`The Labour members is sent to the 'Ouse of Commons,' said Harlow, `and paid their wages to do certain work for the benefit of the working classes, just the same as we're sent 'ere and paid our wages by the Bloke to paint this 'ouse.'
`Yes,' said Crass; `but if we didn't do the work we're paid to do, we should bloody soon get the sack.'
Imperial Bankquet Hall `The Refuge'
on Thursday at 12.30 prompt Professor Barrington WILL DELIVER AORATION
ENTITLED
THE GREAT SECRET, OR
HOW TO LIVE WITHOUT WORK
The Rev.Joe Philpot PLO
(Late absconding secretary of the light refreshment fund)Will take the chair and anything else he can lay his hands on.
At The End Of The Lecture A MEETING WILL BEARRANGED
And carried out according to the Marquis of Queensbury's Rules.
A Collection will be took up in aid of the cost of printing `I can't see how we've got to keep the other members,' said Slyme;`they're mostly rich men, and they live on their own money.'
`Of course,' said Crass.`And I should like to know where we should be without 'em! Talk about us keepin' them! It seems to me more like it that they keeps us! The likes of us lives on rich people.Where should we be if it wasn't for all the money they spend and the work they 'as done? If the owner of this 'ouse 'adn't 'ad the money to spend to 'ave it done up, most of us would 'ave bin out of work this last six weeks, and starvin', the same as lots of others 'as been.'
`Oh yes, that's right enough,' agreed Bundy.`Labour is no good without Capital.Before any work can be done there's one thing necessary, and that's money.It would be easy to find work for all the unemployed if the local authorities could only raise the money.'
`Yes; that's quite true,' said Owen.`And that proves that money is the cause of poverty, because poverty consists in being short of the necessaries of life: the necessaries of life are all produced by labour applied to the raw materials: the raw materials exist in abundance and there are plenty of people able and willing to work; but under present conditions no work can be done without money; and so we have the spectacle of a great army of people compelled to stand idle and starve by the side of the raw materials from which their labour could produce abundance of all the things they need - they are rendered helpless by the power of Money! Those who possess all the money say that the necessaries of life shall not be produced except for their profit.'
`Yes! and you can't alter it,' said Crass, triumphantly.`It's always been like it, and it always will be like it.'
`'Ear! 'Ear!' shouted the man behind the moat.`There's always been rich and poor in the world, and there always will be.'
Several others expressed their enthusiastic agreement with Crass's opinion, and most of them appeared to be highly delighted to think that the existing state of affairs could never be altered.
`It hasn't always been like it, and it won't always be like it,' said Owen.`The time will come, and it's not very far distant, when the necessaries of life will be produced for use and not for profit.The time is coming when it will no longer be possible for a few selfish people to condemn thousands of men and women and little children to live in misery and die of want.'
`Ah well, it won't be in your time, or mine either,' said Crass gleefully, and most of the others laughed with imbecile satisfaction.
`I've 'eard a 'ell of a lot about this 'ere Socialism,' remarked the man behind the moat, `but up to now I've never met nobody wot could tell you plainly exactly wot it is.'
`Yes; that's what I should like to know too,' said Easton.
`Socialism mean "What's yours is mine, and what's mine's me own,"'
observed Bundy, and during the laughter that greeted this definition Slyme was heard to say that Socialism meant Materialism, Atheism and Free Love, and if it were ever to come about it would degrade men and women to the level of brute beasts.Harlow said Socialism was a beautiful ideal, which he for one would be very glad to see realized, and he was afraid it was altogether too good to be practical, because human nature is too mean and selfish.Sawkins said that Socialism was a lot of bloody rot, and Crass expressed the opinion - which he had culled from the delectable columns of the Obscurer - that it meant robbing the industries for the benefit of the idle and thriftless.
Philpot had by this time finished his bread and cheese, and, having taken a final draught of tea, he rose to his feet, and crossing over to the corner of the room, ascended the pulpit, being immediately greeted with a tremendous outburst of hooting, howling and booing, which he smilingly acknowledged by removing his cap from his bald head and bowing repeatedly.When the storm of shrieks, yells, groans and catcalls had in some degree subsided, and Philpot was able to make himself heard, he addressed the meeting as follows:
`Gentlemen: First of all I beg to thank you very sincerely for the magnificent and cordial reception you have given me on this occasion, and I shall try to deserve your good opinion by opening the meeting as briefly as possible.
`Putting all jokes aside, I think we're all agreed about one thing, and that is, that there's plenty of room for improvement in things in general.(Hear, hear.) As our other lecturer, Professor Owen, pointed out in one of 'is lectures and as most of you 'ave read in the newspapers, although British trade was never so good before as it is now, there was never so much misery and poverty, and so many people out of work, and so many small shopkeepers goin' up the spout as there is at this partickiler time.Now, some people tells us as the way to put everything right is to 'ave Free Trade and plenty of cheap food.