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

Chapter 40

Vive la System!

 

The alterations which the Corporation had undertaken to make in the

Kiosk on the Grand Parade provided employment for several carpenters

and plasterers for about three weeks, and afterwards for several

painters. This fact was sufficient to secure the working men’s

unqualified approval of the action of the Council in letting the place

to Grinder, and Councillor Weakling’s opposition - the reasons of

which they did not take the trouble to inquire into or understand -

they as heartily condemned. All they knew or cared was that he had

tried to prevent the work being done, and that he had referred in

insulting terms to the working men of the town. What right had he to

call them half-starved, poverty-stricken, poor wretches? If it came

to being poverty-stricken, according to all accounts, he wasn’t any

too well orf hisself. Some of those blokes who went swaggering about

in frockcoats and pot-‘ats was just as ‘ard up as anyone else if the

truth was known.

 

As for the Corporation workmen, it was quite right that their wages

should be reduced. Why should they get more money than anyone else?

 

`It’s us what’s got to find the money,’ they said. `We’re the

ratepayers, and why should we have to pay them more wages than we get

ourselves? And why should they be paid for holidays any more than

us?’

 

During the next few weeks the dearth of employment continued, for, of

course, the work at the Kiosk and the few others jobs that were being

done did not make much difference to the general situation. Groups of

workmen stood at the corners or walked aimlessly about the streets.

Most of them no longer troubled to go to the different firms to ask

for work, they were usually told that they would be sent for if

wanted.

 

During this time Owen did his best to convert the other men to his

views. He had accumulated a little library of Socialist books and

pamphlets which he lent to those he hoped to influence. Some of them

took these books and promised, with the air of men who were conferring

a great favour, that they would read them. As a rule, when they

returned them it was with vague expressions of approval, but they

usually evinced a disinclination to discuss the contents in detail

because, in nine instances out of ten, they had not attempted to read

them. As for those who did make a half-hearted effort to do so, in

the majority of cases their minds were so rusty and stultified by long

years of disuse, that, although the pamphlets were generally written

in such simple language that a child might have understood, the

argument was generally too obscure to be grasped by men whose minds

were addled by the stories told them by their Liberal and Tory

masters. Some, when Owen offered to lend them some books or pamphlets

refused to accept them, and others who did him the great favour of

accepting them, afterwards boasted that they had used them as toilet

paper.

 

Owen frequently entered into long arguments with the other men, saying

that it was the duty of the State to provide productive work for all

those who were willing to do it. Some few of them listened like men

who only vaguely understood, but were willing to be convinced.

 

`Yes, mate. It’s right enough what you say,’ they would remark.

`Something ought to be done.’

 

Others ridiculed this doctrine of State employment: It was all very

fine, but where was the money to come from? And then those who had

been disposed to agree with Owen could relapse into their old apathy.

 

There were others who did not listen so quietly, but shouted with many

curses that it was the likes of such fellows as Owen who were

responsible for all the depression in trade. All this talk about

Socialism and State employment was frightening Capital out of the

country. Those who had money were afraid to invest it in industries,

or to have any work done for fear they would be robbed. When Owen

quoted statistics to prove that as far as commerce and the quantity

produced of commodities of all kinds was concerned, the last year had

been a record one, they became more infuriated than ever, and talked

threateningly of what they would like to do to those bloody Socialists

who were upsetting everything.

 

One day Crass, who was one of these upholders of the existing system,

scored off Owen finely. A little group of them were standing talking

in the Wage Slave Market near the Fountain. In the course of the

argument, Owen made the remark that under existing conditions life was

not worth living, and Crass said that if he really thought so, there

was no compulsion about it; if he wasn’t satisfied - if he didn’t want

to live - he could go and die. Why the hell didn’t he go and make a

hole in the water, or cut his bloody throat?

 

On this particular occasion the subject of the argument was - at first -

the recent increase of the Borough Engineer’s salary to seventeen

pounds per week. Owen had said it was robbery, but the majority of

the others expressed their approval of the increase. They asked Owen

if he expected a man like that to work for nothing! It was not as if

he were one of the likes of themselves. They said that, as for it

being robbery, Owen would be very glad to have the chance of getting

it himself. Most of them seemed to think the fact that anyone would

be glad to have seventeen pounds a week, proved that it was right for

them to pay that amount to the Borough Engineer!

 

Usually whenever Owen reflected upon the gross injustices, and

inhumanity of the existing social disorder, he became convinced that

it could not possibly last; it was bound to fall to pieces because of

its own rottenness. It was not just, it was not common sense, and

therefore it could not endure. But always after one of these

arguments - or, rather, disputes - with his fellow workmen, he almost

relapsed into hopelessness and despondency, for then he realized how

vast and how strong are the fortifications that surround the present

system; the great barriers and ramparts of invincible ignorance,

apathy and self-contempt, which will have to be broken down before the

system of society of which they are the defences, can be swept away.

 

At other times as he thought of this marvellous system, it presented

itself to him in such an aspect of almost comical absurdity that he

was forced to laugh and to wonder whether it really existed at all, or

if it were only an illusion of his own disordered mind.

 

One of the things that the human race needed in order to exist was

shelter; so with much painful labour they had constructed a large

number of houses. Thousands of these houses were now standing

unoccupied, while millions of the people who had helped to build the

houses were either homeless or herding together in overcrowded hovels.

 

These human beings had such a strange system of arranging their

affairs that if anyone were to go and burn down a lot of the houses he

would be conferring a great boon upon those who had built them,

because such an act would `Make a lot more work!’

 

Another very comical thing was that thousands of people wore broken

boots and ragged clothes, while millions of pairs of boots and

abundance of clothing, which they had helped to make, were locked up

in warehouses, and the System had the keys.

 

Thousands of people lacked the necessaries of life. The necessaries

of life are all produced by work. The people who lacked begged to be

allowed to work and create those things of which they stood in need.

But the System prevented them from so doing.

 

If anyone asked the System why it prevented these people from

producing the things of which they were in want, the System replied:

 

`Because they have already produced too much. The markets are

glutted. The warehouses are filled and overflowing, and there is

nothing more for them to do.’

 

There was in existence a huge accumulation of everything necessary. A

great number of the people whose labour had produced that vast store

were now living in want, but the System said that they could not be

permitted to partake of the things they had created. Then, after a

time, when these people, being reduced to the last extreme of misery,

cried out that they and their children were dying of hunger, the

System grudgingly unlocked the doors of the great warehouses, and

taking out a small part of the things that were stored within,

distributed it amongst the famished workers, at the same time

reminding them that it was Charity, because all the things in the

warehouses, although they had been made by the workers, were now the

property of the people who do nothing.

 

And then the starving, bootless, ragged, stupid wretches fell down and

worshipped the System, and offered up their children as living

sacrifices upon its altars, saying:

 

`This beautiful System is the only one possible, and the best that

human wisdom can devise. May the System live for ever! Cursed be

those who seek to destroy the System!’

 

As the absurdity of the thing forced itself upon him, Owen, in spite

of the unhappiness he felt at the sight of all the misery by which he

was surrounded, laughed aloud and said to himself that if he was sane,

then all these people must be mad.

 

In the face of such colossal imbecility it was absurd to hope for any

immediate improvement. The little already accomplished was the work

of a few self-sacrificing enthusiasts, battling against the opposition

of those they sought to benefit, and the results of their labours

were, in many instances, as pearls cast before the swine who stood

watching for opportunities to fall upon and rend their benefactors.

 

There was only one hope.