in the world, but their successors 
 
 of the nineteenth have ruined him by their extortions 
 
 In 1799 we find land paying nearly 2()s. an acre. . . . Cy 
 1850 it had risen to o8s. 6d. . . . £2 an acre was not an 
 uncommon rent for land a few years ago, the average increase of 
 English rent being no less than 26J- per cent, between 1854 
 and 1879. . . . The result has been that the averngo capital 
 per acre now employed in agi'iculture is only about £4 or £5 
 instead of at least £1U, as it ought to bo.
 
 MERRIE ENGLAND. 33 
 
 I know it has been said, and is said, that an English 
 farmer owning his land cannot compete with foreign 
 dealers ; but I think that is doubtful, and I am sure that 
 if the land were owned by the State, and farmed systemati- 
 cally by the best methods, we might grow our corn more 
 cheaply than we could buy it. 
 
 But suppose we could not. The logical result of the 
 free-trade argument would be that British agriculture must 
 perish. The case was very clearly put by Mr. Cobden in 
 the House of Commons : — 
 
 To buy in the cheapest market and >i^ll in the dearest, what ia 
 the meaning of the maxim? It meano* that you take the article 
 which you have in the greatest abundance, and with it obtain 
 from others that of which they have the most to spare ; so giving 
 to mankind the means of enjoying the fullest abundance of earth's 
 goods. 
 
 Yes, it means that, but it means much more than that. 
 However, let us reduce these fine phrases to figures. Suppose 
 America can sell us wheat at 30s. a quarter, and suppose 
 ours costs 32s. 6d. a quarter. That is a gain of -^ in the 
 cost of wheat. IVe get a loaf for 3d. instead of having to pay 
 ^\d. That is all (he fine phrases mean. 
 
 What do we lose? We lose the beauty and health of. 
 our factory towns ; we lose annually some twenty thousand 
 lives in Lancashire alone; we are in constant danger of 
 great strikes, like that which recently so crushed our 
 cotton-operatives ; we are reduced to the meanest shifts and 
 the most violent acts of piracy and slaughter to " open up 
 markets" for our goods ; we lose the stamina of our people ; 
 and — we lose our agricnltiire. 
 
 Did you ever consider what it involves, this ruin of 
 British agriculture? Do you know how rapidly the ruin is 
 being wrought? Here is a list, from the Quarterly Review, 
 of 1873, of the relative proportions of home-grown and 
 foreign-grown wheat used in this country : — 
 
 Population dependent Population dependent 
 
 on on 
 
 home-gi-ov.n wheat. foreign wheat. 
 
 1821 18,8fX),000 000,000 
 
 1831 21,850,000 ^ 700,0(X) 
 
 1841 24,2S0,(X)0 1,200,000 
 
 1851 23,550,0(J0 3,930,000 
 
 1861 21,500,000 6,706,000 
 
 1871 19,278,000 11,661,000 
 
 B
 
 34 MERRIE ENGLAND. 
 
 And to this Mr. Sketchley adds his estimate for 1880, 
 which is : — 
 
 Home-grown wheat. Foreign wheat. 
 1880 12,152,000 22,352,000 
 
 Now, suppose we get at last to a state of things under 
 which thirty-six millions live on foreign-grown wheat and 
 ^ione on wheat of home growth ! Suppose our agriculture 
 is dead ; and we depend entirely upon foreigners for our 
 daily bread ! What will be our position then? 
 
 Our position will be this. We shall be unable to produce 
 our own food, and can only get it by selling to foreign 
 countries our manufactured goods. AVe must buy wheat 
 from America with cotton goods ; but first of all we must 
 buy raw cotton with which to make those goods. 
 
 We are therefore entirely dependent upon foreigners for 
 our existence. 
 
 Yery well. Suppose we go to war with America ! What 
 happens? Do you remember the cotton famine? That 
 was bad ; but a mere trifle to what an Anglo-American wa't 
 would be. We should, in fact, be beaten without firing a 
 shot. America need only close her ports to corn and cotton 
 and we should be starved into surrender, and acceptance of 
 her terms. 
 
 Or suppose a European war ; say with France, or Eussia. 
 All our goods and all our food have to be brought over 
 sea. What would it cost us to keep command of the seas? 
 What would the effect of the panic be here? And suppose 
 we found our communications cut. We should be starved 
 into surrender at once. 
 
 Or suppose Prance at war with America. Our sufferings 
 would be something terrible. 
 
 Tory orators and Jingo poets are fond of shouting th& 
 glories of the Empire and the safety of our possessions; 
 and reams of paper have been covered with patriotic songs 
 about our "silver streak" and our ''tight little island." 
 But don't you see, Mr. Smith, that if we lose our power to 
 feed oui'selves we destroy the advantages of oiir in stilar position ? 
 Don't you see that if we destroy our agricultm'e we destroy 
 our independence at a blow, and becc^me a defenceless nation?
 
 MERRTE ENGLAND. 35 
 
 Don't you see that the people who depend on foreigners for 
 their food are at the mercy of any ambitious statesman who 
 chooses to make war upon them? And don't you think 
 that is a rather stiff price to pay to get a farthing olf the 
 loaf? 
 
 Well, ]Mr. Smith, thanks to the Manchester School, to 
 the factoiy system, and to the grasping landlord — who is 
 generally a Tory and fond of barging about the security of 
 the Empire— we are almost helpless noiv. Another twenty 
 years of prosperous trade and cheap bread, and we are done 
 for. 
 
 Again, how shall we look if, after we have killed our 
 agriculture, we lose our trade? Do you think that impos- 
 sible? Tour cotton-lords seem to think it possible enough, 
 and are now telling you that the only means of keeping the 
 trade which is to kill your agriculture and destroy your 
 national independence is to louver your vjages. 
 
 That farthing off the loaf is going to cost you dear, John 
 Smith, before you have done with it. 
 
 Tour trade union leaders tell you that you have beaten 
 all foreign competition except that of India. 
 
 Do you think that you can fight India, John? I don't. 
 Because in India labour is so cheap, and because your 
 cotton-lords, John, some of whom are Liberals, and friends 
 of the people, John, and others of whom are Tories, who 
 would die for the safety of the Empire, John, will take 
 precious good care to use that cheap Indian labour to bring 
 down your wages, John, by means of competition. Oh, 
 John, John, you silly fellow, have you no eyes? 
 
 These are some of the reasons why I don't love the 
 factory system. Consider them; and read the history of 
 that system, and how its first successes were bought by the 
 murder and torture of little children, and spent in buying 
 the freedom of West Indian slaves and in waging war 
 against the French Ivepublic. 
 
 The thing is evil. It is evil in its origin, in its progress, 
 in its methods, in its motives, and in its effects. No nation 
 can be sound whose motive power is greed. No nation can 
 be secure unless it is independent, no nation can be inde- 
 pendent unless it is based upon agricultui-e.
 
 36 MERRTE ENGLAND. 
 
 Will you consider this passage from " Field and Hedge- 
 row," by Eichard Jefferies, a beautiful book, and well 
 worth buying: — 
 
 Of the broad surface of the golden wheat and its glory I have 
 already spoken, yet these flower-encircled acres, these beautiful 
 fields of peaceful wheat, are the battle-fields of life. . . . The 
 wheat-fields are the battle-fields of the world. If not so openly 
 invaded as of old time, the struggle between nations is still ono 
 for the ownership or for the control of corn. AVhen Italy became 
 a vineyard and could no more feed armies, slowly power slijjped 
 away, and the great empire of Rome split into many pieces. It 
 has long been foreseen that if ever England is occupied with a 
 great war, the question of our corn supply, so largely deinved 
 from abroad, will become a weighty mattei'. . . . 
 As persons, each of us, in our voluntary and involuntary struggle 
 for money, is really striving for those little grains of wheat that 
 lie so lightly in the palm of the hand. Corn is coin, and coin is 
 corn, and whether it be a labourer in the field, who no sooner 
 receives his weekly wage than he exchanges it for bread, or 
 whether it be the financier in Lombard Street who loans millions, 
 the object is really the same — wheat. 
 
 All ends in the same : iron mines, coal mines, factories, 
 furnaces, the counter, the desk — no one can live on iron, or coal, 
 or cotton — the object is really sacks of wheat. 
 
 Now, John, is that good sense? Is it nothing to you 
 that the Tory land-grabber and the Liberal money-grubber 
 are killing the wheat fields of England? 
 
 Oh, John, and you call yourself a practical man. And 
 you don't even know that men live by bread, and think 
 me a fool when I tell you so.
 
 MERRIE ENGLAND. 37 
 
 CHAPTEE V. 
 
 The Life of the Woekjub. 
 
 The prople live iu squalid dens, where there can be no health and no 
 hope, but dogged discontent at their own lot, and futile discontent at the 
 wealth which they see possessed by others. — Thorold Ro,jers. 
 
 It is verj' evident what mean and sneaking lives many of you live, for 
 my sight has been whetted by experience ; always on the limits, trying to 
 get into business and trying to get out of debt, a very ancient slough, 
 calL'd bj' the Latins aes alienum, another's brass, for some of their 
 coins were made of brass ; still living, and dying, and buried by this 
 other's brass ; always promising to pay, promising to pay to- 
 morrow, and dying to-day insolvent ; seeking to curry favour, to get 
 custom, by how many modes — only not state-prison offences; lying, 
 flattering, voting, contracting yourselves into a nutshell of civility, or 
 dilating into an atmosphere of tbin and vaporous generosity, that you 
 may persuade your neighbour to let you make his shoes, or his hat, or his 
 coat, or his carriage, or import his groceries for him ; making yourselves 
 sick that you may lay up something against a sick day, something to be 
 tucked awaj- in an old chest or in a stocking behind the plastering, or 
 more safely in the brick bank, no matter where, no matter how much or 
 how little. — Thoreau. 
 
 I feel sure that the time will come when peopi /ill find it difficult to 
 believe that a rich community such as ours, having such command over 
 external Nature, could have submitted to live such a mean, shabby, dirty 
 life as we do. — JVm. Mon-is. 
 
 The problem of life is, " Given a country and a people, 
 show how the people can make the most of the country and 
 themselves." Before we go on, let us try to judge how far 
 we in Britain have succeeded in answering the problem. 
 
 The following are facts which no man attempts to deny : — 
 
 1. Large numbers of honest and industrious 
 people are badly fed, badly clothed, and badly 
 housed. 
 
 2. Many thousands of people die every year from 
 preventable diseases. 
 
 3. The average duration of life amongst the 
 population is unnaturally short. 
 
 4. Very many people, after lives of toil, are 
 obliged to seek refuge in the workhouse,, where 
 they die despised and neglected, branded with the 
 shameful brand of pauperism. 
 
 5. It is an almost invariable rule that those who 
 ■work hardest and longest in this country are the 
 worst paid and the least respected.
 
 38 MERRIE ENGLAND. 
 
 6. The wealthiest men in our nation are men who 
 never did a useful day's work. 
 
 7. Wealth and power are more prized and more 
 honoured than wisdom, or industry, or virtue. 
 
 8. Hundreds of thousands of men and women, 
 willing to work, are unable to find employment. 
 
 9. While on the one hand wages are lowered on 
 account of over-production of coal, of cotton, and of 
 corn, on the other hand many of our working people 
 are short of bread, of fuel, and of clothing. 
 
 10. Nearly all the land and property in this 
 country are owned by a few idlers, and most of the 
 laws are made in the interests of those few rich 
 people. 
 
 11. The national agriculture is going rapidly to 
 ruin to the great injury and peril of the State. 
 
 12. Through competition millions of men are 
 employed in useless and undignified work, and all 
 the industrial machinery of the nation is thrown out 
 of gear, so that one greedy rascal may overreach 
 another. 
 
 And we are told that all these things must remain as they 
 are, in order that you may be able to "get a living." 
 
 What sort of a living do you get? 
 
 Tour life may be divided into four sections: Working, 
 eating, recreation, and sleeping. 
 
 As to work. Tou are employed in a factory for from 53 
 to 70 hours a week. Some of your comrades work harder, 
 and longer, and in worse places. Still, as a rule, it may 
 be said of all 3"our class that the hours of labour are 
 too long, that the labour is monotonous, mechanical, and 
 severe, and that the surroundings are often unhealthy, 
 nearly always disagreeable, and in many cases dangerous. 
 
 Do you know the difference between "work" and "toil"? 
 It is the difference between the work of the gardener and 
 the toil of the navvy — between the work of the wood carver 
 and the toil of the v.'ood chopper. 
 
 We hear a good deal of talk about the idleness of the 
 labouring classes and the industry of the professional classes. 
 There is a difference in the work. The surgeon, or the
 
 MERRIE ENGLAND. 39 
 
 sculptor, following the work of his choice, may well work 
 harder than the collier, drudging for a daily wage. 
 
 An artist loves his work, and sees in it the means of 
 winning fame, perhaps fortune ; an artisan sees in his toil 
 a dull mechanical task, to be done for bread, but never to 
 bo made to yield pleasure, or praise, or profit. 
 
 As a rule, your work is hard and disagreeable. 
 
 Now, what are your wages? 
 
 I don't mean how many shillings a week do you get ; 
 but what life do you get as the reward of your toil? 
 
 You may get fifteen shillings a M'eek, or a pound, or 
 twenty-five or thirty-five shillings, or two pounds ; but the 
 question is how do you /u'e? AVhat will your money linj2 
 
 As I have shown already, you do not get enough leisure, 
 nor enough fresh air, nor enough education, nor enough 
 health, and your town is very ugly and very dirty and very 
 dull. But let us go into details. 
 
 I have often seen you turn up your nose with scorn at 
 the sight of a gipsy. Tet the gipsy is a healthier, a 
 stronger, a braver, and a wiser man than j'ou, and lives a 
 life more pleasant and free and natural than yours. 
 
 Not that the gipsy is a model citizen ; but you may learn 
 a great deal from him; and I doubt whether there is 
 anything he could learn from you. 
 
 And now let us see how you live. First of all, in the 
 matter of food. Tour diet is not a good one. It is not 
 varied enough, and nearly all the things you eat and drink 
 are adulterated. 
 
 I am much inclined to think that a vegetarian diet is the 
 best, and I am sure that alcoholic liquors are unnecessary. 
 Eut this by the way. If you do drink beer and spirits, it 
 vvoidd be better to have them pure. At present nearly all 
 your liquors are abominable. 
 
 But there is one thing about your diet worse even than 
 the quality of the food, and that is the cookery. Mrs. 
 Smith is an excellent woman, and I hereby make my bow 
 to her, but she does not know wliat cookery ineans, 
 
 John Smith, it is a solemn and an awful truth, one which 
 it pains me to utter, but you never ate a beefsteak, and you 
 never saw a cooked potato. 
 
 God strengthen thy digestion, John, 'tis sore tded. Oh,
 
 40 MERRIE ENGLAND. 
 
 the soddened vegetables, the flabby fish, the leathery steak, 
 and the juiceless joint, I know them. i\las! Cookery is 
 an art, and almost a lost art in this country ; or shall we 
 say, an art unfound? 
 
 Poor Mrs. Smith gets married and faces the paste-board 
 and the oven with the com'age of desperation, and the hope 
 of ignorance. She resembles the young man who had never 
 played the fiddle, but had no doubt he could play it if he 
 tried. And sometimes he does try, and so Mrs. Smith 
 tries to cook. 
 
 jFrom food we will turn to clothing. Oh, it is pitiful. 
 Do you know the meaning of the words "form" and 
 "colour"? Look at our people's dress. Observe the cut 
 of it, the general drabness, grcyness, and gloom. Those 
 awfid black biigles, those horrific sack coats, those deadly 
 hats and bonnets, and they do say, that crinoline — Ah, 
 heaven ! That we should call these delicate creatures ours 
 iind not their fashion plates. The dresses, but especially 
 the Sunday clothes, of the British working classes are things 
 too sad for tears. 
 
 Costume shoidd be simple, healthy, convenient, and 
 beautiful. Modern British costume is none of these. 
 
 This is chiefly because the fashion of our dress is left to 
 fops and tailors, whereas it ought to be left to artists and 
 designers. 
 
 But beside the ugliness of your dress, it is also true that 
 it is mean. It is mean because hardly anything you wear 
 is what it pretends to be, because it is adulterated and 
 jerry-made, and because it is insufficient. Yes, in nearly 
 all your houses there is, despite our factory system, a 
 decided scarcity of shirts and socks and sheets and towels 
 and table linen. 
 
 Come we now to the home. Tour houses are not what 
 they should be. I do not allude to the inferior cottage — 
 that is beneath notice. Here in Manchester we have some 
 forty thousand houses unfit for habitation. But let us 
 consider the abode of the more fortunate artisan. It has 
 many faults. It is badly built, badly arranged, and badly 
 fitted. ^ The sanitation is bad. The rooms are much too 
 small. There are no proper appliances for cleanliness. 
 The windows arc not big enough. There is a painful
 
 MERRIE ENGLAND. 41 
 
 dearth of light and air. The cooking appliances are simply 
 barbarous. 
 
 Again, the houses are very ugly and mean. The streets 
 are too narrow. There are no gardens. There are no trees. 
 Few working-class families have enough bedrooms, and the 
 bathroom is a luxury not known in cottages. 
 
 In fine, your houses are ugly, unhealthy, inconvenient, 
 dark, ill-built, ill-fitted, and dear. 
 
 This is due, in a great measure, to the cost of land. I 
 will tell you soon why land is so expensive. 
 
 Moreover, instead of your making the most of your room 
 you will persist in crowding your house with hideous and 
 unnecessary furniture. Eurniture is one of your household 
 gods. Tou are a victim to your furniture, and your wife 
 is a slave. Did it ever occur to you that your only use for 
 the bulk of your household goods is to clean them? It is 
 so, and yet you keep on striving to get more and more 
 furniture for your wife to wait upon. 
 
 Just cast your eye over the following description of a 
 Japanese house, John, and see if it does not suggest some- 
 thing to you; and do read "Walden." It is only a 
 shilling, and if you read it well it will save you much 
 money in furniture, and your wife much toil in acting as 
 a slave to the sideboard and best parlour suite : — 
 
 Simplicity and refinement are the essential characteristics of 
 life in Japan, observes the Hospital. The houses, which are 
 spacious, are constructed without foundations. Light wooden 
 uprights resting on flat stones support the thatched or tiled roof. 
 The walls, both outside and those which divide the rooms, arc 
 formed of latticed panels which slide over one another, or can be 
 removed altogether if desired. These panels are filled with 
 translucent paper. At night the house is closed in with wooden 
 shutters. The rooms, which are raised about a foot above the 
 ground, are covered with soft padded matting kept spotlessly 
 clean. In the centre of the living room is a shallow, square pit 
 lined with metal ond filled with charcoal, for the purposes of 
 cooking and warming, or the rooms hvq warmed with movable 
 metal braziers. There is no furniture present, no chairs, tables, 
 beds, chests of draivirs, pictures, or knick-knacks. The matted 
 floor serves alike for chairs, table, and bed. To keep it aljso- 
 lutcly clean, all boots, shoes, and sandals are left on the ground 
 outside. The absence of furniture means the absence of many 
 cares, and as two wooden chopsticks and small lacquer bowls 
 6orvo for all the purposes of eating, there is no need for plato,
 
 42 MERRIE ENGLAND. 
 
 glass, knives, forks, spoons, dinner services, and table linen, 
 Tlius life is simplified, though it loses at the same time none of 
 its refinement, for no people can be more dainty and particular in 
 their food, more neat and beautiful in dress, and more courteous 
 and self-restrained in manner than the Japanese. Kneeling on 
 the floor, all work is done, and at night time the padded quilts or 
 futons are spread on the matting, and, with one quilt beneath 
 and another above, sleep can be enjoyed as comfortably as in bed. 
 Before the evening meal is taken, it is the invariable custom 
 throughout Japan for every member of the household to take a 
 dip in the family bath, which is heated to a temperature of 110 
 dcg. to 120 deg., at which heat it is found to be very refreshing. 
 
 Poor Mrs. John Smith, her life is one long slavery. 
 Cooking, cleaning, managing, mending, washing clothes, 
 waiting on husband and children, her work is never done. 
 And amid it all she suffers the pains and anxieties of child- 
 bearing, and the suckling of children. There are no servants, 
 and few workers, so hard-wrought and so ill-paid as the 
 v.'ife of a British artisan. What are her Jwiirs of labour, 
 my trade union friend? What pleasure has she, what 
 rest, what prospect? 
 
 Cannot be helped, do you say? Nonsense. Do you 
 suppose the Japanese wife works as your wife works? 
 jS'ot at all. My dear John, in your domestic as in your 
 industrial and political affairs, all that is needed is a little 
 common sense. We are living at present in a state of 
 anarchy and barbarism, and it is your fault, and not the 
 fault of the priests and politicians who dupe and plunder 
 you. 
 
 And now we come to the last item in your life, your 
 recreation. Hei'e, Mr. Smith, you are very badly served. 
 Tou have hardly anything to amuse you. Music, art, 
 athletics, science, the drama, and nature are almost denied 
 to you. A few cheerless museums filled with Indian war 
 clubs, fag ends of tapestry, and dried beetles ; a few third- 
 rate pictures, a theati'e or two where you have choice 
 between vulgar burlesque and morbid melodrama, a 
 sprinkling of wretched music (?) halls, one or two sleepy 
 night-scliools, a football field and sometimes — for the better 
 paid workers — a criclcet ground, make up the sum of your 
 life's pleasures. Well — yes, there are plenty of public- 
 houses, and you can gamble. The betting lists and racing 
 news have a corner in all the respectable papers.
 
 MERRIE ENGLAND. 43 
 
 One of the most palpable and painful deficiencies, John, 
 in all your towns is the deficiency of common-land, of open 
 spaces. This is because land is so dear. Why is land dear? 
 I will tell you by-and-bye. 
 
 The chief causes of the evils I have pointed out to you, 
 John, are competition, monopoly, and bad management. 
 There is a penny pamphlet, called "Milk and Postage 
 Stamps," by "Elihu," sold by Abel Heywood. Eead it. 
 It shows you the waste of labour that comes of com- 
 petition. 
 
 Go into any street and you will see two or three carts 
 delivering milk. A cart, a pony, and a man to carry milk 
 to a few houses ; and one postman serves a whole district ; 
 as one milkman and one horse could, were it not for com- 
 petition. 
 
 Again, in each house there is a woman cooking a dinner 
 for one family, or washing clothes for one family. And 
 the woman is over-worked, and the cooking is badly done, 
 and the house is made horrible by steam and the odours of 
 burnt fat. So with all the things we do and use. We 
 have two grocers'" shops next door to each other, each with 
 a staff of servants, each with its own costly fixtures. Tet 
 one big store would do as well, and would save half the cost 
 and labour. Fancy a private post-office in every street. 
 How much would it cost to send a letter from Oldham to 
 London? 
 
 So now let me tell you roughly what I suggest as an 
 improvement on things as they now are. 
 
 First of all I would set men to work to grow wheat and 
 fruit and rear cattle and poultry for our own use. Then I 
 would develop the fisheries and construct great fish-breeding 
 lakes and liarbours. Then I. would restrict our mines, 
 furnaces, chemical works, and factories to the ninnber 
 actually needed for the supply of our own people. Then I 
 would stop the smoke nuisance by developing water power 
 and electricity. 
 
 In order to achieve these ends I woidd make all the 
 land, mills, mines, factories, works, shops, ships, and 
 railways the property of the people. 
 
 I would have the towns rebuilt with wide streets, with 
 detached houoes, with gardens and fountains and avenues
 
 44 MERRIE ENGLAND. 
 
 of trees. I would make the railways, the carriage of letters, 
 and the transit of goods as free as the roads and bridges. 
 
 I would make the houses loftier and larger, and clear 
 them of all useless furniture. I would institute public 
 dining halls, public baths, public wash-houses on the best 
 plans, and so set free the hands of those slaves — our English 
 ^v•omen. 
 
 I would have public parks, public theatres, music halls, 
 f^-mnasiums, football and cricket fields, public halls and 
 ])ublic gardens for recreation and music and refreshment. I 
 Arould have all our children fed and clothed and educated at 
 the cost of the State. I would have them all taught to play 
 and to sing. I would have them all trained to athletics and 
 to arms. I would have public halls of science. I would 
 have the people become their own artists, actors, musicians, 
 soldiers, and police. Then, by degrees I would make all 
 these things free. So that clothing, lodging, fuel, food, 
 amusement, intercourse, education, and all the requirements 
 for a perfect human life should be produced and distributed 
 and enjoyed by the people without the use of money. 
 
 Now, Mr. John Smith, practical and hard-headed man, 
 look upon the two pictiu'es. You may think that mine 
 represents a state of things that is unattainable ; but you 
 must own that it is much fairer than the picture of things 
 as they are. 
 
 As to the possibility of doing what I suggest, we will 
 consider all that in a future chapter. At present ask your- 
 self two questions : — 
 
 1. Is Modern England as happy as it might be? 
 
 2. Is my England — Merrie England — a better 
 place than the England in which we now live?
 
 MERRIE ENGLAND. 45 
 
 CHAPTER yi. 
 The Bitter Cost of a Bad System. 
 
 Most men, even in this comparatively free country, through mero 
 ignorance anil mistake, are so occupied with factitious cares and 
 superfluously coarse labours of life that its finer fruits cannot be plucked 
 by them. Their fingers, from excessive toil, are too clumsy and treuible 
 too much for that. Actually, the labouring man has not leisure for a true 
 integrity day by day ; he cannot afford to sustain the manliest relations 
 to me; his labour would be dejireciatid in the market. He has no time 
 to be anything but a machine. How can he remember well his ignorance — 
 which his growth requires — who has so often to use his knowledge ? We 
 should feed and clothe him gratuitously sometimes, and recruit him with 
 our cordials before we judge of him. The finest qualities of our nature, 
 like the bloom on fruits, can be preserved only by the most delicate 
 handling. Yet we do not treat ourselves nor one another thus tenderly. — 
 Thoreau. 
 
 And I believe that this claim for a healthy body for all of us carries 
 vith it all other due claims ; for who knows where the seeds of disease, 
 v.'hich even rich people sulfer from, were first sown ? From the luxury 
 of an ancestor, perhaps ; yet often, I suspect, from his poverty. — frm, 
 Morris. 
 
 I have been asked to contribute to the purchase of the Alexandra Park, 
 and I will not ; and beg you, my working readers, to understand, once for 
 all, that I wish your homes to be comfortable, and refined ; and that I will 
 resist, to the utmost of my power, all schemes founded on the vile modern 
 notion that you are to be crowded in kennels till you are nearly dead, that 
 other people may make money by your work, ; and then taken out in 
 squads by tramway and railway, to be revived and refined by science and 
 art. Your first business is to make your homes healthy and delightful ; 
 then, keep your wives and children there, and let your return to them be 
 your daily "holy-day." — Ruskin. 
 
 The chief struggle of your life, Mr. Smith, is the struggle 
 to get a living. The chief object of these letters is to 
 convince you of three facts : — 
 
 1. That with all your labour and anxiety you dc 
 not get a good living. 
 
 2. That you might and should get a good living 
 with a third of the trouble you now take to keep 
 out of a pauper's suit. 
 
 3. That though you worked twenty hours a day 
 and piled the earth with wealth you could have no 
 more than a good living out of all the wealth you 
 produced. 
 
 Nature declares, Mr. Smith, that a man shall live 
 temperately, or suffer for it ; Nature also declares that a
 
 46 MERRIE ENGLAND. 
 
 man shall not live very long. So that in the richest state 
 a citizen can enjoy no more than a natural amount, and 
 that a small one, of material things, nor can he enjoy those 
 for many years. 
 
 In short, the material needs of life are few and easily 
 Bupplied. 
 
 But the range of the spiritual and intellectual pleasures 
 and capacities is very wide. That is to say that the 
 pleasures and powers of the mind are practically boundless. 
 
 The great nation is not the nation with the most wealth ; 
 but the nation with the best men and women. 
 
 Now the best part of man is his mind, therefore the best 
 men and women are those with the best minds. 
 
 But in this country, and at this time, the bulk of the 
 people do not cultivate their minds. 
 
 We have here, in the untrained, unused minds of a 
 noble race of people an immense power for greatness lying 
 fallow, like an untilled field. This is a more serious 
 national loss, as I hope to show you, than if all our 
 mines and farms had never been "opened up to commerce." 
 
 Well, my ideal, as I said before, is Frugality of Body 
 and Opulence of IMind. 
 
 1 propose to make our matei'ial lives simple; to spend as 
 little time and labour as possible upon the production of 
 food, clothing, houses, and fuel, in order that we may have 
 more leisure. 
 
 And I propose to employ that leisure in the enjoyment 
 of life and the acquirement of knowledge. 
 
 It is as though I said, " Tou have in each day 24 hours. 
 You give 8 hours to sleep, 10 or 12 to work ('earning a 
 living'), and the rest, or most of it, to folly; go, then, 
 and of your sixteen waking hours spend but four in 'getting 
 a living,' and the other twelve in pleasure and in learning." 
 
 Before I attempt to show you in detail how I think you 
 might profitably spend your leisure time, allow me to call 
 your attention to some of the ways in which you now v/aste 
 your time ; yes, and waste your labour also. 
 
 We will begin by a brief inquiry into the ordinary 
 domestic waste of time and labour and money that goes on 
 in an average working-class home. 
 
 In my last letter I spoke of the drudgery of Mrs. Smith's
 
 MERRIE ENGLAND. 47 
 
 life. Tou know that each family has its own dinner cooked 
 daily; that each wife has her own washing day and baking 
 day ; that she has her own cooking range and implements ; 
 and that she makes a special journey to the shops once a 
 day, or once a week, and buys her food and other necessaries 
 in small quantities. 
 
 Take a working-class street of one hundred houses. 
 Consider the waste therein. For the convenience of one 
 hundred families you have 
 
 One hundred small inconvenient wash-kitchens. 
 
 One hundred ditto ditto ovens. 
 
 One hundred ditto ditto drying-grounds. 
 
 One hundred wringing machines — turned by hand. 
 
 Tou have one hundred dinners to cook every day. Tou 
 have, every week, one hundred miserable washing days; 
 you have one hundred women going out to buy a pound of 
 tea and sugar, or other trifles. 
 
 Consider the cost of the machines, the cost of coal, the 
 labour and the trouble of the wives expended. 
 
 Now cast your eyes over these extracts. This is from 
 "Problems of Poverty," by John A. Ilobson, M.A. 
 (Melhuen, 2s. 6d.) :— 
 
 The poor, partly of necessity, partly by habit, make their 
 purchases in minute quantities. A single family has been known 
 to make seventy-tico distinct purchases of tea within seven 
 weeks, and the average purchases of a number of poor families for 
 the same period amount to twenty-seven. Their groceries are 
 bought largely by the ounce, their meat or fish by the halfpenny- 
 worth, their coal by the hundredweight or even by the pound. 
 
 This is from the same book : — 
 
 Astounding facts are adduced as to the prices paid by the poor 
 for common articles of consumption, especially for vegetables, 
 dairy produce, groceries, and coal. The price of fresh vegetables, 
 such as carrots, parsnips, &c., in East London is not infrequently 
 ten (tines the price at which the same articles can be purchased 
 wholesale from the growers. 
 
 This is from "The Co-operative Movement To-Day," by 
 G. J. Holyoake (Methuen, 2s. 6d.) :— 
 
 It may be assumed that 100 shops earn on an average £2 a 
 week, or £100 a year ; thus the hundred shops would earn £10,000 
 a year. Thus it is evident that every 4,000 poor families in a 
 town (ictunlly pay £10,000 a year for having their humble 
 purchases banded to them over a counter.
 
 48 MERRIE ENGLAND. 
 
 And Mr. Holyoake proceeds to show how by establishing 
 one great central store the great bulk of this loss would be 
 saved. 
 
 I said to you, when I began these articles, that I am a 
 practical man, and speak from what I have seen. I know 
 all about those small purchases, and big prices. I have 
 picked up half-a-dozen empty bottles off as many ashpits, 
 when a child, and sold them for a penny to buy coal. I 
 have gone out many a time to buy a quarter of an ounce of 
 tea and a farthing's worth of milk. They taught stern 
 lessons in my school. 
 
 Now let me describe a different kind of experience, in a 
 different school. 
 
 A company of soldiers numbers from eighty to a hundred 
 men. The allowance of food to each man is |lb. of meat 
 and lib. of bread. But besides that each man pays 3d. a 
 day for "groceries," consisting of tea, coffee, milk, vege- 
 tables, and extra bread. 
 
 Now, if each man had a separate kitchen and cooked his 
 own meals, that would mean a great waste of room and 
 money and time, and it would also mean very poor 
 feeding. 
 
 But each company strikes a man off duty as cook, and 
 there is a general kitchen, where the cooks of the whole, or 
 sometimes half the battalion prepare the meals. The result 
 is better and cheaper messing and less labour and dirt. 
 
 Take, again, the case of a sergeants' mess. The sergeants 
 have the same ration — lib. of bread and fib. of nieat a 
 day, and they pay about 6d. a day for "messing." One 
 sergeant is appointed "caterer," and his duty is to expend 
 the messing money and superintend the messing. He is, 
 in fact, a kind of temporary landlord, or club steward. 
 
 I often filled that place, and I found that when, as 
 occurred on detachment, we had only five or six sergeants 
 in mess, it was very difficult to feed them on the money; 
 but at head-quarters, with thirty in mess, we could live 
 well and afford luxuries on the same allowance per head. 
 
 With these facts in our mind, let us go back to our 
 Manchester street of one hundred working-class families. 
 Suppose, 9 instead of keeping up the wasteful system I 
 described, we abolish all those miserable and imperfect
 
 MERRIE ENGLAND. 49 
 
 drying-grounds, wringing machines, wash-kitchens, and 
 kitchen-riinges, and anange the street on communal lines. 
 
 We set up one laundry, with all the best machinery; we 
 set up one big drying-Held; we set up one great kitchen, 
 one general dining-hall, and one pleasant tea-garden. Then 
 we buy all the provisions and other things in large quanti- 
 ties, and we appoint certain wives as cooks and laimdresses, 
 or, as is the case with many military duties, we let the wives 
 take the duties in turn. Don't you see how mvich better 
 and how much cheaper the meals would be? Don't you see 
 how much easier the lives of our poor women would be? 
 Don't you see how much more comfortable our homes would 
 be? Don't you see how much more sociable and friendly 
 we should become? 
 
 So with the housework ^hen we had simple houses and 
 fui'niture. Imagine the difference between the cleaning of 
 all the knives I)y a rapid knife machine turned by an engine, 
 and the drudgery of a hundred wives scrubbing at a hundred 
 clumsy knife-boards. 
 
 I need not go into greater detail ; you can elaborate the 
 idea for yourself. Let us now turn from domestic to 
 commercial waste. 
 
 Commercial waste is something appalling. The cause of 
 commercial waste is competition. The chief channels of 
 commercial waste are account-keeping, bartering, and 
 advertising. If we produced goods simply for nse instead 
 of for sale, we should save all this waste. But consider the 
 immense number of cashiers, bookkeepers, clerks, salesmen, 
 shopmen, accountants, commercial travellers, agents, and 
 advertisement canvassers employed in our British trade. 
 
 Take the one item of advertisement alone. There are 
 draughtsmen, paper-makers, printers, bill-posters, painters, 
 carpenters, gilders, mechanics, and a perfect army of other 
 people all employed in making advertisement bills, pictures, 
 hoardings, and other abominations — for what ? 
 
 To enable one soap or jwtent medicine dealer to secure 
 more orders than his rival. I believe I am well within the 
 mark when I say that some firms spend ,£100,000 a year in 
 advertisements. 
 
 And who pays it? You pay it; you, the practical, hard- 
 headed, shrewd British workman. You pay for everything, 
 you silly fellow,
 
 60 MERRIE ENGLAND. 
 
 There is another element of waste, which consists in tl;Q 
 production of useless things; but of that I will speak at 
 another time. 
 
 I will also sho'rt' you in a future letter, how the same 
 competition which causes waste causes also a wicked 
 obstruction of progress. At present just consider these 
 questions. "Why do gas companies oppose the establish- 
 ment of electric-lighting companies? Is it because they 
 think gas is the better light? Hey, John? 
 
 I said just now that we would consider the question of 
 how to employ the leisure we should secure in a well-ordered 
 state. Let us get an idea what that leisure would be. 
 
 At present less than one-third of the population are 
 engaged in producing necessaries. 
 
 This one-third of the people produce enough necessaries 
 for all. 
 
 Now take the sum in two ways. If one-third produce 
 enough for all, then three-thirds will produce three times as 
 much as we need. Or, if one-third produce enough for all 
 by working nine hours a day, then three-thirds will produce 
 enough for all by working three hours a day. 
 
 So we shall have plenty of leisure. What are we to do 
 with it? 
 
 One use for it is the acquirement of knowledge. I w'lW 
 give you two very striking examples of the kind of work 
 that needs doing. 
 
 Take, first, the Germ theory of disease. I am a very 
 ignorant man, and can only offer hints. Eead this: — • 
 
 If the particular microbe of each contagious disease were knov/n, 
 the conditions of its life and activity understood, and tlic circum- 
 stances destructive of its life ascertained, there is great proba- 
 bility that its multiplication might be arrested, and the disease 
 caused by it be abolished. 
 
 Consumption, typhoid and typhus fevers, cholera, and 
 many other plagues are spread by small creatures called 
 microbes. At present we do not know enough about these 
 microbes to exterminate them. That is one thing well 
 worth finding out. 
 
 Take next the subject of agricultural chemistry. Head 
 this : —
 
 MERRIE ENGLAND. 51 
 
 In studying the utilisation of vegetable pi'oduets for obtaining 
 the vai'ious animal matters which are used as food, &c., agri- 
 cultural chemistry enters into a higher and more diflicult field. 
 Although many useful practical results have been obtained, this 
 department of our knowledge is extremely incomplete. 
 
 You remember wliat I told you about the yield of the 
 land, (jiven a thorough knowledge of agricultural chemistry, 
 and there is no doubt that we might produce more food 
 with less labour. 80 that is anvihcr thing worth knowing. 
 
 Now I know yoWf absurd modesty, John Smith, and how 
 ready you are to despise your own efforts ; and I can almost 
 hear you saying, "What can ignorant men like as do in 
 these difficult sciences?" 
 
 But, John, I don't flatter you, as you know, but you 
 have brains, and good brains, if you only had the chance to 
 use them. Sometimes a few of you do get a chance to ur^o 
 them. There was "William Smith, the greatest English 
 geologist, he was a poor farmer's son, and chiefly self taught; 
 there was Sir William llerschcl, the great astronomer, he 
 played the oboe in a watering-place band; there were 
 Faraday, the bookbinder, and Sir Humphrey Davy, the 
 apothecary's apprentice, both great scientists; there were 
 James Watt the mathematical instrument maker, and 
 George Stephenson the collier, and Arkwright the barber, 
 and Jacquard the weaver, and John Hunter the great 
 anatomist, who was a poor Scotch carpenter. Those men 
 did some good in science ; and m hy not others? 
 
 Ah ! Why not? That is the question. The common 
 people are like an untilled, unwatered, and unweeded 
 garden. jS'o one has yet studied or valued the capacities 
 of men. Y/e know that some few of the Hunter and 
 Herschel stamp have come out well, and some of us think 
 that when a man has brains he must come out well; but 
 that is a mistake. Only here and there, chiefly by good 
 luck, docs one of our clever poor men succeed in being 
 useful, and in developing his force — or part of it. 
 
 I will ?peak from personal experience. I know several 
 men, poor and unknown, who have in them great capacity. 
 1 have now in my mind's eye a young Lancashire man, who 
 might have been a very fine writer. But he is poor, and he 
 has no knowledge of writing, no knowledge of style or
 
 52 MERRIE ENGLAND. 
 
 ^ammar, and if he had would find it very difficult to get 
 work. 
 
 I once knew a blacksmith, a man of strong character, of 
 great probity, a born orator, a man of intellect. Often I 
 have heard him, as he beat on the red iron, beat out also, 
 in rough homely language, most beautiful and forcible 
 thoughts. John, he could not read or write. lie was of 
 middle-age, he had a large family, he did not suspect that 
 he was clever. 
 
 Take my own case. I became a writer by accident- — by 
 a series of accidents— and not that until I was thirty-four. 
 And I have done fairly well, and have been very lucky. 
 But I am sure I should have done better at a quite different 
 kind of work. And I am sure that if my mother had not 
 taught me to read and encouraged me to love literature, I 
 should never have been a wi-iter at all. 
 
 But suppose my mother had died when my father died, 
 or suppose she had been an ignorant woman, or a careless 
 one. Where would Nunquam have gone to? He would 
 probably be now in the grave, or in a prison. Yet he 
 would have taken with him to the churchyard or the tread- 
 mill the same mind that is now struggling with this task — 
 a task too great for it — the task of persuading John Smith, 
 of Oldham, to do his duty as a husband, as a father, as a 
 citizen, and as a man. 
 
 So consider, what chance have the poor? Education is 
 so dear. The sciences and the arts are locked up, and the 
 privileged classes hold the key; and down in Ancoats and 
 the Seven Dials the wretched mothers feed our young 
 Faradays and Miitons on gin, and send them out ignorant 
 and helpless to face the winter wind and the vice and 
 disease of the stews. 
 
 It makes me angry when I think of it, and I must bo 
 calm and practical, because you, John Smith, are such a 
 shrewd, hard-headed man— God help you. 
 
 John, John Smith, of Oldham, remember what noble 
 men and women have come from the ranks of the common 
 people. 
 
 Now, at pr&ient the working people of this country live 
 under conditions altogether monstrous. Their labour is 
 much too heavy, their pleasures are too few, and in their
 
 MERRIE ENGLAND. 53 
 
 close streets and crowded Louses decency and health and 
 cleanliness are well-nigh impossible. 
 
 It is not only the wrong of this that I resent, it is the 
 tcaste. Look through the slums, John, and see what child- 
 hood, girlhood, womanhood, and manhood have there 
 become. Think what a waste of beauty, of virtue, of 
 strength, and of all the power and goodness that go to 
 make a nation gi-eat is being consummated there by 
 ignorance and by injustice. 
 
 Tor, depend upon it every one of our brothers or sisters 
 ruined or slain by poverty or vice, is a loss to the nation 
 of so much bone and sinew, of so much courage and skill, 
 of so much glory and delight. 
 
 Cast your eyes, then, my practical friend, OA'er tho 
 Eegistrar-General's returns, and imagine if you can how 
 many gentle nurses, good mothers, sweet singers, brave 
 soldiers, and clever artists, inventors, and thinkers are 
 swallowed up every year in that ocean of crim.e and sorrow, 
 which is known to the official mind as " The high death- 
 rate of the wage-earning classes. " 
 
 Alas, John, the pity of it. 
 
 "Well, I want to stop that v/aste, my practical friend. I 
 want to give those cankered flowers light and air, and clear 
 their roots of weeds. 
 
 And in my " Merrie England" there will be great colleges 
 for the study of science, and the training of the people, so 
 that the whole force of the national mind may be brought 
 to bear upon those important questions of agriculture, of 
 manufactures, and of medicine, which are now but partly 
 understood, because it is the rich and not the clever who 
 consider them, and because they only work selfishly and 
 eeoretly, in opposition instead of in mutual helpfulness.
 
 54 MERRIE ENGLAND. 
 
 CHAPTEE VII. 
 
 "Who Makes the AVealttt, axd Who Guts It? 
 
 Tbe old original capitalist v.'ho has rested from his labours, and whose 
 «vorks do follow hiin — creative, frugal, and laborious — he looms ever " at 
 the back of the beyond." It is a beautiful conception, this of the first 
 capitalist, and only shows that poetry, like hope, springs eternal in the 
 human breast — even the economical breast. Like Frcstv^r John and the 
 Wandering Jew, he has a weird charm about h'vn that almost makes one 
 love him. But our reverence for an old legend must not blind ns to 
 historical fact, to wit, that the real origin of modern capital is to be 
 found in the forcible expropriation of the peasantry from the soil, in 
 oppressive law3 to keep do-vn wages, in the plunder and enslavement of 
 the inhabitants of the New World and of Africa, in the merciless over- 
 working of children in factories, &c., ka. — llelfort Box. 
 
 As soon as land becomes private property, the landlord demands a share 
 of almost all the produce which the labourer can either raise or collect 
 from it. His rent makes the first deduction from the ijroduce of the labour 
 e:np'oyed upon land. . . . 
 
 As soon as the land of any country has all become private property, the 
 landlords, like all other men, love to reap where they never sowed, and 
 demand a rent, even for its natural produce. . . . — Adam tSmith. 
 
 How contempt of human rights is the essential element in building up 
 the great fortunes whose growth is such a marked feature of our develop- 
 ment we have alreadj' seen. And just as clearlj' may wo see that from the 
 same cause .spring poverty and pauperism. The tramp is the complement 
 of the millionaire. — Henri/ Georc/e. 
 
 In a rude and violent state of society it continually hnppens that the 
 person who has capital is not the very person who has saved it, but some- 
 one who, being stronger, or belonging to a more powerful community, has 
 possessed himself of it by plunder. And even in a state of things 
 several degrees more advanced, the increase of capital has been in a great 
 measure derived from privations which, though essentiallj' the same with 
 saving, are not generally called by that name, because not voluntary. The 
 actual producers have been slaves, compelled to produce as much as force 
 could extort from them, and to consume as little as self-interest, or the 
 usually very slender humanity of their task-masters would permit. — Jno. 
 Stuart 3Iill. 
 
 Now, John, what ai-e the evils of which we coiirpl.ain? 
 Lowness of wages, length of worlcing hours, uncertainty of 
 employment, insecurity of the future, low standards of 
 public health and morality, prevalence of pauperism and 
 crime, and the existence of false ideals of life. 
 
 I will give you a few examples of the things I mean. It 
 is estimated that in this country, with its population of 
 thirty -six millions, there are generally about 700,000 men 
 out of work. There are about 800,000 paupers. Of every
 
 MERRIE ENGLAND. 65 
 
 tliousand persons who die in Merrie England over nine 
 hundred die without leaving any property at all. About 
 eight millions of people exist always on the borders of 
 destitution. About twenty millions are poor. More than 
 half the national income belongs to about ten thousand 
 people. About thirty thousand people own fifty-fi\e fifty- 
 sixths of the land and capital of the kingdom, but of thirty- 
 six millions of people only 1| millions get above £3 a week. 
 The average income per head of the working classes is about 
 ^17 a year, or less than Is. a day. There are millions of 
 our people working under conditions and living in homes 
 that are simply disgraceful. The sum of crime, vice, 
 drunkenness, gambling, prostitution, idleness, ignorance, 
 want, disease, and death is appalling. 
 
 These are facts. They are facts which stare us in tho 
 face in every town, and at all hours of the day and night. 
 They are facts so well known that I need not rake the Blue 
 ]>ooks for statistics to confirm them. I wish to use as few 
 figures as possible. I also wish to avoid angry words. 
 Therefore, Jlr. Smith, I simply point out these evils and 
 aslv you as a practical and honest man whether you don't 
 think they ought to be remedied. 
 
 To what are the above evils due? They are due to the 
 unequal distribution of wealth, and to the absence of justice 
 and order from our society'. 
 
 Consider, first, the distribution of the annual earnings. 
 The follo\\ing figures are given on the authority of Gilfen, 
 Levi, and Mulholland: — 
 
 Gross national earnings £1,350,000,000 
 
 Amount paid in rent 220,000,000 
 
 Amount paid in interest 270,000,000 
 
 Salaries of middle-classes and profits of 
 
 employers, &c 360,000,000 
 
 Wages of tho working classes 500,000,000 
 
 That is to say, the workers earn 1,350 millions. Of 
 that the Eich take, in rent and interest, 490 millions, and 
 the Eich and Middle-classes, in profits and salaries, take 
 another 3G0 millions, or a total of 850 millions, leaving for 
 the working classes little more than one-third (500 
 millions). 
 
 Now for the proportions. As I said just now, there are
 
 56 MERRIE ENGLAND. 
 
 less than 1^ millions who pay income tax on incomes o£ 
 £150 a year and upwards. Multiply 1| millions by 3 and 
 you get 4| millions as the gross number of men, women, 
 and children of the middle and upper classes. Four-and-a- 
 half millions will be just one-eighth of our population. 
 Thus we find that 850 millions go to one-eighth of the 
 population, and 500 millions to the other seven-eighths. 
 
 Speaking in round numbers the averages per head are as 
 follow : — 
 
 Middle and upper classes, per year, £184. 
 Working classes, per year, £16. 
 
 The following diagram will give you an idea of the in- 
 equality of this division : — ■ 
 
 Classes. Income. 
 
 H ^ ¥: Ti ¥: ^ «> i^ 
 
 ^ ^ * ¥: ^ * 
 
 
 ¥: ¥; ^ ¥: * a 
 
 
 ^ ^ ^ 1i ^ 
 
 Masse:?. 
 
 Income. 
 
 ^ii)i^M:1i^ii^¥: 
 
 ii ¥: ^ ¥: ¥r 
 
 *^^^»^J^*^^^* 
 
 a nn ¥: ii 
 
 **)t*>f**^^» 
 
 
 ^■l^¥:'A:^ii:'ii)i:^¥: 
 
 
 ^¥:y<^^^¥:¥:¥r^ 
 
 
 *^^^^%^^^^* 
 
 
 ■^ )i ¥: 
 
 
 But this is not the worst. Besides the fact that the 
 upper and middle classes take nearly two-thirds of the 
 A^'ealth which the masses earn, there is the fact that those 
 classes, and probably less than a tenth of those classes, 
 actually own all the land and all the instruments by which 
 wealth can be produced. 
 
 Political orators and newspaper editors are very fond of 
 talking to you about "your country." Now, Mr. Smith, 
 it is a hard practical fact that you have not got any country. 
 The British Islands do not belong to the British people ; 
 they belong to a few thousands — certainly not half a million 
 — of rich men. 
 
 These men not only own the land, they own, also, the 
 rivers and lakes, the mines and minerals, the farms and 
 orchards, the trees and thickets ; the cattle and horses, and 
 sheep and pigs, and poultry and game ; the mills, factories, 
 churches, houses, shops, railways, trains, ships, machinery,
 
 MERRIE ENGLAND. 57 
 
 and, in fact, nearly everything except the bodies and souls 
 of the workers, and, as I will try to show you, they have 
 almost complete power over these. 
 
 Tes, not only do the rich own the land, and all the 
 buildings and machinery, but also, and becau.se they own 
 those things, they have reduced the workers to a condition 
 of dependence. 
 
 Tor you know very well that it is true of nearly all our 
 working men that they cannot work when they choose to 
 work, but must first find a rich man — a capitalist — who is 
 willing to employ them. 
 
 This is because the capitalists own the land and the tools. 
 'V\'hat can the ploughman do without the land and the 
 plough; or the collier without the pit and the machinery; 
 or the weaver without the loom and factory? 
 
 Tou know that in these days of machinery there are 
 hardly any men who own the tools of their own trade. 
 And if they did they would be helpless ; for they must sell 
 their work in a market where the capitalist competes with 
 them, and where he will undersell them, even if he loses 
 by the sale, and so make it impossible for them to live. 
 
 Eent, interest, private ownership, machinery, and com- 
 petition are all instruments in the hands of the capitalist, 
 and with those instruments he compels the worker to give 
 up nearly all his earnings in return for permission to 
 work. 
 
 Tou are an agricultural labourer. I own a piece of land. 
 Tou come to me and beg for "work." I "engage" you at 
 los. a week, and all you produce is mine. Tou are a slave, 
 fiir if you quit my employ you must starve; and although 
 I have no whip or chain, I have that which serves as well 
 to compel you to M-ork hard, that is to say, I have power 
 to turn you off the land. So if you are a cotton operative, 
 and I own a cotton mill. Tou must come to me and ask 
 for work. If I refuse it you must starve. If I offer it you 
 must take it at my price. Oh, yes, you can form a trade 
 union, and strike, refusing to accept my price. In that 
 case I may give you rather more than I offered, because it 
 will pay me better to let you have half the money you earn 
 and be content myself with the other half than to let you 
 remain idle and so make nothing by you at all. Lut you
 
 58 MERRIE ENGLAND, 
 
 know I can always beat you, for I have enough to live upon 
 in idleness, and you have notliir.g. 
 
 Well, it is true that the land and all the mines, mills, 
 houses, and machinery — that is to say, the "Land" and 
 " Capital"- — of this country are owned by a few rich people. 
 And it is urged in defence of this private ownership of the 
 "means of livelihood" that, in the first place, the rich have 
 a "right" to their possessions; and, in the second place, 
 that the rich use these possessions to the general advantage. 
 
 Eoth these statements are untrue. 
 
 rirst, as to the rich man's "right" to his wealth. I 
 suppose that you, as a sensible and honest man, will admit 
 this principle: viz., that a man has a "right" to that which 
 he has produced by the unaided exex'cise of his own facul- 
 ties; but that he has not a right to that which is not 
 produced by his own unaided faculties ; nor to the whole of 
 that which has been produced by his faculties aided by the 
 faculties of another man. 
 
 If you admit the above principle, then I think I can 
 prove to you that no man has a right to the private owner- 
 ship of a single square foot of land ; and that no man could 
 of his o\^'n efforts produce more private property than is 
 commonly possessed by a monkey or a bear. 
 
 AVe will begin with the land ; and you will find that the 
 original title to all the land possessed by private owners is 
 tlie title of conquest or theft. 
 
 There are four chief ways in which land may become 
 private property. It may be confiscated by force; it may 
 be fik-lied by fraud; it may be received as a gift; or it may 
 be bought with money. 
 
 Of the land held by our rich peers the greater part has 
 been plundered from the church, stolen from the common- 
 lands, or received in gifts from the Crown. If you will buy 
 a little book called " Our Old Nobility," price Is., published 
 by II. Vickers, Strand, London, you will begin to have an 
 idea of the ways in which our " noble" families got posses- 
 sion of their estates. From that book 1 quote the following 
 lines : — < 
 
 The Fitzroys are certainly descended from one of the vilest of 
 women : Barbara Palmer, wife of Lord Castlemaine, and mistress 
 of Charles II. • • t One of Charles' Ministers was Henry
 
 MERE IE ENGLAND. 59 
 
 Ecnnet, Earl of Arlington, whoso only daughter was mairicd at 
 the mature ago of tv;clve to young Fitzroy, the son of Barbara 
 Palmer and Charles II. Amjjle provision was made for the 
 young couple. In 1673 Charles granted to the Earl of Arlington 
 for life, and to Fitzroy and his wife aficrwards, a very extensive 
 tract of Crown land, viz., the lordship and manor of Grafton, 
 manor of Hart'.vcll, and lands in Ilartwcll, Roade, and Ilnr.slopc, 
 manors of Aldcrton, Blisworth, Stoke Brucrne, Green's Norton, 
 Fotterspury, Ashton, Faulerspury, j^art of Cliarcomb Priory, 
 lands in Grimscott, Houghton Parva, Northampton, Hardingston, 
 and Shuttlchanger, pai'cel of Sowai'dsley Priory, the ofiiee and 
 fee of the honour of Grafton, and the forests of Saleey and 
 Whiltlcbury (reserving tjic timber to the Crown). This extra- 
 ordinary grant will account for the large estates of the Fitzroys 
 in Northamptonshire and Bucks. The Fitzroys inherit their 
 Suffolk estates from the Earl cf Arlington. This patriotic 
 statesman, who formed one of the notorious Cabal Ministry, not 
 content with taking bribes from the King of France, and with the 
 lucrative posts of Secretary of State, Keeper of the Privy Purse, 
 and Postmaster-General, managed to secure for himself a number 
 cf valuable grants, as is shown by the State Papers in the Record 
 Office, among which were a moiety of the estates of a former 
 Earl of Lenos, and several manors in the county of Vricklow. 
 He also obtained a lease of Marylebone Park on advantageous 
 terms, and another lease of three-fourths of Great St. John's 
 Wood at an anr.ual rental of £21. 6s. 2d. No wonder that he 
 vas able to purchase Euston Kail and the surrounding lands. 
 One of his Suffolk loi'dsljips was formerly jaart of the possessions 
 of St. Edmund's Abbey, though whether acquired by grant or 
 purchase is not cleai\ Charles II. was not content with giving 
 away Crown lands in the wholesale manner above described ; the 
 children of his harlots were further provided for at the public 
 expense. The Dul?e cf Grafton, for instance, had an hereditary 
 pension of £9,000 a year granted from tho Excise, and £t,?0() a 
 year from the Post Office, which continued to be paid till a com- 
 paratively recent date. The former pension was redeemed in 
 1858 by a payment of £193,777, and the latter in 1856 by a pay- 
 ment of £91,181. There was also a very lucrative sinecure in 
 the famil}', which the Duke of Grafton surrendered in 1795 for 
 na annuity of £870 a year — an arrangement ratified by tho Act 46 
 Geo. III., cap. 89. 
 
 I want you to read tliat boolr, and also Henry George's 
 " Progress and Poverty" and "Social Problems," each Is., 
 publiyhed by Paul, Trench, Triibner, & Co., London. 
 
 Put leaving the men who have stolen tlio land, or got it 
 l)y force, or fraud, let us consider the titl(> of those who 
 have bought the land. 
 
 Many people have bought land, and paid for it. Have 
 they a right to it?
 
 60 MERRIE ENGLAND. 
 
 No. They have no right to that land, and for these two 
 reasons. 
 
 1. They bought it of some one who had no right 
 to sell it. 
 
 2. They paid for it with money which they them- 
 selves had never earned. 
 
 Land, you Mali observe, is the gift of Nature. It is not 
 made by man. Now, if a man has a right to nothing but 
 that which he has himself made, no man can have a right 
 to the land, for no man made it. 
 
 It would be just as reasonable for a few families to claim 
 possession of the sea and the air, and charge their fellow 
 creatures rent for breathing or bathing, as it is for those 
 few families to grab the land and call it theirs. As a matter 
 of fact we are charged for breathing, for without a sufhcient 
 space of land to breathe on we cannot get good air to 
 breathe. 
 
 If a man claimed the sea, or the air, or the light as his, 
 you would laugh at his presumption. Now, I ask you to 
 point out to me any reason for private ownership of land 
 which will not act as well as a rea-son for private ownership 
 of sea and air. 
 
 So we may agree that no man can have any right to the 
 land. And if a man can have no right to the land, how can 
 he have a right to sell the land? And if I buy a piece of 
 land from one who has no right to sell it, how can I call 
 that land mine? 
 
 Take a case. "William the Conqueror stole an estate from 
 Harold (to whom it did not belong) and gave it to a 
 Norman Baron. During the Wars of the Eoses said Baron 
 lost it to another Baron, or to the Crown. Later on the 
 estate is confiscated by Charles II. and given to a bastard 
 eon of his. The descendants of that bastard son take to 
 gambling and lose the estate to the Jews. The Jews sell 
 it to a wealthy cotton-lord. 
 
 But the land is stolen property, and the cotton-lord is a 
 receiver of stolen property. 
 
 S'.ippose a footpad knocked down a traveller and stole his 
 •watch. . Gave the watch to his sweetheart, who sold it to 
 a Jew, who sold it again to a sailor, and suppose the 
 traveller came forward and claimed his watch. Would the
 
 MERRTE ENGLAND. 61 
 
 law let the sailor keep it? No. But if the footpad had 
 been made a peer for stealinj? it that would have made a 
 difference. 
 
 Tou may say, of course, that the law of the land has 
 confirmed the old nobility in the possession of their stolen 
 property. That is quite true. But it is equally true that 
 the law was made by the landowners themselves. In the 
 eighteenth century the big landowners robbed the small 
 landowners in a shameful and wholesale way. Within a 
 space of about eighty years no less than 7,000,000 acres 
 were "enclosed." 
 
 And when we suggest that the land of England should be 
 restored to the English people from whom it was stolen, 
 these land-robbers have the impudence to raise the cry of 
 " plunder. " 
 
 Here, for instance, is an extract from a Tory evening 
 paper, cut out by me some years ago: — 
 
 The impudent agitators who suggest the confiscation of the 
 land, are dumb as to the rights and services of the landowner. 
 They ignore the facts that the land is his, and that if ha 
 administers the estate he chiefly creates its value. 
 
 The land is no/ "his." Man has a right only to what 
 his labour makes. No man " makes" the land. 
 
 The nobleman does not — in most cases — administer his 
 estate. The estate is managed by farmers, who pay the 
 nobleman a heavy rent for being allowed to do his work. 
 
 Therefore the landlord does not " create the value" of the 
 estate. The value of an estate consists in the industry of 
 those who work upon it. To say that Lord Blankdash has 
 farm lands or town property worth £50,000 a year means 
 that he has the legal power to take that money from the 
 factory hands and farm-workers for the use of that which is 
 as much theirs as his. 
 
 I suppose you are aware that no " value" can be got out 
 of an estate without labour. If you doubt this, take a nine- 
 acre field, fence it in, and wait until it grows crops. Tou 
 know it will never grow crops, unless some one ploughs it 
 and sows it. 
 
 No: even if you have land and capital you cannot raise a 
 single ear of corn without labour. Take your nine-acre 
 fieid. Put in a steam plough, a sack of seed, a harrow, and
 
 62 MERRIE ENGLAND. 
 
 a bank-book, and wait for crops. Ton will not get a stalk 
 of corn. A poor labourer with a broken shovel and a piece 
 of thorn bush will raise more v.heat in his little patch of 
 back garden than all the capital of England could get out 
 of all the acres of Europe without labour. 
 
 But read the following report of a land company, taken 
 froiTithe Fall Mall Gazette in J.891 :— 
 
 Swaziland Gold Exploration and Land Company. 
 The annual general meeting of this company was held this 
 afternoon at Winchester House. Mr. E. A. Pontifex, the chair- 
 man, presided, and moved the adoption of the report. He said 
 that since the last meeting practically nothing had been done. 
 Thci) had been tcaitmy for more prosperous tinics. They were an 
 exploring and land, not a mining company, with a viev/ to 
 inducing others to form subsidiary eomj^anies for working the 
 property. At the pi'esent moment the formation of companies 
 was practically a dead letter ; and it would be useless to point 
 out to promoters where operations could be carried on, as they 
 would be unable to raise the necessary funds to cany on the 
 works. They had reduced the expenses to the lowest possible 
 limit, the directors having foregone their fees, and the total 
 amount being only £400 a year. They were aioaiiimj better times, 
 and the advent of railways, before endeavouring to work the 
 riches they believed were contained in the 15G srjuare males of 
 territory ivhich they possf-ssed. Since their last meeting, the High 
 Court of Swaziland, sitting at Kremeisdoi-p, had confirmed the 
 concession originally made by the late King Umbandine, and it 
 was held to by the King's successors and the Boor Republic and 
 the English Govei'nnicnt, which now prevails in Swaziland. Nor 
 was it likely that any further call would be made until the arrival 
 of more enterprising times. 
 
 The italics are mine. The company owns 156 square miles 
 of land ; and it does not pay them a cent ! Why? Because 
 there is no labour on it. The company are waiting for 
 railways. Why? Because railways will carry people out 
 there. Mines, farms, towns, will come into existence. 
 The pick and the plough Vv'ill go to work, and then — then 
 the Swa/Jland square miles will be valuable. In other 
 words, the men who make the wealth in S\\aziland will 
 have to pay a lot of it to the English company as rent for 
 the land the company have "acquired." 
 
 The case above given is clear enough for the capacity of 
 a child. There is the whole problem made plain. Labour 
 and capital : Labour and land. One hundred and fifty-six
 
 MERRIE ENGLAND. 63 
 
 square miles of land, and not a shilling return. Not so 
 much as comes back from the land oa which is built an 
 Ancoats s^luin cottage. Eut a m.an lives in the cottage; and 
 he works, and a part of his earnings goes unto the " owner" 
 of the land. Do you see it now, Mv. Smith? 
 
 Have you ever considered the question of house rent? 
 Suppose you own a cottage in a country village, and 1 own 
 a cottage of the same size in a busy town, close to a big 
 railway and a number of factories. Tou know that I shall 
 get more rent for my house than you will get for yoiu's. 
 Why? 
 
 Because my house stands on more desirable land. The 
 railway company would buy it. And then it is near to 
 places of work, and workmen will pay more for it, especially 
 as houses are scarce. 
 
 But did 1 make the i-ailway? Did I build the factories? 
 Did I do anything to make the wealth of the town, or the 
 *' value" of the land Not I. The workers did that, and so 
 I am paid for what thej^ did. That is to say, I am allowed, 
 by raising my rent, to put a tax upon their industry. 
 
 The poor wretches in the East End of London pay from 
 3s. to 6s. a week for one small room in a weather-worn and 
 dii'ty house, in a narrow and unhealthy street ; and rents 
 in Manchester are high. This is owing to the value of the 
 land. That is to say, the people are forced by stress of 
 circumstances not only to live in the rotten nests of these 
 pestilential rookeries, but have no option but to give the 
 extortionate prices demanded by landlords whose bowels of 
 compassion are dried up, and whose souls are shrunken by 
 the fires of avarice. 
 
 Land is " valuable" — that is, tenants will submit to be 
 cheated— in all centres of industry. The skill, the energy, 
 and the orderliness of the workers create an " industrial 
 centre." Speculators buy land near that centre, and as 
 business and work draw people thereto in search of a living, 
 the " speculator" raises his prices and grows rich, and his 
 land and houses are "valuable." This is according to the 
 law. It constitutes a dishonest and an unreasonable tax 
 on labour, but it is lawful. There is in it neither principle 
 nor humanity — but it is the law; and the difficulty of 
 improving the dwellings of the people lies in the fact
 
 64 MERRIE ENGLAND. 
 
 that you cannot alter this law without damaging the sacred 
 rights of property. 
 
 Do you ever think about these things? Do you know 
 the difference between the land law and the patent laws 
 and copyright? 
 
 A nobleman owns an estate. He draws £30,000 in rent 
 from it annually. He and his family before him have 
 drawn that rent for five or six centuries, and the land is 
 still his. 
 
 But if John Smith of Oldham invents a new loom and 
 patents it, his patent right expires in fourteen years. For 
 fourteen years he may reap the fruits of his cleverness. At 
 the end of that time anyone may work his patent without 
 charge. It has become public property. This is the law. 
 
 Or John Smith of Oldham writes a book. The book is 
 copyright for forty years, or for the life of the author and 
 seven years after. Whilst it is copyright no one can print 
 the book without John's leave, and so John may make 
 money by his cleverness. But at the end of that time the 
 copyright lapses and the book becomes public property. 
 Anyone may print it then. 
 
 Now you see the difference between land law and patent 
 law. The landlord's patent never runs out. The land never 
 becomes public property. The rent is perpetual. And yet 
 the landlord did not make the land; whereas John Smith 
 did invent the loom. 
 
 Mr. Smith, if you are a practical, hard-headed man, I 
 think 1 may leave you to study the land question for 
 yourself.
 
 MERRIE ENGLAND. fiS 
 
 CHAPTEE Yin. 
 Een"t axd Inteeest. 
 
 The Lord will enter into judgment with the elders of His people. It 
 is ye that have eaten up the vineyard : the spoil of the poor is in your 
 houses ; what mean ye that ye crush My people, and grind the faces of 
 the poor ? saith the Lord, the Lord of Hosts. — Isaiah. 
 
 Morality and poUtical economy unite in repelling the individual who 
 consumes without producing. — I)e Balzac, 
 
 The guilty Thieves of Europe, the real sources of all deadly war in it, 
 are the Capitalists — that is to say people who live by percentages or the 
 
 labour of others ; instead of by fair wages for their own All 
 
 social evils and religious errors arise out of the pillage of the labourer by 
 the idler ; the idler leaving him only enough to live on (and even that 
 miserably), and taking all the rest of the produce of his work to spend 
 in his own luxury, or in the toys with which he beguiles his idleness. — 
 Ruskin. 
 
 The requisites of production are two : Labour, and appropriate natural 
 objects. — J. S. Mill. 
 
 The proiluce of labour constitutes natural recompense, or wages of 
 labour. — Adam Smith. 
 
 "We have now to consider a very important question, viz., 
 have the rich any right to their riches? 
 
 I have already laid it down as my guiding principle that 
 a man has a right to all the wealth that he creates by the 
 exercise of his own unaided faculties ; and to no more. 
 
 If you look into my pamphlet, "The Pope's Socialism," 
 page 4, you will find the following paragraph : — 
 
 No man has any right to be rich. No man ever yet became rich 
 by fair means. No man ever became rich by his own industry. 
 
 That statement, " no man ever became rich by his own 
 industry," has puzzled many of my readers, and I shall 
 explain it. 
 
 I shall explain it because, if no man can become rich by 
 his own industry, then no man has a right to be rich at all. 
 
 How do men grow rich? In these days the three chief 
 sources of wealth are : — 
 
 1. Eent. 
 
 2. Interest. 
 
 3. Profits. 
 
 Pirst, Eent. Who earns it? We will take two examples : 
 Ground Eent, and Property Eent. 
 
 The Duke of Plaza Toro owns an estate. The rent roll 
 is .£30,000 a year. Where does the mcney come from? 
 

 
 66 MERRIE ENGLAND. 
 
 The estate is let out to farmers, at so much per acre. 
 These farmers pay the duke his £30,000 a year. Where 
 do the farmers get it from? 
 
 The farmers sell their crops, and out of the purchase 
 money pay the rent. How are the crops raised? 
 
 The crops are raised by the agricultural labom-ers, under 
 the direction of the farmers. 
 
 That is to say, that the rent is earned by labour — by 
 the labour of the farmer and his men. The duke does 
 Qothing. The duke did not make the land, nor does he 
 raise the crops. He has therefore no right to take the rent 
 at all. 
 
 The man who gets rich on ground rent gets rich on the 
 labour of others. 
 
 Mr. Bounderby owns a row of houses. The rental of 
 the street amounts to ,£400 a year. "Where does the 
 money come from? 
 
 The rent is paid by the tenants of the houses. It is paid 
 with money they have earned by their labour, or with 
 money which they have obtained from other men who 
 darned it by their labour, and it is paid to Mr. Bounderby 
 ?or the use of his houses. 
 
 How did Mr. Bounderby get his houses? He either 
 bought them with money which he did not earn by his 
 own industry, or he paid for the material and the building 
 with money which he did not earn by his own industry. 
 
 Two things are quite certain. First, that Mr. Bounderby 
 did not build the houses with his own hands, nor make the 
 bricks and timbers of which they are built; that work was 
 done by other men. And second, that the money with 
 ft'hich those men were paid was never earned by Mr. 
 Bounderby' s own industry. 
 
 Mr. Bounderby has tnerefore no right to own those 
 houses or to charge rent for them. 
 
 The man who grows rich upon house rents grows rich 
 upon the labour of others. 
 
 But you will very properly ask, Mr. Smith, how 1 prove 
 that the money paid by Mr. Bounderby for his houses was 
 not earned by his own industry. 
 
 This brings us to the second and third means by which 
 men get wealth ; Interest and profits.
 
 MERRIE ENGLAND. 67 
 
 What is iulerest? It is money paid for the use of 
 money. If you lent me one hundred pounds at 5 per cent, 
 interest, that would mean that I must pay you five pounds 
 a year for the loan of the money as long as I kept it, and 
 that such payment would not reduce the amount of the 
 loan. So that if I kept your £100 for twenty years and 
 paid you £5 a year interest, I should at the end of that 
 time still owe you ,£100. That is to say you would receive 
 .£200 from me, although you only lent me XIOO. 
 
 Where do I get the interest from? 1 have to work for 
 it. But you get it from me. You don't work for it. 
 You — possibly — worked for the principal, that is, for the 
 first hundred pounds ; but you do not work for the interest, 
 the second hundred pounds. 
 
 Suppose I have £1,000. I put it in a bank and draw 
 3 per cent., £30 a year, interest for it. At the end of 
 twenty years I shall have drawn out £600, and yet there 
 will be £1,000 to my credit. How does my money breed 
 money? How do 1 get £1,600 for £1,000? How can the 
 banker afford to pay me more than I put into the bank? 
 
 If instead of putting my £1,000 into a bank I locked it 
 up in a safe, and drew out £30 a year for twenty years, 
 would there be £1,000 left at the end of that time? There 
 would not. There would only be £400. Money does not 
 breed money. Interest has to le worked for. Who earns 
 it? 
 
 Suppose a rich Jew has lent a million to the Government 
 at 3 per cent. He draws every jear £30,000 in interest. 
 Who pays it? It is raised by taxation. Who pays the 
 taxes? They are all paid either by the workers or by those 
 who get their money from the workers. And the Jew gets 
 his interest for ever. That is to say that after he has 
 drawn back all his million in interest the Government goes 
 on paying him out of your earnings, my hard-headed friend, 
 £30,000 a year as long as anyone is left to claim it. 
 Probably thp million was wasted in some foolish work, or 
 wicked war; but because a Minister in 1812 was a knave or 
 a fool, British industry is taxed to the tune of £30,000 a 
 year, world without end, amen. 
 
 And the worst of it is that the money the Jew lent was 
 not earned by him, but by the ancestors of the very people
 
 68 MERRIE ENGLAND. 
 
 who are now paying his descendants interest for the loan 
 of it. 
 
 Nay : Worse even than this. It is a fact that a gi'eat 
 deal of the so-called "capital" for which interest is paid 
 does not exist at all. 
 
 The Duke of Plaza Toro is a wealthy peer. He has an 
 income, a rent-roll of £30,000 a year. The Earl of Chow 
 Bent has .£40,000 a year, the Marquis of Steyne has 
 £50,000 a year. These noblemen, together with a rich 
 Jew, a couple of rich cotton-lords, and a coalowner, decide 
 to form a company and construct a canal. 
 
 They engage some engineers and some navvies. To pay 
 these men their wages and to provide tools and other plant, 
 they need " capital. " 
 
 They get an estimate of the cost. Say it is half a 
 million. The capital of the company is half a million. 
 But that is needed to complete the work. It can be started 
 with much less. They therefore issue 50,000 shares at 
 £10 each ; £2 payable on allotment, and the rest at stated 
 times. 
 
 The company consists of seven men. Each takes an 
 equal niunber of shares, each pays down an equal sum, say 
 £14,285, making a total of £100,000, "With this amount 
 they can go on until the second call is made. 
 
 Now look at the position of the Duke. He has paid in 
 his £14,000, and at the end of a year he will have another 
 £30,000 ready, in the shape of rent. The others are in 
 similar positions. The Jew waits for his interest, the coal- 
 owner and the cotton-lords for their profits. And all these 
 sums, the rent, the interest, and the profits, are earned by 
 the workers. 
 
 So the canal is made. Who makes it? Not the rich 
 share-owners. Oh, no. The canal is made by the engineers 
 and the navvies. And who finds the money? Not the 
 rich shareholders. Oh, no. The money is earned in rent, 
 or interest, or profits, by the agricultural labourers, the 
 colliers, and the cotton operatives. 
 
 But when the navvies and engineers have made the canal, 
 and when the labourers, miners, and spinners have paid for 
 it, who owns it? 
 
 Does it belong to the men who made it? Not at all.
 
 MERRIE ENGLAND. 69 
 
 Does it belong to the men who earned the money to pay 
 for it? Not at all. 
 
 It belongs to the rich shareholders, and these men will 
 get other men to work it, and. will keep the profits of its 
 working. 
 
 That is to say, all the goods which are carried on that 
 canal must pay tollage. This tollage, after the costs of 
 repairing and working the canal are defrayed, will be profit, 
 and will be divided amongst the shareholders in the form 
 of dividends. Who will pay the tollage? 
 
 The tollage will be paid by the people who carry the 
 goods, and they in turn will charge it to the people who 
 buy the goods, and they in turn will charge it to the people 
 who lise the goods. And the people who use the goods 
 will be either workers, who pay the toll out of their own 
 earnings, or rich people, who pay the toll out of the 
 earnings of other workers. 
 
 And now let us sum up. 
 
 The Duke of Plaza Toro lends ^14,000 which he has got 
 (out of his farm labourers) and ,£06, 000 which he has not 
 got, but which he will get as soon as his farm labourers have 
 earned it. With this money — the money earned and to be 
 earned by the farm labourers — the Duke pays wages to the 
 engineers and navvies who make the canal. 
 
 The canal being made, the Duke takes tollage, which is 
 paid by the workers, much of it, perhaps, by the farm 
 labourers, navvies, engineers, spinners, and colliers, who 
 found the money for the canal or did the work of making it. 
 
 That is to say, the workers pay the Duke interest for 
 the loan of tlioir own money. 
 
 You will begin now to see what is meant by such words 
 as Eent, Interest, Capital, and Credit. Por your further 
 enlightenment, and to give you an idea how poor these rich 
 men really are, and how very much interest is paid for 
 money which does not exist, let me offer you two facts. 
 
 The first fact is that whereas the amount annually paid 
 in wages, profits, interest, and rent is estimated at 
 £1,350,000,000, there is at no time as much as £100,000,000 
 of money in the country. 
 
 The second fact I will give you in the words of John 
 Stuart Mill:—
 
 70 MERRIE ENGLAND. 
 
 When men talk of the ancient wealth of a country, of riehea 
 inherited from ancestors, and similar expressions, the idea 
 suggested is that the riches so transmitted were produced long 
 ago, at the time when they are said to have been first acquired, 
 and that no portion of the capital of a country was produced this 
 year, except so much a» may have been this year added to the 
 total amount The fact is far otherwise. " 
 
 The ffi'eater part, in value, of the t^ealth noio existing tn 
 JSnffland has been produced by human hands within the last tioelve 
 months. A vei-y small proportion indeed of that large aggregate 
 Vv-as in existence ten years ago ; of the present productive capital 
 of the countiy scarcely any part, except farm houses and 
 factories, and a few ships and machines ; and even these would 
 not in most cases have survived so long if fresh labour had not 
 been employed Avithin that period in putting them into repair. 
 
 The land subsists, and the land is almost the only thing that 
 Bubsists. Everything which is produced perishes, and most 
 things very quickly. 
 
 And again : — 
 
 Capital is kept in existence fi'om age to age, not by preservation, 
 hut by perpetual reproduction. 
 
 Does that surprise you? Nearly all the boasted " capital" 
 or wealth of the rich is produced annually. 
 
 And by ichom is it produced? By the rich? Not at all. 
 It is produced by those who labour, for all wealth must be 
 produced by labour. By no other means can it be produced. 
 
 Tou hear a man described as a millionaire. Do you 
 suppose that he has a million or a hundred million pounds 
 in his safe? Do you imagine with regai'd to a Jay Gould 
 or a Duke of Yv''estminster that every year a million golden 
 coins rain down on him from heaven? 
 
 Your millionaire has hardly anything. Very little money 
 that is certain. But he has bonds and securities and other 
 written contrivances of the usurer and the devil, whereby 
 he is legally entitled to appropriate year by year some 
 millions of the wealth that is created by the labour of the 
 poor. 
 
 Your Duke of Plaza Toro is said to be worth ^500,000 a 
 year. How is he worth it? He gets it in rent, in 
 royalties, in dividends, in interest; and every penny of it 
 is taken from the wealth produced by labour. 
 
 Your Duke has £30,000 a year of rent-roll, has he? 
 But he has not a shilling of rent until poor Hodge has 
 raised the crops and farmer G iles has sold them. Take the
 
 MERRTE ENGLAND. 71 
 
 men, the labourers — poor despised drudges — off his Grace's 
 estates, and his Grace is a pauper. 
 
 I advise you to get a pamphlet called " Society Classified : 
 In reply to the question, 'How far is the saying true that 
 every one lives either by working or begging, or by 
 stealing?'" It is well worth your attention. The author 
 is E. D. Girdlestone; the publisher is "W. Eeeves, 185, 
 Pleet Street, London; the price, one penny. 
 
 CHAPTEE IX. 
 
 The Self-Maj)b Mait. 
 
 The difference of natural talent in difTerent men is, in reality, much 
 less than we are aware of ; and the very different genius which appears to 
 distinguish men of different professions, when grown up to maturity, is 
 not, upon many occasions, so much the cause as the effect of the division 
 of labour. The difference between the most dissimilar characters — 
 between a philosopher and a common street porter, for example — seems 
 to arise not so much from nature, as from habit, custom, and education. 
 Wlien they came into the world, and for the first six or eight years of 
 their existence, they were perhaps very much alike, and neither their 
 parents nor playfellows could perceive any remarkable difference. About 
 that age, or soon after, they came to be employed in very different occu- 
 pations. The difference of talents comes then to be taken notice of, and 
 widens by degrees, till at last the vanity of the philosopher is willing to 
 acknowledge scarcely any resemblance. — Adam Smith. 
 
 Lycurgns fixed but a small value on a considerable quantity of his iron 
 money, but on the contrary the worth of speech was to consist in a few 
 plain words pregnant vrith a good deal of sense, and he contrived that by 
 long silence they might learn to be s( ntentious and acute in their replies. 
 Upon the whole he taught his citizens to think nothing more disagreeable 
 than to live for or by themselves. Like bees the people acted with one 
 impulse for the public good, and always assembled about their prince. 
 Tbey were possessed with a thirst of honour, an enthusiasm bordering 
 upon insanity, and had not a wish but for their country. — Plutarch. 
 
 The next thing we have to discover is, V/hat is profit? 
 Profit is the excess price received for an article over the 
 price paid for it. 
 
 If a man sells a thing for more money than he buys it 
 for the balance is profit. 
 
 Tou will see, then, that men may make profit either 
 upon their own work or upon the work of others. 
 
 As a rule profit is not made by the producer of an article, 
 but by some other person commonly called " the middle- 
 man" because he goes between the producer and the con-
 
 72 MERRIE ENGLAND. 
 
 sumer ; that is to say he, the middleman, buys the article 
 from the maker, and sells it to the user, at a profit. 
 
 In some eases, and to some extent, this profit is fair. 
 Por example, a costermonger buys fish in the market, 
 carries it into the city and sells it at a profit. That profit 
 is his wage, and pays him for his work as a distributor or 
 carrier of goods from the producer to the user. 
 
 But when the middleman becomes a capitalist; when he 
 buys fish on the Kentish beach by the ton and sells it at a 
 profit to the shopkeeper and the coster, making for himself 
 a couple of thousand a year, while the fisherman and the 
 coster can hardly keep body and soul together, that is not 
 a fair profit at all. 
 
 Why? Just look at it in this light. Here are four 
 persons concerned in the fishery trade. 
 
 1. The fisherman, or getter. 
 
 2. The middleman, or dealer. 
 
 3. The coster, or carrier. 
 
 4. The consumer, or user. 
 
 Now, can you see any reason why of these four people the 
 middleman, who does nothing but sign cheques, should 
 fare so much better than any of the others? 
 
 We have three persons engaged in getting the fish from 
 the sea to our doors. Is it fair that he who does the least 
 work should have the most money? Is the work done by, 
 or rather done /(>r, the middleman so much more valuable 
 to the public than the work of the fisherman and the 
 coster? 
 
 My dear John, the middleman's work, so far from being 
 the most valuable of the three, is actually worse than 
 useless. 
 
 The middleman in fact does nothing but keep up the 
 price of fish and keep down the rate of wages by his exorbi- 
 tant profits. 
 
 Put the case to yourself thus. Suppose you were con- 
 tractor, or caterer, for the supply of food to an entire town. 
 Would you pay a man £2,000 a year for simply ordering 
 other men to send telegrams to local agents to buy fish on 
 the beach? I don't think you would. Being a hai'd-headed 
 person, you would pay a clerk the current rate of wages to 
 do all that, and so would save at least .£1,800 a year. You
 
 MERRIE ENGLAND. 73 
 
 would see then, in a moment, that the middleman was a 
 mere snatcher of profits, taking from the producer with one 
 hand and from the consumer with the other. 
 
 All employers of labour, all rich men, except the money- 
 lenders and the landlords, are middlemen. 
 
 They are all useless incumbrances, getting rich upon the 
 labour of others. ■' 
 
 There are three chief kinds of middlemen : — 
 
 1. The idle capitalist, who pays men to work for 
 him, and pays managers to direct them, but never 
 works himself. 
 
 2. The busy capitalist who pays men to work for 
 him, and himpelf directs and manages the sale of 
 what they make. 
 
 3. The capitalistic worker, or inventor, who has 
 invented some new process or machine, and who 
 employs other men to make or work the patent. 
 
 The first of these men is worse than useless. The second 
 is, or might be, useful, but is almost always very much 
 overpaid. The third is sometimes an evil, sometimes a 
 good, ought always to be valuable to any nation, and is the 
 only kind of capitalist with any pretence of a right to his 
 riches. His case we must consider very carefully. 
 
 When I said in " The Pope's Socialism" that no man 
 ever became rich by his own industry, the inventor was 
 instanced against me by some of my readers. 
 
 They could not see that a man who made a fortune out 
 of an invention did not grow rich by his own industry. 
 
 Yet the fact is very clear. 
 
 "We will suppose that you, John Smith, of Oldham, 
 invent a new kind of loom, which will do twice as much 
 work as any other kind of loom now known. 
 
 Tou patent that loom, and for twenty-one years exact a 
 royalty upon every such loom that is made. Thus you 
 grow rich. 
 
 Do you grow rich by your own industry? By your own 
 unaided industry? 
 
 Is all the machine j^our own invention? Does no other 
 man's hand help you in the getting of your riches? 
 
 If you consider you will find that you owe your invention
 
 U MERRIE ENGLAND. 
 
 to a legion of dead and nameless men ; and your wealth to 
 a legion of poor workers of your own time. 
 
 First. Your loom contains wheels, and shafts, and 
 pinions, and is worked by steam. Did you invent the 
 wheel? Did you discover steam? No. They were there 
 ready to your hand, invented, like the hammer and the file 
 you used, and the principles of mechanics by which you 
 worked, by men long dead ; by men without whose labours 
 your wonderful invention had never been. 
 
 But, again, of what is your loom made? Of iron, of 
 copper, of steel ; of timber and many other materials. But 
 you are not a miner, nor a puddler, nor a joiner, nor a 
 smith or moulder. 
 
 So that to invent your machine you borrow from the dead ; 
 and to make it you must get the help of the living. 
 
 And when it is made. AVill it fetch a fortune? Not at 
 all. To make a foi'tune out of your machine you must 
 make others, or get them made. 
 
 Tou cannot make them. If you did you would not grow 
 rich, for it would take you years and years to make but a 
 few. 
 
 Therefore you get other men to make them, other men 
 to sell them, other men to work them, and get others to 
 buy the cloth they weave, and you take the profit. 
 
 Do you call that getting rich by your own unaided 
 industry? I don't. I call it taking a selfish advantage of 
 your own good fortune and the necessity of your fellow 
 creatures. 
 
 Tou will understand that I do not blame you. In a time 
 of competition it behoves every man to look after himself. 
 If I invented a machine I should take the royalty on the 
 patent, and use it as best I might. 
 
 But it would be far better for me, and for the world, if 
 I was not compelled to take it ; but might give my talents 
 freely to mankind without danger of being branded as a 
 pauper, or left to die in a ditch as a reward. 
 
 Tou will often hear it said that Socialists are dishonest 
 men, who wish to take the \Aealth of others and enjoy it 
 themselves. John, that is a lie. It is a wilful, wicked lie, 
 deliberately uttered by robbers who wish to hold fast to 
 the spoiJ they have taken from the poor.
 
 MERRIE ENGLAND. 75 
 
 Socialism is terribly just, implacably honest. It is so 
 honest that I doubt whether you can so much as look at the 
 light of its honesty without blinking ; although you are a 
 fairly honest man, John Smith, as times go. But let me 
 give you an idea of what I consider the very root principle 
 of all Socialism, and of all Democracy. 
 
 This is the principle that there is no such thing as 
 personal independence in human affairs. Man is a unit of 
 society, and owes not only all that he possesses, but all that 
 he is, to other men. 
 
 Yes. Just as no man can have a right to the land, because 
 no man makes the land, so no man has a right to his self, 
 because he did not make that self. 
 
 Men are made what they are by two forces, heredity and 
 environment. That is to say, by "breed" and the con- 
 ditions of life. 
 
 Take a new-born babe — a Shakespeare or a Stevenson — 
 and put it dowTi upon an uninhabited island and it will 
 perish of hunger. 
 
 Set a savage to suckle it, and it will grow up a savage. 
 Tour intellect and character are at birth what your 
 forefathers made them. And the intellects and characters 
 of your forefathers were what their forefathers and their 
 own surroundings made them. 
 
 After birth, you become just what yom' circumstances 
 and the people around you acting upon your peculiar 
 character and intellect, may make you. 
 
 Born amongst sots and thieves, and reared amongst them, 
 you will almost certainly become a sot and a thief. 
 
 Born and reared amongst Thugs you would have learned 
 and grown to delight in murder. 
 
 Whatsoever you are, you are what your forefathers, your 
 circumstances, and your companions have made you. Tou 
 did not make yourself; therefore you have no right to 
 yours-elf. You were made by other men ; therefore to those 
 other men you are indebted for all you have and for all you 
 are, and Socialism, with its awful justice, tells you that 
 you must jxiij the dtU. 
 
 Allow me to illustrate this position by using myself as 
 an example. I am a writer. I write a story, and I sell it 
 to the public. Suppose I can, by the sale of many copies,
 
 76 MERRIE ENGLAND. 
 
 secure a large sum of money. Am I justified in calling that 
 money mine ; in asserting, as so many men do assert, that I 
 have earned the money by my own industry and talent, and 
 that therefore it belongs to me alone, by right? I don't 
 know what you think, John Smith, but 1 hioio that 1 have 
 not done that work without help, and that in justice I 
 must pay back to all men what they have lent me. 
 
 What have they lent me? They have lent me all that I 
 have and all that I am. 
 
 Who taught me to read, and to write? Who suckled me, 
 nursed me, clothed me, fed me, cured me of my fevers and 
 other ailings? 
 
 Where did I get my ideas, my thoughts, my power, such 
 as it is, of literary arrangement, form and style? 
 
 I tell you frankly that I don't know. What do I owe to 
 Solomon, to Shakespeare to Eabelais to Carlyle, to Dickens; 
 to a hundred other writers? What do I owe to personal 
 friends; to schoolmasters, to the people I have rubbed 
 shoulders and touched hands with all these years? What 
 do I owe to the workshop, to the army, to the people of 
 the inns, the chm'ches, the newspaper offices, the mai'kets, 
 and the slums? I don't know. I can only tell you that 
 these people have made me what I am and have taught me 
 all I know. 
 
 Nay, could I even write a story after all my learning and 
 being and suffering, if I had not fellow creatures to write 
 about? Could I have written " The Eamchunders" if I had 
 not served with soldiers, or "My Sister," if there had been 
 no unfortunate, desperate women in our streets? 
 
 All I know, all that even a great writer knows of art or 
 human nature has been learned from other men. Now I 
 tell you. Practical John, that 1 am in the debt of my in- 
 structors. Indeed you would see clearly enough that if Mr. 
 Luke Fildes, the artist, engaged a man to sit as model for 
 his " Casuals, " he ought to pay that man his wages. And 
 why should not Charles Dickens pay the models for his 
 article on Tramps? 
 
 I owe a debt, then, to the living and the dead. You 
 may say that 1 cannot pay the dead. But suppose the 
 dead have left heirs ! Likely enough they have left heirs.
 
 MERRIE ENGLAND. 77 
 
 And Socialism, with its awful justice, tells me that the 
 claims of those heirs are binding on me. 
 
 Or there may be a imll. Let us instance a case of this. 
 To none, in my peculiar mental make up, am I more indebted 
 than to Jesus Christ. Well, he left a will. His will expressly 
 bids me treat all men as brothers^ And to the extent of 
 my indebtedness to Christ am I bound to pay all men, his 
 heirs. And even after all these debts are considered, I, 
 the author of a poor little tale, am still in the same position 
 as the inventor of the loom, for I cannot so much as get a 
 copy printed without the aid of myriads of living workmen 
 and of dead inventors. 
 
 The pen I write with, the paper I write upon, the types, 
 the press, the engine, the trains, the printer, the carrier, the 
 shopman, even the poor little bare-footed newsboy in the 
 streets, are all necessary to my "greatness," to my "fame," 
 to my " wealth. " And, after all, suppose no one would buy 
 my book or read it ! Who does buy it? Who reads it? 
 Men and women I never saw. And who taught them to 
 read? For to those teachers also I owe something. 
 
 Now, after all that, don't you think I should be a most 
 ungrateful and conceited prig if I had the impudence to 
 hold up my face and say "alone I did it"? 
 
 Here is a drawing. It represents a tree by a river. An 
 apple has fallen from the tree and a monkey wishes to get 
 the apple. 
 
 But he cannot reach it. Another monkey tries, but he 
 cannot reach it. Then a third monkey comes and plucks 
 the apple out of the water.
 
 78 
 
 MERRIE ENGLAND. 
 
 Now, if that third monkey who reached tne water over 
 the bodies, and by the aid of the other two, were to claim 
 the whole of the apple as his ! would you call that fair? 
 
 It is just as unfair as it is for an author or an inventor 
 to claim fame and fortune as the just reward of " his own 
 industry and talent. " Think of these things. They may 
 not strike you as " practical, " but they are true. 
 
 CHAPTEE X. 
 
 IndUSTEIAL CoMPETITIOlf, 
 
 Competition gluts our markets, enables the rich to take advantage of 
 the necessities of the poor, makes each man snatch the bread out of his 
 neighbour's mouth, converts a nation of brethren into a mass of hostile, 
 isolated, units, and finally involves capitalists and labourers in one 
 common ruin. — Gret/. 
 
 Now, my friend, pull yourself together, and remember 
 that you are a practical, hard-headed man. I want to ask you 
 some questions. 
 
 Of a country where the idle men were rich, and the indus- 
 trious men poor, where men were regarded not for useful-
 
 MERRIE ENGLAND. 79 
 
 ness 01- goodness, but for successful selfishness, would you 
 not say that its methods were unjust and that its Govern- 
 ment was bad? 
 
 But of a country where the workers got more than the 
 idlers, and where useful and good men were honoured and 
 rewarded, would you not say that it was a just and well- 
 governed people? 
 
 Tou would. Tou would call that a false society where 
 the good and useful suffered while the bad and the useless 
 prospered. And you would call that a true society where 
 every man enjoyed the fruits of his own labour and where 
 the best men were at the head of affairs. Well John, we 
 have seen that in this country the greatest share of the 
 \^ealth goes to those who do nothing to produce it ; that 
 industrious men are generally poor and rich men chiefly 
 idle, the best and the most useful men are not the best paid 
 nor the best rewarded, and that very often the greatest 
 enemies of society reap the most benefit from society's 
 labour. 
 
 In short, English society is not a just society, nor is 
 England a well-governed nation. 
 
 Now, what is the cause of this? How does it come to 
 pass that Industry and Self-sacrifice are often poor, and 
 that Idleness and Selfishness are often rich? How comes 
 it that laziness and greed reap honour and wealth, whilst 
 poverty and contumely are the lot of diligence and zeal? 
 
 By what means do the rich retain their riches ; and by 
 what means are the poor deprived of the wealth they 
 create? 
 
 There are two causes of this injustice, John. The first 
 is "prerogative," and the second is "competition." 
 
 The instrument by means of which our landed aristocrats 
 wrest their riches out of the hands of the workers is 
 "prerogative," or privilege. 
 
 Noblemen have had their estates given to them by the 
 Crown — often for some base or cruel deed — and they keep 
 them by means of laws made by a parliament of landlords. 
 The English Parliament of to-day is a Parliament of privi- 
 lege. It is not a democratic body. Abolish election fees, 
 pay your members, pass acts for granting universal suffrage, 
 second ballot, and one man one vote, and you will have a
 
 80 MERRIE ENGLAND. 
 
 Parliament elected upon democratic lines. At present there 
 are not a dozen workmen amongst the six hundred and sixty 
 members ; and then there is the House of Lords. 
 
 So much for the great realm of Eent. Outside that we 
 come to the stiU greater realm of commerce. Here there 
 is not much prerogative, but there is a more deadly thing, 
 there is competition. Competition is the instrument by 
 which, in the commercial world, one man possesses himself 
 of the fruits of other men's labour. 
 
 In the world of commerce there are two chief classes. 
 The employers and the employed. Both these classes are 
 engaged in competition. One employer competes against 
 another, and one worker competes against another. The 
 result being that the workers always suffer. 
 
 Let us, then, examine these two kinds of competition ; 
 and let us examine them as they affect : — 
 
 1. The middleman, or employer. 
 
 2. The producer, or worker. 
 
 3. The consumer, or user. 
 
 The rule of trade throughout the entire commercial world 
 is that every seller shall obtain as much as he can get for 
 the thing he has to sell, and that every buyer shall give as 
 little as the seller will take for the thing he has to buy. 
 
 Suppose I were cultivating a plot of land with a wooden 
 spade and that with an iron spade I could do as much work 
 in one hour as with a wooden spade I could do in two hours. 
 The value of an iron spade to me would be the amount of 
 labour saved until the spade was worn out. 
 
 Now if there were only one iron spade to be bought, it 
 would be worth my while to give for it almost the full 
 amount of the advantage I should gain by its use. 
 
 That is to say, if with the iron spade I could raise 20 
 bushels of wheat in the year, and if with the wooden spade 
 I could only raise 10 bushels of wheat in a year, and if the 
 iron spade would last two years, then 1 could give 18 
 bushels of wheat for an iron spade and still gain a bushel 
 a year. So the iron spade would be toorth 18 bushels of 
 wheat to me. 
 
 But now, suppose instead of one iron spade there were a 
 •iiillion of iron spades to sell. Would an iron spade be 
 worth less to me? No. It would still do double the work
 
 MERRIE ENGLAND. 81 
 
 of the wooden spade, and I could only use one iron spade 
 at once. To the buyer the abundance or scarcity of an 
 article makes no difference in its value. A thing bought is 
 worth what it will bring. 
 
 On the other hand, what is the value of the spade to 
 the man who makes it? Its value is regulated by the time 
 spent upon making it. If in the time it takes the man to 
 make a spade he could have raised 20 bushels of wheat, 
 then the spade must be sold for 20 bushels of wheat or he 
 had better give up making spades and stick to his land. 
 But if, in the time it would take him to raise 20 bushels of 
 wheat he can make ten spades, then to him each spade is only 
 worth two bushels of wheat. That is to say that to the 
 seller the abundance of the thing he has to sell does make a 
 difference in its value. A thing sold is worth what it has 
 cost. 
 
 Now let us see in what relations this buyer and seller of 
 spades stand to each other as just men, and as traders. 
 
 In justice, the day's work of the farmer should be sold for 
 the day's work of the smith. So if a smith can make ten 
 spades whilst a farmer is raising 20 bushels, then the just 
 price of spades is two bushels each. 
 
 As traders, it will pay me to give 18 bushels of wheat 
 for one iron spade, since that spade will bring me 20 bushels 
 extra. 
 
 Therefore, if there is only one smith, and if he will not 
 sell a spade for less than 18 bushels, I shall certainly pay 
 that price. 
 
 Under these circumstances the smith will soon grow rich. 
 
 But there is my side of the bargain as well as his. I 
 may refuse to pay that price, knowing that he can only buy 
 wheat from me. 
 
 In that case he must lower the price of his spades, or dig 
 his own wheat. In the end we should probably come to a 
 fair arrangement. 
 
 But suppose there are two men growing wheat, and only 
 one making spades. Then the two farmers are in competi- 
 tion and the smith may raise the price of his spades. 
 
 Or, if there are two smiths and only one farmer, then the 
 price of spades will fall. Why? Because it will pay the 
 smith better to take three bushels for his spades than to
 
 82 MERRIE ENGLAND. 
 
 grow wheat ; therefore each smith will drop his price, so 
 as to secure the order of the one farmer, down to the point 
 where making spades ceases to pay better than growing wheat. 
 
 But, now suppose that not only are there two smiths, and 
 only one farmer, but that the one farmer owns the whole 
 of the land. Then the smiths are obliged to sell spades or 
 starve, and they will farther drop their prices down to the 
 lowest point at which they can manage to exist. 
 
 What does this mean? It means that in the commercial 
 world, where prices are ruled by competition, buyers do not 
 pay for an article the price it is worth to them, but only 
 the price which the seller is in a position to demand. 
 
 Let us now consider the effect of competition amongst 
 the workers. 
 
 The worker has nothing to sell but his labour, and he must 
 sell that to the middleman. Now, suppose a middleman 
 wants a potato patch dug up ; and suppose there are two 
 men out of work. Will the middleman pay one of the 
 men a just price, and charge the labour to the consumer of 
 the potatoes? No. He will ask the men what they will do 
 it for, and give the work to the man who will do it at the 
 lower price. Nor is that the end of the mischief. Say 
 one man gets the work at 3s. a day. The other man is 
 still unemployed. He, therefore, goes to the middleman 
 and offers to do the work for 2s. a day. Then the other man 
 is thrown out of work and must go in for Is. 6d. a day — or 
 starve. 
 
 And so we see that competition amongst the workers 
 reduces the workers' wages, and either increases the middle- 
 man's profits or lowers the price of potatoes. 
 
 It would pay the workers better to combine. Then they 
 might force the middleman to pay one of them 5s. a day, 
 which they could share. By this means they would each 
 have 2s. 6d. a day, whereas competition between them 
 would result in one of them working for Is. 6d. a day and 
 the other getting nothing. This is the idea of the trade 
 unionist. 
 
 Consider next the effect of competition amongst the 
 middlemen. There are two farmers growing potatoes. 
 Each farmer wishes to get all the trade. Both know that 
 the public will always buy the cheapest article. One farmey
 
 MERRIE ENGLAND. 83 
 
 drops his price. This compels the other to drop his price, 
 for if he did not he would lose all his trade. And when he 
 drops his price the first drops his still lower, and so on, 
 until neither farmer is making any profit. And thcii they 
 compel their men to work for less wages. 
 
 And so we see that competition amongst middlemen 
 reduces profits, reduces wages, and cheapens potatoes. 
 
 This, of course, applies to all trades, and not only to the 
 potato trade. 
 
 Kow, your friends the capitalist members of Parliament, 
 and their friends the stupid and dishonest men who farm 
 the newspaper Press, will tell you that wages are regulated 
 by the law of supply and demand, and that it is to the 
 interest of the worker that the prices of all things should 
 be low, 
 
 Both these statements are lies. 
 
 Wages in this country are not regulated by the law of 
 supply and demand. They are I'egulated by competition, 
 and it is not to the interest of the workers that commodities 
 should be cheap. 
 
 We will now deal with this law of supply and demand. 
 
 Many people have got muddled over this law of supply 
 and demand. Their confusion is caused by a failure to 
 understand the difference between natural and artificial 
 cheapness. 
 
 Suppose we have a community of two men. One of them 
 grows wheat, the other catches fish, and they exchange 
 their produce. 
 
 If the fisherman has a bad catch and gets less fish than 
 usual, then he cannot give so much fish for so much wheat 
 as he is wont to do. That is to say, fish is naturally char. 
 If the fanner has a bad harvest then wheat is naturally 
 dear. If the fisherman has a great haul of fish, then he can 
 give, perhaps, ten times as many flslies as usual for a loaf 
 of bread. Fish is naturally "cheap." That is to say, it is 
 justly cheap, because a greater quantity than usual has been 
 got with no more labour than usual, and the just ]jasis of 
 exchange value consists in the amount of labour embodied 
 in the things exchanged.* 
 
 * Coal is dearer tlian water becnusc tho.e is more Inbour involved in gettinf; it, 
 and because it is not so easy to take from place to place. V/!ien wc buy coal \\c 
 4o not pay for tlie coal, l>ut for the labour used in getting the coal and bringing 
 it to our cellars,
 
 84 MERRIE ENGLAND. 
 
 But now suppose we have a community of three men. 
 One is a farmer, and claims the land as his. Another is a 
 fisherman who owns the only boat. The third is a labourer, 
 who owns nothing but his strength. He cannot grow 
 wheat, for the farmer will not let him use the land, 
 nor catch fish, for the fisherman will not lend him his 
 boat. 
 
 He goes then to the farmer as a labourer, for wages ; and 
 the fai'mer gives him, as wages, just as much wheat as will 
 keep him alive. 
 
 The result of this arrangement is that as there are now 
 two men working on the land there will be twice as much 
 wheat. 
 
 The farmer now gets two shares of wheat, but as he only 
 pays the labourer half a share, and keeps a share and a half 
 for himself, he can give more wheat to the fisherman for his 
 fish. That is to say that wheat is now unjustly cheap. It 
 is cheap not because of the bounty of nature, but because 
 the labourer has been swindled out of his rights. 
 
 Something of the same kind would happen in a com- 
 munity consisting of one farmer and two fishermen. The 
 two fishermen would want wheat, and would undersell each 
 other. So fish would become cheap to the farmer, not 
 because of the law of supply and demand, but because of 
 competition. That is to say, because of the disorganisation 
 of industry. 
 
 One of the most flagrant instances of blundering on this 
 subject was the speech of Mr. Thomas Burt, M.P., when 
 he told the Durham miners they were wrong to strike, 
 because "they might as well try to resist the force of 
 gravity as try to keep up wages in a falling market. " Mr. 
 Bui-t does not seem to have thought of such a thing as 
 preventing the market from falling. For there must be a 
 demand for coal. Coal is a necessary article, and the con- 
 sumption is rising yearly. The public want coal. They 
 must have coal. Turn back now to what I said about the 
 exchange of corn for spades. The same rule applies to the 
 purchase of coal. The public will pay for coal up to the 
 limit of its value to them — if they cannot get it at a lower 
 price. 
 
 It was not, therefore, a decrease in the demand for coal
 
 MERRIE ENGLAND. 85 
 
 which caused the falling market. What was it? It was 
 
 competition. 
 
 A few months before the Dvivham strike one of the 
 Durham firms took a contract for 280,000 tons of coal at 
 2s. 6d. a ton below the Torkshire prices. 
 
 I said then that the Durham coal owners would try to 
 reduce wages, and so they did. 
 
 Tlieir excuse was a "falling market." The market was 
 falling. But it was falling because they, in their greedy 
 desire to steal the Torkshire trade, had lowered their 
 prices. 
 
 Take the case of the Cheshire salt trade. There was a 
 falling market there. Salt went a begging. The salt 
 manufacturers made no profits ; the men got low \vages. 
 Why? Because one firm kept undercutting another. And 
 I suppose Mr. Burt would have said that it would be as 
 easy to resist the force of gravity as to keep up the price of 
 salt in a falling market. 
 
 But when the salt syndicate was formed the market rose. 
 Why? Because all the salt was in the hands of one firm, 
 and there was no competition. So the price of salt M'ent 
 up, and remained up until private firms were formed outside 
 the syndicate and competition began. Then, of course, 
 the price came down. 
 
 The history of the Standard Oil Trust in America shows 
 the same thing. 
 
 If all the coal mines in England belonged to one man, we 
 should hear nothing about falling markets. Coal would rise 
 in price. 
 
 Put the mines into the hands of two men, and the prices 
 woidd come down because one owner would undersell the 
 other. 
 
 The present code of commercial ethics is, in my opinion, 
 opposed entirely to reason and justice. Nearly all our 
 practical economists of to-day put the consumer first, and 
 the producer last. This is wrong. There can be no just 
 or sane system which does not fiist consider the producer 
 and then wisely and equitably regulate the distribution of 
 the things produced. 
 
 And here is an exposition of the reason and justice of my 
 position. The community is worked by the division of
 
 MERRIE ENGLAND. 
 
 labour. That division of labour ought to be equal and fair. 
 If a collier or a tram-guard is OA'erworked or underpaid, he 
 is being unjustly dealt with by the community Vv'hom he 
 serves. Take an illustration. Eeduce the complex com- 
 munity to a simple one. 
 
 There are one hundred families in a small state. Ten are 
 wood-cutters, ten hunters, ten shoemakers, ten tailors, ten 
 fishermen, and so on. Suppose the wood-cutter works 
 fifteen hours a day, and only receives half as much food 
 and clothing in return as is received by the rest of tlie 
 community \\'ho work ten horn's a day. That means that 
 fuel is cheap to ninety families, but that all other things 
 are dear to ten families. It means that ten families are 
 suffering for the advantage of ninety families. It means 
 that the public of that state sweat and swindle the wood- 
 cutters. 
 
 In short, wood is unfairly cheap. 
 
 Take the case of a tram-guard working, say, sixteen 
 hours a day for £1 a week. That man is being robbed of 
 all the pleasure of his life. His wife and children are 
 being deprived of necessary food and comfort Now there 
 ought to be two guards working eight hours at o£2 a v/eek. 
 If the tram company makes big dividends the increased cost 
 should come out of those dividends. If the dividend will 
 not pay it, the fares should be raised. If the pul^lic cannot 
 afford to pay bigger fares they ought to wallv. At present 
 supposing the dividends to be low, the public are riding 
 at the expense of the tram-guard's wife and childi-en.
 
 M EERIE ENGLAND. 87 
 
 CHAPTEE XI. 
 
 Waste. 
 
 We, of the so-called " educated " classes, who take it upon us to he the 
 better and upper part of the world, cannot possibly understand our 
 relations to the rest better than we may where actual life may be seen in 
 front of its Shakespearean image, from the stalls of a theatre. I never 
 stand up to rest myself, and look round the house, without renewal of 
 wonder how the crowd in the pit, the shilling gallery, allow us of the 
 boxes and stalls to keep our places ! Think of it ; — those fellows behind 
 there have housed us and fed us ; their wives have washed our clothes, 
 and kept us tidy ; — they have bought us the best places, — brought us 
 through the cold to them ; and there they sit behind us, patiently, seeing 
 and hearing what they may. There they pack themselves, squeezed and 
 distant, behind our chairs ; — we, their elect toys and pet puppets, oiled 
 and varnished, and incensed, lounge in front, placidly, or for the greater 
 part, wearily and sickly contemplative. — Ruskin. 
 
 We saw just now that competition amongst the workers 
 lowered wages, and that competition amongst the middle- 
 men lowered both wages and profits. We also saw that 
 both kinds of competition lowered the price of goods to the 
 consumer or user. 
 
 This is the one great arginnent in favour of competition — 
 that it reduces the price of commodities or goods. 
 
 It is quite true, as I explained before, that we can buy 
 things more cheaply under competition than under a 
 monopoly, and this is urged as sufficient proof that compe- 
 tition is a good thing. "Tor," say the defenders of the 
 system, " we are all consumers, and what is good for the 
 consumer is good for all. " 
 
 Now, I will prove to you beyond all question that the one 
 argument advanced in favour of competition is really the 
 strongest argument against it. 
 
 I wiU prove to you beyond all question that this much 
 praised cheapness is not always good for the general con- 
 sumer, and is never good for the producer — that is to say, 
 for the working class. 
 
 First, allow me to expound to you my theory of waste. I 
 call it my theory because I discovered it myself, and because 
 I don't know that any other writer has ever alluded to it, 
 though 1 may be wrong in that latter particular. 
 
 The theory of waste goes to show that excessive cheapness 
 is good for no one.
 
 MERRIE ENGLAND. 
 
 YtQien a thing is too cheap we loaste it. I give you two 
 common examples of this : salt and matches. 
 
 Many years ago, whilst riding in a train, I noticed a 
 drmiken man wasting matches. I had noticed the same 
 thing before, but had never thought about it. This time I 
 did think about it. 
 
 There happened just then to be a good deal of talk going 
 on about the wretched wages and long hours of the match 
 and match-box makers. I began to add things up. 
 
 I saw that at one end of the trade we had people working 
 long hours for low wages to make matches ; and that at the 
 other end of the trade we had people wasting matches. 
 
 Tell me, from your own experience is it not true that of 
 the gross number of matches bought at least one half are 
 wasted? 
 
 I asked myself, firstly, "Why do people waste matches?" 
 The answer was ready — "Because matches are so cheap." 
 I asked myself, secondly, " "Why are match-makers so badly 
 paid?" The answer was longer coming, but it came at last, 
 in the same words, " Because matches are so cheap. " 
 
 Now, I saw plainly enough that when I wasted matches 
 I was really wasting the flesh and blood of the fellow 
 creatures who made them. But I could not see so plainly 
 how that M-aste might be avoided. 
 
 "If," I thought, "the price of matches was doubled, 
 that would pay the match-makers good wages, and it would 
 not hurt me, for I should cease to waste them, and so should 
 only need one box where I now use two. " 
 
 But then came the question, " Would not that throw half 
 the match-makers out of work ; and if it did, what would 
 become of them?" 
 
 That question puzzled me for sometime; but at last I 
 answered it, and then I began to see all the iniquity of our 
 commercial system, and to understand the causes of the 
 trouble. 
 
 A few years later in an article on the Salt Trade, I said 
 that salt was too cheap and that the proper remedy was to 
 regulate the price by wages, and not the wages by the price. 
 Thereupon I was attacked by the editor of a northern paper, 
 who denied my statement, and suggested that I was an 
 ass.
 
 ^n^R^IE ENGLAND. 89 
 
 ^._ — — . 
 
 This editor said : — 
 
 The suggested method of first fixing a good wage for the labour 
 force engaged in production, and afterwards fixing the price for 
 the market of the commodities produced upon the basis of that 
 wage, is chimerical. Take an instance. Blatehfoi'd, in his paper, 
 the Clarion, a paper devoted to bad economics and music-hall 
 twaddle, instances the Cheshire salt trade. Ho thinks the 
 "producers" should have their wages fixed at a decent sum, and 
 the price of salt to the public regulated by this item. Suppose 
 it to be attempted, how would it work? It would involve a 
 higher price for salt in the country to begin with. We could 
 afford that. There would be less salt used, and less called for. 
 That would mean there would be fewer men needed to produce 
 salt. That is, many men employed in that particular industry 
 would be discharged and would betake themselves to some other 
 congested branch of industry, to overcroivd the tvorkers there, while 
 those that re7nained toould be put on short time ! JIoio does this 
 solve the problem ? 
 
 Now we can draw two inferences from that statement. 
 The first is, that the only effect of increasing the price of 
 i?alt would be to throw half the men out of work ; the second 
 is, that as those men could find no other employment they 
 had better be left alone. 
 
 We will begin with the second statement, and I will show 
 you what nonsense the newspapers of this great country 
 print for your instruction, my practical, hard-headed friend. 
 
 To begin with, you see that this editor admits three 
 things, any one of which is sufiieient to have shown 
 him that there is something very rotten in our present 
 system of trade. 
 
 lie owns that if the saltworkers were thrown out of work 
 they could find no means of living, because the other 
 branches of industry are "congested." That is to say, that 
 men able and willing to work cannot find work in this best 
 of all possible countries. 
 
 But he does not tell you why this evil exists, nor how to 
 cure it. 
 
 He owns that a great deal of salt is wasted, and that the 
 consumer would be quite as well off if he paid double the 
 price he now pays. 
 
 Just consider what these admissions mean. They mean 
 that a useful product of nature is being wasted, and they 
 mean that the labour of a large number of men and women
 
 9J 'MERRIE ENGLAND. 
 
 is being wasted, and they mean that both these wastes 
 could be stopped without hurting any one. 
 
 But this intelligent editor will not allow us to interfere, 
 because by stopping the waste we should throw a number of 
 men out of work. 
 
 "What are those men doing? They are wasting their time, 
 and they are wasting salt ; but we must let them go on. 
 
 Our wise editor acknowledges that the salt they make is 
 being wasted, but yet we are to continue to pay them wages 
 for wasting it. What do you think of him? 
 
 His plan is tooi'se than that of employing men to dig holes 
 and fill them up again. For then they would only waste 
 time. But our clever writer makes them waste salt as well. 
 So that his plan is as foolish as paying men to make salt 
 and throw it into the river. He is one of those stupid 
 people who think it is all right so long as you find the 
 men "employment." It is of no consequence whether their 
 work is useful work or wasteful work, so long as they are 
 kept working. As though a man could eat woi-k, and drink 
 work, and M'ear work, and put work in the penny bank 
 against a rainy day. 
 
 "What the people want is food and clothing and shelter 
 and leisure, not icorL Work is a means, and not an end. 
 Men work to live, they do not live to work. 
 
 And the joke of the thing is that if these salt-boilers 
 were out of work, and we suggested that the corporation of 
 their town should employ them to make new roads, or 
 drains, to keep them from starving, this misleader of the 
 people would be the fii'st to sit upon his editorial chair and 
 protest against the employment of the people on " unneces- 
 sary work." 
 
 Or suppose some Socialist writer turned our editor's 
 argument against the use of machinery, and said that no 
 machinery ought to be introduced, as its effect would be 
 to throw numbers of men out of employment, and drive 
 them to seek work in other industries already congested ! 
 What do you think our editor would call that Socialist? 
 
 And now allow me to add up the sum in two ways, first 
 as our editor adds it up, and then as I add it up, and see 
 which answer looks most reasonable.
 
 MERRIE ENGLAND. 91 
 
 The Edixoe's Wat. 
 
 Half the domestic salt is wasted. Double the price and 
 the waste would cease. Then only half as much salt would 
 be bought. Therefore only half as much would be made. 
 Therefore only half the hands would be needed. Therefore 
 half the hands would be out of work. 
 
 My Wat. 
 
 Half the domestic salt is wasted. Double the price, and 
 save half the salt. Then only half as much would be bought. 
 
 Therefore only half as much would be made. Thertfore 
 the salt-malcers who now work tv^'elve hours a day, need 
 onlfi luork six hours a day. 
 
 ilow does that strike you, John? Or you might let 
 them work twelve hours a day, and double their wages. In 
 which case half of them can be sent to do other work. Or 
 you can reduce the hours to eight, and pay them 50 per 
 cent, more wages, in which case a quarter of the men can find 
 other work. The advantages of this plan would be that — 
 
 1. No salt is wasted; therefore the supply of salt will 
 last twice as long. 
 
 2. The consumer still gets all the salt he can use at the 
 price he paid for salt before. 
 
 3. The manufacturer gets the same price for one ton that 
 he used to get for two tons. Therefore he saves enough in 
 carriage, in wear and tear of machinery, in interest on 
 capital, in rent and other ways, to leave him a handsome 
 profit. 
 
 4. The worker has only half as much work to do ; there- 
 fore he secures a six hours' day, and his wages remain as 
 they were. 
 
 How does tluit solve the problem? That, John, is my 
 theory of waste. I call it a pi'actical, bard-headed way of 
 looking at things. What do you think? 
 
 Just apply the idea to all the trades where labour or 
 material is being wasted, and you will begin to know a 
 great deal more than the average newspaper editor, who 
 gets his salary by ^^'asting ink and paper, and perpetuating 
 follies and lies, will ever find out — unless some sensible 
 person comes to help him.
 
 D^ MERRIE ENGLAND. 
 
 CHAPTEE XII. 
 
 Cheapness ! 
 
 O, God ! Ihat bread should be so dear, and flesh and blood so cheap.— 
 IJond. 
 
 Ah me, into what waste latitudes in this Time-Voyage have we 
 wandered, like adventurous Sinbads; where the men go about as if by 
 galvanism, with meaningless glaring eyes, and hiive no soul, but only of 
 the beaver faculty and stomach ! The haggard desj^air of Cotton 
 Factory, coal mine operatives, Chandos Farm labourers, in these days is 
 painful to behold ; but not so painful, hideous to the inner sense, as that 
 brutish God-forgetting, proHt-and-loss Philosophy and Life-theory, which 
 we hear jangled on all hands of us, in senate-houses, spouting clubs, 
 leading articles, pulpits and platforms, everywhere as the Ultimate Gospel 
 and candid plain-English of Man's Life, from the throats and pens and 
 thoughts of ail-but all men ! — Carlyle. 
 
 Besides the theory of waste, we have another aspect of 
 cheapness to consider. 
 
 The defenders of competition say that competition lowers 
 the price of commodities to the consumer, and they tell us 
 that " as we are all consumers, what is good for the con- 
 sumer is good for all." 
 
 This is not true, John Smith; for, though we are all 
 consumers, we are not all producers. 
 
 Remember, John, that the consumer is the user, and 
 though he is called the "buyer," he is more frequently the 
 "taker." 
 
 But the producer is the maker — the worker. The interests 
 of these two classes are not the same. It is the interest of 
 the buyer and the taker that the things made by the worker 
 should be sold cheaply. But it is to the interest of the 
 worker that the things he makes should fetch a high price. 
 
 The stupid party will tell you, John, that since you have 
 many things to buy and only one thing to sell, it is to your 
 interest that all things should be cheap. 
 
 That looks plausible. But, John, what is the one thing 
 you have to sell? It is your labour. And with the money 
 you get for your labour you have to pay for all you get. 
 
 Now cheap goods mean cheap labour, and cheap labour 
 means low wages. 
 
 You have nothing but your labour to sell, and you are 
 told that it will pay you to sell that cheaply. 
 
 Go to a manufacturer and explain to him that it is to his 
 interest to sell his woollens cheap, and he will call you a
 
 MERE IE ENGLAND. 93 
 
 fool. Tell a greengrocer that it is to his interest to sell his 
 cabbages cheap, and ho will throw one at you. Why, then, 
 my hard-headed friend, do you believe that your interest 
 lies in selling yoiu' labour cheap? 
 
 Tou don't believe it. No, what you believe is, that it 
 is to your interest that the men of other trades should sell 
 tJieir labour cheap. 
 
 But there you may be mistal'-.en. For instance, farm 
 labour is cheap. Hence cheap bread. But hence also the 
 rush of farm-labourers to the towns. Which causes an 
 increase in rent, a decrease in health, and supplies a large 
 bulk of blackleg labour with which the capitalist can defeat 
 you when you strilie. 
 
 And now let me explain this matter clearly and fully. 
 
 In a country where the users were all makei's prices 
 would not matter. Suppose you ai-e a Aveaver, I am a 
 farmer. I give so much corn for so much cloth. If I raise 
 my price you raise yours. That is to say, we simply 
 exchange on equal terms. 
 
 But in a country where some of the users are not makers, 
 it is to the interest of the makers that prices should be 
 high. Thus:— 
 
 Tou are a weaver, I am a farmer. But you work for a 
 cotton-lord, and I for a landlord. We have now four con- 
 sumei-s, and only two producers. Tliat is to say, that you 
 and I have now each only one person to buy from; but we 
 have each three people to sell to. 
 
 I buy cloth from you, and I sell corn to you, to the 
 landlord, and to the cotton-lord. 
 
 You buy corn from me, and sell cloth to me, to the land- 
 lord, and the cotton-lord. Thus : — 
 
 Weaver's f Landlord. 
 r<„^t^^^..^ i Cotton-lord. 
 Customers I p^^^^^ 
 
 T7n,.,v.r»,.'o r Landlord. 
 
 I produce one quarter of wheat and sell it at 40s., of 
 which I pay 20s. in rent. Tou make one piece of cloth 
 and sell it at 40s. , of which your employer takes 20s. in 
 prolits. Here is the account : — 
 
 One quarter of wheat i.^^^^^ ^J}.10 
 
 Oue piece of cloth [^^^l ^J40
 
 94 MERRIE ENGLAND. 
 
 Now when that is sold you will find that each of the four 
 persons gets one quarter. Thus : — • 
 
 By sale of wheat to Landlord 10 
 
 to Cotton-lord 10 
 
 to Weaver 10 
 
 to Self 10 
 
 40 
 
 By sale of cloth to Landlord 10 
 
 to Cotton-lord 10 
 
 to Farmer 10 
 
 to Self 10 
 
 40 
 
 Now suppose we raise the price 50 per cent, and see how 
 it works out : — 
 
 One quarter of wheat | -^Va^es 40/ ^^ 
 
 One piece of cloth { Wages 4o}^^ 
 
 And we sell it, as before, each to his three customers and 
 himself : — 
 
 By sale of wheat to Landlord 10 
 
 to Cotton-lord 10 
 
 to Weaver 20 
 
 to Self 20 
 
 60 
 
 By Bale of cloth to Landlord 10 
 
 to Cotton-lord 10 
 
 to Farmer 20 
 
 to Self 20 
 
 60 
 Tou will see that the landlord and the cotton-lord now 
 only get half as much corn and cloth as we get. How is 
 that? 
 
 It is because the price of the goods has been raised, but 
 the rent and interest have not been raised. The two idlers 
 have still the same money to spend, but it will not buy them 
 as much. "Whereas at the low prices we, the workers, 
 only got one-half of our earnings, we now get two-thirds of
 
 M ERR IE ENGLAND. 95 
 
 our earnings. Whereas the two idlers got one-half our 
 earnings they now only get one-third of our earnings. 
 
 This means that we have doubled our wages. It means 
 that the value of laboiu* has gone up, and that the value of 
 money has gone down. 
 
 Before we can go any further, I must show you my 
 method of dividing the nation into three classes, instead of 
 into two classes as is usual. 
 
 Tou are used to the common division of the people into 
 two classes, thus : — 
 
 1. The rich idlers. 
 
 2. The poor workers. 
 
 And you too often suppose that only the idle rich are useless, 
 and that all the workers are useful. 
 
 This is an error. By this division you get a small class 
 of non-producers and a large class of producers. 
 
 But if you add to the idle rich all the domestic servants 
 and other people who wait upon them, you will find a large 
 class of non-producers and a larger class of producers. 
 
 But then again you must sub-divide this large class of 
 producers into two classes : — 
 
 1. The producers of useful things. 
 
 2. The producers of useless things. 
 
 And you will find that a very large niunber of the workers 
 aro really the servants of the rich, and are working at the 
 production of things which only the rich use, and are 
 supported upon the wages v/hich the rich pay them. 
 
 Now the rich pay them with the money which they, the 
 rich, get from the class of the producers of necessaries. 
 
 A landlord owns an estate and employs two men to 
 cultivate it. "We have here only two workers ; but we have 
 three eaters. The two men have to keep three. 
 
 But if the landlord takes avi'ay one of the farmers, and 
 employs him to build the landlord a house, we have then 
 only 07ie man producing food, but we have still three men 
 eating it. One man now has to keep three. 
 
 Tou understand me, John? Every person is a consumer 
 of necessaries, and those who produce necessaries have to 
 produce necessaries for all. 
 
 ]S[ow, the lower the price of necessaries the more necessaries
 
 96 MERRIE ENGLAND. 
 
 do the rich and his dependents get, and the less do the 
 producers get. . 
 
 Cheap food and clothing for the producers mean cheap 
 food and clothing for the non-producers. 
 
 The non-producers are kept by the rich upon the money 
 taken from the producers. 
 
 The cheaper the food and clothing the less do the producers 
 get back from the rich. 
 
 The cheaper the food and clothing are the more non- 
 producers can the rich feed. 
 
 The more non-producers the rich can feed the more they 
 will withdraw from the work of production. 
 
 The more they withdraw from the work of production the 
 fewer there will be to produce food and clothing for all. 
 
 The fewer there are to produce food and clothing for all, 
 the harder and the longer must those producers work. 
 
 Thus it is quite plain that under capitalism it is to the 
 interest of the producer that commodities should be dear. 
 
 But observe, that it is no use the workers forcing up 
 their wages unless at the same time they can prevent the 
 landlord and the capitalist from raising rent and interest. 
 
 As I showed you before, a monopoly can raise prices. But 
 it is well known that a monopoly, like the Oil Trust or 
 Salt Syndicate, while raising prices will not raise wages. 
 
 But though a monopoly of capitalists will not serve a 
 useful purpose, it may be possible to find some kind of 
 monopoly that will serve a useful purpose. 
 
 What we want is a monopoly which will raise wages 
 and keep down rent and interest. This is to say, a mono- 
 poly which will ensure to the worker the enjoyment of all 
 the wealth he produces. 
 
 There is only one kind of monopoly which can do this, 
 and it is a State monopoly. 
 
 Now, a State monopoly is Socialism, and I will proceed to 
 deal with Socialism in my next chapter. 
 But, before leaving this question of cheapness I want to 
 anticipate one objection which may be brought against my 
 statement that cheap commodities mean cheap labour. 
 
 Some stupid parson, preaching upon a lecture of mine 
 which he had heard, but had not understood, declared that 
 it was nonsense to say that cheap commodities meant cheap
 
 MERRIE ENGLAND. 97 
 
 labour, for whereas commodities are now universally cheaper 
 than they were, wages are universally higher. 
 
 I am not so sure that this is strictly true about the 
 advance in wages and fall in prices. Eents are certainly 
 higher than they were, and meat is dearer. But whether 
 or not it be true that the workers get more money and can 
 buy more with it that has nothing at all to do with my 
 argument. 
 
 All commodities are produced by labour, therefore to 
 drive commodities down to their cheapest rate mt^s/ residt in 
 cheap labour. And you know that as soon as ever prices 
 begin to fall the capitalist begins to talk about lowering 
 wages. And you know that bread and coal and clothing 
 and salt and matches and very many other things are simply 
 cheap because the people who produce them are not half paid. 
 
 Matches are so cheap that you can get 800 matches for 
 twopence-halfpenny. JSTow, if the retail price of matches 
 is 2|d. for 800, what is the wholesale price? Put it at 
 twopence. 
 
 If the manufacturer charges twopence for 800 matches 
 after allowing for cost of wood, wick, wax, phosphorus, 
 printing, paste, advertisements, carriage, and labour, how 
 much do you suppose the manufacturer pays the women and 
 children who make the matches? I don't know what these 
 women and children get. I do know that 1 have heard of 
 women and girls working sixteen hours a day for seven days 
 making match boxes, and earning about four shillings a 
 week by the work. And 1 ask you. How is a woman to 
 live on four shillings a week and pay rent? And do you 
 ever consider the lives of the people who make these 
 marvellously cheap things? And do you ever think what 
 kind of homes they have; in what kind of districts the 
 homes are situated; and what becomes of those people 
 when they are too ill, or too old, or too infirm to earn 
 even four shillings as the price of a hundred and twelve 
 hours work? 
 
 In my Utopia, when Cain asked, "Am I my brother's 
 keeper," he would be answered with a stern affirmative. 
 In my Utopia a thing would be considered cheap or dear 
 according to the price it cost; and not according to the 
 price that was paid for it. Matches may be dear — fi-om a 
 
 D
 
 98 MERRIE ENGLAND. 
 
 Utopian point of view — at 2|d. for 800; because, you see, it 
 may be necessary to add a few items to the cost of produc- 
 tion which are not cliarged for in the retail price. As thus : — 
 
 Item. — 100 women clone to dejith by labour before their time. 
 
 Item. — 200 children killed by preventable diseases in the slums. 
 
 Item. — Say, 10 boys driven into a career of crime by hunger 
 and neglect. 
 
 Item. — Say, sis girls di'iven to a life of Bhamo by similar 
 causes. 
 
 Item. — The cost of keeping several broken old male and female 
 paupers. 
 
 Item. — Pauper gi-aves for the same. 
 
 Item. — Cost of fat beadle kept to superintend the above old 
 wrecks. 
 
 Item. — An increase of rates for police and prison officials. 
 
 Item. — The parish doctor, the dealer in adulterated gin, the 
 Bcripture reader, the coffin maker, and a fraction of the Cabinet 
 Minister's time spent in proving that "you cannot interfere with 
 the freedom of contract" nor "tamper with the economic balance 
 between producer and consumer." 
 
 Add all these items on to the match bill, Mr. Smith, and tell 
 me if you call those matches cheap. 
 
 CHAPTER Xin. 
 
 Socialism ! 
 
 One thing onght to bo aimed at by all men ; that the interest of each 
 individually, and of all collectively, should be the same; for if each 
 should grasp at liis individual interest, all human society will be 
 dissolved. — Cicero. 
 
 When I balance all these things in my thoughts, I grow more favourable 
 to Plato, and do not wonder that he resolved not to make any laws for 
 such as would not submit to a commimity of all things ; for so wise a 
 rnan could not but foresee that the setting all upon a level was the only 
 way to make a nation happy, which cannot be obtained so long as there 
 is property ; for when eveiy man draws to himself all that he can compass 
 by one title or another, it must needs follow that how plentiful soever a 
 nation may be, yet a few dividing the wealth of it among themselves, the 
 rest must fall into indigence. So that there mil be two sorts of people 
 among them who deserve that their fortunes should be interchanged, the 
 former useless, but wicked and ravenous, and the latter, who by their 
 constant industry serve the public more than themselves, sincere and 
 modest men. From whence I am persuaded that till property is taken 
 away there can be no equitable or just distribution of things, nor can the 
 world be happily governed ; for so long as that is maintained the greatest 
 and the far best part of mankind will be still oppressed with a loaci of 
 cares and anxieties. — Sir Thos. More. 
 
 John Smith, do you know what Socialism is? You have 
 heard it denounced many a time, and it is said that you do 
 not believe in it; but do you know M'hat it is?
 
 MERRIE ENGLAND. 99 
 
 Good or bad, wise or foolish, it is all I have to offer as a 
 remedy for the many evils of which I have been complaining. 
 
 Good or bad, wise or foolish. Socialism is the only 
 remedy in sight. None of its opponents, none of your 
 friends, the members of Parliament, old trade union 
 leaders, Tory and Liberal editors, parsons, priests, lawyers, 
 and men of substance have any remedy to offer at all. 
 
 Some of them are sorry or profess to be sorry, that there 
 is so much misery in the land ; some of them offer a little 
 mild charity, some a little feeble legislation, but there is 
 no great radical cure to be heard of except Socialism. 
 
 What is Socialism? I am going to tell you, and I ask 
 you to listen patiently, and to judge fairly. Tou have 
 heard Socialism reviled by speakers and writers. You know 
 tliat the Pope has denounced it, and that the Bishop of 
 Manchester has denounced it. Tou know that men like 
 Herbert Spencer, Charles Bradlaugh, and John Morley have 
 written and spoken against it, and doubtless you have got 
 an idea that it is as unworthy, as unwise, and as unworkable 
 as such men say it is. Now I will describe it for you and 
 you shall draw yom" own conclusions. 
 
 But before I tell you what Socialism is, I must tell you 
 what Socialism is not. For half our time as champions 
 of Socialism is wasted in denials of false descriptions of 
 Socialism ; and to a large extent the anger, the ridicule, and 
 the argument of the opponents of Socialism are hurled 
 against a Socialism which has no existence except in their 
 own heated minds. 
 
 Socialism does not consist in violently seizing upon the 
 property of the rich and sharing it out amongst the poor. 
 
 Socialists do not propose by a single Act of Parliament, 
 or by a sudden revolution, to put all men on an equality, 
 and compel them to remain so. Socialism is not a wild 
 dream of a happy land where the apples will drop off the 
 trees into our open mouths, the fish come out of the rivers 
 and fry themselves for dinner, and the looms turn out ready- 
 made suits of velvet with golden buttons without the trouble 
 of coaling the engine. Neither is it a dream of a nation of 
 stained-glass angels, who never say damn, who always love 
 their neighbours better than themselves, and who nevei 
 need to work unless they wish to.
 
 100 MERRIE ENGLAND. 
 
 No, Socialism is none of those things. It is a scientific 
 scheme of national Government, entirely wise, just, and 
 pradiail. And now let us see. 
 
 For convenience sake, Socialism is generally divided into 
 two kinds. These are called— 
 
 1. Practical Socialism. 
 
 2. Ideal Socialism. 
 
 Eeally they are only part of one whole; Practical Social- 
 ism being a kind of preliminary step towards Ideal Socialism, 
 so that we might with more reason call them Elementary 
 and Advanced Socialism. 
 
 I am an Ideal Socialist, and desire to have the whole 
 Socialistic programme carried out. 
 
 Practical Socialism is so simple that a child may under- 
 stand it. It is a kind of national scheme of co-operation, 
 managed by the State. Its programme consists, essentially, 
 of one demand, that the land and other instruments of 
 production shall be the common property of the people, 
 and shall be used and governed by the people for the people. 
 
 Make the land and all the instruments of production 
 State property ; put all farms, mines, mills, ships, railways, 
 and shops under State control, as you have already put the 
 postal and telegraphic services under State control, and 
 Practical Socialism is accomplished. 
 
 The postal and telegraphic service is the standing proof 
 of the capacity of the State to manage the public business 
 with economy and success. 
 
 That which has been done with the post-offices may be 
 done with mines, trams, railways, and factories. 
 
 The difference between Socialism and the state of things 
 now in existence will now be plain to you. 
 
 At present the land — that is, England — does not belong 
 to the people — to the English — but to a few rich men. The 
 mines, mills, ships, shops, canals, railways, houses, docks, 
 harbours, and machinery do not belong to the people, but 
 to a few rich men. 
 
 Therefore the land, the factories, the railways, ships, 
 and machinery are not used for the general good of tho 
 people, but are used to make wealth for the few rich men 
 w ho own them. 
 
 Socialists say that this arrangement is unjust and un-
 
 MERRIE ENGLAND. 101 
 
 wise, that it entails waste as well as misery, and that it 
 would be better for all, even for the rich, that the land and 
 other instniments of production should become the property 
 of the State, just as the post-office and the telegraphs have 
 become the property of the State. 
 
 Socialists demand that the State shall manage the railways 
 and the mines and the mills just as it now manages the 
 post-olRces and the tels^graphs. 
 
 Socialists declare that if it is wicked and foolish and 
 impossible for the State to manage the factories, mines, 
 and railways, then it is wicked and foolish and impossible 
 for the State to manage the telegraphs. 
 
 Socialists declare that as the Stat« carries the people's 
 letters and telegrams more cheaply and more efficiently than 
 they were carried by private enterprise, so it could grow 
 corn and weave cloth and work the railway systems more 
 cheaply and more efficiently than they are now worked by 
 private enterprise. 
 
 Socialists declare that as our Government now makes food 
 and clothing and arms and accoutrements for the army 
 and navy and police, so it could make them for the people. 
 
 Socialists declare that as many corporations make gas, 
 provide and manage the water-supply, look after the paving 
 and lighting and cleansing of the streets, and often do a 
 good deal of building and farming, so there is no reason 
 why they should not get coal, and spin yarn, and make 
 boots, and bread, and beer for the people. 
 
 Socialists point out that if all the industries of the nation 
 were put under State control, all the profit, which now goes 
 into the hands of a few idle men, would go into the coffers 
 of the State — which means that the people would enjoy the 
 bentifits of all the wealth they create. 
 
 This, then, is the basis of Socialism, that England should 
 be owned by the English, and managed for the benefit of 
 the English, instead of being owned by a few rich idlers, 
 and mismanaged by them for the benefit of themselves. 
 
 But Socialism means more than the mere transference of 
 the wealth of the nation to the nation. 
 
 Socialism would not endure competition. Where it 
 found two factories engaged in under-cutting each other at 
 the price of long hours and low wages to the woi-kers, it 
 

 
 102 MERRIE ENGLAND. 
 
 would step in and fuse the two concerns into one, save an 
 immense sum in cost of working, and finally produce more 
 goods and better goods at a lower figure than were produced 
 before. 
 
 But Practical Socialism would do more than that. It 
 would educate the people. It would provide cheap and pure 
 food. It would extend and elevate the means of study and, 
 amusement. It would foster literature and science and 
 art. It would encourage and reward genius and industry. 
 It would abolish s\\eating and jerry work. It would 
 demolish the slums and erect good and handsome dwellings. 
 It would compel all men to do some kind of useful \\'ork. 
 It would recreate and nourish the craftsman's pride in his 
 craft. It would protect M'omen and children. It would 
 raise the standard of health and morality; and it would 
 talw the sting out of pauperism by paying pensions to 
 honest workers no longer able to work. 
 
 Why nationalise the land and instruments of produc- 
 tion? To save waste; to save panics; to avert trade 
 depressions, famines, strikes, and congestion of industrial 
 centres ; and to prevent greedy and unscrupulous sharpers 
 from enriching themselves at the cost of the national 
 health and prosperity. In short, to replace anarchy and 
 war by law and order. To keep the wolves out of the fold, 
 to tend and fertilise the field of labour instead of allowing 
 the wheat to be strangled by the tares, and to regulate 
 wisely the distribution of the seed-corn of industry so (hat 
 it might no longer be scattered broadcast — some falling on 
 rocks, and some being eaten up by the birds of the air. 
 
 I will now give you one example of the difference 
 between Socialism and the existing system. 
 
 Tou remember my chapter on Salt and Waste, Under 
 existing conditions what was the state of tlie salt trade? 
 
 The mines and }nanufacture owned and carried on by a 
 number of firms, each of which competes against all the 
 rest. 
 
 Result : IMost of the small firms ruined ; most of the largo 
 firms on the verge of ruin. Salt-boilers, the workmen, 
 working twelve hours a day for 3s., and the public wasting 
 more salt than they use. 
 
 Put this trade under State control. They will cease to
 
 MERRIE ENGLAND. 103 
 
 make salt to waste; they will establish a six-hours day, and 
 they will raise the wages of the men to, say, two pounds a 
 week. 
 
 To pay these extra wages they will abolish all the un- 
 necessary middlemen and go-betweens. The whole industry 
 will be placed under one management. A vast number o£ 
 clerks, agents, travellers, canvassers, and advertisers will bo 
 dispensed with, the salaries of the managers will be almost 
 entirely saved, and the cost of distribution will be cut 
 down by fully seventy-five per cent. 
 
 The same system would be pursued with other industries. 
 
 Take the soap trade. There is one firm which spends 
 over £100,000 a year in advertisement, and the head of 
 that firm malies £100,000 a year in profits. Socialism 
 would save all that advertisement, and would pay a manager 
 a reasonable salary and produce the soap at less than its 
 present cost, whilst paying the workers good wages for 
 shorter hours than they now work. 
 
 You will observe that under Practical Socialism there 
 would be wages paid; and, probably, the wages of managers 
 would be higher than the wages of workmen; and the wages 
 of artists, doctors, and other clever and highly-trained men 
 would be higher than those of weavers or navvies. 
 
 Under Ideal Socialism there would be no money at all, 
 and no wages. The industry of the country would be 
 organised and managed by the State, much as the post-ofiice 
 now is ; goods of all kinds would be produced and distributed 
 for use, and not for sale, in such quantities as were needed, 
 hours of labour would be fixed, and every citizen would 
 take what he or she desired from the common stock. Food, 
 clothing, lodging, fuel, transit, amusements, and all other 
 things would be absolutely free, and the only difference 
 between a prime minister and a collier would be the diffe- 
 rence of rank and occupation. 
 
 I have now given you a clear idea of^what Socialism is. 
 If I wrote another hundred pages I could tell you no more. 
 But two important tasks remain for me to do. 
 
 Pirst, to give you some idea of the means by which I thijik 
 Socialism could be established. 
 
 *■ Second, to answer the chief arguments commonly used 
 against Socialism by its opponents.
 
 104 MERRIE ENGLAND. 
 
 What we have to find out is, can Socialism be established, 
 and how? 
 
 And is Socialism just and desirable ; and practicable i£ 
 we can succeed in getting it? 
 
 CHAPTEE XIV. 
 What Abb Wb to Do? 
 
 The place where a great city stands is not the place of stretched 
 wharves, docks, manufactures, deposits of produce merely. 
 /y "Sor the place of ceaseless salute of new-comers, or the anchor-lifters of 
 the departing, 
 
 Nor the place of the tallest and costliest buildings, or shops, selling 
 goods from the rest of the earth, 
 
 Nor the place of the best libraries and schools, nor the place where 
 money is plentiest, .... 
 
 Where the city stands with the brawniest breed of orators and bards. 
 
 Where the city stands that is beloved by these, and loves them in return 
 and understands thcra, 
 
 Where no monuments exist to heroes but in the common words and 
 deeds. 
 
 Where thrift is in its place, and prudence is in its place, . . . * 
 
 Where the city of the faithfulest friends stands. 
 
 Where the city of the cleanliness of the sexes stands, 
 
 Where the city of the healthiest father stands, 
 
 M'here the city of the best-bodied mothers stands. 
 
 There the great city stands. — Walt Whitman. 
 
 The question is, how can Socialism be accomplished? I 
 confess that I approach this question with great reluctance. 
 The establishment and organisation of a Socialistic State 
 are the two branches of the work to which I have given 
 least attention. Hitherto I have devoted my efforts to 
 teaching the principles of Socialism, and to disproving the 
 argimienta brought against it. But 1 will do my best, 
 merely observing that I can lay claim to no special know- 
 ledge, nor to any special aptitude for such a task. I have 
 no "system" ready cut and dried. I don't think any 
 sensible Socialist would offer such a system. Socialists are 
 practical people in these days, and know that coats must be 
 cut according to cloth. 
 
 But on one point I am quite certain, and that is that the 
 first thing to do is to educate the people in Socialism. Let 
 us once get the people to understand and desire Socialism, 
 and I am sure we may very safely leave them to secure it.
 
 MERRIE ENGLAND, 105 
 
 The most useful work which Socialists can do at present 
 is the work of education and organisation. 
 
 Socialism will not come by means of a sudden coup. It 
 will grow up naturally out of our surroundings, and will 
 develop naturally and by degrees. But its growth and its 
 development may be materially hastened. 
 
 It always amuses me to hear the intensely practical 
 person demand, How are you going to do it? When will 
 you make a start? Where do you propose to leave off? 
 
 My dear Mr. Smith, it is too lale to ask when we are 
 going to begin. We have begun. We, or rather they, 
 began long ago. Nearly all law is more or less Socialistic, 
 for nearly all law implies the right of the State to control 
 individuals for the benefit of the nation. But of late years 
 the law has been steadily becoming more and more Social- 
 istic. I will give you a few examples. 
 
 The abolition of toll bars and bridge tolls was Socialistic 
 action, for it made the roads and bridges common property. 
 
 Most of the Building Acts, by virtue of which streets 
 must be of a specified width, back-to-back houses are for- 
 bidden, &c., are Socialistic, for they take away from the 
 property owner the power to do as he likes with his own. 
 
 The Truck Acts are Socialistic, for they deny the 
 employer the power to swindle his workmen. The 
 Factory Acts are Socialistic, for they deny the employer 
 th ^ power to work women and children to death. 
 
 The Compulsory and Free Education Acts are Socialistic. 
 The Acts which compel the inspection of mines and 
 factories, the inspection of boilers, the placing of a load- 
 line on ships, and the granting of relief to paupers, are all 
 Socialistic Acts, for they all interfere with the "freedom 
 of contract " and the "rights of the individual." Finally, 
 the acquirement of the postal and telegrapliic arrangements 
 by the State, and the establishment of corporate ga.s and 
 water works are Socialistic measui'es, for they recognise the 
 Socialistic principle of common ownership, production, and 
 distribution. 
 
 You will see then, that Socialism lias begun, so that the 
 question of where to begin is quite superlluous. 
 
 As for the question of where we shall leave off, that is a 
 foolish question, and only a fool ^^•ould try to answer it.
 
 106 MERRIE ENGLAND. 
 
 There is no such thing as finality. The world will go on 
 after we are dead and forgotten. How do I know what our 
 grandchildren will do? Should I not be a conceited ass to 
 attempt to lay down laws for them? My only duty towards 
 posterity, Mr. Smith, is to smooth the road for them as 
 much as possible, and so give them a fairer chance than \\g 
 have had to make the best of life. 
 
 Socialism will come, of that I feel sure. And it will 
 come by paths not seen by me, and will develop in ways 
 which I do not dream of. My task is to help its arrival. 
 
 Still, I will offer you, in all modesty, a few ideas on the 
 subject. I can at least point out to you some of the things 
 that need to be done, and I may even suggest what seem to 
 me reasonable ways of doing them. 
 
 What are the things to be done? We want to find work 
 for the unemployed. We want to get pensions for the 
 aged. We want to abolish the poor-law system. We want 
 to produce or own food so as to be independent of foreign 
 nations. We want to get rid of the slums and build good 
 houses for the workers. We want to abolish the sweater 
 and shorten hours of labour and raise wages. We want 
 to get rid of the smoke nuisance, and the pollution of 
 rivers ; and v.-e want to place the land and all other instru- 
 ments of production under the control of the State. 
 
 Before we can accomplish any of these reforms, we must 
 have a public in favour of them, and a Parliament that will 
 give effect to the Popular demands. So that the first thing 
 we need is education, and the second thing we need is a 
 Socialist Party. 
 
 I am well aware that you may have a democratic parlia- 
 ment and not get Socialistic measures passed. We see that 
 in America. But if the Democratic Parliament has a 
 Socialistic Public behind it there need be no fear of 
 failure. 
 
 Suppose, then, that we have a Socialistic Public and Parlia- 
 ment. What is to ho done? It would be presumption for 
 me to instruct such a Parliament. I am only giving you, 
 John Smith, my poor ideas. 
 
 Perhaps we should begin with the land. Perhaps with 
 the unemployed. Perhaps with the mines and railways. 
 
 Suppose we began with the land. The land must be
 
 MERRIE ENGLAND. 107 
 
 made the property of the nation. Very well, what about 
 compensation? 
 
 Personally I am against compensation, but I suppose it 
 would have to be given, and my only hope is that it would 
 be kept as low as possible. So with the mines and the 
 I'ailways. They could be bought, and the smaller the price 
 the better. 
 
 Then as to the unemployed. They must be registered in 
 their various trades, and set to work. 
 
 I should divide them into three principal classes — 
 
 1. Agricultural labourers ; 
 
 2. General labourers ; 
 
 3. Building trades. 
 
 The first I should send to work on State farms, the second 
 to work at public improvements, and the third to build 
 dwelling-houses for the people. 
 
 I daresay, you may feel rather uneasy at these suggestions, 
 and imagine that I am going to ruin the nation by saddling 
 upon it the keep of a vast army of paupers. 
 
 But, my practical friend, the worst use you can put a 
 man to is to make a tramp of him. AJl the tramps, bear in 
 mind, and all the able-bodied paupers have to be fed and 
 lodged now in some fashion. And although they are badly 
 fed, and treated worse Ihan dogs, you must not suppose that 
 they cost little. For you must know tliat it costs about 
 ninepence to give a pauper threepenny worth of food, and 
 when you take into account the large numbers of policemen 
 and other officials who are paid to watch and punish and 
 attend to the tramps, it will be quite clear that a tramp is 
 a more costly luxury than he appears to be. 
 
 But besides that it is much better that a tramp should 
 be making something than marring himself ; and you must 
 not suppose that the State farms would be a burden to 
 you. Decently managed, they would soon prove a great 
 benefit. 
 
 For don't you see that all those hands which are now 
 idle would then be producing wealth, and when I remind 
 you that the best authorities agree that a four hours day 
 would enable the people to produce enough for all, you will 
 see that our unemployed could, on those State farms, very 
 easily keep themselves.
 
 108 MERRIE ENGLAND. 
 
 Each of these farms would be the base for the formation 
 of a new communal town — one of the Towns of Merrie 
 England. To it would be sent all kinds of craftsmen: 
 tailors, shoemakers, joiners, and the like, so that each 
 commune would bo complete in itself. 
 
 Houses upon a new model, to be arranged by a special 
 State Board of architects, artists, sanitary engineers, and 
 Socialists, would be built for the workers, with baths, 
 libraries, dining-rooms, theatres, meeting-rooms, gardens, 
 and every kind of institution needful for the education, 
 health, and pleasure of the people. 
 
 Understn.nd, further, that these men would not be treated 
 as paupers. They would be treated as honourable citizens, 
 and after rent and other charges had been paid to the 
 State, they would receive all the produce of their labour. 
 
 Pensions would be granted to the aged poor, and all the 
 workhouses and casual wards would be abolished. 
 
 There woidd be no such thing as a pauper, or a man out 
 of work, or a beggar or a tramp in all England. 
 
 Meanwhile it would be a wise thing to form a commission 
 of the cleverest mechanical engineers and inventors in 
 England for the purpose of developing electricity, so as to 
 do away with steam power, with gas lighting, and the smoko 
 nuisance. 
 
 Then we should very probably establish a universal eight 
 hours day, and a plan for educating and feeding all children 
 free at the public schools. 
 
 We should nationalise the railways, ships, canals, dock- 
 yards, mines, and farms, and put all those industries under 
 State control. 
 
 We should have an Agricultural Minister just as we now 
 have a Postmaster-General. He would be held responsible 
 that the department under him produced bread and vege- 
 tables, meat and fruit for 86 millions of people, just as the 
 Postmaster-General is now held responsible for the carriage 
 and delivery of our letters. 
 
 So by degi-ees we should get all the land and instruments 
 of production into the bands of the State, and so by 
 degrees we should get our industry organised. These are 
 my ideas. They are very crude, and of course very im- 
 perfect. Eut don't trouble on that score. When your
 
 MERRIE ENGLAND. 109 
 
 Public understands Socialism and desires to establish it 
 there will bo no difficulty about plans. Just get a number 
 of your cleverest organisers and administrators into com- 
 mittee and let them formulate a scheme. Depend upon it 
 they will produce a much better scheme than mine, though 
 1 tliink even mine is better than none at all, and as 1 said 
 before 1 only oii'er it to give you an idea of the possibilities 
 of the task before us. 
 
 This question of Socialism is the most important and 
 imperative question of the age. It will divide, is now 
 dividing, society into two camps. In which camp will you 
 elect to stand? On the one side there are individualism and 
 competition — leading to a "great trade" and great miseries. 
 On the other side is justice, without which can come no 
 good, from which can come no evil, On the one hand, ai'o 
 ranged all the sages, all the saints, all the martyrs, all the 
 noble manhood and pure womanhood of the world ; on the \ , 
 
 other hand, are the tyrant, the robber, the manslayer, the \ QaJ^[ 
 libertine, the usurer, the slave-driver, the drunkard, and 
 the sweater. Choose your party, then, my friend, and let / 
 us get to the lighting. 
 
 CIIAPTEK XV. 
 Tub Incentive of Gain. 
 
 Supply-and-demand, — Alas ! for what noble work was there ever yet 
 any audible "demand" in that poor sense? The man of Macedonia 
 spwikiug in vision to an Apostle Paul, " Come over ami help us," did not 
 specify what rate of wages he would give I Or was the Christian 
 Ueligion itself accomplished by Prize Essays, Bridgewater Bequests, and 
 a " minimum of four thousand five hundred a year ?" No deniand that I 
 heard of was made them, audible in any Labour Market, Manchester 
 Chamber of Commerce, or other the like emporium and hiring establish- 
 ment ; silent were all these from any whisper of such demand ; powerless 
 ■were all these to " supply it " had the demand been in thunder and earth- 
 quake, with gold El Dorados and Mahometan Paradises for the reward. — 
 Lurlyle. 
 
 Each life's unfulfilled, you see, 
 
 It hangs still patchy and scrappy ; 
 We have not sighed deep, laughed free. 
 Starved, fessted, despaired, been happy. 
 
 — Brovming. 
 
 "Wo will now proceed to consider some of the stock 
 arguments used against Socialism. 
 
 Non-Socialists are in the habit of saying that Socialism
 
 110 MERRTE ENGLAND. 
 
 demands a complete change in human nature. They say 
 Socialism is very pretty in theory, but that it is wrong 
 because human nature is not good enough for Socialism. 
 They tell us that we Socialists are mistaken because we have 
 built up a scheme without first considering human nature. 
 They are entirely mistaken. 
 
 The fact is that we Socialists have studied human nature, 
 and that our opponents only object to Socialism because 
 they do not understand human nature at all. 
 
 "Socialism," say these critics, "is impossible, because it 
 would destroy the incentive of gain." The incentive of 
 gain. 
 
 And then they quote the dogma of the political econo- 
 mist : — 
 
 The social affections are accidental and disturbing elements in 
 Jiuman nature, but avarice and the desire of progress are constant 
 elements. 
 
 Avarice, they say, is a constant element of human nature, 
 and they proceed to build up what they foolishly call "a 
 science" of human affairs upon this one single element. 
 They ignore the second element, "The desire of progress," 
 which I have marked in italics, and the only conclusion we 
 can come to, after reading their stupid books and shallow 
 articles, is the conclusion that they recognise avarice, that 
 is love of money, as the ruling passion of mankind. 
 
 This assumption of the economists is due to ignorance, 
 to the densest ignorance of the human nature which they 
 tell us we have failed to study. 
 
 Political economy is a science of human affairs. ' Every 
 science which professes to be a science of human affairs, 
 must be built upon an estimate of human nature. If it is 
 built upon a false conception of human nature, the science 
 is a failure. -, If it is built upon a true conception of human 
 nature, the science is a success. 
 
 Now the political economy of our opponents ic built upon 
 a false conception of human natui'e. In the first place, it 
 recognises only one motive, which is sheer folly. In the 
 second place, it assumes that the strongest motive is 
 avarice, which is mntrue. 
 
 These flaws are due to the fact that the founders and 
 upholders of this system of grab and greed are men who
 
 MERRIE ENGLAND. Ill 
 
 have never possessed either the capacity or the opportunity 
 for studying human nature. Mere bookmen, school-men, 
 business-men, and logic-choppers can never be authoriti(\s 
 on human nature. The great authorities on human nature 
 are the poets, the novelists, the artists, and the men whose 
 lives and labours bring them into daily contact with their 
 fellow creatures. 
 
 The only school for the study of human nature is the 
 world. The only text-books are the works of men lilve 
 Shakespeare, Hugo, Cervantes, Sterne, and other students 
 who learned in that school. 
 
 Eut the effectual study of human nature demands from 
 the student a vast fund of love and spnpathy. You will 
 never get admitted into the heart of a fellow-creature unless 
 you go as a friend. 
 
 I remember as a child reading a fairy tale of a prince who 
 had given to him a feather of magic properties. When 
 he touched people with that feather they spoke what was 
 in their mind. Such a feather with such powers you may 
 have any day if you will, and the name of it is love. That 
 is the magic feather of Shakespeare, of Sterne, and of 
 Cervantes. If you would witness the manifestation of its 
 power, go to your books and make acquaintance with Sancho 
 Panza and Uncle Toby, and with Eosalind and Dogberry, 
 and Mercutio and Macbeth. 
 
 The study of human nature is a most difficult one. Only 
 specially-gifted men can master it; and that with much 
 pains. Judge, then, for yourself whether the motley mob 
 of ready-writers in the press are authorities on such a 
 subject. Judge for yourself whether a man who spends 
 all his days in the study of economics and the mathematic 
 sciences is qualified to build up a system which depends 
 upon a deep and wide knowledge of the souls of men. Go 
 now and contrast the Frankenstein monster of the political- 
 economist, with Sterne's "Muleteer," Eliot's "Silas 
 Marner, " Shakespeare's " Hamlet, " or Eabelais' " Panurge, " 
 and decide for yourself as to whether or not the study of 
 literature is of any use in the study of Social Science. 
 
 Consider the lady nurse at the seat of war. Gentle, 
 delicate, loving, and lovable, of high intelligence, of great 
 beauty, young, refined, and educated, she leaves pleasure
 
 112 MERRIE ENGLAND. 
 
 and home and ease, and all the pomps and Batteries of 
 courts and assemblies, to labour amid peril and hardship 
 and all the sickening and dreadful sounds and sights of the 
 battle-field, the hospital, and the camp. Amid pestilence 
 and blood, amid death and mutilation, you find her, calm 
 and gentle and fearless. Dressing loathsome wounds, sooth- 
 ing fevered heads, hearing the imprecations and the groans 
 of delirious and sick men, always unselfish, always patient, 
 always kind, with but one motive and that charity, without 
 any crown or recompense of glory or reward — such is the 
 lady nurse at the seat of war. It is a noble picture — is it 
 not? Well, tliat is human nature. 
 
 Consider now the outcast Jezebel of the London pave- 
 ment. Fierce and cunning, and false and vile. Ghastly of 
 visage under her paint and grease. A creature debased 
 below the level of the brutes, with the hate of a devil in 
 her soul and the fire of Hell in her eyes. Lewd of gesture, 
 strident of voice, wanton of gaze; using language so foul 
 as to shock the pot-house ruffian, and laughter whose sound 
 makes the blood run cold. A dreadful spectre, shameless, 
 heartless, reckless, and horrible. A creature whose touch 
 is contamination, whose words burn like a flame, whose 
 leers and ogles make the soul sick. A creature living in 
 drunkenness and filth. A moral blight. A beast of prey 
 who has cast down many wounded, whose victims fiill the 
 lunatic ward and the morgue; a thief, a liar, a hopeless, 
 lost, degraded wretch, of whom it has been well said, " Her 
 feet take hold of Hell ; her house is the way to the grave, 
 going down to the chamber of death." It is an awful 
 picture — is it not? But tluit is human nature. 
 
 There is the character of Don Quixote, that "id human 
 nature, so is the character of Sancho Panza. The same 
 r.pplies to the characters of Sam Weller anS Bill Sikes, of 
 ik-imione and Lady Macbeth, of Ancient Pistol and Corio- 
 lanus, of Corporal Trim and Corporal Brock, of John Knox 
 and Charles II., of Voltaire and Martin Luther, of Grace 
 Darling and Carmen, of John Wesley and Tom Sayers. 
 "^ There is human nature in Ealeigh's spreading of the 
 doak before the Queen ; in the wounded Sydney giving up 
 the cup of water to the wounded soldier; in Nelson on the 
 deck of the "Victory" with his breast ablaze with orders;
 
 MERRIE ENGLAND. 113 
 
 in Napoleon afraid to die at Sedan; in St. Paul's endur- 
 ance of stripes and contuiu*ily; in Judas selling his master 
 for thirty pieces of silver. 
 
 Jliiniim nature is a complex and an awfid thing. It is 
 true of man that he is feai-fiillj and wonderfully made. Eut 
 consider all these types of luunanity, picture to yourself the 
 soldier at his post, the thief at his work, the smith at the 
 forge, the factory girl at the loom, the actor on the stage, 
 the priest at his prayers, the sot at his can, the mother with 
 ht'r bahe, the widow at the husband's grave, the judg(i in 
 his wig, the Indian in his paint, the farmer at the plough, 
 the beggar asleep in the ditch, the peer with his betting 
 book, the surgeon with his knife, the street arab in the 
 slums, and the young girl dreaming over a love tale, and 
 then recall to your mind the bloodless, soulless abortion of 
 the political economist, and the " unit" of " Society," whose 
 purpose in life is to "produce," and whose only motive 
 power is the " desire for gain. " 
 
 The last refuge of Gradgrind, when ho is beaten by 
 Socialistic argmnent, is the assertion that human nature 
 is incapable of good. But this is not true. Men instinct- 
 ively prefer light to darkness, love to hate, and good to evil. 
 
 The most selfish man would not see a fellow-creature die 
 or suffer if he could save him without personal cost or risk. 
 
 Only a lunatic would wantonly destroy a harvest or 
 poison a well, unless he might thereby reap some personal 
 advantage. 
 
 It is clear, therefore, that men will do good for its otto 
 sake; but they will not do evil except with the hope of 
 gain. And this may be said of the lowest and the basest 
 types of mankind. But of the highest, even of the inter- 
 mediate types of mankind, how much more may be said? 
 So much more, indeed, as may overthrow Gradgrind and his 
 brutal theories, and bury him and them in the ruins of his 
 arguments of ashes and of his defences of clay. For man- 
 kind turn to the sun, even to seeking it through fog and 
 storm. They will obey God's commandment when they 
 can hear it, and resist the temptations of Satan with such 
 power as they possess. True are the words of Tennyson : — 
 
 We needs must love the highest when wo seo it, 
 Not Lauiicelot, nor anolbor.
 
 114 MERRIE ENGLAND. 
 
 "Miserabler tlioory" — says Cai-lyle — "miserablor theoiy 
 than that of money on the ledger being the primary rule 
 lor empires, or for any higher entity than city owls, and 
 their mice-catching, cannot be propounded. " 
 
 Major Burke, of the Wild West, told me one day that 
 on the prairies the cowboys went about finger on trigger, 
 ever on the qui vive for an ambush. If a leaf stirred they 
 fired, if a twig snapped they fired ; and in about five cases 
 out of a hundred they shot an Indian. 
 
 This is the state in which men live under a competitive 
 commercial system. It is war. The hand of every man is 
 against every man's hand. Men move finger on trigger, 
 and fire at the falling of a leaf. But in a Socialistic state 
 of society they would no more go armed and in fear of their 
 fellow-creatures than did the Wild West Cowboys in 
 London. 
 
 Then the Church speaks, saying that men are born bad. 
 Now, 1 hold that human nature is not innately bad. I 
 take the scientists' view that man is an undeveloped 
 creature. That he is a being risen from lower forms of 
 life, that he is slowly working out his development — in an 
 vpioard direction — and that he is yet a long way from the 
 summit. How far he is below the angels, how far above the 
 brutes, in his pilgrimage is a matter for dispute. I believe 
 that he is a great deal better than the Church and the 
 economist suppose him to be ; and that the greater part of 
 what these superior persons call his " badness" is due to the 
 conditions under which he lives, or in which he and his 
 fathers have been bred. 
 
 It is no use arguing whether or not man is bad by 
 nature, and without respect to circumstances. Man is a 
 creature of circumstances. Tou cannot separate him from 
 his surroundings, or he ceases to exist. We will waive the 
 discussion of what man might l)e, and concede to our 
 opponents the advantage of considering him as he is. We 
 will consider man as we see him, and his circumstances as 
 we see them. 
 
 The question asked is whether human nature is bad. We 
 must begin by asking under what circumstances? Will a 
 peach tree bear peaches? Yes, if planted in good soil and 
 ngaiust a south wall. Will a rose tree flourish in England?
 
 MERRIE ENGLAND. 115 
 
 Not if you sot it in an ash-heap and exehide the lij^ht and 
 air. Is a livor a bi'autit'ul and a wholesome thing? Yes, 
 when it is fed by the mountain streams, washed by the 
 autumn rains, and I'uns over a pebbly bed, between grassy 
 meadows deeked with water lilies, fringed with flow ering 
 rushes, shaded by stately trees; but not wlien it is polluted 
 by city sewers, stained by the refuse of filthy dye-v:i(s and 
 chemical works; not when its bed is slime, its banks ashes, 
 and when the light falling upon it is the flame of forges, and 
 the shadows those of mills, and manure works, and prisons. 
 Is human nature sweet, and holy, and fruitful of good 
 things ? Yes. When it gets light and air and culture, such as 
 we give to the beasts of the farm and to the lilies of the 
 field ; but when it is poisoned and perverted and defiled, when 
 it is crushed, cursed, and spat upon, then human nature 
 becomes bad. Tell me, then, shall we, in judging rivers, 
 take the Irwell; or shall we, in judging men, take the 
 slums, or the City Council or the Houte of Commons, 
 or the Bourse, or the Stock Exchange, or any other 
 body where vvdgarity, and aggression, and rascality, and 
 selUsh presumption are the elements of success? JS'o thing 
 on this earth can be g(wd under adverse conditions — not 
 the river, not the green grass, not the skylark, nor the rose ; 
 but if a thing can be good under propitious circumstances we 
 say of it, "This is good.'' "We say that of all the things of 
 the earth except ma)i. Of man we, say, without hesitation 
 and without conditions — "lie is bad." 
 
 AVe will leave the Mongolian, the Turanian, and other 
 inferior races out of our calculation, and take the Caucasian 
 race as the type of humanity. Then it may be said that 
 several intellectual qualities are common to all m(Mi. The 
 average man, under average conditions, is fond of woman, 
 fond of children — especially his own. lie is also fond of 
 himself, lie likes to succeed, lie likes to be admired, lie 
 enjoys his food and drink, lie likes excitement and variety. 
 lie likes to laugh. He admires beauty, and is pleased w itli 
 music. 
 
 Now consider how these qualities of the body and tho 
 mind may be acted upon by circumstances. We know how 
 the pure passion of love may be debased. AV^c know hovv^ 
 men may become so bi'utalised that they will ill-use women ;
 
 116 IIERRIE ENGLAND. 
 
 that they will cease to love and cherish their children. We 
 know how a man grows selfish and cruel. We know how 
 lie sinks to sottishness, to gluttony, to torpid, savage 
 boorishness. We know we have with us vast numbers of 
 rich and poor, of respectable and disreputable liars and 
 rogues and beasts and dastards. Is that the fault of human 
 )iature? Or is it the fault of the evil influences that choke 
 and poison human nature? 
 
 Gradgrind tells me that greed is the chief motor of the 
 human heart. It has been so called by generations of 
 sliallow cynics and stupid dunces before him; and, as he 
 never thinks for himself, he has never found out the error. 
 I'ut let any man look about him and think of what he sees, 
 and 1 believe that he will agree with me that what 
 phrenologists call " Love of approbation" is a hundred-fold 
 a stronger force than greed. What observer of life will 
 deny this? Is it not plain to all when the eyes are opened 
 that the desire to get praise or admiration is a stronger 
 motive than the desire to get money? Nay, this desire to 
 get wealth is only one out of a thousand consequences of 
 the love of approbation. Ojily a miser loves money for its 
 own sake. Tlie great bulk of our graspers and grubbers value 
 money for what it will bring. A few and to a small extent 
 because it brings them luxury, ease, indulgence. A larger 
 number, and to a greater extent, because it saves them 
 and theirs from the risks of penury and degradation. A 
 great preponderance, and to the widest extent, because it 
 wins them the admiration, the wonder, the envy, and the 
 services of their fellows. 
 
 Greed is not the strongest passion of the human heart. 
 A much stronger passion is vanity. Tet I will not 
 say that vanity is the chief motor of human action. Is it 
 too harsh a word — "vanity"? Perhaps it is — in some cases. 
 Or perhaps it only sounds too harsh because often enough 
 vanity is intertwined with other and nobler feelings. One 
 would not call Nelson vain, lie had a strong desire to win 
 the love and admiration of his countrymen, no doubt. But 
 twisted in with the threads of that feeling were the golden 
 strands of patriotism, of courage, of duty. We cannot 
 say how much of a hero's life is prompted by his wish to 
 be loved by his countrymen, q,nd how much by his own love
 
 MERRtE ENGLAND. 117 
 
 for his countrymen. I am inclined to think that wherever 
 the desire for approbation can be disentangled from other 
 feelings, it may be fairly written down as vanity. 
 
 And how far-stretched this vanity is — this love of appro- 
 bation. T^rom the Prime Minister, airing his eloquence on 
 the intogi'ity of the Empire, or polishing up his flimsy 
 epigrams in his study, down through all the steps of t lie 
 social ladder^the ambassador in his garter, the general in 
 his plumed hat, the actor in his best part, and the coster- 
 monger with pearl buttons on his trousers — all are tinged 
 with vanity, all have in them the desire, the yearning, to 
 be thought well of. This desire is stronger than the 
 thirst for pelf. Men who would scorn to be paid will not 
 scorn to be applauded. It is so strong that no man nor 
 woman is free from its influence. Indeed it must be of this 
 importance, for divested of the love and respect of all our 
 fellow creatures, life would ccaee to be endurable. Eutlife 
 is quite endurable without wealth. And there are many 
 people who do not desire wealth. 
 
 Do you think the whole of the prosperous and wealthy 
 classes would resolutely oppose Socialism if they understood 
 it? I don't know about that. Do men seek or hold 
 wealth for its own sake, or for what it will buy? For 
 what it will buy. And the things they suppose they can 
 buy with wealth, what are they? Admiration and enjoy- 
 ment. iN'ow if you could convince men that admiration and 
 enjoyment could nvt be bought with wealth, but couldhe got 
 without wealth, is it not possible that Mammon would lose 
 his worshippers? 
 
 As society is at present constituted nearly every man gets 
 as much money as he can. What are the ordinary motives 
 for this conduct? Plutocrat says, "I can make a fortune 
 out of the cotton trade, and why should I not? If I don't 
 make it some other man will; and perhaps the other man 
 will be a rogue." You see, men cannot trust each other. 
 Under the operation of unfettered individual enterprise, 
 life is a scramble. A man knows he could live on less than 
 ten thousand a year, and he knows that multitudes are 
 hungry. But if he foregoes the making of a fortune it v.i]l 
 not benefit the poor. Some other man wiU seize on what 
 he reli.iquishcs, and the scramble will go on. So men
 
 no MERRIE ENGLAND. 
 
 amass wealth because they think they might as well do it 
 as let another do it in their stead. 
 
 There is another thing. Plutocrat will tell you he has 
 a wife and family to provide for. He knows the world 
 too well toleaveawidovv'and children to the tender mercies 
 of his brother graspers. It is every man for himself and 
 the v>^eakest to the wall. So he will grind other people 
 to make money to prevent other people from grinding his 
 children. He is right in a great measure. It is his duty 
 to provide for his wife and children, jind under our present 
 system of robbery and murder by individual enterprise the 
 widow and the orphan will find none to pity and defend 
 them — unless they can pay for value received. 
 
 Again, in a commercial era and in a commercial nation 
 wealth is the reward of merit, the crov.-n of honour and the 
 sign of virtue. Every Englishman dreads failure. Wealth 
 stamps him with the hall-mark of success, and truly that hall- 
 mark is borne by some very spurious metals ; some most 
 evident Brummagem jewels. 
 
 It seems, then, that to deprive money grubbing of its 
 povrer to mislead we must make gi'eat social changes. We 
 must assui'e men that in no case should their children want. 
 V/e must assure men that the possession of wealth will not 
 bring them honour. Yfe must assure men that justice will 
 win them respect and not contempt, and that the good 
 man v/ho forbears to fill his coffer at the public expense 
 need not fear to see some rascal render his generosity 
 abortive. 
 
 The Gradgrind supposes greed to be the ruling passion 
 because in the Society he knows most men strive to get 
 money. But tvhj do they strive to get money? There are 
 two chief motives. One the desire to provide for or confer 
 happiness upon children, on friends; the other the desire 
 to purchase applause. But in the first case the motive is 
 not gi-eed, but love ; and in the second case it is not greed, 
 bat vanity. Only a miser covets money for its own sake. 
 Both love and vanity are stronger passions than greed. 
 
 Y/ill the desire of gain make progress? Suppose a man 
 to have a thirst for money and success, but no genius. 
 Can he for a prize of ten thousand pounds invent a 
 printing press? No. For though the impetus is there
 
 MERRIE ENGLAND. llO 
 
 the genius is absent. But suppose he has the genius and 
 no prize is offered! Can he then invent the machine? 
 Yes. Because he has the genius to do it. We see, then, 
 that greed cannot invent machines, but genius can. 
 
 Now, if a prize be ofFered for a new machine, will a man 
 of no genius make it? No. lie will try for the sake of 
 the prize ; but he will fail for lack of brains. But no prize 
 being offered, will the man of genius, seeing a use for a 
 new machine, invent it? lie will. History proves that 
 he tiill invent and does invent it, not only without hope of 
 gain, but even at risk of life and liberty. 
 
 It seems, then, that genius without mercenary incentives 
 will serve the world; but that mercenary motives without 
 genius will not. 
 
 In proof of which argiuiient look back upon the lives of 
 such men as Galileo, Bruno, Newton, and indeed the bulk 
 of the explorers, scientists, philosophers, and martyi's. Love 
 of truth, love of knowledge, love of art, love of fame, are all 
 stronger motives than the love of gain, which is the only 
 human motive recognised by a system of political economy 
 supposed to be founded on human nature. 
 
 It is the mistake of a blockhead to suppose that because 
 sometimes genius can make money therefore money can 
 always make genius. 
 
 For the sake of love, for the sake of duty, for the sake of 
 pity, for the sake of religion, and for the sake of truth, 
 men and women have resigned their bodies to the flames, 
 have laid their heads upon the block, have suffered imprison- 
 ment, disgrace, and torture, and starvation. Who will do 
 as much for monaj ? 
 
 Money never had a martyr. In Mammon's bible the 
 text of the Christian Bible is altered. It reads, "What 
 shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his 
 own life?" Men will fight iov money; but they will not die 
 for it. Now millions have died for honour, for love, for 
 religion, for duty, for country, iovfame. And how then can 
 any sensible person stand by the base and brutish dogma 
 that greed is the chief motor of the human heart? 
 
 It seems an amazing thing to me, this persistence in the 
 belief that greed is the motive power of humanity. The 
 refutation of that error is forever uudcr our noses. You see
 
 120 MERRIE ENGLAND. 
 
 how men strive at cricket; you see the intense effort and 
 the fierce zeal which they display at football ; you see men 
 nearly kill themselves in boat races, on cycling tracks and 
 running grounds; you knoio that these men do all this 
 without the hope of a single penny of gain, and yet you tell 
 me in the face of the powerful football combinations, and 
 rowing clubs, and cricket clubs, and with a quarter of a 
 million of volunteers amongst you, and with the records of 
 Inkerman, and Lucknow, and Marston Moor on your 
 shelves, and with the walls of the hospitals, and the life- 
 boats of the Eoyal Humane Society, and the spires of your 
 churches, and the convents of the Sisters of Charity, and 
 the statues of your Cromwells, and Wellingtons, and 
 Nelsons, and Cobdens, all ready for you to knock your 
 stupid heads against, that the only reliable human motive 
 is— the desire for gain. 
 
 Look about you and see what men do for gain, and what 
 for honour. Your volunteer force — does that exist for gain? 
 Your lifeboat service, again— is that worked by the incen- 
 tive of dirty dross? What will not a soldier do for a tiny 
 bronze cross, not worth a crown piece? What will a 
 husband endure for his wife's sake? a father for his child- 
 ren? a fanatic for his religion? J3ut you do not believe 
 that Socialism is to destroy all love, and all honour, and all 
 duty and devotion, do you? 
 
 And now I have addressed you in a homely, simple 
 fashion, allow me to quote a passage or two from Carlylc, 
 and note how he in his magnificent language and with 
 lavish wealth of dazzling pictures, says what I have said in 
 my weaker and cruder way. Maybe, if you do not thinic 
 my words of weight, nor my name of force sufficient, you 
 will respect the utterances of one of the greatest thinkers 
 and speakers England ever bred. I quote from " Past and 
 Present" :— 
 
 Let the captains of industry retire into their own hearts and 
 ask solemnly if there is nothing but vulturous hunger for fine 
 wines, valet reputation, and gilt carriages discoverable there. Of 
 hearts made by the Almighty God I will not believe such a thing. 
 Deep-hidden under wretchedest God-forgetting cants, epicurisms, 
 dead sea apisms ; forgotten as under foulest fat Letlie mud and 
 weeds, there is yet, in all hearts born unto this God's world, a 
 ruark of tho Godlike still slumbering.
 
 MERRIE ENGLAND. 121 
 
 And again, my friend : — 
 
 Buccaneers, ChoeLaw Indians, whose snpremo aim in figbtii:g 
 is that they may get the scalps, the money- tliat tliey may amnss 
 scalps and money — out of such comes no chivalry, and ne\cr will. 
 Out of such come only gore and wreck, infernal rage and misery, 
 desperation quenched in annihilation. Behold it, I bid thee ; 
 behold there, and consider. What is it that you have a hundred 
 thousand pound bills laid up in your strong room ; a hundred 
 scalps hung up in your wigwam? 1 value not them or thee. 
 
 And yet again : — 
 
 Love of men cannot be bought by cash p.iymcnt ; without love 
 men cannot endure to be together. 
 
 The incentive of gain ! 
 
 ClIAPTEE XVI. 
 A House Ditided Agaij^st Itself ? 
 
 In C<Pur-de-Lion's day, it was not esteemed of absolute neccssitj'- to jmt 
 agrt-ements between C7(;'(V<ian5 iu writing! Which if it were not now, 
 you know we might save a great deal of money, and discharge some of our 
 workmen round Temple Bar, as well as from Woolwich Dockyards. — 
 liuskin. 
 
 The quotation at the end of the last chapter brings us 
 naturally to the subject of competition. 
 
 Of all the many senseless and brutal theories which 
 practical men support, the most fatuous and bestial is the 
 theory of competition. 
 
 I use the word theory advisedly. Tou practical men 
 are fond of scoHlug at all humane systems of thought or 
 government as mere "theories." It is one of the vainest 
 of your vanities to believe that you have no theories at aU. 
 
 Why, John, you practical men have as many theories as 
 any Socialist. But the distinctive marks of all your 
 theories are their falsity, their folly, and their utter 
 im|n-aclicability. ? 
 
 For instance, your practical man swears by politiciJ 
 economy. But it is by the political economy of the older 
 writers. It is the science of the men who were only 
 blundeiing over the construction of a rude and untried 
 tJu'ory. The later and wiser political economy you prac- 
 tical n\en either do not know or will not accept. You
 
 122 MERRIE ENGLAND. 
 
 resemble a railway director who should insist upon having 
 his locomotives made to the exact pattern of Stephenson's 
 "Eocket." Tour economy isn't up to date, John. Tou 
 cannot gi'asp a new idea — you are so practical. 
 
 One of the laws of your practical school is the law that 
 " Society flourishes by the antagonism of its individuals. " 
 
 That is the theory of competition. It means that war 
 is better tlian peace, that a nation where every man tries 
 to get the better of his neighbour will be happier and 
 ^^■eaIthier, more prosperous and more enlightened than a 
 nation where every man tries to help his neighbour. 
 
 Practical men are not usually blessed with nimble wits. 
 Allow mo to offer you new readings of a few old proverbs 
 for use in competitive society. 
 
 Union is weakness. Thei-e's a nice terse motto for you. 
 It means just what is meant by the imbecile axiom that 
 *' Society flourishes by the antagonism of its individuals. " 
 
 A house divided against itself shall stand. How does 
 that suit your practical mind? It is the same idea — the 
 idea upon which all opposition to Socialism is built up. 
 It is better to make one enemy than a hundred friends. 
 The greatest good of the smallest number. 
 Waste not have not. 
 
 Seest thou a man diligent in his business, he shall give 
 his wealth to princes. 
 
 Only a practical, hard-headed people could listen to such 
 propositions without laughing. 
 
 You are not good at theories, my practical friend. This 
 competitive theory is rank blockheadism. Allow me to 
 show you. I will test it first by theory, and then we will 
 see how it comes out in practice. 
 
 Suppose two men had to get a cart up a hill. Would 
 they get it up sooner if one tried to push it up whilst the 
 other tried to push it down ; or if both men tried to pull 
 it up? . 
 
 Suppor-e two men had to catch a colt. Which would be 
 the wiser plan, for each man to try to prevent the other 
 from catching it, or for each man to help the other to 
 catch it? 
 
 Suppose a captain had to bring a ship from New Fork to 
 Liverpool. Would he allow half-a-dozen men to fight for
 
 MERRIE ENGLAND. 123 
 
 the post of helmsman, or the whole crew to scramble for 
 the job of setting sail? 
 
 No, he would set his ci*ew in order, and send each man 
 to his proper post. 
 
 AVhen there is a fire-panic in a theatre, how do people 
 lose their lives? Is it not by all scrambling and fighting 
 to got through the narrow doors? And the resiJt of such 
 a scTaTuble. Is it not the blocking of the exit? But you 
 must know very well that if the people kept cool, and went 
 out quicldy, and in an orderly way, they would all escape. 
 
 John, if a hundred men had a hundred loaves of bread, 
 and if they piled them in a heap and fought for them, so 
 that some got more than they could eat, and some got none, 
 and some were trampled to death in the brutal scuffle, that 
 would be competition. Were it not for competition the 
 hundred men would be all fed. 
 
 That, John, is the theory of competition. "What do you 
 think of it? 
 
 And now let us be practical. Tou have fallen into the 
 stupid error of supposing that competition is better than 
 co-operation, partly because you have never seen anything 
 but competition in practice, and partly because you have 
 not very clear sight, nor very clear brains. 
 
 Tou know that when a railway company, or a salt com- 
 pany, or a coal company, has a monopoly the public gets 
 worse served than vidien there are several companies in 
 competition with each other. 
 
 And you suppose that because competition beats monopoly 
 therefore competition is better than co-operation. 
 
 But if you were not rather slow, John, you might have 
 noticed that co-operation and monopoly are not the same 
 things. Co-operation is the mutual helpfulness of all; 
 monopoly is the plundering of the many by the few. 
 
 Give one man a monopoly of the coal mines and coals 
 woidd go up in price ; but miners' wages would not. 
 
 But there is a great dilxerence between malcing the 
 collieries the property of one man, and making them the 
 property of the whole people. 
 
 Kow the Socialists propose to make them the property of 
 the whole people. And they say that if that were done 
 the price of coals would be the natural price. That is to
 
 124 MERRiE ENGLAND. 
 
 say, it would be the price of the proper keep of the 
 colliers, v 
 
 Or, for you'll possibly understand this better, being a 
 practical man, they say that the State could work the coal 
 mines better and more cheaply — with less M-aste of labour— 
 than could a private firm, or a number of firms in competi- 
 tion. 
 
 This is because a great deal of the time and energy of 
 the private firms under competition is spent, not in the 
 production and distributing of coals, but in the effort to 
 undersell and overreach each other. 
 
 And fortunately, we have one actual example of this exist- 
 ing in the postal and telegraphic departments of the State. 
 Tor it is a fact which no one attempts to deny that the 
 post-office manages this branch of the national business a 
 great deal better than it ever was or ever could be managed 
 by a number of small firms in competition with each other. 
 
 In an earlier chapter I gave you some idea of the wade 
 entailed by competition. 
 
 "Elihu," in his excellent penny pamphlet, "Milk and 
 Postage Stamps," deals very fully with this matter. He 
 says : — 
 
 Taking soap as an example, it requires a purchaser of this 
 commodity to expend a shilling in obtaining sixpennyworth 
 of it, the additional sixpence being requisite to cover tlie 
 cost of advertising, travelling, &c. ; it requires him to expend 
 Is. l|d. to obtain two pennyworth of pills for tlie same reason. 
 For a sewing machine he must, if spending £7 on it, jiart 
 with £4 of this amount on account of unnecessary cost ; 
 and so on in the case of all widel3'-advcrtised articles. In tho 
 price of less advertised commodities there is in like manner 
 included as unnecessai'y cost a long string of middlemen's pi'ofits 
 and expenses. ^It may bo necessary to treat of these later, but 
 for the present suffice it to say that in the price of goods as sold 
 by retail the margin of unnecessary cost ranges from 3d. to lOd. 
 in the shilling, and taking an average of one thing with another 
 it may be safely stated that one-half of the price paid is rendered 
 necessary simply through the foolish and inconvenient manner in 
 which the business is carried on. 
 
 And then he goes on to show that whereas the soap manu- 
 facturers are all for competition in the sale of the soap, 
 they will have no competition in the making of soap. As 
 
 thus: —
 
 MERRIE ENGLAND. 125 
 
 Outside his works competition appears quite natural, but inside 
 ho will have no divided effort. If you were to suggest that he 
 would supply himself bettor and more cheaply with boxes by 
 having three joiners' shops working independently of each other 
 and under Be[)a;ate managements, he would tell you that you 
 wore an ass, John, and would not bo far wrong. 
 
 Mr. C. Hart, in a twopenny pamphlet, one of the best I 
 have seen, called "Constitutional Socialism," goes into the 
 same question. He pays: — 
 
 (a) A and B are two builders, living ten miles apart. A gets 
 a job eloso to B's house, and 15 a job close to A's house. All tho 
 transport of their ladders and planks is useless work, which, 
 together with that of other builders, necessitates the constiaietion 
 of many useless carts. This i-easoning applies to most merchants, 
 canvassers, and shopkeepers (not all of them) who cross each 
 other in every town, and from one town and country to another, 
 uselessly. How many useless ships we have to build on this 
 account ! 
 
 (A) A country requires industrial and agi'icultui'al produce, 
 inland and foreign. Instead of consulting the statistics of con- 
 sumption, and of writing a few letters to ask for the required 
 ivunber of tons, which would be sent to a central depot for 
 distribution to the shops, we have thousands of merchants and 
 brokers who each oi'der many separate parcels large and small, 
 a small parcel requiring as much correspondence, book-keeping, 
 and drafts as a large one. Now, as we could, under Socialism, 
 order a hundred big pai"cels at once, and thus issue one big draft 
 instead of a thousand small ones, and do a hundred times less 
 correspondence and book-keeping tlian these meix-hants, it follows 
 that nearly all their work is useless, as well as that of their 
 countless dependents, direct and indirect, viz., those who do tJio 
 useless correspondence and book-keeping, who build the useless 
 offices, v/ho manufacture the usoless office furniture and station- 
 cry, who construct and drive the useless carts for this furniture 
 and for all these small parcels, who build the useless banks for 
 those small drafts, who do more useless book-keeping there, who 
 cari-y the useless business letters through the post, who act as 
 useless porters, &e., &c. Socialism does not wish to abolish all 
 these middlemen, but only the usoless ones. 
 
 Frank Fairman, in his "Socialism made Plain," says: — 
 
 The immense extension of the telegraph syst<?m since it has 
 been mar.aged by the Stato, and no longer dependent ujion the 
 expectation of immediate profit to capitalists is only an instance 
 of what might be done with regard to telephones, tho cleetrie 
 light, railway communication, and many other things ; for some 
 of which the public, under the existing system, are called upon 
 to pay, in the shape of intci'cst on capital absolutely wasted in
 
 12G MERRIE ENGLAND. 
 
 jobbery, promotion money, Parliamentary conflicts, and what is 
 called insuranco against risk of loss, as much as it would havo 
 cost to do the entire work themselves. 
 
 Nor are this increase of cost and waste of labour the only 
 evils of the competitive system. There is also the enormous 
 amount of profit made by the private firms to be considered. 
 
 This profit comes out of the pockets of the workers and 
 goes into the pockets of the idlers. And by the idlers it is 
 wasted, as I will shov/ you in a future chapter. 
 
 But there is another very serious evil due to competition. 
 Please to read the following extract from Mr. H. M. 
 Hyndman's penny pamphlet, " Socialism and Slavery " : — 
 
 To take a single but very important instance of the way in 
 which our present system works ruin all round. Industrial 
 crises occur more and more frequently in each successive genera- 
 tion. The increasing powers of machinery, the greater facility 
 of transi^ort and communication, do but serve to make matters 
 worse for the mass of the w^orkers in all countries, insomuch 
 that the uncertainty of employment is greatly increased by these 
 recurring crises, apart from the danger of the workers bcir^ 
 driven out on to the streets by the introduction of new labour- 
 saving machines. But these crises arise from the very nature of 
 our capitalist system of production. Thus, when a period of 
 depression comes to an end, orders flow in from home and 
 foreign customers ; each manufacturer is anxious to take advan- 
 tiige of the rising tide of prosperity, and produces as much as ho 
 can, without any consultation with his fellows or any regard fo 
 the future : there is a great demand for labourers in the facto- 
 ries, workshops, shipyards, and mines ; prices rise all along the 
 line, speculation is rampant ; new machines are introduced to 
 economise labour and increase production. All the work is being 
 done by the most thorough social organisation and for manifestly 
 social purposes ; the workers are, as it were, dovetailed into one 
 another by that social and mechanical division of labour, as well 
 as by the increasing scale of factoiy industry. But they have no 
 control whatever over their products when finished. The exchange 
 is carried on solely for the profit of the employing class, who 
 themselves are compelled to compete against one another at high 
 pressure in order to keep their places. Thus a glut follows, and 
 then a depression of trade, when millions of men are out of work 
 all over the world, though ready to give their useful labour in 
 return for food ; and the capitalists are unable to employ them 
 because the glut which they themselves have created prevents 
 production at a profit. 
 
 Competition, it thus appears, raises the price of commo- 
 dities, lowers the rate of wages, and throws vast numbers 
 of meja out of work.
 
 MERRIE ENGLAND. 127 
 
 Anotlicr evil of tho competitive system is the milking of 
 new ideas by tho capitalist. Under competition a new 
 invention is a "trade secret," and is worked for the benefit 
 of one firm. 
 
 Brown gets hold of a new mctliod of cutting screv.s which 
 enables him to dispense with half the labour. He conceals 
 this from Jones and Robinson and uses it to undersell them. 
 Let us trace the action of such an invention under competi- 
 tion and under Socialism. 
 
 Suppose that labour equals 50 per cent, of the cost of 
 making the screws, and that the new process saves half tho 
 labour. That gives Brown a profit of 25 per cent, more 
 than Jones and Eobinson. Now, Brown first of all 
 discharges half his men, and then lowers the price of his 
 screws 10 per cent. The results of these operations are: — 
 
 1. The public get their screws 10 per cent, cheaper. 
 
 2. Brown makes 15 per cent, more profit. 
 
 3. Jones and Robinson lose their trade. 
 
 4. Half of Brown's men are out of employment. 
 
 5. If Brown can ruin Jones and Eobinson and take all 
 
 their trade, then he will throw half of their men 
 out of employment, and may even raise the price 
 of screws again, and so take all the advantage of 
 the invention. 
 
 And very likely Brown has bought this invention from 
 some poor man for a couple of ten pound notes. 
 
 Nor docs the evil end here. I have it on good authority 
 that in some trades the capitalists have a fund for the 
 purpose of ruining inventors. This is done by a system of 
 law-suits and appeals which make it impossible for a man 
 to work his invention unless he has a great deal of money. 
 This kind of villainy is protected by the libel laws. I 
 will therefore leave you to find out the facts for yourself. 
 
 But now consider the result of our new screw-cutting 
 process under Socialism. 
 
 A workman invents a new process. He is rewarded by a 
 medal and the naming of the process after its inventor, 
 and tho invention becomes the property of the State. 
 
 What are the effects? Screws can be made 25 per cent, 
 more cheaply. ' Who gets the advantag'^ of that? 
 
 The people get the advantage of it. You may '
 
 128 MERRIE ENGLAND. 
 
 1. Eeduce the houi's of labour in the screw trade by 
 
 one half, or 
 
 2. Send half the screw-cutters to some other worlc, as 
 
 fanning. 
 
 But in either case the people will reap the benefit. For 
 either hours of work will be shorter, or more wealth will be 
 poured into the common store as a consequence of every 
 new invention. 
 
 Doubtless some of your political, hard-headed, practical 
 friends will affect to be shocked at the idea that the inventor 
 of our new process gets " no more substantial reward" than 
 a medal and a name. But remember one or two things. 
 
 1. The inventor has, already, as much of all substantial 
 
 things as he requires. 
 
 2. That he could not spend money if he got it. 
 
 3. That he is under no obligation to think of the 
 
 future, as he and his wife and children are sure of 
 the care of the State. 
 
 Besides, you may remind your practical friends that the 
 heroes of the life-boats, the hospitals, the coal mines, and 
 the battle-field seldom get so much as a medal or a name. 
 
 The heroes who defended Eorke's Drift were rewarded 
 by a grant to each man of a pair of eight shilling trousers; 
 the heroes of the glorious charge at Balaclava have many 
 of them died in the workhouse. 
 
 One other instance of the bad effects of competition, and 
 I have done with the subject. 
 
 On the 17th of June, 1893, the Clarion quoted from The 
 New Nation the following paragraph : — 
 
 "As Boon as I get up a good thing, say in ehoeolato," says a 
 merchant, "some rival will imitate it in quality and sell it at a 
 lower rate. To hold my own I've to cut his price ; but as I can't 
 do that and make a profit, I must adulterate the article a little, 
 lie knows the dodge, and ho will do the same thing. So wo go, 
 cutting at each other, until both of our articles are so choajj and 
 poor that nobody will buy them. Then I start the pure goods 
 again under another name, and the whole circus has to be gono 
 over again." 
 
 Every man who knows anything of trade knows how 
 general is the knavish practice of adulteration. As a 
 Lancashire man you \^'ill need no lecture on the evils of 
 ralico-sizing. Now, all adulteration is directly due tp
 
 MERRTE ENGLAND. 129 
 
 competition. Do you doubt it? Allow me to prove my 
 statement by quoting from a speech by John Bright. 
 John Bright was a great apostle of grad-grindery. He was 
 a champion of competition, an opponent of llie Factory 
 Acts and trade unionism; and in the speech to which 1 
 allude he intended to excuse adulteration, and he said : — 
 
 Adulteration is only another form of competition. 
 
 Could anything be clearer? Could any irony, or any 
 argument, or any invective of a Socialist, wound competi- 
 tion so deeply as does this maladroit chance-blow of its 
 champion, John Bright? 
 
 I notice, Mr. Smith, that there is a statue of John 
 Bright in the Town Hall Square of Manchester. That 
 statue is well placed. John Bright was the natural hero 
 of the cotton age. In our Merrie England we shall most 
 likely prefer to put up memorials to men like John Euskin 
 and Thomas Carlyle. 
 
 CHAPTEE XVII. 
 
 The Sukyival op the Fittest. 
 
 After a momentary silence spake 
 Some vessel of a more ungainly make ; 
 
 They sneer at me for leaning all awry : 
 What ! did the hand then of the Potter shake ? 
 
 Omar Khayydm. 
 
 One of the favourite arguments of the Gradgrinds in 
 support of competition is the theory of the Survival of the 
 Fittest. 
 
 They say that those who fail, fail because they are not 
 fitted to succeed. They say that those who succeed, 
 succeed because they are " fit. " They say it is the law of 
 nature that the weakest shall go to the wall, and to the wall 
 with them — and no quarter. 
 
 The slumites live in the slums because they are unfit 
 to live anywhere else. The Duke of Marlborough lived 
 in a palace because the intellectual and moral superiority 
 of such a man naturally forced him into a palace. 
 
 Burns was a ploughman; Bunyan was a tinker; Lord 
 Chesterfield was a peer. The composer of the popular 
 waltz, "The Masher's Dream," makes ten thousand a year, 
 
 E
 
 130 MERRIE ENGLAND. 
 
 and lives in a mansion. Richard Jefferies and James 
 Thomson died poor and neglected. 
 
 Jay Gould had houndless wealth and tremendous power. 
 Walt Whitman had a modest competence, and no power at 
 all. Or, as the most vivid example I can give you of the 
 great law of the survival of the fittest, let me remind you 
 that Brigham Toung was a prophet and a ruler, wealthy 
 and honoured ; and that Christ lived a mendicant preacher, 
 and died the death of a felon. 
 
 And all these things are justified by the glorious law that 
 the fittest shall survive. 
 
 But let me give you my own explanation of the law as to 
 the survival of the fittest. Of two plants or animals, that 
 one will survive which is fittest to endure the conditions 
 in which both exist. The question of which man shall 
 survive depends upon the conditions under which the men 
 shall struggle for survival. 
 
 According to the law of natm'ethe man who is best suited 
 by the conditions of the country and the society he lives 
 in will be best fitted to succeed. 
 
 In a nation of marauders, then, who live by spoliation 
 and the sword, the fittest to survive would bo a difi^erent 
 type of man from him who gets first place in a nation of 
 traders, where fierceness and strength of arm are less called 
 for than tenacity and clearness of head. 
 
 It thus appears that when we say our poor are poor 
 because they are not fitted to gain wealth, we mean that they 
 are not "fit" to gain wealth under the conditions of life now 
 existing. But under different conditions of life they might 
 succeed. 
 
 If, then, the present conditions of life in England are 
 not right, the poor are wrong; but if the present condi- 
 tions of life are not right, the poor are wronged. 
 
 Therefore, it seems that this theory of the Survival of the 
 Fittest is no answer to our indictment against Society. It 
 proves nothing except that if the poor are unworthy they 
 are unworthy. The question are they unworthy, or is it 
 the arrangement of Society that is unworthy, has still to 
 be answered. 
 
 One condition of Society enables one kind of man to 
 succeed. Another condition of society enables another kind
 
 MERRIE ENGLAND. 131 
 
 ftf man to succeed. Now would you say that was the best 
 ?ondition of society that gave to the lowest type of humanity 
 the pre-eminence? Or would you say that was the best 
 condition of society that gave the highest type of humanity 
 the pre-eminence ? 
 
 Granting that the noblest is really the most proper to 
 survive, is it not desirable that the conditions of society 
 should be so moulded and arranged that noble qualities shall 
 have full play and base qualities be kept in check? I think 
 that is clear enough, and I now ask you to consider whether 
 society, as it is at present constituted, enables the law 
 of the Survival of the Eittest to work for evil or for good. 
 
 For hundreds of ages we have been imprisoning, murder- 
 ing, prosecuting, and starving our Brunos, our Pauls, our 
 Socrates, our Ealeighs, our Joans of Arc, and have heaped 
 rewards and honours on our Alexanders, our Bonapartes, 
 our Jay Goulds, our Eothschilds. Are we to go on for ever 
 in the worship of usury and slaughter and intrigue? Are 
 we still to make the basest the fittest to survive? To bless 
 power above benevolence? Shall we never have done admir- 
 ing and obeying oiu' Brigham Youngs, nor crucifying our 
 Christs, nor scorning those who follow Him, and such as 
 He? 
 
 No sensible man would attempt to oppose a law of 
 nature. All natural laws are right. No natural law can be 
 resisted. But before we give to any law implicit obedience 
 we shall be wise to examine its credentials. Natural laws 
 v.-e must obey. But don't let us mistake the hasty deduc- 
 tions of erring men for the unchanging and triumphant 
 laws of Nature. Let us begin, in this case, by asking 
 whether the law of prey, which seems to be a natural and 
 inevitable statute among the brutes, has any right of juris- 
 diction in the courts of humanity. Is there any difference 
 between man and the brutes'' If there is a difference, in 
 what does it consist? 
 
 We need not get into a subtle investigation on this 
 mattec It is suflicient to use common terms, and say that 
 man has intellect; animals only instinct. Consider the 
 consequences of this difference. "We have sooken and 
 written language, which beasts have not. We have 
 imagination, which beasts have not. We have memory,
 
 132 MERRIE ENGLAND. 
 
 history, sciences, religions, which beasts have not. And 
 we have intellectual progress, which beasts have not. I 
 might go a great deal deeper into this matter, but I want 
 to keep to plain speech and simple issues. Man has reason; 
 beasts have not. 
 
 Now reason is a natural thing in man. Nature gave him 
 reason, because reason is necessary to the working out of 
 his development, and I mean to say that by reason we are 
 to be guided, and not by the law of prey, which is a natural 
 check and balance put upon unreasoning creatures. By 
 how much a man's reason excels a brute's instincts is the 
 man better than the brute. By how much one man's 
 reason excels that of his fellows is he better than they. 
 By how much any policy of human affairs is more reasonable 
 than another policy is it best fitted to survive. 
 
 It seems, then, that the law of the Survival of the Fittest 
 does apply to mankind; but it works with them in a 
 manner different to that in which it works with the brutes. 
 Well, I say that our Gradgrinds apply a natural law in an 
 unnatural manner. That they would rule mankind by 
 brutal methods. 
 
 Before we go any further with this theory of the Sur- 
 vival of the Fittest, let me ask you one question. Will 
 you tell me, Mr. Smith, who are the fittest to survive? A 
 great deal depends upon our answer to that question. All 
 wealth is got by plunder. If instead of making laws to stop 
 the depredations of the sweater we repealed the laws for 
 the repression of the garrotter, we should soon fall into 
 anarchy — that is, into a state of savagery, such as is under- 
 stood by the word anarchy. The race to the swift. The 
 battle to the strong. The weak to the wall. The vanquished 
 to the sword. A perfect realisation of the Survival of the 
 Fittest. Then the man with the most strength and ferocity 
 would take by force of arms the goods of the weak and timid 
 — and their lives. Which all of us would call sheer plunder. 
 But commercialism is just a war of wits — a gambling or 
 fio-hting with weapons of parchment and the like, and 
 i-eally plunder by force of cunning instead of by force of 
 arms. And both these forms of plunder are forms in which 
 the baser intellect and the more brutal physique will always 
 be successful. In personal conflict, Socrates would be no
 
 MERRIE ENGLAND. 183 
 
 match for J. L, kSuliivan ; in commerce, Jesus Christ would 
 be exploited by Jay Gould — as he was, in fact, by Judas. 
 
 Por the Grradgrinds to invoke the laws of Nature is odd. 
 Our ** Survival-of-the-Fittest" men declare their dependence 
 on the laws of Nature, and when anyone suggests a change 
 in English laws and customs for the sake of the poor and 
 heavy-laden, these barbarian ranters answer, " Oh, no. Tou 
 must not meddle with the laws of Nature. Nature's pro- 
 cesses are inevitable, and cannot be altered by acts of 
 Parliament. But we have laws, and these wiseacres would 
 keep those laws. If we suggested that no laws should be, 
 they would call us anarchists. But what shall we call them 
 who cry out that natural law is the only law, and yet insist 
 upon the necessity for human laws as well? 
 
 Is there any natural obstacle to the establishment of a 
 community on just terms? Is there any known law of 
 nature that denies bread to the industrious and forces 
 wealth upon the idle? If a natural law makes waste and 
 want imperative, what is that law? Tell me, that I may 
 know it? Natural law as far as I do know it is against this 
 unjust distribution. Natural law punishes gluttony, and 
 as ruthlessly punishes privation. Nature racks the gour- 
 mand and the sluggard with gout, or disfigures him with 
 dropsy, and the starveling and the unresting drudge she 
 visits with consumption and with pestilence. She strikes 
 the miser with a Midas curse — turning his bowels to gold, 
 and she brands the drunkard, the libertine, and the brawler 
 with the mark of the beast. Nature everywiiere ordains 
 temperance. How, then, can wealth or indulgences be justi- 
 fied in her name. How can we say that the millions of 
 poor slain by unnatural conditions of life are the victims of 
 nature's laws? 
 
 To whose interest is it that the poor should suffer? Do 
 their sorrow and travail confer an atom of benefit on aiiv of 
 God's creatures? Injustice is a thing accursed. It does 
 not, never did, and never will confer a benefit on any man. 
 The man who does an injustice suffers for it in his moral 
 nature. ]Ie gains nothing, though he makes wealth. For 
 no man can use more than he needs, and Justice would give 
 all men that. The men to whom an injustice is done suffer, 
 and be they many or few, Society suffers because of their 
 sufferijiL'.
 
 134 MERRIE ENGLAND. 
 
 The Survival of the Fittest is a question of conditions. 
 It can have no great power in the England of to-day. The 
 Survival of the Fittest is another name for Anarchy. Our 
 Society is one bound bylaw. The unfettered "right of 
 individual enterprise" is anarchy. And it is bad. It is 
 bad because in a state of social wai-fare, warfare to exter- 
 mination point, the basest and the vilest have the advantage, 
 for the vile man and the base will fight with less ruth and 
 fewer scruples. 
 
 So much for the survival of the fittest. So much for 
 Laissez Faire. The man who accepts the Laissez Faire 
 doctrine would allow his garden to run wild, so that the 
 roses might fight it out with the weeds and the fittest might 
 survive. 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 Socialism akd Peogress. 
 
 Your present system of education is to get a rascal of an architect to 
 order a rascal of a clerk-of-the-works to order a parcel of rascally brick- 
 layers to build you a bestially stujiid building in the middle of the town, 
 poisoned with gas, and with an iron floor which will drop you all through 
 it some frosty evening; wherein j'ou will bring a puppet of a cockney 
 lecturer in a dress coat and a white tie, to tell you smugly there's no God, 
 and how many messes he can make of a lump of sugar. — Buskin. 
 
 Another stock argument against Socialism is the assertion 
 tliat it would destroy all intellectual progress. Here is a 
 quotation from an article by the late Charles Bradlaugh: — 
 
 I object to Socialism because it would destroy the incentives 
 which have produced, amongst other things, the "clever" men 
 who serve society in various fashions, as doctors, engineers, 
 architects, and teachers. I am inclined to doubt wlicthcr, if the 
 enormous army of Socialist officials were rewarded at tho lilie 
 rate Avith the scavenger and the ploughman, the temptation on 
 them might not be very great to help themselves to extra recom- 
 pense from the national stores. 
 
 The first sentence in this passage displays a singular 
 misconception of human nature; the second a grotesque 
 misconception of Socialism. 
 
 We will dispose of the second sentence first. You will 
 nl)sorve that Mv. Eradlaugh spoko of " the enormous army of 
 Socialist officials." lie seems to have suppo^icd, as so many
 
 MERRIE ENGLAND. 135 
 
 suppose, that under Socialism we should be over-run with 
 ofticials. Tou will find the same comical blunder in 
 Kichter's book. 
 
 Now the fact is that under Socialism there would be 
 as few officials, and as many workers, as possible. I don't 
 think you will find the officials in the Post Office more 
 numerous than in any ordinary business house. But the 
 surprising part of it is that a really shrewd man like Mr. 
 Bradlaugh should have failed to notice the enormous number 
 of officials, the useless officials, too, who burden every 
 department of trade under competition. 
 
 For what are all the clerks, travellers, agents, canvassers, 
 salesmen, managers, capitalists, and other costly and need- 
 less people but an "enormous army" of officials? Just 
 glance back at the chapter on Competition, and then con- 
 sider whether Socialism, however badly managed, could 
 possibly add to the number of overpaid and unnecessary 
 non-producers. 
 
 Then Mr. Bradlaugh was terribly shocked by the idea 
 that a doctor should be paid at the same rate as a scavenger. 
 This is chiefly due to two misconceptions of Mr. Brad- 
 laugh's. First of all, he had been so used to the recognised 
 money standard of honour that he didn't seem able to 
 realise that a man might, under Socialism, be honoured 
 more for what he was, or for what he did, than for what he 
 got. Secondly, he M'as so used to seeing such men as 
 scavengers overworked, underpaid, and generally despised 
 that it did not occur to him as possible that under 
 Socialism every worker would be treated justly and respected 
 as a man. But turn the idea the other way round, and you 
 can reply to Mr. Bradlaugh's objection that it will be a 
 decidedly good society for the average man where the 
 scavenger or ploughman is as well paid as the doctor or the 
 engineer. However, I shall have more to say about our 
 friend the scavenger in a future chapter. 
 
 Another amusing blunder of Mr. Bradlaugh's is the idea 
 that if an official got no more pay than a scavenger he 
 would turn thief and rob the public stores. 
 
 That seems to imply that the "clever" men, the men who 
 Mr. Bradlaugh evidently regarded as the salt of the earth, 
 or© not, in his opinion, very honest. If an underpaid clerk
 
 136 , MERRIE ENGLAND. 
 
 in these times, robs his employer he is sent to prison — as 
 a rogue. "We hear nothing about the injustice of society 
 or the folly of competition in paying him no more than a 
 scavenger. 
 
 But, observe, once more, that it could only be under 
 Ideal Socialism that the official and the scavenger would 
 be equally paid. Therefore, there would be nothing for 
 the official to steal but food or clothing, and as every man 
 would have as much of those as he needed for the asking, 
 I don't see what an official would gain by stealing more. 
 
 No. The error arises, once more, from a misconception 
 of Socialism. The fact is our critics will keep supposing 
 that under Socialism the workers would be as badly treated 
 and as badly rewarded as they are now. 
 
 Let us turn, then, to Mr. Bradlaugh's first sentence. 
 Socialism, he says, "would destroy the incentives which 
 have produced the clever men who serve society." This 
 is the old story about the incentive of gain. It comes 
 very curiously from the mouth of Mr. Bradlaugh. Very 
 curiously indeed. 
 
 Mr. Bradlaugh was a clever man, and he had worked very 
 hard. Was gain his incentive? No one who knows any- 
 thing of his life M'ill suppose so for a moment. It is a 
 marvellous thing. Here we had a man who had fought a 
 bitter, a terrible, and uphill battle all his life long for 
 principle, a man who was faithful unto deatb, and who died 
 poor and embarrassed, and we find him objecting to Socialism 
 because it would remove the incentive of c/ain. 
 
 But tbere is the statement, and it is a common one. Mr. 
 Morley repeats it. Mr. Morley is convinced that if exis- 
 tence were no longer a sordid struggle for money the genius 
 of the people would die out, and M-e should sink into 
 barbarism, and retain nothing but the bare necessaries of 
 life. 
 
 Well, this is what I call comic. Mr. Morley seems 
 satisfied with things as they are. What do his words 
 assume? They assume : — 
 
 1. That the greatest and noblest of the race are 
 
 actuated by avarice. Which is not true. 
 
 2. That the gi-eatest and noblest of the race secure the 
 
 most ivcalth. Which is not true.
 
 MERRIE ENGLAND. 137 
 
 3. That the people are at present in the enjoyment of 
 
 more than the necessaries of life. Which is 
 not true. 
 
 4. That the people are at present in the enjoyment of 
 
 civilisation and refinement. Which is not true. 
 
 5. That Socialism would discourage genius and 
 
 patriotism. Which is not true. 
 
 6. That Socialism would encourage idleness. Which 
 
 is not true. 
 
 I will take these six errors in their order, and refute 
 them. 
 
 The first is the assertion that if a clever man were not 
 paid higher wages than a manual labourer, he would refuse 
 to devote his talents to the service of society. 
 
 Now, John, out of their own mouths shall these men be 
 condemned. 
 
 Have you ever read any of the speeches and articles on the 
 Payment of Members of Parliament? Tou have. What 
 is the stock argument used against the payment of members? 
 
 It is the argument that to pay members would be to lower 
 the tone and impair tlie quality of the House of Commons. 
 It is the argument that men of talent will serve the nation 
 better for honour than for money! 
 
 I think that here I have them on the hip. This argument 
 is used by the same men who tell us that Socialism would 
 degrade the nation by abolishing the incentive of gain. 
 
 With how little wisdom is the world governed. What 
 do you think of the morality, what do you think of the 
 intelligence, what do you think of the knowledge of these 
 "practical statesmen," these men you cheer and vote for? 
 
 They tell you one day that unless you pay clever men big 
 wages, they will cease to worlc. 
 
 They tell you another day that if you pay clever men at 
 all, they will cease to work. 
 
 They declare first of all that it is only the lust after money 
 that makes men great. 
 
 "They declare next that money is sucli a vile tiling tliat if 
 you pay members of Parliament you will ruin the country, 
 because only greedy adventurers will work for money. 
 
 Is the swinisli lust for wealth the one motive power of all 
 clever men, except our members of Parliament?
 
 138 MERRIE ENGLAND. 
 
 What think you is the chief food of genius? Does the 
 prospect of wealth inspire Hamlets or Laocoons, and steam- 
 engines, and printing- presses? The true artist, the man 
 to whom all creative work is due, is nicJnly inspired, 
 sustained, and rewarded by a love of his art Milton 
 wrote " Paradise Lost" for £8. Can greed produce a poem 
 like it? Many improvements in machinery are made by 
 workmen. Often they get no profit. Sometimes the 
 master patents the improvement, pays the drudge a few 
 shillings a week for his ideas, and makes thousands. 
 Shall we measure men's brains like corn, or gauge the 
 pressure and the power of fiery passions and quenchless 
 faiths by the horse-power. All the forces of all the kings 
 of the earth cannot make one brave man turn on his heel; 
 all the wealth of the nations cannot buy one pure soul ; all 
 the fools in a big city cannot conquer one strong brain; all 
 the drilled and crammed dunces that political economy and 
 hide-bound school systems can band together cannot advance 
 the cause of knowledge or liberty one inch. 
 
 Was it greed made Socrates expound philosophy, or 
 Shakespeare write plays? Was it competition made Watt 
 invent the steam-engine, or Davy the safety-lamp, or 
 Wheatstone the telegraph? Was it greed that abolished 
 slavery? Was it greed made Darwin devote his life to 
 science? Was it greed that unfolded the secrets of astronomy, 
 of geology, and of other important facts of nature? Or did 
 greed give us musical notation, the printing press, the 
 pictures of Turner and Eaphael, the poems of Spenser, and 
 the liberties of the English Constitution? 
 
 The true artist: He to whom all creative work is due 
 is mainly inspired, sustained, and rewarded by a love of his 
 art. He will take money, for he must live. He will tak<^ 
 money, for money is the badge of victory. But with or 
 •without money, and with or without praise, he will worship 
 the beloved mistress, art. He calls his wealthy patrons 
 Philistines, and in his soul despises them. '■ 
 
 This paltry plea about ^aj// Tet, even if we admit that 
 "pay" is the one prize and the one incentive of life, it 
 would seem as though the men of "ability" are not the men 
 wlio get the most of it. It may seem a sad thing that 
 Durwin should get no more " pay" than the "clod" who
 
 MERRIE ENGLAND. 139 
 
 breaks stones. But there are " clods" who break backs and 
 he-arts instead of stones, who get paid more than the men 
 of ability in question. For instance, Jay Gould the 
 "financier" got more "pay" and held more wealth than 
 Gladstone, and Carlyle, and Darwin, and Koch, and Galileo, 
 and Columbus, and Cromwell, and Caxton, and Stephenson, 
 and Washington, and Eaphael, and ilozart, and Shakespeare, 
 and Socrates, and Jesus Christ ever got amongst them. So 
 perfect is the present system of " pay. " 
 
 Are the best men of to-day the best paid? Are the most 
 useful men the best paid? Are the most industrious men 
 the wealthiest? Do the noblest and the cleverest men 
 work for gain? Do they get rich? Do the great mass of 
 the labouring classes work for gain? Do they get rich? 
 Did the love of gain ever make a hero or a martyr? Did 
 it ever win a battle? AV'ill a man do most for love or for 
 money, for honour or for money, for duty or for money? 
 Having no money, does a genius become a fool? Having 
 much money does a fool become a genius? Did any 
 nation, loving money, ever become great; or, gaining 
 riches and luxury, ever remain great? It has been written 
 that:— 
 
 Romans in Rome's quaiTcl 
 
 Spared neither land nor gold, 
 Nor child, nor wife, nor limb, nor life, 
 
 In the good days of old. 
 
 But it has never been written nor said nor known of any 
 but the vilest and meanest savages that they would sell their 
 country or their wives or their children or their faiths for 
 money. 
 
 Is there any community as united and as effective as a 
 family? The family is the soundest, the strongest, and the 
 happiest kind of society, and next to that is the tribe of 
 families. And why? Because all the relations of family 
 life are carried on in direct opposition to the principles of 
 political economy and the survival of the fittest. A family 
 is bound by ties of love and mutual helpfulness. The 
 weakly child is not destroyed; it is cherished with ex- 
 tremest tenderness and care. The rule is vested in the 
 parents, and not knocked down to the highest bidder. The 
 brothers do not undersell each other. The women are better
 
 140 MERRIE ENGLAND. 
 
 ti-eated than the men, not worse, as in the factories, and 
 each member of the family receives an equal share of the 
 common wealth. 
 
 But let us return to the article of Mr. Bradlaugh. Here 
 is another statement : — 
 
 To me, I avow, it does seem that Sir James Paget or the 
 editor of a newspaper is more valuable than the street-sweeper, 
 that the effort necessary to become a clever doctor or successful 
 journalist is greater than that necessary for an average stone- 
 breaker. Sir Charles Russell, Mr. Burne-Jones, or Mr. Wm. 
 Black may, it appears to me, have each been required to devote 
 years of preliminary study and ardent application which arc not 
 required from the omnibus conductor or letter-carrier. 
 
 Here is the same idea, that services and labour can be 
 recompensed by "pay." The same idea that because one 
 man can do more or better than another he should have more 
 money ; the same unaccountable inability to see that all the 
 money the earth contains can never buy a man more than 
 the necessaries of life, for a man has but one body to clothe, 
 but one stomach to feed, but one head to rest upon a pillow. 
 
 NoAv, if every man had enovgh, would it not be a pitiful 
 spectacle to see the salt of the earth — the men of knowledge 
 and ability — \\hining for more? 
 
 "Why should a clever man want more than an average 
 worlier? If the workman's pay is enough for his wants — • 
 and that " ought" to be — why should an artist have more? 
 The workman having enough, should the artist have more 
 than enough? He does not need it. He cannot use it. 
 He is already more blessed than the workman, for his 
 talent is a boundless source of pleasure to him, and his work 
 is a gratification and not a task. A really great-souled man 
 would s])urn such a guerdon for his victory. In a healthy 
 state of human feeling, to offer a hero money and vain titles 
 Mould affront him as surely as offering a man a sugar-stick 
 to eat or a baby's rattle to play with. Virtue is its own 
 reward. The artist's reward is his success; his honour is 
 liis works. The true hero asks for service, not for pay. 
 " Ich Dien" is the real Prince's motto all the world over. 
 I'll have to look up a list of biographies, so that Smith and 
 Co. may Jcnow what a hero is. They are rather scarce now. 
 And it is curious that at a time when the demand for a hero 
 is very pie.-^siug, the supply has failed. That now, when
 
 MERRIE ENGLAND. 141 
 
 heroes could have more gold and more promotion than were 
 ever showei-ed on them before, they do seem strangely loth 
 to show themselves. I cannot explain this, unless by 
 supposing that heroes are not ruled by the law of supply 
 and demand, and do not much covet riches or places in the 
 House of Peers. 
 
 But let us take some homely illustrations of my conten- 
 tion that merit does not depend upon pay. 
 
 Tou know something about cricket. Take the Notts 
 team. Tou will find that all the professionals are paid at 
 the same rate. But you will not find them all equally 
 good. Shrewsbury is the best bat in the team. He gets 
 no more pay than a less expert man. But does that fact 
 prevent any one of us from recognising his superior power? 
 Do you not see that it is the same in all professions? I 
 daresay Mr. Sims makes more money than Shakespeare 
 would make now. But we never make a mistake as to 
 which of the two stands at the head of his art. John L. 
 Sullivan, the boxer, got, I am told, £500 a week for acting. 
 But even if that be more than Mr. Irving would get, it does 
 not follow that any man can believe Sullivan to be the 
 better actor. 
 
 Homely illustration No. 2 : That a man will do his best 
 even when he gets no more pay than another of his trade 
 less clever than himself. Here again we take Shrewsbury 
 as an example. Put him into the Players' eleven. He 
 will get no more money than any other batsman. Yet he 
 is the best batsman. But will he, therefore, not try to score? 
 Ask him. See him. Tes ; I know what you will say. If 
 he does not do his best he will be thrown out, and then he 
 will get no money. But Mr, Stoddart tries as hard as 
 Shrewsbury, and he gets no money. And you will find in 
 the Gentlemen and Players' matches that the Gentlemen 
 are as keen and as anxious to win as are the Players. And 
 you will always find that the man who works or fights for 
 love, or honour, or duty, or fame, will work harder and 
 fight more fiercely and bravely than the man who fights for 
 pay. Because the former has his heaii in the work and 
 the latter has not. 
 
 And notice another very curious thing about Mr. Brad- 
 laugh's paragraph.
 
 142 MERRIE ENGLAND. 
 
 He tells us that Sir Charles Eussell and Mr. William 
 Black have been required to devote years of preliminary- 
 study to their trades. He suggests, therefore, that now they 
 shall be paid extra wages. Why ? 
 
 Is not all wealth created by labour? How did Messrs. 
 Black and Eussell live during their period of education? 
 Who kept them? 
 
 They were kept by the workers, and are, therefore, in debt 
 to the workers, and not the workers to them. But of this 
 more anon. 
 
 We may now go back to Mr. Morley. Of his six errors, 
 I have answered three. We will take Nos. 3 and 4 together. 
 They imply that the people are at present in the enjoyment 
 of the necessaries of life. 
 
 What about the unemployed? What about pauperism? 
 What about sweating? What about the payment of un- 
 skilled labour? What about female labour? What about 
 the railway workers, the canal workers, the chemical 
 workers, the costermongers, the dockers, the chain and nail 
 makers, the agricultural labourers? What about the slums? 
 Does Mr Morley ever read any Blue Books? Does he know 
 anything about the condition of this country? If ho does, 
 he makes very bad use of the knowledge. Talk about a bar- 
 barous society in which men should have but the necessaries 
 of life. Just cast your eye over this brief extract form Dr. 
 Eussell's pamphlet on life in one room : — 
 
 Of the iuhabitants of Glasgow, 25 per cent, live in houses of 
 one apartment. . . . No less than 14 per cent, of the one- 
 roomed houses, and 27 per cent, of the two-roomed houses, 
 contain lodgers — strange men and women, mixed up with hus- 
 bands, and wives, and children, within the four walls of small 
 rooms. . . . There ai"e thousands of these houses which eon- 
 tain five, six, and seven inmates, and hundreds which are inhabited 
 by from eight to thirteen. Of all the children who die in Glasgow 
 before they complete their fifth year, 32 per cent, die in houses of 
 one apartment, and not 2 per cent, in houses of five apartments and 
 upwards. . . . From beginning to rapid ending, the lives of 
 these children are short parts in a wretched tragedy. ... I 
 can only venture to lift a corner of the curtain v/hich veils the 
 life which is lived in these houses. It is impossible to show you 
 more. , 
 
 That is official testimony, and Mr. Morley talks about 
 "necessaries" of life. Do you count fresh air, health.
 
 MERRTE ENGLAND. 143 
 
 decency, and cleanliness as necessaries? if you do, what 
 say you to the barbarism of Glasgow, of Liverpool, of 
 London, and of Manchester? Come, will you tell me how 
 Socialism is going to ruin Ancoats, or lower the moral 
 standard of Whitechapel, or debase the ideal of Black 
 Country life? It will be time enough for our statesmen to 
 despise the " necessaries of life" when they have made it 
 possible for the people to get them. 
 
 Error No. 6, that »Socialism would encourage laziness, I 
 shall deal with in a future chapter. 
 
 OHAPTEE XIX. 
 
 Socialism and Slavery. 
 
 Then let us be thankful to Jules 
 And Bil for the way they behaved, 
 
 For though wages be small 
 
 There's emj^Ioyment for all, 
 And " the freedom of contract " is saved. 
 
 Thus free competition remains, 
 A blessing to England and France ; 
 And the Communist schemes 
 Are rejected as dreams, 
 So that every rogue has a chance. 
 
 —The Clarion. 
 
 The common misconceptions of Socialism are most 
 perverse and foolish. Mr. Herbert Spencer wrote an 
 article called "The Coming Slavery." I think he is 
 responsible for the much-quoted opinion that Socialism 
 would result in a more odious form of slavery than any the 
 world has yet known. 
 
 Clearly there are two things which Mr. Herbert Spencer, 
 like most of our critics, has failed to understand. One of 
 these things is Socialism ; the other is the condition of 
 existing society. 
 
 1 deny that Socialism would result in any form of slavery 
 at all ; and 1 assert that a most odious form of slavery 
 exists at present in this so-called free country. Let us see. 
 
 First as to Socialism. Mr. Spencer's idea appears to be 
 that under Socialism the State would compel men to work 
 against their will, or to work at occupations uncongenial 
 to them.
 
 144 MERRIE ENGLAND. 
 
 This is a mistake. The State would not compel any man 
 to worli. It would only enable all men to work, and to 
 live in peace and comfort by their labour. 
 
 If a man did not choose to work he would not be coerced. 
 He could either do his fair share of the work of the com- 
 munity in return for his fair share of the wealth, or he 
 could decline to work. 
 
 But if he declined to work he would certainly have to 
 starve, or to leave the State. 
 
 Now I want to point out to you, before I go any 
 further, that as things are at present some men live 
 luxuriously and do no work, many men do a great deal of 
 work and live wretchedly, and nearly three-quarters of a 
 million of men who are willing to work can get no work 
 to do. 
 
 To hear people talk about slavery under Socialism, you 
 would suppose we had freedom now. Robert Ingersoll 
 says : — 
 
 Some of the best and pui'est of our race have advocated what 
 is kno^vn as Socialism. . . . Socialism seems to me to be one 
 of the worst possible forms of slavery. . . . Nothing would 
 so utterly pai"alyse all the forces, all the splendid ambitions and 
 aspirations that tend now to the civilisation of man. , . . 
 Socialism destroys the family and sacrifices the liberties of all. 
 If the Government is to provide work it must decide for the 
 worker what he must do, &e. Is it possible to conceive of a 
 despotism beyond this? The human race cannot afford to 
 exchange its liberty for any possible comfort. 
 
 The human race cannot afford to exchange its liberty for 
 any possible comfort ! But the human race has not got any 
 liberty to exchange. The human race, at least the great 
 majority, are slaves. 
 
 But ask yourself, what liberty of choice is left to you. 
 
 Suppose you are out of work, can you have work for the 
 asking? No. But under Socialism you could always have 
 work. Is that a proof of slavery? Suppose under Socialism 
 you were told that you must work or starve ! Would that 
 be any more despotic treatment than the treatment you get 
 now? Tell your present employers that you do not wish 
 to work, and see what the alternative will be. You must 
 work or starve now. The difference between present 
 conditions, and the conditions of Socialism, are that you
 
 MERRTE ENGLAND. 145 
 
 now work long hours for a bare existence, whereas, in a 
 Socialistic State you would work short hours for a life of 
 honour and comfort. 
 
 The Soci:ili.stic State would not compel any man to 
 work; it would prevent hiin from living on the work of 
 others. It would organise the industries, production and 
 distribution of the community, and would then say to the 
 citizen "If you would enjoy the benefits and share the 
 wealth of this commonwealth you must also obey tlie laws 
 and share the labour." Surely that is just. But in no 
 case can it be twisted to mean slavery, for the man who 
 did not like the conditions could refuse them, just as he 
 can now. 
 
 But note that other statement of Mr, Ingersoll's: — • 
 If the Government is to provide work it must dociJe for the 
 worker what lie must do. 
 
 Must it? Why? 
 
 At present the capitalist finds work, but ho does not 
 decide what we must do. He cannot decide, or he would. 
 
 So when the State found work it would not decide what 
 each man must do. 
 
 You will ask me how a Socialist State woidd apportion 
 the work. I ask you how the work is apportioned riou\ 
 
 You have a son, say a lad of fourteen, and wish to put him 
 to a trade. You ask him his choice. He says he w ould 
 like to be a cabinet-maker. You apply at the shops in your 
 own town and you find that trade is bad, ortliat the allowed 
 number of apprentices is made up. So you get the boy 
 work as an engineer or a painter. 
 
 That is to say, your boy can choose his trade subject to the 
 demand for labour of certain kinds. If all the boys wanted 
 to be engineers they could not all get work at that trade. 
 
 These conditions would exist under Socialism. The 
 State or the municipality would need a certain number of 
 plumbers and a certain number of painters. If more boys 
 asked to be painters than the State needed to do its 
 painting, some of those boys would have to take other 
 work. Where does the slavery come in? 
 
 Eobert Ingersoll is considered a very able man, and 
 Herbert Spencer enjoys the reputation of being a great 
 thinker.
 
 14G MERRIE ENGLAND. 
 
 What have these famoias men been doing with their 
 eyes? " How have they contrived to commit the egregious 
 blunder o£ supposing that men have free choice of occupa- 
 tion now? How many men do you know, John Smith, who 
 are working at the trade of their choice or living where 
 and how they please? 
 
 Let us return to your boy of fourteen. Suppose, instead 
 of choosing to be a cabinet-maker, he said,"l want to be a 
 doctor!" You would laugh at him, "Why? 
 
 Because it is absurd for a weaver's son to ask to be a 
 doctor. Why? 
 
 Because it costs a lot of money to become a doctor. And, 
 once more, why? Because a doctor has a great deal to 
 learn, and education is dear. 
 
 So though your son wishes to be a doctor, though he 
 might possess great talent for the work, he must go and be 
 a candlestick-maker instead, for you are too poor to give 
 him his choice. 
 
 But under Socialism education would be free. It would 
 be free to all. Therefore the competition for doctorships 
 would be equal. It would not be what it is now — a close 
 thing for the privileged classes. So your boy would have 
 as good a chance as any other, 
 
 "Ah," but you will say, "under Socialism all the hoys 
 would want to be doctors and artists and writers." Very 
 likely. And at present all tlie boys want to be " gentlemen, " 
 but very few of them get their wish, and many of them have 
 to be beggars or thieves. 
 
 Under Socialism any boy who had the industry and talent 
 might qualify himself to get a diploma. Of course, when 
 he had got it, he might not get an appointment as one 
 of the medical men for his town. 
 
 But I understand that there are at present a good many 
 doctors with no practice. 
 
 There is no greater blunder possible than the blunder of 
 supposing that in this country at the present time every 
 man may follow the work of his choice. It is a ridiculous 
 error. 
 
 To read Mr. Bradlaugh, Mr. Ingersoll, and Mr. Spencer, 
 you would think that things are so well ordered now that 
 all kinds of work must fall to the men best fitted to do it.
 
 MERRIE ENGLAND. 147 
 
 Writers and painters have to write and paint what they 
 can sell; pi'ovided they can get a chance to write aad paint 
 at all. 
 
 Take my own case. Here I am, after being forty-twc 
 years a free man, in a free country, obliged to confess that! 
 have never yet succeeded in doing the kind of work I have 
 wanted to do. 
 
 Turn your eyes to trade. There are two carpet factories 
 in a town. Another man sets up in that trade. What 
 happens? He may be a good man and a clever man ; and he 
 may make better carpets than the other firms, but unless he 
 is very rich they will ruin him by selling below cost price 
 in order to retain the trade in their own hands. 
 
 Or suppose there are two papers in a town and a rival 
 paper is started. What will happen? 
 
 The new paper may be a much better paper than the old 
 ones, but unless its proprietor is a rich man it cannot live. 
 Why? 
 
 Because there is such a thing as a boycott. The pro- 
 prietors of the established papers will send around to the 
 news-agents and say, " If you sell the Comet I will take 
 away the agency for the Fo(j Horn, " and " If you sell the 
 Comet 1 shall get fresh agents for the TFelshcr." 
 
 Now suppose the agent is poor, as most agents are, and 
 suppose he is selling both those papers and clearing ten 
 shillings a week on the sale. Is it likely that he will risk 
 the ten shillings for the sake of selling a good paper which 
 may not pay him one shilling, or may not live a month? 
 
 Do you call that agent a free agent? Do you mean to 
 say that the would-be proprietor of the Comet is a free man, 
 or that he can do what work he pleases? 
 
 Under present conditions, rascality and money can always 
 overreach honesty and brains. 
 
 I am not talking fine-spun theory now, like that of 
 Eobert Ingersoll. I am telling you yar/s and arguing from 
 experience. 
 
 About a year ago I met the manager of a weekly London 
 paper. He told me that he was trying to establish a cir- 
 cidation in the provinces, but that the local papers had 
 boycotted him. And then he said, "We are making some 
 headway, and have got a small sale; but every copy of our
 
 14S MERRIE ENGLAND, 
 
 paper we sell costs na/our shillings to dispose of." You will 
 observe that the merit of the papers had nothing to do 
 with the case. The London paper was certainly better than 
 its local rivals. But the locals had blocked the agents and 
 lowered their prices. 
 
 Talk about slavery ! Freedom of contract ! Under your 
 much-glorified freedom of contract, how many contracts are 
 freely made? Under your vaunted liberty of the Indi- 
 vidual, how many individuals have any liberty at all? At 
 this present day in this fine country the bulk of the people 
 are slaves. They are slaves not to a wise, beneficent, and 
 popular Government, but to a ring of greedy, grasping 
 fools ; a coterie of rich barbarians — who would boil down 
 the last nightingale if they thought his bones would serve 
 to dye yarn; who would choke up the last well if they 
 had no place handy in which to shoot their alkali dust, and 
 would cover the last rood of sward with ashes, if they 
 thought there was no hope of grinding the said ashes with 
 sewer slime to make mortar for the people's houses. "Can 
 any one imagine a despotism more terrible" than the regu- 
 lation of work by Government? I think so. I think I 
 could find it. But I have no need to look. See ; it is 
 here, ready to my hand. 
 
 It is here, in a letter, long kept by me, a sample of many 
 I constantly receive : — 
 
 If you can see your way to give us poor devils of silk dyers a 
 word or two I am sure it would do us good. We work longer 
 hours than any others in the trade in England, get less wages, 
 and, for our lives, or rather our situations, dare not -openly 
 belong to a union. If we strike — as we did last summer — pres- 
 sure is brought upon us by our wives and children (nearly all of 
 v.'hom have to work) being dismissed from their situations. If 
 v/e write to the Leek Times — the best friend we poor dyers ever 
 had — we are afcaid to sign our names ; and if we have a meeting 
 it has to be kept a dead secret. In fact, it is not worth living to 
 work under such circumstances, and as far as I can see the only 
 union we shall ever get will be the union workhouse, and many 
 of us are half way there now. Give us a word to strengthen the 
 fearful and encourage the weak. Somebody must help us. We 
 cannot help ourselves. We have been down so long that we don't 
 know how to got up. 
 
 P.S. — For God's sake do not mention my name.
 
 UERRTE ENCLAND. 149 
 
 I'or God's sake, do not mention my name. IVhat? It is 
 no crime to write to a pressman and say," I am not happy," 
 or " 1 am ill-paid. " It is not against the law to say, " We 
 have no union." If a man trembles to hear his own name 
 given with his own true statements, what becomes of the 
 sacred "liberty of the individual"? Is this your liberty, 
 then? Is this the liberty we " cannot sacrifice for any com- 
 fort"? Are these the noble aspirations and glorious 
 ambitions that Socialism would trample out of life? Is this 
 free England's free choice? When a free man fears to 
 speak his own name? Surely there is some despotism even 
 now extant. 
 
 But Mr, Ingersoll says, " The human race cannot afford 
 to sell its liberty for any possible comfort." I have, I 
 think, said enough to satisfy you that the human race have 
 no liberty to sell, but I don't want you to suppose that 
 Socialism is nothing nobler than a desire for comfort. "We 
 want better things than comfort. We want freedom and 
 justice, and honour and education. Tour individualist and 
 utilitarian are the disciples of comfort. To their comfort 
 and to their luxury all that is best and sweetest in the lives 
 of the poor is sacrificed. They imagine that so long as the 
 worker has enough to eat and drink he has all that he 
 requires. The comfort they wot of is the comfort of the 
 hog — an overfed stomach, a bed of straw, and a close and 
 filthy stye. We Socialists ask that the people shall be held 
 as something better than hogs. We ask that they shall be 
 treated as men and women — and to men and w'omen comfort 
 is not the fulfilment of life. 
 
 The people need more than wages. They need leisure. 
 They need culture. They need humane and rational amuse- 
 ment. They need the chance to exercise those " splendid 
 ambitions and aspirations " about which our critic is 
 eloquent. 
 
 I want to know why the collier and the weaver and the 
 railway drudge and the silk dyer should be doomed to a dull 
 and brutish round of labour — 1 ^ill not call it work — and 
 greasy stew, and bad beer, and straw mattress, and filthy 
 slum? I want to know why the yahoo yelping of the free 
 and easy should be considered recreation ; and why the pro- 
 motion to a head shuntership at 21s. should be counted as
 
 150 MERRiE ENGLAND. 
 
 high enough ambition? Tell me, why should not the best 
 that art, and science, and literature, and music, and poetry, 
 and the drama can do be placed at the disposal of the 
 humblest workers? Why should not the factory girl be an 
 educated lady? Why should the collier not be a cultured 
 gentleman? 
 
 The answer is "Capitalism!" The exigencies of capi- 
 talism grind these people down, rob them of rest, of 
 energy, of health, of food, of time — so that they have 
 neither heart nor mind nor opportunity to become aught 
 but drudges. Talk about " splendid ambitions and aspira- 
 tions !" Such things now are for the fortunate few ; but 
 we want them for the many. 
 
 Beware of mistaking "what is understood as Socialism" 
 for the genuine article. Genuine Socialism would make 
 the collier into a gentleman. " What is understood as 
 Socialism" could omy make the gentleman into a collier. 
 There is a difference. 
 
 CHAPTEE XX. 
 
 IlfDUSTRT. 
 
 Nearly every problem of State jjolicy and economy, as at present 
 understood, and practised, consists in some devise for persuading you 
 labourers to go and dig up dinner for us reflective and sesthetical persons, 
 who like to sit still, and think, or admire. So that when we get to the 
 bottom of the matter, we find the inhabitants of this earth broadly 
 divided into two great masses; — the peasant paymastcrs^spade in hand, 
 original and imperial producers of turnips ; and, waiting oa them all 
 round, a crowd of polite persons, modestly expectant of turni] s, for 
 some — too often theoretical — service. — Euskin. 
 
 When Socialists complain of the misery of the poor they 
 are often told by Pressmen, Parsons, and Politicians, that 
 all the sufferings of the poor are due to their own vices and 
 folly. Thus, a short time ago, the Manchester Examiner 
 and Times, in reviewing a little book of mine, went out of 
 its way to offer me a lesson in political economy, and 
 announced that the misery of the masses was due " to sin, 
 hereditary and acquired. " 
 
 The Examiner implied, of course, that the misery of the 
 people was due to their own sin. 
 
 This is the very reverse of the truth. The misery of the 
 people is due to the sins, negligences, and ignorances of
 
 MERRIE ENGLAND. 151 
 
 those who rob them of their earnings, and grow rich upon 
 their moral ruin and physical destruction. Is it true that 
 poverty is the result of idleness, of improvidence, and of 
 vice? 
 
 If it were, then we should always find that the idle, the 
 vicious, and the improvident were poor; and that the 
 industrious, the thrifty, and the temperate were well off. 
 But it is a fact that many idle, vicious, and improvident 
 people are rich, and it is a fact that the poorest people in 
 the world are the most industrious, and sober, and thrifty. 
 
 Now, I want to convince you of two things. Firstly, 
 that the vices of the poor are due to their surroundings, 
 instead of the surroundings being due to the vices; and, 
 secondly, that universal iiidustry, and thrift, and tempe- 
 rance amongst the poor would tend to make them poorer than 
 they now are. 
 
 The sins laid to the cJiarge of the poor are three : — 
 
 1. Idleness. 
 
 2. Improvidence. 
 
 3. Drunkenness. 
 
 The first charge is a false libel. So far from the poor 
 being criminally idle, they are criminally industrious. 
 
 Tlie second claarge is a misnomer. The improvidence of 
 the poor is so clearly due to ignorance that it should be 
 called by that name. 
 
 The third charge, that of drunkenness, has a greater 
 foundation of truth, although I believe fi'om my personal 
 observation, which has been extensive, that the poor are 
 much more temperate than many of their critics would have 
 us believe. 
 
 First of all, let us consider this word industiy. Tou often 
 hear industry praised as a virtue. I think the thing is not 
 a virtue in itself. The virtue lies in the motive and 
 method of its use. There is no virtue in a plough.; It is 
 an instrument for good or evil according as it is used for 
 preparing the field for a crop, or for tearing up the garden 
 of an enemy.' So with industry. "We read of those 
 whose hands are cunning to devise an evil thing, and whose 
 feet are swift to do iniquity. We should not praise a 
 burglar for his industry though he might rob a dozen villas 
 in a week. If mere doing is to get us praise, what laudable
 
 152 MERRIE ENGLAND. 
 
 and industrious men were Alexander and Buonaparte! 
 They were always working, but the seed thej' sowed was 
 evil. 
 
 Industry is only expedient and valuable for the nation 
 when it produces good fruits. It is only laudable in the 
 individual when inspired by noble motives. Tou must not 
 suppose that the nations which do the most work are the 
 greatest nations. Tou must not fall into the error of the 
 economist, and suppose that the people who " produce most" 
 are the greatest or the worthiest people. Before praising 
 a nation for its productiveness and industry, we should 
 inquire if the things they produce are noble or worthless 
 things, and if the labour of their hands is the labour of 
 slaves or of freemen — of artists or of Philistines. 
 
 It does not follow that the man who works the hardest 
 is the most industrious man, nor that he deserves much 
 credit for what he does. He may be constrained to work 
 by force of fate. It may be with him a case of work or 
 starve. He may be working for selfish ends only— for 
 greed, or avarice, or ambition, or vanity — as many of us are. 
 Then if the work of his hands or wits be good work it is 
 expedient, but it is not noble in him. He deserves as little 
 admiration, earns as little reward, and is inspired by 
 motives no higher than those which actuate the money- 
 lender, or the gambler, or the time-serving politician. 
 
 jThe kind of industry worthy of praise is the kind which 
 is useful in its ends and unselfish in its objects. If, in 
 a colony, there were a scarcity of corn, if a few men owned 
 the land and the rest had to till it for their food ; if the 
 landlords gave only a pound of meal for a day's service, and 
 set the day's service at fourteen hours, the servants would 
 have to work hard They would have to work like beasts 
 of burden ; or starve, or fight. If they toiled and suffered 
 would you call their slavery industry? "Would you praise 
 and honour them as noble and diligent men? I should say 
 they are cowards and fools to endm-e this. I should say their 
 lives are laborious, but not industrious, and that their efforts 
 are no more worthy in them or creditable to them than those 
 of the tram-horse who fags in the shafts all day— for dread 
 of the whip-thong in his driver's hand. But that is the 
 commonest form of industry in Ejigland to-day, and that
 
 MERRIE ENGLAND. 153 
 
 is the kind of industry the peer and pressman, the bishop 
 and the capitalist, have in their minds when they extol the 
 dignity of labour and the virtue of industry, and when they 
 impress upon the minds of the woi'king-class audiences the 
 glory of " honest toil. " 
 
 Suppose the case changed with our Colony. The land is 
 in the hands of the people, but its yield is meagre and bread 
 is scarce. The working day is fixed at ten hours, that 
 being the time essential to the production of the smallest 
 yield capable of supporting life. Would you call the man 
 who worked his ten hours faithfully day after day— and no 
 more — an industrious man? Would you say he was a man 
 to praise and admire? I should say no. This man does 
 his duty and no more; and it is not a virtue for a man to 
 do his duty, for it would be a sin if he did not do his duty. 
 This man bears the same relation to an industrious man 
 that an honest man bears to a generous one. The honest 
 man pays what is due. That is all his duty — as he under- 
 stands it — demands. If he did less he would be a rogue. 
 But the generous man not only pays what is claimed — he 
 gives what is wanted. 
 
 Again, suppose one man to bo left to support himself. 
 Though he worked twenty hours a day to get food or luxuries 
 for himself, you would not call that laudable. Because the 
 motive is purely a selfish one, and all the labour is for his 
 own gratification. But this is a form of industry much 
 belauded by our pastors and masters. This lonely selfish 
 glutton is a man made of the stuff of which very many 
 British heroes have been made, lie is painfully like the 
 men held up to us as examples to copy and as idols to 
 worship, lie is the kind of man who "gets on." 
 
 Eeturn again to our Colony. The land is the people's. 
 The fixed working hours are ten a day; but the fields are 
 not enough tilled and the harvests are still poor. Now 
 suppose some man seeing this goes out and works five hours 
 extra daily for the common good, he is an industrious man. 
 lie is made of the stuff of which real heroes are spun Or 
 suppose he sees that pick and spade and muscle and bone are 
 overmatched in the struggle to win bread from the obstinate 
 Foil, and seeing this gives alibis thoujj^lit and lime, sacrifices 
 all his pleasures and desires, to the one task of designing
 
 154 MERRIE ENGLAND. 
 
 and constructing a plough or other engine to relieve and 
 feed the weary and famished people — well, I say, that is 
 an industrious man ; that is a noble man. His work is 
 "honest toil;" he is a hero. 
 
 Or suppose another case — the case of a man who loves 
 work for its own sake. Here is an artist, say, or a musician. 
 He loves art or music. He labours at his chosen art with 
 all the power he has, with all the thought, and love, and 
 courage, and patience of his nature. With a devotion that 
 no rebuff can shake, with an affection that no triumph can 
 weaken, he stands at his easel or sits at his piano content 
 laboriously and obscurely to create beautiful things for their 
 own sake. Then, I say, that man is an industrious man. 
 He is a man most valuable to his fellow-creatures, but he 
 is not so exalted a hero as the man described just now. 
 There is a great difference between ^vork and toil, between 
 task work and work of choice ; and this difference — palpable 
 as it is to a man like me, who has tried both forms of 
 labour — is too often lost sight of by moralists who make 
 it their business to preach to the masses. 
 
 Between the navvy wheeling interminable barrows of clay 
 over endless miles of planks at a fixed pittance, and the 
 struggling author or painter living on dry bread and dreams 
 in a garret there is this immense difference, that whereas 
 the navvy's work is a dull, monotonous, uninteresting task, 
 with no motive but that of winning an animal subsistence, 
 no exercise except for the physical powers, and no hope 
 beyond a doubtful promotion to the post of ganger, the 
 work of the painter or the writer, ho\^-soever poor and 
 obscure he be, is a labour of love ; a labour that is in itself 
 a pleasure, a recreation, and an education. A work that 
 employs and trains the highest facidties; that inspires the 
 heart and brain with the brightest hopes ; that holds out to 
 the poorest and most insignificant of its drudges at least a 
 chance, a little promise, however remote, of the highest 
 honours and the most magnificent rewards. 
 
 It is all very well for the business man, the parson, the 
 author, the engineer, the member of Parliament, to abuse 
 the workman as idle, thriftless, and drunken ; but let us do 
 the workman justice. Let us remember that his work is 
 neither exciting, pleasing, ennobling, nor remunerative.
 
 MERRIE ENGLAND. 155 
 
 Often 1 have heard professional men say, " Talk about the 
 working classes ! what do they know of work? They never 
 work as hard as I do. They have not the worry and strain 
 that mental work invoives. I am a manufacturer — a doctor — 
 a lawyer — my work is never done. " All this is true. The 
 doctor's work or the author's work is never done. But 
 remember that he loves it so much that he would not wish it 
 ever done. He is so wrapped up in it, so wedded to it, 
 that if it were done, if he were obliged to take off the 
 harness and to go to grass in the prime of life, he would 
 actually break his heart. 
 
 It is very nice for professional men to boast of their 
 industry and love of work. They are doing the work of 
 their choice. But take them away from the theatre or the 
 desk, the pulpit, or the quarter-deck, and set them to carrying 
 bricks up a ladder, stitching slop clothing, or scribbling 
 out invoices, and see how they will enjoy that, and how 
 industrious they will be. 
 
 It is easy to tell a workman to be industrious and con- 
 tented in that walk of life to which Providence has called 
 him. But it would be neither easy nor pleasant to take his 
 place and show him how it should be done; and I tell you 
 frankly I believe that if Providence called a Prime Minister 
 or a Ijishop to dig coals or puddle iron, Providence would 
 have to use a long trumpet or the gentlemen would not 
 hear. 
 
 Ask any man of taste and sense which he woidd prefer — 
 a pitcher with a stencil pattern printed on it, a bad copy 
 midtiplied a thousand times of some original design, or the 
 same pitcher moulded in a form peculiar to itself, and orna- 
 mented with the original design itself hand-painted, and 
 not repeated on any other piece of pottery extant. He will 
 tell you he prefers the original work. 
 
 Now, ask any man of taste and sense whether he would 
 rather tend a machine which should turn out pitchers by 
 the thousand all of one form and colour, or himself turn 
 and mould the clay upon the wheel and under his own hand. 
 Ask any man who knows men and life and understands 
 human nature and human work, whether a number of men 
 or women would rather stamp the same design ten thousand 
 times upon a piece of i)hi.ster, or set to work with gouge
 
 156 MERRIE ENGLAND. 
 
 and chisel and carve out leaves and flowers to their own 
 fancy and design. 
 
 In proportion as you can make men's work artistic will 
 it become pleasant and elevating and productive of content- 
 ment. In proportion as the work becomes more pleasing, 
 more interesting and more noble will the people grow to 
 love it ; and the more the people come to love their work, 
 the more industrious and contented will they be. That is 
 one of the practical values of art. 
 
 But, again, there is a negative as well as a positive value 
 in art. If a man's work is irksome, brutish, cheerless, and 
 v/ithout hope or interest, the man grows jaded and dis- 
 satisfied. Getting no hope, no variety, no joy nor excite- 
 ment out of the labour of his hands and brain, he seeks for 
 change and relaxation elsewhere. He viust have change and 
 rest and pleasure. The duller and harder his task, the more 
 his thirst for excitement and for ease. Just think of these 
 facts. Eemember that by making a man a drudge, you make 
 him contract a debt to nature ; and nature will be paid. If 
 you will or must have drudges, you must and shall provide 
 them an antidote to the bane, or they must and will provide 
 the antidote themselves. Tou see that, do you not? 
 "Well, there are the drudges drudging all around you. 
 Have you provided them abundance of pure and innocent 
 recreation for their leisure and refreshment? Tou have 
 not. But you grant a great many public-house licenses I 
 notice. Tou set them an example on the Stock Exchange 
 and in the counting-house and on the racecourse which 
 they muj follow. And the I'csult ?
 
 MERRIE ENGLAND. 157 
 
 GHAPTEll XXI. 
 
 Ekvironment. 
 
 A civilised people desires that they who produce its wealth should be 
 intellifjent, honest, thrifty, far-seeing, prudent, and, to the fullest extent 
 possible, cultivated and well niann(!rcd. It is impossible that these 
 advantages should be secured, and the economies which they invariably 
 effect secured with them, unless the workman is adequately remunerated 
 for his labour, and is encouraged to hope. — Thorold Rogers. 
 
 In Sicily the workers aro as temperate as dogs ; and they are treated 
 like dogs. — The Clarion. 
 
 fcjome sell their lives for bread ; 
 
 Some sell their souls for gold ; 
 Some seek the river bed ; 
 
 Some seek the workhouse mould. 
 
 Such is proud England's sway, 
 
 Where wealth may work its will ; 
 White flesh is cheap to-day, 
 White souls are cheaper still. — Fantasias. 
 By Nature we nearly resemble one another ; condition separates us very 
 far. — Confucius. 
 
 Let US now consider how far drunkenness is responsible 
 for the poverty of the masses. First of all, let me say a 
 few words on drink and drinking. It would be a mistake 
 to suppose that the man who is oftenest drunk is the 
 heaviest drinker. Many a highly-respectable middle-class 
 gentleman spends more money on drink in one day than a 
 labourer earns in a week, yet withal is accounted a steady 
 man. I have seen a journalist, and one very severe upon 
 the vices of the poor, drink eight shillings worth of whiskey 
 and soda in an evening, and do his work correctly. I have 
 known a sailor to sit up all night playing at cards, and 
 consume about a pint of rum and a gallon of stout in the 
 process, and then go out at eight in the morning and score 
 nine consecutive bull's-eyes at 200 yards. But the average 
 poor labourer of the slums would be mad on a quarter of the 
 liquor. Why? 
 
 There are three principal reasons: — 1. The labourer is 
 often in a low state of health. 2. The labourer does not 
 drink with any caution or method. 3. Tlie labourer does 
 not get pure liquor. 
 
 Now I must in justice say for the poor that they have 
 great excuse for drinking, and that they are often blamed 
 for being drunk when they are simply poisoned.
 
 159 MERRTE ENGLAND. 
 
 Drunkenness is a disease. It is just as much a disease 
 as typhus fever or cholera, and often arises from very simi- 
 lar causes. Any medical man will tell you that the craving 
 for alcoholic stimulants is frequently found amongst men 
 whose nervous system is low. 
 
 But there ai-e, I think, three chief causes of drunkenness. 
 A man may crave for drink when his system is out of order. 
 And this may result, and generally does result, from over- 
 work, from worry, from dulness of life, inducing depression, 
 from lack of rest, or from living or working amid unhealthy 
 surroundings. Hence you will find many professional men 
 give way to drink from sheer mental over-strain, and you 
 will find many dwellers in the slums give way to drink 
 from loss of sleep, from over-work, from ill-health or from 
 the effects of foul air. 
 
 Or a man may become a drunkard from the habit of taking 
 drink. Doubtless there are many thousands of men working 
 in the coal mines, or ironworks, or as coal dischargers, or as 
 wool staplers, or masons, or chemical labourers, who from 
 the intense heat, or severe exertion, or chokiiig dust, 
 amongst which they labour, are compelled to drink freely, 
 and so acquire the morbid taste for liquor. 
 
 Or a man may lead a dull and cheerless life, and live 
 amid squalid and gloomy surroundings, and so may contract 
 the habit of going to the public-house for company and 
 change and for excitement, and so may acquire the habit of 
 drinking by those means. 
 
 Or a man may have inherited the disease from drunken 
 parents ; parents who acquired it from one of the causes 
 above named. 
 
 Now, Mr. Smith, you know that many of the pour work 
 at unhealthy trades and live in unhealthy places; and you 
 know that they work too hard and too long, and that their 
 lives are dull and anxious, and I ask you is it surprising 
 that such people take to drink? Moreover, those purists 
 who bear so hardly upon the workers for this fault, have 
 seldom a word to say against the men who drive them to 
 drink. But the real culprits, the people actually respon- 
 sible for nearly all the drunkenness of the poor, are the 
 ^rarping employers, the polluters of the rivers and the air, 
 the jerry-builders, the slum-lords, and the detestable
 
 MERRTE ENGLAND. 159 
 
 knaves who grow rich by the sale of poisoned and adulte- 
 rated liquor. 
 
 Give the people healthy homes, human lives, due leisure 
 and amusement, and pure meat and drink, and drunlcenness 
 will soon disappear. While there are slums, while men 
 have no pure pleasure, while they are overworked, and 
 untaught, and while the wealthy bre^^•er can open his 
 poison dens at every street corner, it will be useless to 
 preach temperance. The late Dean of Manchester spoke 
 like a man of sense when he said that if he lived in the 
 slums he too would take to drink. 
 
 Do you doubt me when I say that it is the surroundings 
 that make the vices of the people? 
 
 Put a number of well-disposed people into bad surround- 
 ings and compel them to stop there. In a century you will 
 have the kind of people now to be found in the slums. 
 Take, now, a lot of people from the slums and put them in 
 a new country where they must work to live, where they 
 can live by work, where fresh air and freedom and hope 
 can come to them, and in a generation you will have a 
 prosperous and creditable colony. Do you not know this 
 to be true? Has it not happened both ways? Do not 
 Dr. Barnardo's outcast children turn out well? Then what 
 is the reason? Men are made by their environment. 
 
 It has been said that dirt is matter in the wrong place. 
 I often think that ne'er-do-wells are examples of energy 
 in the wrong place. Emerson says "There is no moral 
 deformity but is a good passion out of place." Some 
 natures cannot thrive without a great deal of excitement. 
 They have in them such desire of activity, such hunger for 
 adventure, that they are incapable of settling down to the 
 dull hiun-drum life of British respectability and profit- 
 making. Sir AValter Ealeigh was a bold explorer and a 
 grand admiral, but I cannot imagine him a success as a 
 Lancashire weaver, with £1 a week and two holidays a year. 
 Turn these restless spirits loose in a congenial sphere, and 
 they will do much good work, as, indeed, much good work 
 has been done by such. But dulness and monotony, task 
 work and tracts, are not food hot enough for their palates. 
 And so they seek such change and such excitement as lie in 
 their way. And the dealer in doctored gin and the retailer
 
 ICO MERRTE ENGLAND. 
 
 of racing " morals" find their prolit in them; but they might 
 have been line factors in the sum of human progress. 
 
 To tell these people that they shall have help and love 
 when they quit their vices is like telliiag a sick man that 
 he sliall be sent to the seaside as soon as he recovers his 
 health. 
 
 Sow some wh^^it on sterile land, and it will give a poor 
 harvest. Would you say, " While thei-e are poor harvests 
 there must be sterile lands?" Put a fish into a small and 
 dii'ty globe, and he will sicken. Would you say that while 
 there are sick fislies there must be small globes and impure 
 water? Yet you say while there are vice and improvidence 
 there must be poverty. 
 
 Why do the middle and upper classes take so much trouble 
 with the nursing and education of their children? Why 
 do they instil into their young minds principles of honesty, 
 of industry, of virtue, of culture? Why do they send their 
 sons and daughters to school and to college? Why do 
 they teach them cleanliness and sobriety? Why do they 
 so jealously watch over their morals? Why do they take 
 such trouble and incur such expense in the effort to shield 
 them from all that is vicious, and indecent, and unhealthy? 
 Is it not to ensure their moral and mental and physical 
 welfare? Tou will say, "Of course." 
 
 It seems, then, that even the children of educated, honest, 
 and virtuous parents need to be carefully trained and 
 guarded to prevent them falling into idleness and vice. 
 For if children would grow up good without watchfulness 
 and cultivation, it would be mere folly and waste of time 
 and means to trouble about teaching tliem. Now if all 
 this care is necessary to ensure moral excellence, it follows 
 that v/ithout such care moral excellence could not be ensured. 
 That is to say, that in our colleges, in our Sunday schools, in 
 our home lessons, in the tender and earnest solicitude of 
 good parents, we find an acknowledgment of the fact that a 
 child is what he is taught to be. " 
 
 Now suppose a child is deprived of this education. 
 Suppose it is born in a poor hovel, in a poor slum. Suppose 
 its home surroundings are such that cleanliness and modesty 
 are well-nigh impossible. Suppose the gutter is its play- 
 ground; the ginshop its nursery; the factory its college;
 
 MERRIE ENGLAND. 161 
 
 the (Irunkai'd its exemplar; the ruffian and the thief its 
 instructors! Suppose bad nursing, bad air, bad water, 
 bad food, dirt, hunger, ill-usage, foul language, and hard 
 work are its daily portion. Suppose it has inherited poor 
 blood, dull spirits, enfeebled wit, and stunted statiu'e, from 
 its ill-fed, untaught, overworked, miserable, ignorant, and 
 unhealthy parents, can you expect that child to be clever, 
 and moral, and thrifty, and clean, and sober? 
 
 Again. What next to their education and surroundings 
 makes well-bred and well-taught children happy and good 
 and industrious? Simply their good and pleasant environ- 
 ment. Life is to them worth living. They have comfort 
 and love and knowledge and — ^hope. But the child of " the 
 great unwashed " has none of these things. His lot is 
 labour and poverty, his pleasure is in dininkenness and 
 gambling, his future is gloomier tlian his horrible present. 
 You talk about the social virtues ! These poor creatures 
 have not even food, or rest, or air, or light ! Now, I say, 
 give them food and air, and light and leisure; give them 
 education, and give them hope, and they will cease to be 
 vicious and improvident. 
 
 The poor ! The poor ! The poor ! The thriftlessness of 
 the poor ! The intemperance of the poor ! The itlleness 
 of the poor! How long yet have we to listen to this 
 cackle? How long have we to hear men prate about the 
 poor and about the working classes who never knew what 
 poverty is, who never luiew \vhat hunger means, w ho never 
 did a stroke of manual work, and whose knowledge of "the 
 poor" is got from the poems and the novels and the essays 
 of university " swells, " or from furtive and uncharitable 
 glances at the public-house steps or the pawnshop door as 
 their excellencies' carriages are hui'rying them through the 
 outskirts of the slums ! 
 
 Perhaps you will say, John, that if the surroundings 
 make the man, then all the denizens of the slums, and all 
 the workers in the mines, would drink. ]3ut, no. You 
 would not say that the bad drainage of a district would,give 
 all the inhabitants the fever, but only that it would give 
 those the fever whose health laade them most amenable to 
 the germs of the disea^se. 
 
 V
 
 162 MERRIE ENGLAND. 
 
 I am not arguing that poverty inevitably leads to drink, 
 but only that it is the chief cause of drunkenness. 
 
 There is a common belief to the effect that if the poor 
 were all industrious, sober, and thrifty they would cease to 
 be poor. This error arises from confusion of thoiight. 
 
 It is quite true that a sober man will succeed better than 
 a drunken man; but it is not true that if all the people 
 were sober their Mages would increase. 
 
 Suppose there are ten clerks in an office, nine of whom 
 are unsteady and one steady. The steady man will very 
 likely become head clerk. But this is not because he is 
 steady, but because the others are not steady. For you 
 will observe that no one thinks of promoting a clerk because 
 he is honest, for very few clerks being dishonest the 
 honest clerk is not singidar. 
 
 You must not suppose that because a sober and indus- 
 trious mum will succeed — in some trades — better than a 
 drunken and a lazy man that therefore the whole trade 
 would succeed better by becoming abstainers and hard 
 workers. 
 
 You are fond of " facts. " What are the facts with regard 
 to thrift and industry amongst the workers? 
 
 The Hindoos are amongst the most abstemious and indus- 
 trious people; and they are about the worst-paid people in 
 the world. The immigrant Jews in the tailoring and 
 slipper trades are wonderfully thrifty, sober, and indus- 
 trious, and they work terribly long hours for shamefully 
 low wages. 
 
 Under competition the workers do not gain any advantage 
 by being sober and industrious. They gain a lower depth 
 of serfdom and a harder task of slavery. If the Englishman 
 will work for fifteen hours and live on bread and cheese, 
 the foreigner \\'ill have to work for eighteen hours and eat 
 grass, and that is what your capitalists mean when they tell 
 you that Englishmen are being pushed out of the market by 
 foreigners because foreigners will work harder and take less 
 pay. 
 
 But allovv me to quote the statement of this case given 
 by me in my reply to the Bishop of Manchester : — 
 
 "In all foreign nations where the standard of living is 
 lower than in England, } oui' lordship will liiid that the 
 wages aie lower al^o.
 
 MERRiE ENGLAND. 163 
 
 " Has not your lordship often heard our manufacturers 
 tell the English workers that if they would emulate the 
 thrift and sobriety of the foreigner they might successfully 
 compete against foreign competition in the foreign markets? 
 My lord, what does that mean, but that thrift would enable 
 our people to live on less, and so to accept less wages? 
 
 " Tour lordship knows that our shirtmakers here in Man- 
 chester are miserably paid. 
 
 " This is because capitalism always keeps the wages down 
 to the lowest standard of subsistence which the people will 
 accept. 
 
 " So long as our English women will consent to work 
 long hours, and live on tea and bread, the 'law of su'pply 
 and demand' will maintain the present condition of sweating 
 in the shirt trade. 
 
 "If all our women became firmly convinced that they 
 could not exist without chops and bottled stout the wages 
 miisf go up to a price to pay for those things. 
 
 ** Because (here would be no women offering to live on tea and 
 bread; and shirts nmst be had. 
 
 " But what, my lord, 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. He meets a friend who only gave 8s. for 
 his. He goes to the 8s. shop and saves 243. This is clear 
 profit, and he spends it in cigars, or champagne, or in some 
 other luxury ; and Ike poor seamstress lives on toast and tea. " 
 
 Many shallow thinkers assert that if a man is determined 
 to succeed he will succeed. This is not true, but if it were 
 true it would not prove that the qualities of energy, talent, 
 and self-denial which enable one man to improve his con- 
 dition would enable all men to improve their conditions. 
 Eor the one man only succeeds because of his superior 
 strength and skill; but if all men displayed strength and 
 skill equal to his he could not rise. 
 
 There is a panic in a theatre and a fight for egress. A 
 big strong man will force his way out over the bodies of 
 the weak. 
 
 Now don't you see how foolish it is for that man to tell 
 the ^"cak that if they were as strong as he thcj/ could get
 
 164 MERRlE ENGLAND. 
 
 out? If they were as strong as he he could not get out 
 himself. 
 
 A short time ago a certain writer, much esteemed for 
 his graceful style of saying silly things, informed us that the 
 poor remain poor because they show no efficient desire to 
 be anything else. Is that trne? Are only the idle poor? 
 Come with me and I will show you where men and women 
 work from morning till night, from week to week, from year 
 to year, at the full stretch of their powers, in dim and 
 foetid dens, and yet are poor — -ay, destitute — have for their 
 wages a crust of bread and rags. I will show you where 
 men work in dirt and heat, using the strength of brutes, 
 for a dozen hours a day and sleep at night in styes, until 
 brain and muscle ai*e exhausted and fresh slaves are yoked 
 to the golden car of commerce, and the broken drudges 
 lilter througli the union or the prison to a felon's or a 
 pauper's grave! And I will show you how men and women 
 thus work and suffer and faint and die, generation after 
 generation; and I will show you how the longer and the 
 harder these wretches toil the worse their lot becomes; 
 and I will show you the graves, and find witnesses to 
 the histories of brave and noble and industrious poor men 
 whose lives were lives of toil, and poverty, and whose deaths 
 were tragedies. 
 
 And all these things are due to sin — but it is to the sin 
 of the smug hypocrites who grow rich upon the robbery 
 and the ruin of their fellow-creatures. 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 The Rights of the India^idual. 
 
 I think that my contention, which I see quoted by Mr. Goschen, coulil 
 he o.shaustively proved, that every act of the legislature which seems to 
 interfere with the doctrine of laissez-faire, and has stood the test of 
 experience, has been endorsed because it has added to the general 
 efficiency of labour, and, therefore, to the general well-being of society. — 
 Tlwrold lioi/ers. 
 
 Law was made for property aloue. — Jlfacaulay. 
 
 Tou have, very likely, heard of the thing called Indi- 
 vidualism. You may have read articles or heard speeches 
 in which Socialism has been assailed as an interference
 
 MERRIE ENGLAND. 165 
 
 with the rights of the individuaU Tou may have wondered 
 wliy among the rights of the indiviihial, no place was 
 given to the right to live; or that the apostles of Indi- 
 vidualism should be so strangely blind to the danger o£ 
 leaving private enterprise MTi-curbed. But you need not 
 wonder about these things, for Individualism is a relic of 
 savagery and its apologists would be agitating for the return 
 of the good old individual right of carrying a stone club and 
 living by promiscuous robbery and murder, were tliey not 
 convinced that the law of supply and demand, although a more 
 cowardly and brutal weapon that the cannibal's club, is 
 infinitely more deadly and effective. 
 
 Society consists of individuals — so Herbert Spencer says. 
 And that dogma if it means anything, means that society ia 
 a concourse of independent atoms and not a united whole. 
 But you know that statement is not in accord wilh fact or 
 reason — not to speak of morality. Tou know that society 
 consists of a number of more or less antagonistic parties, 
 united amongst themselves for purposes of social \'(arfare, 
 and that where an independent individual is found he is 
 always either a good man, trying to persuade the com- 
 batants to reason and righteousness; or a bad man, trying 
 to fleece them that his own nest may be warm. 
 
 How, indeed, can society be a multitude of unconnected 
 units? I look in my dictionarj', and I find the word 
 "society" defined as "a union of persons in one interest; 
 fellowship." And clearly, society means a number of men 
 joined by interest or affection. For how can that be a 
 society which has no social connections? A mob of 
 antagonistic individuals is a chaos, not a society. 
 
 And with regard to that claim that men shoidd be left 
 free to fight each for his own hand — is that civilisation or 
 anarchy? And will it result in peaeeor in war, in prosperity 
 or in disaster? Not civilisation, but savagery; not 
 Christianity, but cannibalism is the spirit of this doctrine 
 of selfishness and folly. And I ask you again in this case, 
 as I did in the case of the gospel of " avarice" : Is not love 
 stronger than haxe? And will not a society founded on love 
 and justice certainly flourish, as the society founded on 
 hate and strife will certainly perish? 
 
 Before you answer look around you at the state of
 
 166 MERRIE ENGLAND. 
 
 England to-day, and cast back in your mind for the lessons 
 of the nations that are gone. What is the apex of the gospel 
 of avarice and of the law of supply and demand? Sweating ! 
 What is the result of the liberty of the individual, to cozen 
 the strong and destroy the weak for the sake of useless gain 
 or worthless power? Does not one man wax rich by 
 making many poor — one man dwells in a palace by keeping 
 many in hovels? And are not the people crushed with 
 taxation, which the impotent and lazy squander and 
 misuse? 
 
 One Individualist, Mr. Levy, in an article written by him 
 against Socialism a few years ago, says that — 
 
 The Individualist denies to A and B the right of prescribing 
 for C wheat will do him good, and forcing it down his throat by 
 the aid of the policeman's truncheon. He denies that A and 15 
 have any right whatever to coerce C, except to prevent Jam iiivad- 
 ing the rights of others, and to exact from him his share in the 
 maintenance of the common liberties. 
 
 The italics are mine. On this point we are agreed. Our 
 difference is as to what constitutes an " Invasion of the 
 rights of others." I say, why punish the kind of thief 
 we call a burglar, and not the kind of thief we call a 
 sweater? Why hang the murderer who kills in the heat of 
 passion and from motives of jealousy or revenge, and not 
 the murderer who slays wholesale by the death-trap of the 
 slums, and slays in cold blood, and from the bestial motive 
 of gain? 
 
 Mr Levy says of Individualism : — 
 
 It v/ould strive to make the law such that, in the words of 
 Kant — "Evci-y one may seek his own happiness in the way that 
 seems good to himself, provided that he infringe not such freedom 
 of otliers to strive after a similar end as is consistent with tho 
 freedom of all." 
 
 This is the same idea expressed in different words. 
 Where are we to draw the line as to the " infringement of 
 the freedom of others"? Are we to let the sweater and 
 the retailer of diseased meat " seek their own happiness in 
 a way that seems good to themselves"? Ai'e we to stop 
 the men who infringe the freedom of others by aid of the 
 machinery of capitalist monopoly? Or are we only to stop the 
 other rogues and ruffians who infringe our freedom with
 
 MERRIE ENGLAND. 167 
 
 the bludgeon and the bullet? Wo agree that it is right for 
 society to protect itself against some scoundi-els. We differ 
 as to which scoundrels are to be restrained. 
 ]Mr. Aubcron Herbert says : — 
 
 Government has no moral right to compel men for their own 
 good, but only to restrain them from such aggressions upon each 
 otljcr as involve physical force, or such direct fraud as is the 
 ccjuivalcnt of physical force, from the point of view of the consent 
 to Lransac^tion of the defrauded person. 
 
 And another tract of his is headed by the following 
 quotation from Mr. Herbert Spencer: — 
 
 The liberty of each, limited alone by the like liberty of all. 
 
 Now, you will observe that Government is here granted 
 the power to restrain one man from injuring another by 
 physical violence or from injuring him by "direct fraud," 
 but is not to have power to restrain the operations of 
 indirect fraud. But why should Grovornment be allowed 
 to prevent violence? Why should Government be allowed 
 to prevent murder or highway robbery? I don't know what 
 reason the Individualist has for his belief that Government 
 should defend the subject from the burglar and the forger. 
 Because, if it is best to let the more criminal and mf)re 
 dangerous sweater rob and slay, I cannot understand why it 
 is necessary to interfere with the footpad and the scuttler. 
 The reason I have for supporting the Government in its 
 protection of the subject is easily given. But I'd rather 
 use the word Society than the word Government. 
 
 Society, according to my philosophy, is a union of people 
 for mutual advantage. Every member of a society must give 
 up some small fraction of his own will and advantage in 
 return for the advantages he gains from association with 
 his fellows. One of the advantages he derives from 
 association with his fellows is protection from injury. 
 The chief function of Government — which is the executive 
 power of the society's will — is to protect the subject. 
 Against whom is the subject to be protectcnl? I should say 
 against foreign enemies, against injury by his fellow-sub- 
 jects, and against calamities caused by his own ignorance. 
 We will lay by the first and third propositions, and 
 consider the second.
 
 168 MERRIE ENGLAND. 
 
 The subject is to be protected by the Government from 
 injuiy by his fellow-subjects. Here I traverse the position 
 of the Individualists. They will restrain the assassin and the 
 passer of base coin, but they will not suffer any interference 
 with the sacred liberty of the slum landlord or the sweater. 
 And I fail to see their reason. 
 
 There is no reason visible to my mind for empowering 
 the Grovernment, or society, to hang the man who steals a 
 watch and murders the owner, except the reason I have 
 given — that it is for the general advantage that society 
 should be allowed to protect one of its members from injury 
 by another. If that is the real reason why Government 
 may hang a Charles Peace or send an " Artful Dodger" to 
 gaol, then it is also a sufficient reason why Government 
 protection should be extended beyond the limits laid down 
 in Mr. Herbert's tracts. Because the sweater and the 
 rack-renter, and the respectable dealer in adulterated goods 
 are not only morally worse than the footpad and the area- 
 sneak, but they are also guilty of gi-eater and more deadly 
 injury to their fellow-subjects. 
 
 True, sweating and land-grabbing and other forms of the 
 basest villainy are not illegal ; and I would not have them 
 illegally meddled with. But I would alter the law so that 
 they should be illegal. This, I presume, Mr. Herbert 
 would not do. He will only defend us from the garrotter 
 and the confidence-trick man. But I think it is as bad for 
 a railway company to work a man a hundred and eight hours 
 for seventeen shillings, or for a landlord to charge rent for 
 a death trap, or for a tailor to grind his hands down to a 
 slavery that takes up all their waking hours and gives them 
 in return a diet of bread and coffee, as for a thief to come 
 and steal your false teeth. Nay, the sweater is altogether a 
 more hateful, dangerous, deadly, and cowardly scoundrel than 
 the pickpocket. (• 
 
 Of course, the sweater's slave and the railway porter are 
 the " free" parties to the bargain. They need not accept 
 the bloodsucker's terms unless they choose. They have an 
 alternative — they can starve. But I presume that even the 
 most confirmed Individualist would stop a man from jumping 
 down a precipice, or throwing himself under a train. That 
 would be physical injury, against which it is right to pro-
 
 MERRIE ENGLAND. 169 
 
 tect each other. But the poor girl who takes her suicide 
 in the form of shirt-making is not to bo interfered with. 
 Tou must respect free contract and the liberty of the 
 individual. 
 
 Individual liberty is what we all desire — so far as it is 
 possible to have it. But it is not possible to have it in its 
 complete form, whilst we live in communities. By living 
 in communities, men get many advantages. It is not good 
 for man to be alone. For the advantages that society gives 
 us, we must make some sacrifice. We might well have 
 much more individual liberty than we now have. We 
 might easily have too much. We have too much — and too 
 little — as things stand. A state of Socialism would give 
 us all as much liberty as we need. A state of Individualism — 
 of anarchy— would give some of us more liberty than it is 
 wise and beneficial we should have. 
 
 Most men are honest, most men love justice. For the 
 great mass of the people the law is almost a dead letter. 
 Honest men need no laws — except to defend them from rascals. 
 Have you ever asked yourselves, my friends, what price our 
 rascals cost us? For them is all the costly machinery of 
 Government, of armies, of fleets, of law courts, of prisons, 
 police, workhouses, and the like maintained. Honest men 
 do not need watching, for they would not steal; do not 
 need repelling, for they would not invade. Consider the 
 cost of all our police in its various forms, and then say 
 what do our rascals cost us. 
 
 If it had not been for interference with the liberty of the 
 individual and the freedoni of contract in the past the lot 
 of the workers would have been unbearable. 
 
 Do you know anything about the Truck Act, which 
 abolished the nefarious custom of paying wages in bad food? 
 Did you ever consider the effect of forbidding the payment 
 of wages in public-houses, or the employment of climbing- 
 boys by sweeps? Have you ever read the history of the 
 Factory Acts? 
 
 In "The Industrial History of England," by H,* de B. 
 Gibbins, M.A., you will find a few brief sketches of the 
 state of things to which unchecked freedom of contract had 
 reduced the factory workers before the Factory Acts were 
 passed. From that book I will make a few extracts ; —
 
 170 MERRIE ENGLAND. 
 
 English Slavery : The Apprentice System. 
 
 It was not until the wages of the workmen ha<l been reduced to 
 a starvation level that they consented to their children and wives 
 being employed in the mills. liut the manufacturers wanted 
 labour by some means or other, and they got it. 'ihey got it 
 from the workhouses. They sent for parish apprentices from al' 
 parts of England, and pretended to apprentice them to the new 
 employmeiits just introduced. , The millov/ners systematically 
 communicated with the overseers of the poor, who arranged a 
 day for the inspection of pauper children. Those chosen by the 
 manufacturer were then conveyed by wagons or canal boats to 
 their destination, and from that moment were doomed to slavery. 
 Sometimes i-egular traffickers would take the place of the manu- 
 facturer, and transfer a number of children to a factory district, 
 and there keep them, generally ia some dark cellar, till they 
 could hand them over to a mill-owner in v/ant of hands, who 
 would come and examine their height, sti-ength, and bodily 
 capacities, exactly as did the slave dealers in the American markets. 
 After that the children were simply at the mercy of their owners, 
 nominally as apprentices, but in reality as mere slaves, who got 
 no wages, and whom it was not worth while to feed and clothe 
 properly, because they were so cheap and their places could bo 
 so easily sniiplied. It was often arranged by the parish authori- 
 ties, in order to get rid of imbeciles, that one idiot should be 
 taken by the mill-owner with every twenty sane children. The 
 fate of tbeF.e unhappy idiots was even worse than that of the 
 others. The secret of their final end has never been disclosed, 
 but we can foi'm some idea of their awful sufferings from the 
 hardships of the other victims to capitalist greed and cruelty. 
 Their treatment was most inhuman. The hours of their labour 
 were only limited by exhaustion after many modes of torture had 
 been unavailingly applied to force continued work. Children 
 were often worlrcd sixteen hours a day, by day and by night. 
 Even Sunday was used as a convenient time to clean the 
 machinery. The author of the "History of the Factory Move- 
 ment " writes : "In stench, in heated rooms, amidst a constant 
 whirling of a thousand wheels, little fingers and little feet were 
 kept in ceaseless action, forced into unnatural activity by blows 
 from the heavy hands ar.d feet of the merciless over-looker, and 
 the infliction of bcdily pain by instruments of punishment 
 invented by the sharpened ingenuity of insatiable selfishness." 
 They were fed upon the coarsest and cheapest food, often with 
 the same as that served out to the pigs of their master. They 
 slept by turns and in relays, in filthy beds which were never cool ; 
 for one set of children were sent to sleep in them as soon as tho 
 others had gone off to their daily or nightly toil There was 
 often no discriminati'^n of the sexes ; and disease and misery and 
 vice grew as in a hot-bed of contagion. Some of these miserable 
 beings tried to run away. To prevent their doing so, those 
 Buspeeted of this tendency had irons riveted on their ankles witl^
 
 MERRIE ENGLAND. 171 
 
 long links reaching to tho hipa, and were conij)el!cd to work and 
 sleep in these chainH, youny women and j^iils as well as ))oys 
 suffering this brutal treatment. Many died and were hurled 
 secretly at night in some desolate spot, lest people should notiee 
 the number of the graves ; and many comniittcd suicide." 
 
 In 1873, Lord Shaftesbury, speaking in the House of 
 Lords, said: — 
 
 Well can I recollect, in the earlier periods of the factory move- 
 ment, waiting at the factory gates to see the children come out, 
 and a set of sad, dejected, cadaverous creatures they were. In 
 Bradford, especially, the proofs of long and cruel toil were most 
 remarkable. The cripples and distorted forms might be num- 
 bered by hundreds, perhaps by thousands. A friend of mine 
 collected a Vcist number together for me ; tho sight was most 
 piteous, the deformities incredible. They seemed to mo, such 
 were their crooked shapes, like a mass of crooked alphabets. 
 
 Tou will find further particulars of these horrors in the 
 Blue Books of the period. Eead them ; read also the Blue 
 Books on the sweating system, and the reports of the 
 Labour Commission ; read the facts relating to the Truclv 
 Acts and the chain aud nail ti'ades, and then read Mrs. 
 Browning's pathetic poem, of "The Cry of the Children," 
 and I think you will be cured of any lingering aifection for 
 the "Freedom of Contract," and the "Itights of tho 
 Individual." 
 
 I quite understand Mr. Herbert's desire for "Liberty." 
 But we cannot have liberty while we have rascals. Liberty 
 is another of the things we have to pay for the pleasure of 
 the rascal's company. Now I think Individualism 
 strengthens the hands of the rogue in his fight with the 
 true man; and I think Socialism would fortify the true 
 men against the rascals. I grant you that State Socialism 
 would imply some interference with the liberty of the 
 individual. But ii7ac7t individual? The scoundrel. Imagine 
 a dozen men at sea in a boat v.ith only two days' provisions? 
 Would it be wise to consider the liberty of the individual? 
 If the strongest man took all the food and left the others 
 to starve would it be right or wrong for the eleven men to 
 combine to bind him and divide all fairly? To let the 
 strong or the cunning rob the weak or honest is Indi- 
 vidualism. To prevent the rascal from taking wliat is 
 not his own is Socialism.
 
 172 MERRIE ENGLAND. 
 
 CHAPTEE XXIIL 
 
 Ltjxuet. 
 
 Dick Turpin is blamed — suppose — by some plain-minded person, for 
 
 consuming the means of other people's living. " Nay," says Dick to the 
 plain-minded person, "observe how beneflcently and pleasantly I spend 
 whatever I get !" 
 
 " Yes, Dick," persists the plain-minded person, " but how do you get 
 it ?" 
 
 " The question," says Dick, " is insidious and irrelevant." — Ruskin. 
 
 One sack sufiiced each farmer, 
 Well used to frugal fare ; 
 
 But the lord waxed fat, 
 
 And, spite of that, 
 Might not consume his share. 
 
 Then spake that noble landlord, 
 " My capital is large. 
 And I'll spend a hunk 
 On a menial flunk'. 
 To flunkey at my charge." 
 
 — The Clarion. 
 This woman, ambitious and vain, thinks to enhance her own value by 
 loading herself with gold, with precious stones, and a thousand other 
 adornments. In order to deck her in braver array the whole nation 
 exhausts itself ; the arts groan and sweat in the laborious service ; the 
 whole range of industry wears itself out. — Bossuet. 
 
 There is no country in which the whole annual produce is employed 
 in maintaining the industrious. The idle everywhere consume a great 
 part of it ; and according to the different proportions in which it is 
 annually divided betv/een these two different orders of people, its ordinary 
 or average value must either annually increase or diminish, or continue 
 tlic same from one year to another. . . . — Adam Smith. 
 
 In this chapter I shall deal with the subject of luxury, 
 and shall endeavour to make clear to you the fact that the 
 luxury of the rich is a direct cause of the misery of the 
 poor. •- 
 
 It is very important; that you should understand this 
 matter, for it has been often and grossly confused by the 
 statements of foolish or dishonest men. 
 
 It was held for a long time that the rich man in spending 
 his money conferred a benefit upon the poor. 
 
 This error has long since been abandoned even by most 
 political economists, and is now only uttered by very ill- 
 informed or unintelligent people. 
 
 Amongst these is Ilis Grace the Duke of Argyll, who, 
 in a letter to ISIx. John Ogilvey, coolly says : —
 
 MERRIE ENGLAND. 173 
 
 But there are at least some things to be seen which are in the 
 nature of facts and not at all in the nature of speculation or mere 
 opinion. Amongst these some become clear from the mere clear- 
 ing up of the meaning of words such as "the unemployed." 
 Employment in this sense is the hiring of manual labour for the 
 supply of human wants. The more these icanfs are stimulated 
 and multiplied the moi-e icidespread tvill be the inducement to hire. 
 There/ore, all outcries and prejudices against the progress of 
 wealth and of what is called "luxury" are nothing but outcries of 
 prejudice against the very sources and fountains of all employment. 
 This conclusion is absolutely certain. 
 
 The italics are mine. The Diike seems to suppose that 
 the people can only live by hiring each other out to labour. 
 He reminds me of Edward Carpenter's Island, "Where the 
 inliabitants eked out a precarious living by taking in each 
 other's washing." The Duke is quite right in saying that 
 the more the wants of the rich are stimulated the more 
 employment there will be for the people. But as that can 
 only mean that the more the rich devour and waste the 
 harder the people will have to work, I fail to see that the 
 " interests" of the people lie in stimulating the idlers to 
 gi-eater gluttony and extravagance. The fact is His Grace, 
 like Master Turpin in John Kuskin's dialogue, quoted at 
 the head of this chapter, has omitted to explain how the ricJi 
 get Ihdr money, and from leliom they get it. 
 
 But the Duke of Argyll is not alone in his ignorance. 
 The Press we have always with us, and from Pressmen, 
 Avriting for large daily papers, I quote three statements, 
 all false and all foolish. 
 
 The first is that " luxury of the rich finds usefid. employ- 
 ment for the poor," 
 
 The second that "the expenditure of the rich confers 
 upon the poor the two great blessings of work and wages, " 
 
 The third that "a rich man cannot spend his money 
 without finding employment for vast numbers of people 
 who without him must starve." 
 
 These statements, you will see, all amount to the same 
 thing. The intelligent Pressmen who uttered them sup- 
 posed that the rich man spent his own money, whereas he 
 really spends the money of other people; that he found 
 useful work for a number of men, whereas it is impossible 
 to find a man useful work in making useless things ; and 
 that the men employed by the rich must starve were it not
 
 174 MERRIE ENGLAND, 
 
 for his help, whereas if it were not for his hindrance they 
 would all be doing useful instead of useless work. 
 
 All the things made or used by man may be di^dded into 
 two classes, under the heads of necessaries and luxuries. 
 
 1 should include under the head of necessaries all those 
 things which are necessary to the highest form of human 
 life. «' 
 
 All those things v.-hich are not necessary to the highest 
 form of human life I should call luxuries, or superfluities. 
 
 For instance, I should call food, clothing, houses, fuel, 
 books, pictures, and musical instruments necessaries; and I 
 sliould call diamond ear-rings, race-horses, and broughams 
 luxuries. 
 
 Now, it is evident that all those things, whether luxuries 
 or necessaries, are made Ijy labour. Diamond rings, loaves 
 of bread, grand pianos and flat irons, do not grow on trees. 
 They must be made by the labour of the people, and it is 
 very clear that the more luxuries a people produce the 
 fewer necessaries they will produce. 
 
 If a community consists of ten thousand people, and if 
 nine thousand people are making -bread and one thousand 
 are making jewellery, it is evident that there will be more 
 bread than jewellery. 
 
 If in the same community nine thousand make jewellery 
 and only one thousand make bread, there will be more 
 jewellery than bread. 
 
 In the first case there will be food enough for all, though 
 •jewels be scarce. In the second case the people must 
 starve, although they wear diamond rings on all their 
 fingers. 
 
 in a well-ordered state no luxuries would be produced 
 until there were enough necessaries for all. 
 
 Kobinson Crusoe's first care was to secure food and 
 shelter. Had he neglected his goats and his raisins and 
 spent his time in making shell-boxes he M'ould have starved. 
 Under those circumstances he would have been a fool. 
 But what are we to call the delicate and refined ladies who 
 wear satit and pearls, while the people who earn them lack 
 bn^ad? . 
 
 Take a community of two men. They work upon a plot 
 of land and grow grain for food. By each working six 
 hours a day they produce enoufih food for both.
 
 MERRIE ENGLAND. 175 
 
 Now take one of those men away from the cultivation of 
 the land and set him to work for six hours a day at the 
 making of bead necklai-es. What happens? 
 
 This happens — that the man who is left upon the land 
 must now \A-ork twelve hours a day. Why? Because, 
 although his companion has ceased to grow grain he has 
 not ceased to eat bread. Therefore, the man who grows the 
 grain must now grow grain enough for two. That is to 
 say, that the more men are set to the making of luxuries, 
 the heavier will be the burden of the men who produce 
 necessaries. 
 
 But in this case, you see, the farmer does get some 
 return for his extra labour. That is to say, he gets half 
 the necldaces in exchange for half his grain; for there is no 
 rich man. 
 
 Suppose next a co}nmunity of three — one of whom is a 
 landlord, while the other two are farmers. 
 
 The landlord takes half the produce of the land in rent, 
 but does no work. AVhat happens? 
 
 We saw just now that tlie two workers could produce 
 enough grain in six hours 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, of which 
 the landlord will take two, leaving the workers each one. 
 Well, if it takcvS a man six hours to produce a day's keep 
 for one, it will take him twelve hours to produce a day's 
 keep for two. So that our two farmers must now work 
 twice as long as before. 
 
 But now the landlord has got twice as much grain as he 
 can eat. He therefore proceeds to sjfcnd it, and in spending 
 it he "finds useful employment" for one of the farmers. 
 That is to say, he takes away one of the farmers 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 find food for all three, and in return gets 
 nothing. 
 
 Consider this carefully. All men must cat, and here are 
 two men who do not produce food. To produce food for 
 one man takes one man six hours. To produce food for 
 three men takes one man eighteen houi's. The one man
 
 176 MERRIE ENGLAND. 
 
 left on the land has, therefore, to work three times as long, 
 or three times as hard as he did at first. In the case of 
 the two men we saw that the farmer did get his share of 
 the bead necklaces, but in the case of the three men the 
 farmer gets nothing. The luxuries produced by the man 
 taken from the land are enjoyed by the rich man. 
 
 The landlord takes from the farmer two-thirds of his 
 produce, and employs another man to help him to spend it. 
 
 We have here three classes : — 
 
 1. The landlord who does no work. 
 
 2. The landlord's servant who does work for the benefit 
 of the landlord. 
 
 3. The farmer who produces food for himself and the 
 other two. 
 
 ]S''ow, all the peoples of Europe, if not of the M'orld, are 
 divided into those three classes. 
 
 In my lecture on luxury I showed these things by 
 diagrams. We will use a diagram representing a com- 
 munity of ten men supporting a figure representing ten 
 men's food. Thus: — 
 
 TEN MEN'S FOOD. 
 
 All the men represented here by stars are employed in 
 making necessaries, and the figure they support is the 
 amount of their labour. 
 
 Now what I want you to clearly understand is that although 
 you take away one of those ten men and set him to other Avork 
 joo. do not take him away from the consumption of food. 
 lie has still to be fed, and he must be fed by the men who 
 produce food. Suppose, then, that we take away seven of 
 our ten men ; that we make one of them a Chief, and six of 
 them the Chief's servants, the figure will be left thus : 
 
 TEN MEN'S FOOD. 
 
 The burden is the same, ten men's foody but the bearers are 
 fewer.
 
 MERRIE ENGLAND. 177 
 
 C is a jeweller, and gets diamonds for B. Where does 
 B get the money to pay him? he gets the money from A. 
 It is clear, then, that A is keeping both B and 0. 
 
 Now we are told upon the authority of Mulhall and 
 GifPen — see !Fabian tract, "Pacts for Socialists," price one 
 penny — that the division of the national earnings is as 
 f oUows : — 
 
 Millions. 
 
 Rent 200 
 
 Interest 250 
 
 Salaries and profits of middle-class 350 
 
 Wages of workers 450 
 
 1,250 
 
 The population is about 36 millions. The annual 
 income about 1,250 million pounds. One-third of the 
 people take two-thirds of the wealth, and the other two- 
 thirds of the people take one-third of the wealth. 
 
 That is to say that 24 millions of workers produce 1,250 
 millions of wealth and give 800 millions of it to 12 millions 
 of idlers and non-producers. 
 
 This means that each worker works one-third of his time 
 for himself, and two-thirds of his time for other people. 
 
 This looks bad enough, but it is not the worst. Amongst 
 the 24 millions of the working-classes there are vast 
 numbers of non-producers. There are millions of children 
 and of women who produce nothing, and there must be 
 millions of male " workers" who are engaged in producing 
 superfluities. Canon Girdlestone, in his pamphlet, 
 "Society Classified," says: — 
 
 It has been shown (Iiy Alexander Wylie, in his "Labour, 
 Leisure, and Luxury") that, even if wo give a liberal extension 
 of meaning to the terms "necessaries" and "comforts" of life, so 
 largo a proportion as four-elevenths of the entire working popu- 
 lation of this country are engaged in producing what, in contra- 
 distinction to the above, must properly be classified as "luxuries," 
 i.e., commodities, &c., such as to healthy minds in healthy bodies 
 are the merest superfluities. And if, as probably is the case, 
 most of these embodiments of ,the "services" (or, as Dr. Thriiig 
 calls them, "the storcd-up life") of otliera are purchased by 
 "non-workers," and paid for in "money" only, the bad effect of 
 the transaction taken as a whole cannot bo trifling or contempt- 
 ible ! 
 
 I should very much like to see society classified. If it
 
 178 MERRIE ENGLAND. 
 
 were classified, and the number producing necessaries and 
 the number producing luxuries were clearly shown, I think 
 we should find that every adult male now engaged in pro- 
 ducing necessaries is supporting about twenty people. 
 
 My Lady Dedlock " finds useful employment" for Crispin, 
 the shoemaker. She employs him to make Court slippers 
 for her. Let us examine this transaction. 
 
 First, where does my lady get her money? She gets it 
 from her husband. Sir Leicester Dedlock, who gets it from 
 his tenant farmer, who gets it from the agricultural 
 labourer, Hodge. 
 
 Then she employs Crispin to make Court slippers, and 
 pays him with Hodge's money. 
 
 But if Crispin were not employed making shoes for my 
 Lady he would be making boots for Hodge, or for the 
 children of Hodge. 
 
 AYhereas, now, Hodge cannot buy boots because he has 
 no money, and he has no money because my Lady Dedlock 
 has taken it. 
 
 Or my lady orders a silk ball dress from Mrs. Mantilini. 
 Por this also she pays with money earned by Hodge, and 
 meanwhile what kind of an old rag is worn by Mrs. Hodge? 
 
 Again, as bearing on this question of my Lady Dedlock's 
 finding useful labour. I quote from a letter on the " Scarcity 
 of Dairymaids, " in the Fall Mall Gazette. Dairymaids are 
 wanted, and dairymaids cannot be found. Then again a 
 northern factor says in The North British Agriculturist that 
 he cannot get dairymaids — though he offers ^22 a year and 
 board. The writer in the Pall Mall asks : — 
 
 What would the "Special Commissioner" say about "Life in 
 our Villages" if the £10,000,000 we paid last year for foreign 
 butter, the £4,000,000 for cheese, the £4,000,000 for margarine, 
 and the £4,000,000 for eggs had been kept at home, giving 
 employment to thousands — tens and hundreds of thousands — of 
 our own countrymen and women, instead of foreigners? 
 
 Don't you think it would be an improvement if some of 
 the "usefully" employed domestic servants and milliners, 
 weavers, spinners, and flower girls in the pay of Lady 
 Dedlock were set to work to save the =£22,000,000 spent on 
 foreign dairy produce, because there are no hands here to 
 Droduce these needed things?
 
 MERRIE ENGLAND. 179 
 
 Let us try to get an idea of the cost of some of those 
 luxuries which the Duke of Argyll defends. 
 
 A couple of years back a lady was summoned to the County 
 Court for refusing to pay £90, a year's rent to a furrier 
 for the storage of her furs. The furs were valued at 
 £6,000. 
 
 To provide those furs a number of workers, including 
 trappers, hunters, curers, sailors, merchants, and shop-men 
 had been "employed." 
 
 Supposing that each of these people was paid at the rate 
 of £2 a week, that means : 
 
 The labour of one man at £2 a weeli for 3,000 weeks. 
 Which means that sixty years of working life had been 
 ■pent on the furs. Now, taking twentj^ years as the 
 average duration of a man's working life, we find that an 
 amount of time equal to the working lives of three men had 
 been lost to the nation for the sake of an idle woman's vanity. 
 We read, quite connnonly, that at Lady Smalltork's 
 reception the cut flowers used for decoration cost £1,000. 
 
 Estimate the average wages of all the people engaged in 
 growing and carrying the flowers at £1 a week, we find 
 that the sum reaches a thousand weeks, or twenty years, 
 that is the equivalent of the whole labour of a man's life 
 spent in finding flowers with which to decorate an idle 
 woman's room for one night. 
 
 Take a larger instance. There are mansions in England, 
 Ducal Mansions, which, in building and decoration, have 
 cost a quarter of a million. 
 
 Average the wages of all t he men engaged in the erection 
 and fitting of such a house at 30s. a week. We shall find 
 that the mansion has "found employment" for 160 men for 
 20 years. Now while those men were engaged on that 
 mansion they produced no necessaries for themselves. But 
 they consumed necessaries, and those necessaries were; pro- 
 duced by the same people who found the uuuiey for the 
 Duke to spend. That is to say that the builders were kept 
 by the producers of necessaries, and tbe producers of neces- 
 Baries were paid for the buildcn-s' keej) \sith money v.liich 
 they, the producers of necessaries, had earned for Um Duke. 
 
 The conclusion of this sum being that the producers of 
 necessaries had been compelled to support one hundred and
 
 180 MERRIE ENGLAND. 
 
 sixty men, and their wives and children, for twenty years ; 
 and for what? 
 
 That they might build one house for the occupation of one 
 idle man. 
 
 If this should meet the eye of His Grace the Duke of 
 Argyll, he will perhaps be able to see that he has made a 
 slight mistake in telling the woi'kers to stimulate the wants 
 of the rich. 
 
 There was once a wise man -who said tlie happiness of a 
 people consists not in the abundance of their riches, but in 
 the fewness of their wants. 
 
 His Grace of Argyll has found us a new reading. The 
 happiness of a people consists in the multitude of their 
 wants. 
 
 I should advise the people to devote all their labour to 
 satisfying their own wants ; not to stimulating the wants 
 of othei's. Men cannot exist upon wants; they exist upon 
 food. And it is simple enough, even for a Duke to see, 
 that the more wants a people have the harder will they have 
 to work to supply them. And when one class cultivates 
 the wants and the other class labours to satisfy them, 
 why ? 
 
 What a lot of foggy thinkers there ai'e in the world to be 
 sure. Just look for a moment at this pamphlet. It is 
 called "The Tunctions of Wealth," and is by W. H. 
 Mallock. Here is a pretty sentence : — 
 
 That wealth, which is envied by so many, and which is looked 
 upon doubtfully by so many more, hO far from being the cause of 
 want amongst thousands, is at this moment the cause of the non- 
 starvation of millions. 
 
 Which means that it is the rich idlers who keep the 
 working poor, and not the working poor who keep the idle 
 rich. 
 
 Mr. Mallock, in another place — he is explaining that it 
 is an error to think one man's wealth is another's want — 
 says :— 
 
 I^ct us take, for instance, a lai'go and beautiful cabinet, for 
 which a rich man of taste pays two thousand pounds. The 
 cabinet is of value to him, for reasons which we will consider 
 presently ; as possessed by him it constitutes a portion of hia 
 wealth. But how could such a piece of wealth be distributed? 
 Not only is it incapable of physical partition and distribution,
 
 MERRIE ENGLAND. 181 
 
 but, if taken from the rich man and given to the poor man, the 
 latter is not tlio least cniiched by it. Put a priceless buhl cabinet 
 into an Irish laboui'( r's etittage, and it will prolialily only add to 
 his di.scom forts ; or, il' he finds it useful, it will only Ije beeause 
 he keeps his pigs in it. A pictui-e by Titian, again, may be 
 worth thousands, but it is worth thousands only to tbe man who 
 can enjoy it. 
 
 Xow, isn't lliat a precious piece of nonsense? There 
 are two things to bo said about that rich man's cabinet. 
 The first is that it was made by some workman who, if he 
 had not been so employed, might have been producing what 
 ivoidd be useful to the poor. So that the cabinet has cost 
 the poor something. The second is that a priceless buhl 
 cabinet can be divided. Of course, it would be folly to 
 hack it into shavings and serve them out amongst the mob ; 
 but if that cabinet is a thing of beauty and worth the 
 seeing, it ought to be taken from the rich benefactor, whose 
 benefaction consists in his having plundered it from the 
 poor, and it ought to be put into a public museum where 
 thousands could 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 this is one of the rich man's 
 greatest crimes — that he keeps hoarded up in his 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 in money, 
 but in labour. Every glass of wine drunk by my lord, and 
 every diamond star worn by my lady, has to be paid for 
 with the sweat and the tears of the poorest of our peo]>le. 
 I believe it is a literal fact that many of the artificial 
 flowers worn at court, are actually stained with the tears of 
 the famished and exhausted girls who make them. 
 
 It is often asserted that the Capitalist is as necessary to 
 the Labourer as the Labourer is to the Capitalist, and we 
 are asked, therefore, 
 
 How are we going to do without the Capitalist? 
 
 This question is based upon a confusion of thought as to 
 the meanings of the two terms, Capital and Capitalist. 
 
 The Pope in his Encyclical falls into this muddle. He 
 states the Labour Question as "The problem of how to 
 adjust the respective claims of capital and labour." 
 
 But to talk about the respective claims of capital and
 
 182 MERRTE ENGLAND. 
 
 labour is as absurd as to talk about the respective claims of 
 coal and colliers, or engines and engine-drivers. 
 
 There is a vast difference between capital and the capi- 
 talist. Capital is necessary ; but capitalists are not necessary. 
 
 What do we mean by the word capital? There are many 
 definitions of the word. But it will suffice for us to say 
 that capital means the material used in the production and 
 distribution of wealth. That is to say, under the terra 
 capital we include land, factories, canals, railways, 
 machinery, and money. 
 
 But the capitalist is not capital. He is the person who 
 owns capital. He is the person who lends capital. He is 
 the person who charges interest for the use of capital. 
 
 This " capital" which he lends at usury ! He did not 
 produce it. He does not use it. He only charges for it. 
 
 Who did produce the capital? All capital is produced 
 by labour. Who does use the capital? Capital cannot be 
 used except by laboui*. 
 
 To say that we could not work without capital is as true 
 as to say that we could not mow without a scythe. To say 
 that we could not work without a capitalist is as false as to 
 say that we could not mow a meadow unless all the scythes 
 belonged to one man. Nay, it is as false as to say that we 
 could not mow unless all the scythes belonged to one man 
 and he took a third of the harvest as payment for the loan- 
 of them. 
 
 Instances. There is valuable capital in the British Tele- 
 graphs; but there is no capitalist. The telegraph is a 
 Socialistic institution. The State draws the revenues /rom 
 the people, and the State administers the work. In our 
 State Departments, the Municipal Departments, there is 
 much capital, but there are no capitalists. The manager of 
 a mine is necessary, the owner of a mine is not necessary; 
 the captain of a ship is useful, the owner of a ship is 
 useless. 
 
 These are undeniable pvo/s, as are the roads we walk on, 
 and the lamps that light our way, that "capital" and 
 " capitalist" are noi convertible terms. 
 
 Mr. Hart, in his pamphlet of Constitutional Socialism, 
 puts the case against the capitalist very clearly. He 
 eajs: —
 
 MERRIE ENGLAND. 183 
 
 The practicability of Socialism can nevertheless be demonstrated 
 by the present practical working of huge institutions in commerce, 
 industry, and agriculture, which are gradually ruining manj 
 smaller ones. These enterprises derive their capital cither from 
 a gigantic capitalist or from a lot of shareholders, who know 
 nothing about the business themselves, and who simply pay 
 managers and clerks or manual workers to do the work for them. 
 Now, whether there are 8,000 of these shareholders in a countiy, 
 or 80,000, or 8,000,000, that does not affect the question, Avhich 
 is : Can shareholders find managers to produce, transport, and 
 Bell wealth for them ? Ansv/er : Yea, as it is being done at 
 present. 
 
 Moreover, if it is practical for these managers and their depen- 
 dents to conduct business in a state of competition, with the risk 
 of being ruined by the intrigues or inventions of their rivals, a 
 fortiori would it bo practical for such managers and dependents 
 to conduct business when this risk no longer existed, and when 
 they had simply to produce a certain number of goods, according 
 to the demand, and then to transport these goods to shops or 
 stores for sale? 
 
 And so much for the question of how can Labour dispense 
 with Capitalists. 
 
 One more question, and I may conclude this chapter : — 
 
 Will not the spread of Socialistic ideas tend to alarm 
 the capitalist, and so cause him to take his 
 capital out of the countiy? 
 
 Take his capital out of the country ! He might take 
 himself out of the country, and he would doubtless take 
 all the portable property he could carry. But the country 
 could bear the loss. Let me quote once more from John 
 Stuart Mill :— 
 
 When men talk of the ancient wealth of a country, of riches 
 inherited from ancestors, and similar expressions, the idea 
 suggested is, that the riches so transmitted were produced long 
 ago, at the time when they are said to have been first acquired, 
 and that no portion of the capital of a country was produced this 
 year except so much as may have been this year ad4ed to the 
 total amount. The fact is far otherwise. 
 
 The greater part in value of the wealth now existing in England 
 has been produced by human hands within the last twelve months, 
 A very small proportion indeed of that large aggregate was in 
 existence ten years ago ; of the present productive capital of the 
 country scarcely any part, except farm houses and factories, and 
 a few ships and machines, and oven these would not in most 
 cases have survived so long, if fresh labour had not been employed 
 within that period in putting them into repair.
 
 184 MERRIE ENGLAND. 
 
 The land subsists, and the land is almost the only thing that 
 Bn1)sists. Everything which is produced perishes, and most 
 things very quickly. 
 
 Capital ia kept in existence from age to age, not^by preserva- 
 tion, but by perpetual reproduction. 
 
 This threat about the capitalist taking his capital out of 
 the country" is a common one. It is always used when 
 workmen strike against a reduction of wages. Tt was used 
 during the cotton strike, and during the coal strike. 
 
 Now just fancy the millowners and the coalowners taking 
 their capital out of the country. They might take some of 
 their machinery; they could not take their mills, nor their 
 mines. The threat is nonsense. 
 
 Imagine the landlords and capitalists, the shareholders 
 and dividend-mongers, marching off with the farms, and 
 fields, and streets ; the mills and mines ; the railways and 
 quarries and canals. 
 
 No : let the capitalist go when he will ; he must leave 
 England and the English behind him, and they will suffice 
 for each other. It is the capitalist who keeps them apart, 
 paralysing both, and helping neither. 
 
 A more idiotic assumption was never made than this 
 assumption that the wasting of wealth by the idle rich is a 
 good tiling for the laboifring poor. Eollow it out to its 
 logical conclusion, John Smith, and assure yourself that 
 the drunkard is a benefactor to the workers because he finds 
 much " useful employment" for the coopers, hop-growers, 
 maltsters and others who are doomed to waste their time 
 in the production of the drink which slakes his swinisih 
 thirst.
 
 MERRIE ENGLAND. 185 
 
 CHAPTEK XXIV. 
 
 Minor Qukstions. 
 
 Two ship-captains were wrangling together, when Captain A twitted 
 Captain B with starving his crew. 
 
 •' Come," retorted B, " yours is a proper ship, indeed. Why, I hear 
 that the forecastle mess bad no mustard." 
 
 " Granted," replied A, " and I wish we may get some in time. But do 
 not let that drive out of your mind the fact that your sailors have no 
 beef." 
 
 Moral : He who would remove the mote from his neighbour's eye, 
 should first pluck the beam from his own. — Clarion Fable. 
 
 In this chapter I propose to answer a few of those ques- 
 tions which are so often put to Socialist writers and 
 lecturers. 
 
 1. Under Socialism : What will you do with your 
 loafers? 
 
 Before I answer this qestion allow me to offer a few hints 
 to young Socialists. The opponents of Socialism appear to 
 suppose that if they can suggest any difficulty, however 
 trivial, which may arise in the working of our system, they 
 have disposed of the whole matter. Very many ardent but 
 inexperienced young Socialists fall into the error of trying 
 to prove that Socialism and Heaven are the same thing. 
 
 Both sides should remember that Socialism is not offered 
 as a perfect system of life, but only as very great improve- 
 ment upon the system under which we now live. 
 
 The question, then, is not whether Socialism is the best 
 thing man can conceive, but whether Socialism is better 
 than our present method of life. 
 
 Therefore, when a critic asks a young Socialist whether 
 a certain evil will exist under Socialism, let the Socialist 
 immediately ask his critic whether the same evil exists now. 
 
 So in the case of the loafer. Many over-confident, but 
 not very profound, critics, demand triumphantly, *' What 
 will you do with your loafers?" 
 
 To them I say, "What do you do with your loafers?" 
 
 The word loafer, I take it, means one who loafs or sponges 
 upon the earnings of other people. 
 
 A loafer, then, may be an idle tmmp without a shirt to 
 his back, or he may be an idle peer with a rent-roll of half 
 a million a yeai".
 
 186 MERRIE ENGLAND. 
 
 It is stated in one of the Pabian tracts — -"Facts for 
 Socialists" — that there are something like a million of 
 adult males in receipt of large incomes who never do any- 
 kind of work at all. 
 
 Under Socialism these men might continue idle ; but they 
 would certainly not continue rich, nor would they continue 
 to be known as "gentlemen." 
 
 But besides the millions of well-paid and well-fed loafers 
 who are at present supported upon the earnings of the 
 poor, there are now in this country immense numbei's of 
 paupers, beggars, tramps, and criminals, as well as a large 
 army of unemployed workers. 
 
 Now before I tell you what would be done with all these 
 people under Socialism, I must tell you what is done with 
 them now. 
 
 Do you suppose that society does not support these 
 loafers? But they live ; and what do they live on? 
 
 All wealth is won by labour, is it not? Then all the 
 tramps, thieves, paupers, and beggars live upon poor-rates, 
 plunder, alms, or prison allowances, and all these means of 
 su]iport are earned by the labour of the working poor. 
 
 But under your present system you not only feed and 
 house these loafers, but you go to the expense of masters, 
 matrons, doctors, warders, and police, all of whom have 
 to be fed and paid to wait upon or attend to the loafers. 
 
 Next, with regard to the unemployed. These people 
 exist; and they exist in enforced idleness, and at the 
 expense of those who work. 
 
 Note one or two facts. These people do nothing for 
 their own support, and many of them, through want and 
 shame, and forced idleness, become criminals or tramps. 
 
 This is not only a waste of wealth, and a \\aste of power, 
 it is also a most wicked and disgraceful waste of human 
 souls. 
 
 Now, let us see how things would work out under 
 Socialism. We will divide our loafers into two classes. 
 Those who could work and will not, and those who would 
 work and cannot. 
 
 So long as it is possible for a willing worker to be forced 
 into idleness, so long will there exist a reason for the 
 giving of alms.
 
 MERRIE ENGLAND. 187 
 
 Why do we relieve a tramp on the road, or a beg();ar in 
 the street? It is because we are never sure that the man 
 is a loafer; because we always fear that his p^iuury may be 
 due to misfortune, and not to idleness. ihit under 
 Socialism this doubt would disai)pear. Under" Socialism 
 there \\ould be work for all. Therefore, under Socialism 
 every man who was able to work would be able to live. 
 This fact being universally known, no able-bodied man could 
 exist without work. A beggar or a tramp would be inevit- 
 ably a loafer, and not a hand would be held out to help him. 
 
 The answer to the able-bodied beggar would be " If you 
 are hungry go and work." If the man refused to work he 
 must starve. 
 
 The answer, then, to the question of what Socialists 
 would do with the loafers is, that under Socialism we should 
 oblige the loafer to work or perish ; whereas, under present 
 conditions, we either make him into a "gentleman" or a 
 pauper, or a beggar, or a thief; in any one of which 
 capacities he is allowed to live in idleness upon the labour 
 of other men. 
 
 Tell me, is it not true of Merrie England to-day that 
 the idlest are the richest, and the most industrious the 
 poorest amongst the people? Well, I want you to remind 
 your critics of these things when they ask you what Socialists 
 will do with their loafers. 
 
 Let us take another question. 
 
 2. Under Socialism : Who will do the disagreeable 
 work? Who mill do the scavenging? 
 
 This queston is an old friend of mine, and I have come 
 to entertain for it a tender affection. I have seldom heai'd 
 an argument or read an adverse letter or speech against the 
 claims of justice in social matters, but our friend the 
 scavenger played a prominent part therein. Truly, this 
 scavenger is a most important person. Yet one would not 
 suppose that the whole cosmic scheme revolved on him as 
 on an axis ; one wovdd not imagine him to be the keystone 
 of European society — at least his appearance and his wages 
 would not justify such an assumption. But I begin to 
 believe that the fear of the scavenger is really the source 
 and fountain head, the life and blood and breath of all 
 conservatism. Good old scavenger. His ash-pan is the
 
 188 MERRIE ENGLAND. 
 
 bulwark of capitalism, and his besom the standard around 
 wliich rally the pride and the culture and the opulence of 
 Ptvitish society. And he never knew it; he does not know 
 it now. If he did he would strike for another penny a day. 
 
 We have heard a good deal of more or less clumsy ridicule 
 at the expense of the Socialist. We have heard learned and 
 practical men laugh them to scorn; we have seen their 
 claims and their desires and their theories held up to deri- 
 sion. But can any man imagine a sight juore contemptible 
 or more preposterous than that of a civilised and wealthy 
 nation coming to a halt in its march of progress for fear of 
 disturbing the minds of the scavengers? 
 
 Shades of Cromwell, of Langton, of Washington and of 
 Hampden ! Imagine the noble lord at the head of the 
 British Government aweing a truculent and Eadical Parlia- 
 ment into silence by thundering out the terrible menace, 
 "Touch the dustman, and you destroy the Empire." Yet, 
 when the noble lord talks about " tampering with the laws 
 of political economy," and "opening the floodgates of 
 anarchy," it is really the scavenger that is in his mind, 
 although the noble lord may not think so himself, noble 
 lords not being always very clear in their reasonings. For 
 just as Mrs. Partington sought to drive back the ocean with 
 a mop, so does the Conservative hope to drive back the sea 
 of progress with the scavenger's broom. 
 
 Por an answer to this question I must refer you back to 
 my chapter on Socialism and Slavery. But the whole 
 subject has, I find, been very clearly and ably dealt with by 
 Mrs. Besant in her excellent paper on " The Organisation 
 of Society" in the Pabian Essays. Mrs. Besant says : — 
 
 There are unpleasant and indispensable forms of labour which, 
 one would imagine, can atti-act none — mining, sewer-cleaning, &e. 
 These might be rendered attractive by making the hours of labour 
 in them much shorter than the normal working day of pleasanter 
 occupations. . . . 
 
 Further, much of the most disagreeable and laborious work 
 might be done by machinery, as it would be now if it were not 
 cheaper to exploit a helot class. When it became illegal to send 
 small boys up chimneys, chimneys did not cease to be awept ; a 
 machine was invented for sweeping them. 
 
 The same idea is expressed in Bellamy's "Looking 
 Backward. "
 
 MERRIE ENGLAND. 189 
 
 In the army the various duties are taken in turns. 
 Guard duty, piquet duty, and the numerous laborious or 
 unpleasant tasks known as " fatigue" are done by parties of 
 men told off for the purpose, and no man can escape his 
 share. 
 
 And how is this work done in Merrio England to-day? 
 Clearly we all recognise that scavenging is unpleasant work. 
 Clearly we all agree that no man would do it from choice. 
 But some men do it, and the inference is that they do it 
 on compulsion. They do it, and are made to work long 
 hours for low wages, and are despised for their pains. 
 
 This is gross tyranny and gi'oss injustice, but it is only 
 another example of the meanness, the selfishness, and the 
 dishonesty of those whom we falsely call the refined and 
 superior classes. It is amusing to hear that a man is " too 
 much of a gentleman" to empty his own ashpit, when the 
 truth is that he is not enough of a gentleman to refuse to 
 allow his fellow-citizen to empty it for him. Under Social- 
 ism snobbery will peflsh. And when snobbery is dead, 
 gentility will be ready for burial. 
 
 Another common question is: — 
 
 3. Under Socialism : Would the frugal workman 
 lose his house and savings? 
 
 Pirst, as to the savings, M. Eichter, in his foolish 
 pamphlet, "Pictures of the Future," makes the people revolt 
 because a Socialistic Government has nationalised their 
 savings. 
 
 Now, we will assume that such a thing happened, and 
 that the deposits in the banks were nationalised. Would 
 the frugal workman lose by that? I say he would not. 
 
 It is true that at present the frugal workman only gets 
 about one-third of his earnings. Under Socialism he would 
 get all his earnings. 
 
 But why does the frugal workman save? He saves against 
 a "rainy day." Because if he fall ill, or live to be old and 
 infirm, he will have to go to the \^orkhouse unless he lias 
 saved. 
 
 But under Socialism he need have no fear. i\o man 
 would be left destitute or heli)less in his old age. The sick 
 would be cared for, the widows and orphans would be 
 cherished and defended.
 
 190 MERRIE ENGLAND. 
 
 Tou know that many men now pay high premiums to 
 insurance companies. This is to provide for their widows 
 and children. Under Socialism the State would provide for 
 the widows and children. 
 
 That is to say that Socialism is the finest scheme of life 
 insurance ever yet devised. 
 
 Suppose you had hy dint of great care succeeded in saving 
 two or three hundred pounds. "Would you not cheerfully 
 pay that for a State promise of support for yourself when 
 old — of ample and honourable support — and of support and 
 education for your children after your death? 
 
 But I don't think it is at all likely that a Socialist State 
 would take the worker's savings. 
 
 And again I ask you to turn your attention to the present 
 system, under which everij worker is robbed of two-thirds of 
 all he earns. 
 
 Then as to the worker's cottage. Assuming that he has 
 bought it with his savings, and assuming that the State 
 nationalised it. "What then? A worliman now buys a 
 house that he and his children may be sure of a home. 
 
 Under Socialism every man would be sure of a home. 
 
 Once more consider our present system. A few men own 
 their own houses. But the great bulk of the people cannot 
 own a foot of land. 
 
 When I was in Ireland I visited some '* estates" upon the 
 Galtee Hills. I saw farms which had been made by the 
 "tenants." I saw places where the peasants had gone up 
 into the bleak hills, where the limestone blocks lay thick 
 and only a thin layer of sandy turf covered the rock, and 
 had spent twenty years in vuiking the land. They removed 
 the boulders, they dug soil in the valleys, and carried it up 
 the steeps in baskets ; they bought manure and lime and 
 they built their own hovels out of mud and stones. 
 
 And then the estate and houses were the property of the 
 landlord, and he raised their rents from 200 to 500 percent. 
 
 And we are asked \Ahcther Socialism would rob the frugal 
 worker of his home ! 
 
 It is strange that men should dttach importance to such 
 trivial points as these; but yet I believe that these small 
 errors are a great hindrance to the spread of Socialism. 
 
 Here is another di'oil question: —
 
 MERRIE ENGLAND. 191 
 
 4. Under Socialism: Who would get the salmon, 
 and w ho would get the red-herrings? 
 
 Let us follow the system 1 suggested, and reverse the 
 question. "Who gets the salmon and who gets the red- 
 herrings now? 
 
 Is it not true that the salmon and all other delicacies are 
 monopolised by the idle, while the coarse food falls to the 
 lot of the worker? 
 
 Perhaps under Socialism the salmon might be eaten by 
 those who catch it. At present it is not. 
 
 Or perhaps the dainties would be reserved for invalids 
 and old people, or for delicate women and children. 
 
 But certainly we should not see a lot of big, fat, strong 
 aldermen gorging turtle and champagne while frail girls 
 worked sixteen hours a day on a diet of crusts and coffee. 
 
 It is quite possible that even under Socialism there might 
 not be enough salmon and pineapple for all. But it is quite 
 certain that there would be enough bread and beef and tea 
 for all, which there certainly is not iioiv. 
 
 And so much for that question ; and, if you care to follow 
 it out more fully, I must refer you to ray answer to 
 Eichter's "Pictures of the Future." 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 Paid Agitatoes. 
 
 You will find, if yo\i tliink deeply of it, that the chief of all the curses 
 of this unhappy age is the universal gabble of its fools, and of the flocks 
 that follow them, rendering the quiet voices of the wise men of all past 
 time inaudible. — liuskin. 
 
 The capitalist Press, probably because they cannot con- 
 trov<;rt the theory of Socialism, are in the habit of abusing 
 Socialists. Socialist writers and Socialist speakers, and 
 very often Trade Union leaders, are commonly described as 
 "Paid Agitators;" and our Labour papcM's are charged with 
 "pandering to the worst passions of the mob," and with 
 "battening on the earnings of ignorant dupes." 
 
 This is pretty much the same kind of language as that 
 which the Press employed against John Bright, Ernest 
 Jones, C. S. Paruell, Charles Bradlaugh, and other
 
 192 MERRIE ENGLAND. 
 
 advanced reformers. It is the kind of language which 
 reformers expect from the Press, and also, I am sorry to 
 say, from the Church. It is the natural language of 
 shallow, or timid or interested people, who are startled by 
 the dreadful apparition of a new idea. 
 
 The agitator is not a nice man. He distur'bs the general 
 calm ; he shakes old and rotten institutions with a rude 
 hand ; he drags into the light of day some loathsome and 
 dangerous abuse which respectable rascality or cowardly 
 conservatism has carefully covered up and concealed under 
 a film of humbug. He tramples upon venerable shams ; he 
 injures old-established reputations; he bawls out shameful 
 truths from the house-tops ; he is fierce and noisy ; uses 
 strong language, and very often in his rage against wrong 
 or in the heat of his grief over unmerited suffering, he 
 mixes his own truth with error, and carries his righteous 
 denunciations to the point of injustice. The privileged 
 classes hate him ; tlie oppressed classes do not understand 
 him ; the lazy classes shun him as a pest. He finds himself 
 standing, like Ishmael, with every man's hand against him. 
 
 Oliver "Wendell Holmes compares the daM'ning of a new 
 idea to the turning over of a stone in a field. After 
 describing all the blind and wriggling creatures who live 
 beneath the stone, he says : — 
 
 But no sooner is the stone turned and the wholesome light of 
 day let in upon this compressed and blinded community of creep- 
 ing things, than all of them which enjoy the luxury of legs — and 
 some of them have a good many — rush round wildly, butting each 
 other and everything in their way, and end in a general stampede 
 for underground retreats from the region poisoned by sunshine. 
 . . . You never need think you can turn over any old false- 
 hood without a terrible squirming and scattering of the horrid 
 little population that dwells under it. 
 
 Every real thought on every real subject knocks the wind out 
 of somebody or other. As soon as his breath comes back he very 
 probably begins to expend it in hard words. These are the best 
 evidences a ;nan can have that he has said something it was time 
 to say. 
 
 But though the agitator is not a nice man, he is a useful 
 man. Tour pleasant, cultured, courteous, easy gentleman 
 is a nice man, but he is the unconscious upholder of all that 
 is bad, as well as of a little that is good.
 
 HERRI E ENGLAND. 193 
 
 There was a time when women Avere tortured for witch- 
 craft; when prisoners were tortured into the confession of 
 crimes of which they were innocent; when good men and 
 women were burnt alive for being unable to believe the 
 dogmas of other men's religion; when authors had theii 
 ears cut off for telling the truth; when English children 
 were worked to death in the factories; when starving 
 workmen were hanged for stealing a little food; when 
 boards of capitalists and landlords tixed the workers' wages ; 
 when Trade Unionism was conspiracy, and only rich men 
 had votes. Those days are gone; those crimes are im- 
 possible ; those wrongs are abolished. And for these changes 
 we have to thank the agitators. 
 
 The agitators, from Christ downwards, have been the salt 
 of the earth. It is only such as they who save society 
 from dry rot and putrefaction. 
 
 Then, again, there is the practical hard-headed man who 
 always comes forward to prove every new thing impossible. 
 We English have done many impossible things. Was it not 
 demonstrated to the general satisfaction of the hard-headed 
 ones that Stephenson could not make a train go twelve miles 
 an hour? Was it not proved that railways would exter- 
 minate horses? Was it not proved that the Atlantic cable 
 could not be laid? Was it not made manifest that the 
 Catholic Emancipation Acts, the Ballot Act, the Factory 
 Acts, and the Eepeal of the Corn Laws would plunge the 
 nation into Popery, and anarchy, and ruin? Yet all these 
 reforms were accomplished by little bands of agitators, in 
 the face of tremendous opposition, and in spite of yells of 
 execration, and virulent charges of " battening" and " incen- 
 diarism." To return to our own time. There were never 
 any men more virulently assailed than are the present leaders 
 of the Labour movement. The favourite lie is the charge 
 of charlatanism. The man who conducts a strilce or or- 
 ganises a trade union is alluded to by the Press as a " paid 
 agitator ;" the Labour paper is accused of " battening on the 
 earnings of ignorant dupes." 
 
 When a paper calls a man a paid agitator, what does the 
 charge imply? It implies that he is a liar and a rogue, who 
 is preaching what he knows to be false and preaching it for 
 the sake of making money. So when a writer is accused 
 
 G
 
 194 MERRIE ENGLAND. 
 
 of battening on the earnings of ignorant dupes, he 13 
 accused of wilfully gulling poor men for the sake of profit. 
 
 Such charges are uttered and reiterated with such 
 malicious persistence, that thousands of worthy people 
 have come to believe that the " paid agitator" has an easy 
 and lucrative trade, and that the Labour paper is rulling in 
 ill-gotten wealth as the result of its deliberate treachery 
 to the poor. 
 
 Now, I will simply confront the slanders with the facts. 
 
 If Labour leaders were dull and incapable men, who could 
 not hope to make money and position except as dema- 
 gogues ; if the work of the paid agitator were easy and 
 showed no signs of zeal and talent, if the " paid agitator" 
 and the Labour writer preached only to ignorant people, 
 if they preached doctrines which could not be maintained, 
 against the cleverest and best informed leaders of the parties 
 of privilege and plunder, if the salaries of the "paid 
 agitators" and the " Labour writers" were high and their 
 lives luxurious and easy, then there might be as much 
 ground to suspect the bond fides of these men as there now 
 is to suspect the bond fides of professional patriots, and of 
 pressmen, who are bound by the tenets of their agreements 
 always to prove Mr. Gladstone in the right, or al\\ays to 
 prove him in the wrong. 
 
 But if " paid agitators" and Labour writers are proved to be 
 men of industry and ability, who choose the thorny path 
 instead of the flowery one ; if their doctrines can withstand 
 successfully all the attacks of their enemies ; if they can be 
 shown to' be living sparely, working hard, and earning 
 very little, then it seems to me it will be unnecessary to 
 defend their honour against the furtive slanders of nameless 
 and incompetent writers who are well paid, and who do 
 sell their consciences in the open market and to the liighest 
 bidder. 
 
 It is a very effective picture, that of the paid agitator 
 feasting on champagne and turtle or of the Labour writer 
 driving his carriage along the Brighton promenade. But 
 it has the fault common to Press pictures — it is a He. 
 
 Let us begin with the paid agitator. Is the trade so 
 easy? Is it so well paid? Take John Burns. He is an 
 engineer. Being a good workman John Burns could earn
 
 MERRIE ENGLAND. 196 
 
 two pounds a week easily and not work more than fifty-five 
 hours. Now, I don't believe John has averaged two 
 pounds a week as a Labour leader; and his wages have not 
 been promptly paid; and I can remember an appeal for 
 subscriptions to raise his present income of one pound a 
 week, paid by the Dockers' Union, to two pounds; while 
 as far as work is concerned, his labour is endless and his 
 working hours are all the hours he can spare from sleep. 
 
 The first time I saw him was during the Glasgow strike. 
 He had made five long speeches that day. He was so 
 hoarse that I could hardly hear him speak. He looked 
 utterly fagged out, and at night he went to a second-rate 
 temperance hotel and had weak tea and bread and butter 
 for supper. This is not so fine a picture as the other; 
 but it is true. 
 
 A paid agitator gets hard work, low pay, ingratitude, 
 and vilification. He will be an old man before his time; 
 but a rich man never. 
 
 So much for the paid agitator. Now as to the Labour 
 papers. We are confronted with the assertion that we 
 batten on the earnings of misguided dupes. The men who 
 write for the party papers do not batten on the misguided 
 dupes. The rank and file of the political parties are not 
 dupes. 
 
 They are intelligent and discerning men. Tlie writers 
 on the party press are not hireling hacks. They are 
 honourable men. It is merely a coincidence that their 
 consciences always happen to fit in with the exigencies of 
 the Liberal or Tory situation. They are quite diifercnt 
 from the Labour writer. He "panders to the mob." ]Ie 
 battens on the foolish. He rolls in ill-gotten wealth. 
 
 Well, let some of the superior pressmen try it. Let 
 them seek out the "dupes" and go in for "battening." 
 They will find that the "dupe" does not yield much 
 "batten" to the square inch. They will very soon have 
 c^iuse to sing the song of the disappointed Pirate — 
 
 "We boiled Bill Jones in the iicgio-pot, 
 To see hov/ much fat Bill Jones ha.d got, 
 But there wasn't much fat upon Jones. 
 
 To prove that all Labour writers are hone-t and earnest 
 men may be difficult; but to prove that the British
 
 198 MERRIE ENGLAND. 
 
 workman is not in the habit of bestowing his money on 
 Labour leaders and Labour writers is quite easy. 
 
 Does the Labour journalist wallow in the wages of the 
 worker? JN'ot a wallow. 
 
 You leave that to the worker. He has money for beer, 
 he has money for betting, he has money for parsons, he 
 has money for missionaries, he has money for party 
 polities, but he does not like his champions and his servants 
 to get fat and lazy, and he takes precious good care they 
 dont. 
 
 Pi-oofs? Certainly. In bulk. No Labour paper ever yet 
 paid its way. No Socialistic paper ever paid its way. 
 There is not a single Labour leader nor a single Labour 
 writer in England to-day who is getting one-half the wages 
 he could earn if he turned his back on Socialism for ever, 
 and went in for making money. Not one. 
 
 Mr. Cuninghame Grraham is a Labour leader. I don't 
 suppose he ever made a five-pound note out of the cause. I 
 hnoif he has spent above a hundred five-poimd notes, besides 
 his time, in the cause. 
 
 Mr. de Mattos is a Fabian lecturer. He spends hia 
 whole time in lecturing on Socialism. He never gets a 
 penny of pay. 
 
 Mr. Charles Bradlaugh was literally crushed to death, 
 hilled by debts contracted in fighting the battles of the 
 democracy. The democracy let him die. 
 
 None Oi these men seem to have wallowed very deep in 
 the earnings of their " dupes. " But I hear that the Times 
 and the Telegraph pay their writers well. Comic Cuts and 
 the Police News are making fortunes. Messrs. Gladstone, 
 Goschen, Salisbury, aiid Balfour get a decent living as 
 politicians, and I have no doubt that Mr. Schnadhorst 
 receives a better salary than John Burns. 
 
 There is nothing pays an English paper better than racing 
 reports, betting tips, and prurient details of divorce trials. 
 A Socialist paper will not stoop to any of these dirty way» 
 of making money. 
 
 I commend these tacts to the dailies. They write article* 
 against gambling and print the tips, the betting and the 
 stock and share lists. They are honourable men. 
 
 If any of our readers have an idea that Socialism is a 
 paying trade, I hope they will do us the justice to abandon
 
 MERRIE ENGLAND. 197 
 
 that idea at once. Socialism is in its infancy as a cause. 
 Socialism is not popular. The Socialists are few in number. 
 Twenty years hence all this will be changed, and then the 
 dailies will discover that early Socialists, though crude 
 thinkers, were useful in preparing the public mind for the 
 great utterances of the press. In fact, we are preparing 
 the ground for the harvest which other men shall reap. So 
 mote it be. 
 
 The Pope calls the pioneers of Socialism, "crafty agi- 
 tators." That word crafty implies that these "agitators" 
 are seeking their own ends. 1 know many Socialists, and 
 many Socialistic leaders. I know none who can make 
 profit of it. Most of the leaders, such as Euskin, ^lorris, 
 Hyndman, Carpenter, Shaw, De Mattos, Annie Besant, 
 and Bland, would lose in money and position were Socialism 
 adopted now. 
 
 We Socialists don't complain about these things, but we 
 respectfully submit the evidence to the jury, and ask for a 
 verdict of acquittal on the charge of "Battening." "We 
 claim that we give our time and strength to the poor, and 
 that we get but little in return but suspicion, and envy, 
 and slander. God bless the poor, say I, and pity them. 
 They are hard task-masters, and as thankless as they are 
 foolish, but they cannot help it, poor creatures, and we 
 hope to do them good. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 Labour Eepresektation'. 
 
 The practice of modern Parliaments, with reporters sitting »mong 
 them, and twenty-seven millions, mostly fools, listening to them, fills me 
 with amazement. — Carlylf. 
 
 Being a practical man, John, you will naturally say to 
 me that having told you what I believe to be the true solu- 
 tion of the Social Problem, I ought to show some plan for 
 working that solution out. 
 
 I think that the best way to realise Socialism is — to 
 make Socialists. I have always maintained that if we can 
 once get the people to understand how much they are 
 wronged we may safely leave the remedy in their own 
 hands. I\Iy work is to teach Socialism, to get recruits for 
 the Socialist Army. I am not a general, but a recruiting
 
 198 MERRIE ENGLAND. 
 
 sergeant. The most useful thing you can do is to \o\n the 
 recruiting stalf yourself, and enlist as many volunteers as 
 possible. ' Give us a Socialistic people, and Socialism will 
 accomplish itself. 
 
 However, I may as well say a few words on the subject 
 of Labour representation. The old struggles have been for 
 political emancipation. The coming struggle will be for 
 industrial emancipation. We want England for the 
 English. We want the fruits of labour for those who pro- 
 duce them. This issue is not an issue between Liberals 
 and Tories, it is an issue between Labourers and Capitalists. 
 Neither of the Political Parties is of any use to the workers, 
 because both the Political Parties are paid, officered and led 
 by Capitalists whose interests are opposed to the interests 
 of the workers. The Socialist laughs at the pretended 
 friendship of Liberal and Tory leaders for the workers. 
 These Party Politicians do not in the least understand what 
 the rights, the interests, or the desires of the workers are ; 
 if they did understand they would oppose them implacably. 
 The demand of the Socialist is a demand for the nationali- 
 sation of the land and all other instruments of production 
 and distribution. The Party leaders will not hear of such 
 a thing. If you want to get an idea how utterly destitute 
 of sympathy with Labour the present House of Commons 
 is, just read the reports of the speeches made on the occa- 
 sion when Keir Hardie opposed the vote of congratulation 
 on the Eoyal marriage, or when he and other Labour 
 members raised the question of the employment of troops 
 at Hull ; or notice the attitude of the Party Press towards 
 Socialism, Trade L^nionism, Independent Labour Candi- 
 dates, and the leaders of strikes. It is a very common 
 thing to hear a Party Leader deprecate the increase of 
 "class representation." What does that mean? It means 
 Labour representation. But the " class " concerned in 
 Labour representation is the working class, a " class " of 
 some twenty-seven millions of people. Observe the calm 
 effrontery of this sneer at "class representation." The 
 twenty-seven millions of workers are not represented by 
 more than a dozen members. The other classes — the 
 landlords, the capitalists, the military, the law, the brewers, 
 and idle gentlemen — are represented by something like six
 
 MERRIE ENGLAND. 199 
 
 hundred and fifty members. This ia class representation 
 with a vengeance. 
 
 And, mind you, this disproportion exists not only in 
 Parliament, but in all county and municipal institutions. 
 llovv many working men are there on the County Councils, 
 the Boards of Guardians, the School Boards, and the Town 
 Councils? 
 
 The Capitalists, and their hangers-on, not only make the 
 laws — they administer them. Is it any wonder, then, that 
 laws are made and administered in the interests of the 
 Capitalist? And does it not seem reasonable to suppose 
 that if the laws were made and administered by workers, 
 they would be made and administered to the advantage of 
 Labour? 
 
 Well, my advice to you working men is to return working 
 men representatives, with deanite and imperative instruc- 
 tions, to Parliament and to all other governing bodies. 
 
 Some of the old Trade Unionists will tell you that there 
 is no need for Parliamentary interference in Labour matters. 
 The Socialist does not ask for "Parliamentary interference," 
 he asks for Government by the people and for the people. 
 
 The older unionists think that Trade L^nionism is strong 
 enough in itself to secure the rights of the worker. This 
 is a great iinstake. The rights of the worker are the whole 
 of the produce of his labour. Trade Unionism not only 
 cannot secure that, but has never even tried to secure that. 
 The most that Trade L^nionism has secured, or can ever 
 hope to secure for the workers, is a comfortable subsistence 
 wage. They have not always secured even that much, and, 
 when they have secured it, the cost has been serious. For 
 the great weapon of Unionism is a strike, and a strike is 
 at best a bitter, a painful, and a costly thing. 
 
 Do not think that 1 am opposed to Trade Unionism. 
 It is a good thing ; it has long been the only defence of the 
 workers against robbery and oppression ; were it not for 
 the Trade Unionism of the past and of the present, the 
 condition of the British industrial classes would be one of 
 abject slavery. But Trade Unionism, although some 
 defence, is not sufficient defence. 
 
 You must remember, also, that the employers have copied 
 the methods of Trade Unionism. They also have oro-anis. d 
 and united, and in the future strikes will be more terribi-j
 
 200 MERRIE ENGLAND. 
 
 and more costly than ever. The Capitali.st is the stronger. 
 He holds the better strategic position. He can always out- 
 last the worker, for the worker has to starve and see his 
 childi'en starve, and the Capitalist never gets to that pass. 
 Besides, capital is more mobile than labour. A stroke of the 
 pen will divert wealth and trade from one end of the country 
 to the other; but the workers cannot move their forces 
 so readily. 
 
 One difference between Socialism and Trade Unionism 
 is that whereas the Unions can only marshal and arm the 
 workers for a desperate trial of endurance. Socialism can 
 get rid of the Capitalist altogether. The former helps you 
 to resist the enemy, the latter destroys him. 
 I suggest to you, John, that you should join a Socialist 
 Society and help to get others to join, and that you should 
 send Socialist workers to sit upon all representative bodies. 
 
 The Socialist tells you that you are men, with men's 
 rights, and with men's capacities for all that is good and 
 great — and you hoot him and call him a liar and a fool. 
 
 The Politician despises you, declares that all your 
 sufferings are due to your own vices, that you are incapable 
 of managing your own affairs, and that if you were entrusted 
 with freedom and the use of the wealth you create you would 
 degenerate into a lawless mob of di'uuken loafers, and you 
 cheer him until you are hoarse. 
 
 The Politician tells you that his party is the people's party, 
 and that he is the man to defend your interests, and in spite 
 of all you know of his conduct in the past you believe him. 
 
 The Socialist begs you to form a party of your own, and 
 to do your work yourself, and you write him down a knave. 
 
 To be a Trade Unionist and fight for your class during 
 a strike, and to be a Tory or a Liberal and fight against 
 your class at an election is folly. During a strike there 
 are no Tories or Liberals amongst the strikers ; 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 of them are friends of the workers. During a strike 
 there are no Tories and no Liberals amongst the employers. 
 They are all Capitalists and enemies of the workers. Is 
 there any logic in you, John Smith? Is there any percep- 
 tion in you? Is there any sense in you?
 
 MERRIE ENGLAND. 201 
 
 You never elect an employer as president of a Trades 
 Council ; or as chairman of a Trade Union Congress ; or as 
 member of a Trade Union. You never ask an employer to 
 lead you during a strike. But at election times, when ycu 
 ought to stand by your class, the whole body of Trade Union 
 workers turn into black-legs, and fight for the Capitalist 
 and against the workers. 
 
 I know that many of these Party Politicians are very 
 plausible men, and that they protest very eloquently that 
 their party really means to do well for the workers. But 
 to those protests there is one unanswerable reply. Even 
 if these men are as honest and as zealous as they pretend 
 to be, I suppose you are not gullible enough to believe that 
 they will do your work as well as you can do it yourselves. 
 
 I say to you then, once more, John Smith, that the most 
 practical thing you can do is to erase the words Liberal and 
 Tory from your vocabulary, write Socialist in the place and 
 resolve that henceforward you will elect only Labour 
 Kepresentatives, and see tlmt they do their duty. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVn. 
 Is IT NorniiJG TO YoTJ? 
 
 If you fail in your duty to men, how can you serve spirits ? 
 
 He who renovates the people reaches the borders of extreme virtue. 
 
 To know what is just, and not to practise it, is cowardice. 
 
 — Confucius. 
 Gold is worth but gold : love's worth love. — Swinburne. 
 
 Oh my brother, if you only knew 
 
 What to me in these things is understood. 
 
 As it seems to me it would seem to you. 
 What was good for the Cause was surely good. 
 
 — Francis Adams. 
 
 When I began these letters, Mr. Smith, 1 promised to 
 put the case for Socialism before you as clearly and as 
 plainly as I could, asking you in return to render a verdict 
 in accordance with the evidence. 
 
 I have now done the work as well as I could under the 
 circumstances ; and 1 leave the matter in your hands. 
 
 " Merrie England" is not as lucid, nor as strong, nor as 
 complete as I hoped to make it, but it may serve to suggest 
 the wisdom of wider studies. 
 
 A good work of this kind has long been needed. I have 
 not had time, nor health, nor opportunity to do it
 
 202 MERRIE ENGLAND. 
 
 thoroughly, but I thought it better to do it as well as I 
 could than to wait until I could take a whole year in which 
 to do it more thoroughly. 
 
 Perhaps some day I will set to work and do it all over 
 again. Meanwhile I ask you to believe that there is a 
 great deal more to be said for Socialism than these papers of 
 mine contain, and I suggest to you that it would be well to 
 read the books I have recommended; firstly, because know- 
 ledge is always valuable, and secondly, because it is your 
 duty as a man and a citizen to understand the society you 
 live in, and to mend it if you can. 
 
 There are very many well-meaning people who, whilst 
 owning that much wrong and misery exist, deny their own 
 responsibility for any part of them. 
 
 Very commonly we hear men say, '* Tes, it is a pity that 
 things are so bad ; but it is no fault of ours, and nothing 
 we can do will mend them. " 
 
 Now, John, that is a cowardly and dishonest excuse. It 
 is the old plea of Cain, "Am I my brother's keeper?" No 
 one can shirk his responsibility. We are none of us 
 guiltless when wrong is done. "We are all responsible in 
 some degree for every crime and sin, and for every grief and 
 shame for which or by which our fellow-creatures suifer. 
 
 If for instance, the filthy condition of the Salford Docks 
 should cause sickness and loss of life, every citizen from 
 the highest to the lowest would be responsible for the wrong. 
 
 When injustice is done it avails not for a man to plead 
 that he cannot prevent it. The fact is he has not tried to 
 prevent it, and therein lies his sin. 
 
 The average citizen sees the slums and the sweaters; he 
 gees the wretched and the destitute ; he knows that the 
 weak and innocent are systematically robbed and slain; 
 and his one excuse is that he "cannot help it." Now, 
 John, I ask you, have you fried to help it ; or have you only 
 lied to yourself by saying no help was possible? 
 
 Your duty, it seems to me, is clear enough. First of all 
 having seen that misery and wrong exist, it is your duty to 
 find out ichy they exist. Having found out why they exist 
 it is your duty to seek for means to abolish them. Having 
 found out the means to abolish them, it is your duty to 
 apply these means, or, if you have not yourself the power, 
 it is your duty to persuade others to help you.
 
 MERRIE ENGLAND. 203 
 
 Do your duty, John. Do not lie to your soul any more. 
 Long have you known that injustice and misery are rife 
 amongst the people. It you have not acted upon the 
 knowledge it is no* l»ecause you knew it to be useless so to 
 act, but because you were lazy and preferred your ease, or 
 because you were selfish and feared to lose your own ad\ an- 
 tage, or because you were heartless and did not really feel 
 any pang at sight of the sufferings of others. 
 
 Let us have the truth, John, howsoever painful it may be; 
 let us have justice, no matter what the cost. 
 
 Go out into the streets of any big English town, and use 
 your eyes, John. What do you find? Tou find some rich 
 and idle, wasting unearned wealth to their own shame and 
 injury, and the shame and injury of others. Tou find 
 hard-working people packed away in vile unhealthy streets. 
 Tou find little children famished, dirty, and half naked 
 outside the luxurious clubs, shops, hotels, and theatres. 
 Tou find men and women overworked and underpaid. Tou 
 find vice and want and disease cheek by jowl with religion 
 and culture and wealth. Tou find the usurer, the gambler, 
 the fop, the finnikin fine lady, and you find the starveling, 
 the slave, the vagrant, the drunkard, and the harlot. 
 
 Is it nothing to you, John Smith? Are you a citizen? Are 
 you a man? And will not strike a blow for the right nor lift a 
 hand to save the fallen, nor make the smallest sacrifice for the 
 sake of your brothers and your sisters ! John, I am not trying 
 to work upon your feelings. This is not rhetoric, it is hard 
 fact. Throughout these letters I have tried to be plain and 
 practical, and moderate. I have never so much as offered 
 you a glimpse of the higher regions of thought. I have 
 suffered no hint of idealism to escape me. I have kept as 
 close to the earth as I could. I am only now talking 
 street talk about the common sights of the common town. 
 1 say that \\Tong and sorrow are here crushing the life out 
 of our brothers and sisters. I say that you in common 
 with all men, are responsible for the things that are. I 
 say that it is your duty to seek the remedy; and I say that 
 if you seek it you will find it. 
 
 These common sights of the common streets, John, are 
 very terrible to me. To a man of a nervous temperament, at 
 once thoughtful and imaginative, those sights must be 
 terrible. The prostitute under the lamps, the baby beggar
 
 204 MERRIE ENGLAND. 
 
 in the gutter, the broken pauper in his livery of shame, 
 the weary worker stifling in his fihhy slums, the wage slave 
 toiling at his task, the sweater's victim " sewing at once, 
 with a double thread, a shroud as well as a shirt," these are 
 dreadful, ghastly, shameful facts which long since seared 
 themselves upon my heart. 
 
 All this sin, all this wretchedness, all this pain, in spite of 
 the smiling fields and the laughing -^^aters, under the awful 
 and unsullied sky. And no remedy ! 
 
 These things I saw, and I knew that I was responsible as 
 a man. Then I tried to find out the causes of the wrong 
 and the remedy therefor. It has taken me some years, 
 John. But I think I understand it now, and I want you 
 to understand it, and to help in your turn to teach the 
 truth to others. 
 
 Sometimes while I have been writing these letters I have 
 felt very bitter and very angry. More than once I have 
 thought that when I had got through the work I would ease 
 my heart with a few lines of irony or invective. But I 
 have thought better of it. Looking back now I remember 
 my own weakness, folly, cowardice. I have no heart to 
 scorn or censure other men. Charity, John, mercy, John, 
 humility, John. "We are poor creatures, all of us. 
 
 So here is "Merrie England;" the earnest though weak 
 effort of this poor clod of wayward marl, this little pinch 
 of valiant dust. If it does good — well; if not — well. I 
 will try again. 
 
 Also, some day, perhaps, I will talk to you not as a 
 practical man, but as a human being. I will ask you to feel 
 with me the pulsing of the universal heart, to see with me 
 the awful eyes of the universal soul, gazing upward, dim 
 and blurred and weary, but full of a wistful yearning for 
 the unrevealed and unspeakable glory which men call God. 
 
 But these are " practical" letters, written with a practical 
 object, and addressed to practical people. They are here 
 republished as a book ; and as they have cost me some time 
 and trouble in the writing, I ask you, on your part, to give 
 a little time and trouble to the reading, and, further, if, 
 after that, you think them worth what they have cost you, 
 I shall be glad if you will help me by recommending them 
 to your friends,
 
 MERE IE ENGLAND. 205 
 
 jL.FiPJB^isriDi::E: 
 
 In case you should desire to go into these matters more 
 fullj, Mr. Smith, I recommend you to get Fabian Tract 
 No. 29, " AVhat to Head" (price threepence). I should 
 also advise you to read the following pamphlets, all of 
 which can be got for onc-and-sixpence : — 
 
 1. Facts for Socialists. Id. 
 
 2. Capital and Land. Id. 
 
 3. Society Classified. Id. 
 
 4. Simple Division. Id. 
 
 5. Mining Rents and Royalties. Id. 
 
 6. Wage, Labour, and Capital. 2d. 
 
 7. Usetul Work and Useless Toil. Id. 
 
 8. True and False Society. Id. 
 
 9. Rights of the AVorker According to Ruskin. Id. 
 10. The Living Wage. Id. 
 
 IL Socialism Made Plain. Id. 
 
 12. Milk and Postage Stamps. Id. 
 
 13. Constitutional Socialism. 3d. 
 
 14. The Pope's Socialism. Id. 
 
 15. The Socialist Catechism. Id. 
 
 I can also recommend the following books : — 
 
 1. The Child's Historj^ of England (Dickens). 2s. 6d. 
 
 2. Hard Times (Dickens). 2s. 6d. 
 
 3. The Snob Papers (Thackeray). Is. 
 
 4. England's Ideal (Carpenter j, 2s. 6d. 
 
 5. Whitman's Poems (Whitman). Is. 
 
 6. Past and Present (Carlyle). Is. 
 
 7. Latter-Day Pamphlets (Carlyle). Is. 
 
 8. Our Old Mobility (Erins). Is. 
 
 9. Unto This Last (Ruskin). 5s. 
 
 10. Industrial History of England (Gibbins). Ss. 
 
 11. Walden (Thoreau). Is. 6d. 
 
 12. The Fabian Essays (Fabian Society). 
 
 13. England for All (Ilyndman). 6d. 
 
 14. Ideal Commonwealths (Plato, More, Bacon, &c.). Is. 6d. 
 
 15. The Co-operative Commonwealth (Gronlund). 23. Cd. 
 
 16. Social Problems (H. George). Is. 
 
 17. Progress and Poverty (II. George). Is.
 
 MERRIE ENGLAND. 
 
 18. Signs of Change (Wm. Morris). 4s. 6d. 
 
 19. Civilisation — Its Cause and Cure (E. Carpenter). 2s. 6d. 
 
 20. News from Xowhere (Morris). ] s. 
 
 21. The Story of My Heart (Jefferies). 3s. 6d. 
 
 22. Dreams (Olive Schreiner), 2s. 6d. 
 
 23. Les Miserables (Victor Hugo). 2s. 
 
 The Labour Prophet, edited by John Trevor, is an excellent 
 monthly paper. The price is one penny. Of all Clarion 
 agents. 
 
 I recommend you to read the above works in the order in 
 which I have placed them, because I think that you wiU 
 then more fully enter into the spirit of " Merrie England," 
 and will better comprehend the peculiarities of that peculiar 
 paper the Clarion. 
 
 I should, however, like you to read many other books 
 besides those, and amongst them, Cobbett's Grammar, 
 "Whately's " Logic," Eliot's " Silas Marner,"' Emerson's 
 Essays, Dickens' "Tale of Two Cities" and "Christmas 
 Stories," and all the v.orks of Euskin (particularly " Eors 
 ■Clavigera") and Carlyle. There are also a few poems: 
 "Jenny," by Gr. D. Eossetti; "One among so Many" and 
 •" Aux Ternes," from "Songs of the Army of the Night," 
 by Erancis Adams ; " The Song of the Shirt,'" by Tom 
 Hood; "The Cry of the Children," by Mrs. Browning; and 
 '• The Fourth Psalm," by Milton. And if vou read, in 
 " Fantasias," " My Sister " and " Bogeyland," I should not 
 be offended. The fact is, John, I wish you to be a 
 Clarionette as well as a Socialist. 
 
 The above Pamphlets and Bo&Irs may be obtained from the "Clarion' 
 Nev/spaper Co , Ltd., 72, ITleet Street, London, E.G.
 
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