I have now finished, having said all that concerns myself; but I cannot
restrain my desire to say that which concerns every one, and to verify
my own deductions by several considerations.
I wish to explain why I think that a great many of my own class must
arrive where I myself am, and I must also speak of what will result if
even a few men arrive there; in the first place, if men of our circle,
our caste, will only seriously think the matter out themselves, the
younger generation, who seek their own personal happiness, will become
afraid of the ever-increasing misery of lives which obviously lead them
to ruin; scrupulous persons among us (if they would examine themselves
more closely) will be terrified at the cruelty and unlawfulness of their
own lives, and timid persons will be frightened at the danger of their
mode of life.
_The misery of our lives!_ However we, rich men, may try to mend and to
support, with the assistance of science and art, this our false life, it
must become weaker every day, unhealthier, and more and more painful:
with each year, suicide, and the sin against the unborn babe, increase;
with each year the new generations of our class grow weaker, with each
year we feel more and more the increasing misery of our lives.
It is obvious that on this road, with all its increase of the comforts
and delights of life, of cures, artificial teeth and hair, and so on,
there can be no salvation.
This truth has become such a truism, that in newspapers advertisements
are printed about stomach powder for rich people, under the title
"Blessings of the poor," where they say that only poor people have a
good digestion, and the rich need help, and among other things this
powder. You cannot ameliorate this matter by any kind of amusements,
comforts, powders, but only by turning over a new leaf.
_The contradiction of our life with our conscience._ However we may try
to justify to ourselves our treason against mankind, all our
justification falls to pieces before evidence: around us, people are
dying from overwork and want; and we destroy the food, clothes, and
labour of men merely to amuse ourselves. Therefore the conscience of a
man of our circle, though he may have but a small remainder of it in his
breast, cannot be stifled, and poisons all these comforts and charms of
life which our suffering and perishing brethren procure for us. Not only
does every conscientious man feel this himself, but he must feel it more
acutely at present, because the best part of art and science, that part
which still retains a sense of its high calling, constantly reminds him
of his cruelty, and of the unlawfulness of his position.
The old secure justifications are all destroyed; and the new ephemeral
justifications of the progress of science for science's sake, and art
for art's sake, will not bear the light of plain common sense.
The conscience of men cannot be calmed by new devices: it can be calmed
only by turning over a new leaf, when there will be no longer any need
for justification.
_The danger to our lives!_ However much we may try to hide from
ourselves the plain and obvious danger of exhausting the patience of
those whom we oppress; however much we may try to counteract this danger
by all sorts of deceit, violence and flattery,--it grows day by day,
hour by hour,--it has long been threatening us, but now it is so ready
that we are scarcely able to hold our course,--as in a vessel tossed by
a roaring and overflowing sea,--a sea which will presently swallow us up
in wrath.
The workman's revolution, with its terrors of destruction and murder,
not only threatens us, but we have already lived above it for the last
thirty years, and it is only by various cunning devices that we have
postponed the explosion.
Such is the state in Europe: such is the state in Russia, and still
worse there, because we have no safety-valves. The classes who oppress
the people, with the exception of the Tsar, have no longer any
justification in the eyes of our people; they all keep up their position
merely by violence, cunning, and expediency, i.e., skill; but the hatred
towards us of the worst representatives of the people, and the contempt
of us from the best, increases every hour.
Among the Russian people a new word full of significance has been
circulating during the last three or four years: by this word, which I
never heard before, people are swearing in the streets, and by it they
give us a definition--"parasites."
The hatred and contempt of the oppressed people are increasing, and the
physical and moral strength of the richer classes are decreasing: the
deceit which supports all is wearing out, and the rich classes have
nothing wherewith to comfort themselves in this mortal danger. To return
to the old order of things is impossible, to restore the old prestige is
impossible. It only remains for those who are not willing to change the
course of their lives, and to turn over a new leaf,--to hope that,
during their lives, they may fare well enough, after which the people
may do as they like. So think the blind crowd of the rich; but the
danger ever increases, and the awful catastrophe comes nearer and
nearer.
There are three reasons which should prove to rich people the necessity
of turning over a new leaf: First, desire for their own personal welfare
and that of their families, which is not secured by the way in which
rich people are living; secondly, the inability to satisfy the voice of
conscience, which is obviously impossible in the present condition of
things; and thirdly, the threatening and constantly increasing danger to
life, which cannot be met by any outward means. All these together ought
to induce rich people to change their mode of life. This change alone
would satisfy the desire of welfare and conscience, and would remove the
danger. There is but one means of making such change,--to leave off
deceiving ourselves, to repent, and to acknowledge labour to be, not a
curse, but the joyful business of life.
To this it is replied, "What will come out of the fact of my physical
labour during ten, eight, or five hours, while thousands of peasants
would gladly do it for the money which I have?"
The first good result would be, that you will become livelier,
healthier, sounder, kinder; and you will learn that real life from which
you have hidden yourself, or which was hidden from you.
The second good result will be, that, if you have a conscience, it will
not only cease to suffer as it now suffers when looking at the labour of
men,--the importance of which we always, from our ignorance, either
increase or diminish,--but you will constantly experience a joyful
acknowledgment that with each day you are satisfying more and more the
demands of your conscience, and are leaving behind you that awful state
in which so much evil is accumulated in our lives that we feel that we
cannot possibly do any good in the world; you will experience the joy of
free life, with the possibility of doing good to others; you will open
for yourself a way into regions of the world of morality which have
hitherto been shut to you.
The third good result will be this, that, instead of constant fear of
revenge upon your evil deeds, you will feel that you are saving others
from this revenge, and are principally saving the oppressed from the
cruel feeling of rancour and resentment.
But it is generally said, that it would be ridiculous if we, men of our
stamp, with deep philosophical, scientific, political, artistic,
ecclesiastical, social questions before us, we, state ministers,
senators, academists, professors, artists, singers, we, whose
quarter-hours are valued so highly by men, should spend our time in
doing--what? Cleaning our boots, washing our shirts, digging, planting
potatoes, or feeding our chickens and cows, and so on,--in business
which not only our house-porter, or our cook, but thousands of men
besides who value our time, would be very glad to do for us.
But why do we dress, wash, and comb our hair ourselves? Why do we walk,
hand chairs to ladies, to our guests, open and shut the door, help
people into carriages, and perform hundreds of actions which were
formerly performed for us by our slaves?
Because we consider that such may be done by ourselves; that they are
compatible with human dignity; that is, human duty. The same holds good
with physical labour. Man's dignity, his sacred duty, is to use his
hands, his feet, for the purpose for which they were given him, to spend
the swallowed food in work, which produces the food, and not to be
wasted by disuse, not merely that he may wash and clean them and use
them only for the purpose of stuffing food and cigarettes into his
mouth.
Such is the meaning of physical labour for every man in every society.
But in our class, with the divergence from this law of nature came the
misery of a whole circle of men; and for us, physical labour receives
another meaning,--the meaning of a preaching and a propaganda which
divert the terrible evil which threatens mankind.
To say that for an educated man, physical labour is a trifling
occupation, is the same as to say, in the building of a temple, "What
importance can there be in putting each stone exactly in its place?"
Every great act is done under the conditions of quietness, modesty, and
simplicity. One can neither plough, nor feed cattle, nor think, during a
great illumination, or amid thundering of guns, nor while in uniform.
Illumination, the roar of cannon, music, uniforms, cleanliness,
brilliancy, which we usually connect with the idea of the importance of
any act, are, on the contrary, tokens of the absence of importance in
that act. Great, true deeds are always simple and modest. Such is also
the greatest deed which is left to us to do,--the solution of those
awful contradictions in which we are living. The acts which solve these
contradictions are modest, imperceptible, seemingly ridiculous acts,
such as helping ourselves by physical labour, and, if possible, helping
others too: this is what we rich people have to do, if we understand the
misery, wrong, and danger of the position in which we live.
What will result from the circumstance that I, and another, and a third,
and a tenth man, do not despise physical labour, but consider it
necessary for our happiness, for the calming of our consciences, and for
our safety? This will result from it,--that one, two, three, ten men,
coming into conflict with no one, without violence either of government
or of revolution, will solve for themselves the problem which is before
all the world, and which has appeared unsolvable; and they will solve it
in such a way that life will become for them a good thing: their
consciences will be calm, and the evil which oppresses them will cease
to be dreadful to them.
Another effect will be this: other men, too, will see that the welfare,
which they have been looking for everywhere, is quite near them, that
seemingly unsolvable contradictions between conscience and the order of
the world are solved in the easiest and pleasantest way, and that,
instead of being afraid of the men surrounding them, they must have
intercourse with them, and love them.
The seemingly unsolvable economical and social questions are like the
problem of Krilof's casket. The casket opened of itself, without any
difficulty: but it will not open until men do the simplest and most
natural thing; that is, open it. The seemingly unsolvable question is
the old question of the utilizing some men's labour by others: this
question, in our time, has found its expression in property.
Formerly, other men's labour was used simply by violence, by slavery: in
our time it is being done by the means of property. In our time,
property is the root of all evil and of the sufferings of men who
possess it, or are without it, and of all the remorse of conscience of
those who misuse it, and of the danger from the collision between those
who have it, and those who have it not.
Property is the root of all evil, and, at the same time, property is
that towards which all the activity of our modern society is directed,
and that which directs the activity of the world. States and governments
intrigue, make wars, for the sake of property, for the possession of the
banks of the Rhine, of land in Africa, China, the Balkan Peninsula.
Bankers, merchants, manufacturers, land-owners, labourers, use cunning,
torment themselves, torment others, for the sake of property; government
functionaries, artisans, struggle, deceive, oppress, suffer, for the
sake of property; courts of justice and police protect property; penal
servitude, prisons, all the terrors of so-called punishments,--all is
done for the sake of property.
Property is the root of all evil; and now all the world is busy with the
distribution and protecting of wealth.
What, then, is property? Men are accustomed to think that property is
something really belonging to man, and for this reason they have called
it property. We speak indiscriminately of our own house and our own
land. But this is obviously an error and a superstition. We know, and if
we do not, it is easy to perceive, that property is only the means of
utilizing other men's labour. And another's labour can by no means
belong to me. It has nothing in common with the conception of
property,--a conception very exact and precise.
Man has been, and will always call his own that which is subject to his
own will and joined with his own consciousness. As soon as a man calls
his own something which is not his body, but which he should like to be
subject to his will as his body is, then he makes a mistake, and gets
disappointment, and suffering, and compels other people to suffer as
well. Man calls his wife his own, his children, his slaves, his
belongings, his own too; but the reality always shows him his error: and
he must either get rid of this superstition, or suffer, and make others
suffer.
Now we, having nominally renounced the possessing of slaves, owing to
money (and to its exactment by the government), claim our right also to
money; that is, to the labour of other men.
But as to our claiming our wives as our property, or our sons, our
slaves, our horses,--this is pure fiction contradicted by reality, and
which only makes those suffer who believe in it; because a wife or a son
will never be so subject to my will as my body is; therefore my own body
will always remain the only thing I can call my true property; so also
money, property,--will never be real property, but only a self-deception
and a source of suffering, and it is only my own body which will be my
property, that which always obeys me, and is connected with my
consciousness.
It is only to us, who are so accustomed to call other things than our
body our own, that such a wild superstition can appear to be useful for
us, and without evil results; but we have only to reflect upon the
nature of the matter to see how this, like every other superstition,
brings with it only dreadful consequences.
Let us take the most simple example. I consider myself my own, and
another man like myself I consider my own too. I must understand how to
cook my dinner: if I were free from the superstition of considering
another man as my property, I should have been taught this art as well
as every other necessary to my real property (that is, my body); but now
I have it taught to my imaginary property, and the result is that my
cook does not obey me, does not wish to humour me, and even runs away
from me, or dies, and I remain with an unsatisfied want, and have lost
the habit of learning, and recognize that I have spent as much time in
worry about this cook as I should have spent in learning the art of
cooking for myself.
The same is the case with property in buildings, clothes, wares; with
property in the land; with property in money. Every imaginary property
calls forth in me a non-corresponding want which cannot always be
gratified, and deprives me of the possibility of acquiring for my true
and sure property--my own body--that information, that skill, those
habits, improvements, which I might have acquired.
The result is always that I have spent (without gain to myself,--to my
true property) strength, sometimes my whole life, on that which never
has been, and never could be, my property.
I provide myself with an imaginary "private" library, a "private"
picture gallery, "private" apartments, clothes; acquire my "own" money
in order to purchase with it every thing I want, and the matter stands
thus,--that I, being busy about this imaginary property, which is not,
and cannot be my property, however I may call it, and which is no object
for activity, leave quite out of sight that which is my true property,
upon which I may really labour, and which really may serve me, and which
always remains in my power.
Words have always a definite meaning until we purposely give them a
false signification.
What does property mean?
Property means that which is given to me alone, which belongs to me
alone, exclusively; that with which I may always do everything I like,
which nobody can take away from me, which remains mine to the end of my
life, and which I ought to use in order to increase and to improve it.
For every man such property is only himself.
It is in this very sense that imaginary property is understood, that
very property for sake of which (making it impossible for this imaginary
property to become a real one) all the sufferings of this world
exist,--wars, executions, judgments, prisons, luxury, depravity,
murders, and the ruin of mankind.
What, then, will result from the circumstance that ten men plough, hew
wood, make boots, not from necessity, but in acknowledgment that man
needs work, and that the more he works, the better it will be for him?
This will come out of it: that ten men, or even one single man, by
thought and in deed, will show men that this fearful evil from which
they are suffering, is not the law of their destiny, nor the will of
God, nor any historical necessity, but is a superstition not at all
strong or overpowering, but weak and null, which one need only leave off
believing in, as in idols, in order to get rid of, and to destroy it
even as a frail cobweb is swept away.
Men who begin to work in order to fulfil the pleasant law of their
lives, who work for the fulfilment of the law of labour, will free
themselves from this superstition of property which is so full of
misery, and then all these worldly establishments which exist in order
to protect this imaginary property outside of one's own body, will
become not only unnecessary for them, but burdensome; and it will become
clear to all that these institutions are not necessary, but pernicious,
imaginary, and false conditions of life.
For a man who considers labour not a curse, but a joy, property outside
his own body--that is, the right or possibility of utilizing other men's
labour--will be not only useless, but an impediment. If I am fond of
cooking my dinner, and accustomed to do it, then the fact that another
man will do it for me, will deprive me of my usual business, and will
not satisfy me so well as I have satisfied myself; and further, the
acquirement of imaginary property will not be necessary for such a man:
a man who considers labour to be his very life, fills up all his life
with it, and therefore requires less and less the labour of others,--in
other words, as property to fill up his unoccupied time, and to
embellish his life.
If the life of a man is occupied by labour, he does not require many
rooms, much furniture, various fine clothes: he does not require so much
expensive food, or locomotion, or amusements. Especially a man who
considers labour to be the business and the joy of his life, will not
seek to ease his own labour by utilizing that of others.
A man who considers life to consist in labour, will aim, in proportion
as he acquires more skill, craft, and endurance, at having more and more
work to do, to occupy all his time. For such a man, who sees the object
of his life in labour, and not in the results of his labour in
acquirement of property, there cannot be even a question about the
instruments of labour. Though such a man will always choose the most
productive instrument of labour, he will have the same satisfaction in
working with the most unproductive.
If he has a steam-plough, he will plough with it; if he has not such, he
will plough with a horse-plough; if he has not this, he will plough with
the plain Russian sokhá; if he has not even this, he will use a spade:
and under any circumstances, he will attain his aim; that is, will pass
his life in labour useful to man, and therefore will have fullest
satisfaction. The position of such a man, in exterior and interior
circumstances, will be happier than the condition of a man who gives his
life away to acquire property.
According to exterior circumstances, he will never want, because men,
seeing that he does not shirk work, will always try to make his labour
most productive to them, as they arrange a mill by running water; and
that his labour may be more productive, they will provide for his
material existence, which they will never do for men who aim at
acquiring property. The providing for material wants, is all that a man
requires.
According to interior conditions, such a man will be always happier than
he who seeks for property, because the latter will never get what he is
aiming at, and the former in proportion to his strength (even the weak,
old, dying, according to the proverb, with a Kored in his hands), will
always receive full satisfaction, and the love and sympathy of men.
One of the consequences of this will be, that certain odd, half-insane
persons will plough, make boots, and so on, instead of smoking, playing
cards, and riding about, carrying their dulness with them, from one
place to another, during the ten hours which every brain worker has at
his command.
Another result will be, that these silly people will demonstrate in
deed, that that imaginary property for the sake of which men suffer, and
torment themselves and others, is not necessary for happiness, and even
impedes it, and is but a superstition; and that true property is only
one's own head, hands, feet; and that, in order to utilize this true
property usefully and joyfully, it is necessary to get rid of that false
idea of property outside one's own body, on which we waste the best
powers of our life.
Another result will be, that these men will demonstrate, that, when a
man leaves off believing in imaginary property, then only will he make
real use of his true property,--his own body, which will yield him fruit
an hundred-fold, together with happiness such as we have no idea as yet;
and he will be a useful, strong, kind man, who will everywhere stand on
his own feet, will be always a brother to everybody, will be
intelligible to all, desired by all, and dear to all.
Then men, looking at one,--at ten such "silly" men will understand what
they have all to do to unfasten that dreadful knot in which they have
all been tied by the superstition respecting property, and to get rid of
the miserable condition under which they are now groaning, and from
which they do not know how to free themselves.
There is no reasoning which can so plainly demonstrate the
unrighteousness of those who employ it as does this. The boatmen are
dragging vessels against the stream. Is it possible that there could be
found a stupid boatman who would refuse to do his part in dragging,
because he alone cannot drag the boat up against the stream? He who,
besides his rights of animal life,--to eat and to sleep,--acknowledges
any human duty, knows very well wherein such duty consists: just in the
same way as a boatman knows that he has only to get into his
breast-collar, and to walk in the given direction. He will only seek to
know what to do and how to do it after having fulfilled his duty.
As with the boatmen, and with all men who do any labour in common, so
with the labour of all mankind; each man need only keep on his
breast-collar, and go in the given direction. And for this purpose one
and the same reason is given to all men that this direction may always
be the same.
That this direction _is_ given to us, is obvious and certain from the
lives of those who surround us, as well as in the conscience of every
man, and in all the previous expressions of human wisdom; so that only
he who does not want work, can say that he does not see it.
What, then, will come out of this?
This, that first one man, then another, will drag; looking at them, a
third will join; and so one by one the best men will join, until the
business will be set a-going, and will move as of itself, inducing those
also to join who do not yet understand why and wherefore it is being
done.
First, to the number of men who conscientiously work in order to fulfil
the law of God, will be added those who will accept half conscientiously
and half upon faith; then to these a still greater number of men, only
upon faith in the foremost men; and lastly the majority of people: and
then it will come to pass that men will cease to ruin themselves, and
will find out happiness.
This will happen (and it will happen soon) when men of our circle, and
after them all the great majority of working-people, will no longer
consider it shameful to clean sewers, but will consider it shameful to
fill them up in order that other men, _our brethren_, may carry their
contents away; they will not consider it shameful to go visiting in
common boots, but they will consider it shameful to walk in goloshes
beside barefooted people; they will not think it shameful not to know
French, nor about the last novel, but they will consider it shameful to
eat bread, and not to know how it is prepared; they will not consider it
shameful not to have a starched shirt or a clean dress, but that it is
shameful to wear a clean coat as a token of one's idleness; they will
not consider it shameful to have dirty hands, but shameful not to have
callouses on their hands.
All this will come to pass when public opinion demands it. Public
opinion will demand it, when men get rid of those snares which hide the
truth from them. Great changes in this direction have taken place within
my memory. These changes occurred only as public opinion changed. Within
my memory has happened this, that whereas rich men were ashamed if they
could not drive out with a team of four horses, with two men-servants,
and that it was considered shameful not to have a man-servant or a maid,
to dress one, wash one, attend the chamber, and so on; now of a sudden
it has become shameful not to dress and to wash oneself, without help,
or to drive out with men-servants. All these changes have been
accomplished by public opinion.
Can we not see the changes which public opinion is now preparing?
Twenty-five years ago it sufficed to destroy the snare which justified
serfdom, and public opinion changed its attitude as to what is
praiseworthy, and what is shameful, and life changed. It would suffice
to destroy the snares justifying the power of money over men, and public
opinion will change its view, concerning things praiseworthy and things
shameful, and life will change.
But the destroying of the snare justifying the power of money and the
change of public opinion in this direction is already quickly taking
place. This snare is already transparent and but slightly veils the
truth. One needs only to look more attentively to see clearly that
change of public opinion, which not only must take place, but which has
been already accomplished, only not yet consciously acknowledged, not
yet named. Let a slightly educated man of our time think of the
consequences ensuing from those views he holds concerning the universe,
and he will see, that the unconscious estimate of good and evil, of
praiseworthy and shameful, by which he is guided in life, directly
contradicts all his conceptions of life.
Let a man of our times dismiss himself, if only for a minute, from his
own inert life, and looking at it, as an outsider, subject it to that
very estimate, resulting from his conception of life, and he will stand
aghast before the definition of his life, which results from his
conception of the world.
Let us take as an example, a young man (in young people the life energy
is stronger and the self-consciousness is more vague) of the wealthy
classes, and of any shade of opinions. Every decent youth considers it a
shame not to help an old man, a child, a woman; he considers it a shame
to risk the life and health of another in common work while avoiding the
danger for himself. Everybody considers it shameful and barbarous to do
what Skyler tells about the Kirghiz: who during storms sent out their
wives and old women to hold the corners of the tent, while they remained
inside drinking their koumis; everybody considers it a shame to force a
weak man to work for him and still more shameful when in such danger,
as, say, on a ship on fire, for the strongest to push aside the weak and
go first into the life-boat, and so on. Men consider all this shameful
and would by no means act so under certain exceptional circumstances;
but in everyday life the same actions and even worse,--being hidden by
snares,--are constantly committed by them.
One need only think of it earnestly to recognize the horror of it.
A young man changes his shirts daily. Who washes them? A woman, whatever
her state may be, very often old enough to be his mother or grandmother,
often unwell. How would this young man call another who out of whim,
changes his clean shirt and sends it to be washed by a woman old enough
to be his mother?
A young man, that he may be smart, provides himself with horses and an
old man, fit to be his father or grandfather, is set to training them,
thus endangering his very life, and the young man rides on the horse
when danger is over. What would the young man say about a man who,
avoiding a dangerous situation for himself, puts another into it and for
his pleasure allows such a risk?
Yet the whole life of the well-to-do classes consists of a chain of such
actions. The overtaxing labour of old men, children and women, and work
connected with danger to life done by others, not to help us to work but
to satisfy our whims--these fill up our life. The fisherman gets drowned
while catching fish for us, the washerwomen catch colds and die, the
smith grows blind, those who work in factories get ill and injured by
machinery, woodcutters are crushed by falling trees, workmen fall from
roofs and are killed, needlewomen pine away. All real work is done with
waste and danger to life. To hide this and refuse to see it is
impossible. There is one salvation, one issue out of this situation, to
wit--that if a man of our time is not to be obliged--according to his
own principles--to call himself a scoundrel and a coward, who burdens
others with work and danger to life--he must take from men only what is
necessary for his life, and submit himself also to true labour
associated with waste and danger to life.
Within my memory, more striking changes have taken place. I remember
that at table, a servant stood with a plate, behind each chair. Men made
visits accompanied by two footmen. A Cossack boy and a girl stood in a
room to give people their pipes, and to clean them, and so on. Now this
seems to us strange and remarkable. But is it not equally strange that a
young man or woman, or even an elderly man, that he may visit a friend,
should order his horses to be harnessed, and that well-fed horses are
kept only for this purpose? Is it not as strange that one man lives in
five rooms, or that a woman spends tens, hundreds, thousands of rubles
for her dress when she only needs some flax and wool wherewith to spin
dresses for herself, and clothes for her husband and children?
Is it not strange that men live doing nothing, riding to and fro,
smoking and playing, and that a battalion of people are busy feeding and
warming them?
Is it not strange that old people quite gravely talk and write in
newspapers about theatres and music, and other insane people drive to
look at musicians or actors?
Is it not strange that tens of thousands of boys and girls are brought
up so as to make them unfit for every work (they return home from
school, and their two books are carried for them by a servant)?
There will soon come a time,--and it is already drawing near,--when it
will be shameful to dine on five courses served by footmen, and cooked
by any but the masters themselves; it will be shameful not only to ride
thoroughbreds or to drive in a coach when one has feet to walk on; to
wear on week-days dress, shoes, gloves, in which it is impossible to
work; it will be shameful to play on a piano which costs one hundred and
fifty pounds, or even ten pounds, while others work for one; to feed
dogs upon milk and white bread, when there are men who have neither milk
nor bread, and to burn lamps and candles without working by their light;
to heat stoves in which no meal is cooked, while there are men who have
neither light nor fuel. Then it will be impossible to think about giving
openly not merely one pound, but even six pence, for a place in a
concert or in a theatre. All this will be when the law of labour becomes
public opinion.