Ragged Trousered Philanthropists by Robert Tressell (read novel full TXT) 📖

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.

Well, we’ve got them all now, but the misery seems to go on all around

us all the same. Then there’s other people tells us as the `Friscal

Policy” is the thing to put everything right. (“Hear, hear” from

Crass and several others.) And then there’s another lot that ses that

Socialism is the only remedy. Well, we all know pretty well wot Free

Trade and Protection means, but most of us don’t know exactly what

Socialism means; and I say as it’s the dooty of every man to try and

find out which is the right thing to vote for, and when ‘e’s found it

out, to do wot ‘e can to ‘elp to bring it about. And that’s the

reason we’ve gorn to the enormous expense of engaging Professor

Barrington to come ‘ere this afternoon and tell us exactly what

Socialism is.

 

`‘As I ‘ope you’re all just as anxious to ‘ear it as I am myself, I

will not stand between you and the lecturer no longer, but will now

call upon ‘im to address you.’

 

Philpot was loudly applauded as he descended from the pulpit, and in

response to the clamorous demands of the crowd, Barrington, who in the

meantime had yielded to Owen’s entreaties that he would avail himself

of this opportunity of proclaiming the glad tidings of the good time

that is to be, got up on the steps in his turn.

 

Harlow, desiring that everything should be done decently and in order,

had meantime arranged in front of the pulpit a carpenter’s sawing

stool, and an empty pail with a small piece of board laid across it,

to serve as a seat and a table for the chairman. Over the table he

draped a large red handkerchief. At the right he placed a plumber’s

large hammer; at the left, a battered and much-chipped jam-jar, full

of tea. Philpot having taken his seat on the pail at this table and

announced his intention of bashing out with the hammer the brains of

any individual who ventured to disturb the meeting, Barrington

commenced:

 

`Mr Chairman and Gentlemen. For the sake of clearness, and in order

to avoid confusing one subject with another, I have decided to divide

the oration into two parts. First, I will try to explain as well as I

am able what Socialism is. I will try to describe to you the plan or

system upon which the Co-operative Commonwealth of the future will be

organized; and, secondly, I will try to tell you how it can be brought

about. But before proceeding with the first part of the subject, I

would like to refer very slightly to the widespread delusion that

Socialism is impossible because it means a complete change from an

order of things which has always existed. We constantly hear it said

that because there have always been rich and poor in the world, there

always must be. I want to point out to you first of all, that it is

not true that even in its essential features, the present system has

existed from all time; it is not true that there have always been rich

and poor in the world, in the sense that we understand riches and

poverty today.

 

`These statements are lies that have been invented for the purpose of

creating in us a feeling of resignation to the evils of our condition.

They are lies which have been fostered by those who imagine that it is

to their interest that we should be content to see our children

condemned to the same poverty and degradation that we have endured

ourselves.

 

I do not propose - because there is not time, although it is really

part of my subject - to go back to the beginnings of history, and

describe in detail the different systems of social organization which

evolved from and superseded each other at different periods, but it is

necessary to remind you that the changes that have taken place in the

past have been even greater than the change proposed by Socialists

today. The change from savagery and cannibalism when men used to

devour the captives they took in war - to the beginning of chattel

slavery, when the tribes or clans into which mankind were divided -

whose social organization was a kind of Communism, all the individuals

belonging to the tribe being practically social equals, members of one

great family - found it more profitable to keep their captives as

slaves than to eat them. The change from the primitive Communism of

the tribes, into the more individualistic organization of the nations,

and the development of private ownership of the land and slaves and

means of subsistence. The change from chattel slavery into Feudalism;

and the change from Feudalism into the earlier form of Capitalism; and

the equally great change from what might be called the individualistic

capitalism which displaced Feudalism, to the system of Co-operative

Capitalism and Wage Slavery of today.’

 

`I believe you must ‘ave swollered a bloody dictionary,’ exclaimed the

man behind the moat.

 

`Keep horder” shouted Philpot, fiercely, striking the table with the

hammer, and there were loud shouts of `Chair’ and `Chuck ‘im out,’

from several quarters.

 

When order was restored, the lecturer proceeded:

 

`So it is not true that practically the suite state of affairs as we

have today has always existed. It is not true that anything like the

poverty that prevails at present existed at any previous period of the

world’s history. When the workers were the property of their masters,

it was to their owners’ interest to see that they were properly

clothed and fed; they were not allowed to be idle, and they were not

allowed to starve. Under Feudalism also, although there were certain

intolerable circumstances, the position of the workers was,

economically, infinitely better than it is today. The worker was in

subjection to his Lord, but in return his lord had certain

responsibilities and duties to perform, and there was a large measure

of community of interest between them.

 

`I do not intend to dwell upon this pout at length, but in support of

what I have said I will quote as nearly as I can from memory the words

of the historian Froude.

 

`“I do not believe,” says Mr Froude, “that the condition of the people

in Mediaeval Europe was as miserable as is pretended. I do not

believe that the distribution of the necessaries of life was as

unequal as it is at present. If the tenant lived hard, the lord had

little luxury. Earls and countesses breakfasted at five in the

morning, on salt beef and herring, a slice of bread and a draught of

ale from a blackjack. Lords and servants dined in the same hall and

shared the same meal.”

 

`When we arrive at the system that displaced Feudalism, we find that

the condition of the workers was better in every way than it is at

present. The instruments of production - the primitive machinery and

the tools necessary for the creation of wealth - belonged to the

skilled workers who used them, and the things they produced were also

the property of those who made them.

 

`In those days a master painter, a master shoemaker, a master saddler,

or any other master tradesmen, was really a skilled artisan working on

his own account. He usually had one or two apprentices, who were

socially his equals, eating at the same table and associating with the

other members of his family. It was quite a common occurrence for the

apprentice - after he had attained proficiency in