`Whether it can be altered or not, whether it's right or wrong, landlordism is one of the causes of poverty,' Owen repeated.`Poverty is not caused by men and women getting married; it's not caused by machinery; it's not caused by "over-production"; it's not caused by drink or laziness; and it's not caused by "over-population".It's caused by Private Monopoly.That is the present system.They have monopolized everything that it is possible to monopolize; they have got the whole earth, the minerals in the earth and the streams that water the earth.The only reason they have not monopolized the daylight and the air is that it is not possible to do it.If it were possible to construct huge gasometers and to draw together and compress within them the whole of the atmosphere, it would have been done long ago, and we should have been compelled to work for them in order to get money to buy air to breathe.And if that seemingly impossible thing were accomplished tomorrow, you would see thousands of people dying for want of air - or of the money to buy it - even as now thousands are dying for want of the other necessities of life.
You would see people going about gasping for breath, and telling each other that the likes of them could not expect to have air to breathe unless the had the money to pay for it.Most of you here, for instance, would think and say so.Even as you think at present that it's right for so few people to own the Earth, the Minerals and the Water, which are all just as necessary as is the air.In exactly the same spirit as you now say: "It's Their Land," "It's Their Water,""It's Their Coal," "It's Their Iron," so you would say "It's Their Air," "These are their gasometers, and what right have the likes of us to expect them to allow us to breathe for nothing?" And even while he is doing this the air monopolist will be preaching sermons on the Brotherhood of Man; he will be dispensing advice on "Christian Duty"in the Sunday magazines; he will give utterance to numerous more or less moral maxims for the guidance of the young.And meantime, all around, people will be dying for want of some of the air that he will have bottled up in his gasometers.And when you are all dragging out a miserable existence, gasping for breath or dying for want of air, if one of your number suggests smashing a hole in the side of one of th gasometers, you will all fall upon him in the name of law and order, and after doing your best to tear him limb from limb, you'll drag him, covered with blood, in triumph to the nearest Police Station and deliver him up to "justice" in the hope of being given a few half-pounds of air for your trouble.'
`I suppose you think the landlords ought to let people live in their 'ouses for nothing?' said Crass, breaking the silence that followed.
`Certainly,' remarked Harlow, pretending to be suddenly converted to Owen's views, `I reckon the landlord ought to pay the rent to the tenant!'
`Of course, Landlordism is not the only cause,' said Owen, ignoring these remarks.` The wonderful system fosters a great many others.
Employers of labour, for instance, are as great a cause of poverty as landlords are.'
This extraordinary statement was received with astonished silence.
`Do you mean to say that if I'm out of work and a master gives me a job, that 'e's doin' me a injury?' said Crass at length.
`No, of course not,' replied Owen.
`Well, what the bloody 'ell DO yer mean, then?'
`I mean this: supposing that the owner of a house wishes to have it repainted.What does he usually do?'
`As a rule, 'e goes to three or four master painters and asks 'em to give 'im a price for the job.'
`Yes; and those master painters are so eager to get the work that they cut the price down to what they think is the lowest possible point,'