The Undeserving Persons and the Upper and Nether Millstones
Hunter had taken on three more painters that morning. Bundy and two
labourers had commenced the work of putting in the new drains; the
carpenters were back again doing some extra work, and there was also a
plumber working on the house; so there was quite a little crowd in the
kitchen at dinner-time. Crass had been waiting for a suitable
opportunity to produce the newspaper cutting which it will be
remembered he showed to Easton on Monday morning, but he had waited in
vain, for there had been scarcely any “political” talk at meal-times
all the week, and it was now Thursday. As far as Owen was concerned,
his thoughts were so occupied with the designs for the drawing-room
that he had no time for anything else, and most of the others were only
too willing to avoid a subject which frequently led to unpleasantness.
As a rule Crass himself had no liking for such discussion, but he was
so confident of being able to “flatten out” Owen with the cutting from
the Obscurer that he had several times tried to lead the conversation
into the desired channel, but so far without success.
During dinner—as they called it—various subjects were discussed. Harlow
mentioned that he had found traces of bugs in one of the bedrooms
upstairs and this called forth a number of anecdotes of those vermin
and of houses infested by them. Philpot remembered working in a house
over at Windley; the people who lived in it were very dirty and had
very little furniture; no bedsteads, the beds consisting of dilapidated
mattresses and rags on the floor. He declared that these ragged
mattresses used to wander about the rooms by themselves. The house was
so full of fleas that if one placed a sheet of newspaper on the floor
one could hear and see them jumping on it. In fact, directly one went
into that house one was covered from head to foot with fleas! During
the few days he worked at that place, he lost several pounds in weight,
and of evenings as he walked homewards the children and people in the
streets, observing his ravaged countenance, thought he was suffering
from some disease and used to get out of his way when they saw him
coming.
There were several other of these narratives, four or five men talking
at the top of their voices at the same time, each one telling a
different story. At first each story-teller addressed himself to the
company generally, but after a while, finding it impossible to make
himself heard, he would select some particular individual who seemed
disposed to listen and tell him the story. It sometimes happened that
in the middle of the tale the man to whom it was being told would
remember a somewhat similar adventure of his own, which he would
immediately proceed to relate without waiting for the other to finish,
and each of them was generally so interested in the gruesome details of
his own story that he was unconscious of the fact that the other was
telling one at all. In a contest of this kind the victory usually went
to the man with the loudest voice, but sometimes a man who had a weak
voice, scored by repeating the same tale several times until someone
heard it.
Barrington, who seldom spoke and was an ideal listener, was
appropriated by several men in succession, who each told him a
different yarn. There was one man sitting on an up-ended pail in the
far corner of the room and it was evident from the movements of his
lips that he also was relating a story, although nobody knew what it
was about or heard a single word of it, for no one took the slightest
notice of him...
When the uproar had subsided Harlow remembered the case of a family
whose house got into such a condition that the landlord had given them
notice and the father had committed suicide because the painters had
come to turn ’em out of house and home. There were a man, his wife and
daughter—a girl about seventeen—living in the house, and all three of
’em used to drink like hell. As for the woman, she COULD shift it and
no mistake! Several times a day she used to send the girl with a jug to
the pub at the corner. When the old man was out, one could have
anything one liked to ask for from either of ’em for half a pint of
beer, but for his part, said Harlow, he could never fancy it. They were
both too ugly.
The finale of this tale was received with a burst of incredulous
laughter by those who heard it.
“Do you ’ear what Harlow says, Bob?” Easton shouted to Crass.
“No. What was it?”
“’E ses ’e once ’ad a chance to ’ave something but ’e wouldn’t take it
on because it was too ugly!”
“If it ’ad bin me, I should ’ave shut me bl—y eyes,” cried Sawkins. “I
wouldn’t pass it for a trifle like that.”
“No,” said Crass amid laughter, “and you can bet your life ’e didn’t
lose it neither, although ’e tries to make ’imself out to be so
innocent.”
“I always though old Harlow was a bl—y liar,” remarked Bundy, “but now
we knows ’e is.”
Although everyone pretended to disbelieve him, Harlow stuck to his
version of the story.
“It’s not their face you want, you know,” added Bundy as he helped
himself to some more tea.
“I know it wasn’t my old woman’s face that I was after last night,”
observed Crass; and then he proceeded amid roars of laughter to give a
minutely detailed account of what had taken place between himself and
his wife after they had retired for the night.
This story reminded the man on the pail of a very strange dream he had
had a few weeks previously: “I dreamt I was walkin’ along the top of a
’igh cliff or some sich place, and all of a sudden the ground give way
under me feet and I began to slip down and down and to save meself from
going over I made a grab at a tuft of grass as was growin’ just within
reach of me ’and. And then I thought that some feller was ’ittin me on
the ’ead with a bl—y great stick, and tryin’ to make me let go of the
tuft of grass. And then I woke up to find my old woman shouting out and
punchin’ me with ’er fists. She said I was pullin’ ’er ’air!”
While the room was in an uproar with the merriment induced by these
stories, Crass rose from his seat and crossed over to where his
overcoat was hanging on a nail in the wall, and took from the pocket a
piece of card about eight inches by about four inches. One side of it
was covered with printing, and as he returned to his seat Crass called
upon the others to listen while he read it aloud. He said it was one of
the best things he had ever seen: it had been given to him by a bloke
in the Cricketers the other night.
Crass was not a very good reader, but he was able to read this all
right because he had read it so often that he almost knew it by heart.
It was entitled “The Art of Flatulence”, and it consisted of a number
of rules and definitions. Shouts of laughter greeted the reading of
each paragraph, and when he had ended, the piece of dirty card was
handed round for the benefit of those who wished to read it for
themselves. Several of the men, however, when it was offered to them,
refused to take it, and with evident disgust suggested that it should
be put into the fire. This view did not commend itself to Crass, who,
after the others had finished with it, put it back in the pocket of his
coat.
Meanwhile, Bundy stood up to help himself to some more tea. The cup he
was drinking from had a large piece broken out of one side and did not
hold much, so he usually had to have three or four helpings.
“Anyone else want any” he asked.
Several cups and jars were passed to him. These vessels had been
standing on the floor, and the floor was very dirty and covered with
dust, so before dipping them into the pail, Bundy—who had been working
at the drains all morning—wiped the bottoms of the jars upon his
trousers, on the same place where he was in the habit of wiping his
hands when he happened to get some dirt on them. He filled the jars so
full that as he held them by the rims and passed them to their owners
part of the contents slopped over and trickled through his fingers. By
the time he had finished the floor was covered with little pools of
tea.
“They say that Gord made everything for some useful purpose,” remarked
Harlow, reverting to the original subject, “but I should like to know
what the hell’s the use of sich things as bugs and fleas and the like.”
“To teach people to keep theirselves clean, of course,” said Slyme.
“That’s a funny subject, ain’t it?” continued Harlow, ignoring Slyme’s
answer. “They say as all diseases is caused by little insects. If Gord
’adn’t made no cancer germs or consumption microbes there wouldn’t be
no cancer or consumption.”
“That’s one of the proofs that there ISN’T an individual God,” said
Owen. “If we were to believe that the universe and everything that
lives was deliberately designed and created by God, then we must also
believe that He made his disease germs you are speaking of for the
purpose of torturing His other creatures.”
“You can’t tell me a bloody yarn like that,” interposed Crass, roughly.
“There’s a Ruler over us, mate, and so you’re likely to find out.”
“If Gord didn’t create the world, ’ow did it come ’ere?” demanded
Slyme.
“I know no more about that than you do,” replied Owen. “That is—I know
nothing. The only difference between us is that you THINK you know. You
think you know that God made the universe; how long it took Him to do
it; why He made it; how long it’s been in existence and how it will
finally pass away. You also imagine you know that we shall live after
we’re dead; where we shall go, and the kind of existence we shall have.
In fact, in the excess of your ‘humility’, you think you know all about
it. But really you know no more of these things than any other human
being does; that is, you know NOTHING.”
“That’s only YOUR opinion,” said Slyme.
“If we care to take the trouble to learn,” Owen went on, “we can know a
little of how the universe has grown and changed; but of the beginning
we know nothing.”
“That’s just my opinion, matey,” observed Philpot. “It’s just a bloody
mystery, and that’s all about it.”
“I don’t pretend to ’ave no ’ead knowledge,” said Slyme, “but ’ead
knowledge won’t save a man’s soul: it’s ’EART knowledge as does that. I
knows in my ’eart as my sins is all hunder the Blood, and it’s knowin’
that, wot’s given ’appiness and the peace which passes all
understanding to me ever since I’ve been a Christian.”
“Glory, glory, hallelujah!” shouted Bundy, and nearly everyone laughed.
“‘Christian’ is right,” sneered Owen. “You’ve got some title to call
yourself a Christian, haven’t you? As for the happiness that passes all
understanding, it certainly passes MY understanding how you can be
happy when you believe that millions of people are being tortured in
Hell; and it also passes my understanding why you are not ashamed of
yourself for being happy under such circumstances.”
“Ah, well, you’ll find it all out when you come to die, mate,” replied
Slyme in a threatening tone. “You’ll think and talk different then!”
“That’s just wot gets over _me_,” observed Harlow. “It don’t seem right
that after living in misery and poverty all our bloody lives, workin’
and slavin’ all the hours that Gord A’mighty sends, that we’re to be
bloody well set fire and burned in ’ell for all eternity! It don’t seem
feasible to me, you know.”
“It’s my belief,” said Philpot, profoundly, “that when you’re dead,
you’re done for. That’s the end of you.”
“That’s what _I_ say,” remarked Easton. “As for all this religious
business, it’s just a money-making dodge. It’s the parson’s trade, just
the same as painting is ours, only there’s no work attached to it and
the pay’s a bloody sight better than ours is.”
“It’s their livin’, and a bloody good livin’ too, if you ask me,” said
Bundy.
“Yes,” said Harlow; “they lives on the fat o’ the land, and wears the
best of everything, and they does nothing for it but talk a lot of
twaddle two or three times a week. The rest of the time they spend
cadgin’ money orf silly old women who thinks it’s a sorter fire
insurance.”
“It’s an old sayin’ and a true one,” chimed in the man on the upturned
pail. “Parsons and publicans is the worst enemies the workin’ man ever
’ad. There may be SOME good “uns, but they’re few and far between.”
“If I could only get a job like the Harchbishop of Canterbury,” said
Philpot, solemnly, “I’d leave this firm.”
“So would I,” said Harlow, “if I was the Harchbishop of Canterbury, I’d
take my pot and brushes down the office and shy ’em through the bloody
winder and tell ole Misery to go to ’ell.”
“Religion is a thing that don’t trouble ME much,” remarked Newman; “and
as for what happens to you after death, it’s a thing I believe in
leavin’ till you comes to it—there’s no sense in meetin’ trouble
’arfway. All the things they tells us may be true or they may not, but
it takes me all my time to look after THIS world. I don’t believe I’ve
been to church more than arf a dozen times since I’ve been
married—that’s over fifteen years ago now—and then it’s been when the
kids ’ave been christened. The old woman goes sometimes and of course
the young ’uns goes; you’ve got to tell ’em something or other, and
they might as well learn what they teaches at the Sunday School as
anything else.”
A general murmur of approval greeted this. It seemed to be the almost
unanimous opinion, that, whether it were true or not, “religion” was a
nice thing to teach children.
“I’ve not been even once since I was married,” said Harlow, “and I
sometimes wish to Christ I ’adn’t gorn then.”
“I don’t see as it matters a dam wot a man believes,” said Philpot, “as
long as you don’t do no ’arm to nobody. If you see a poor b—r wot’s
down on ’is luck, give ’im a ’elpin’ ’and. Even if you ain’t got no
money you can say a kind word. If a man does ’is work and looks arter
“is ’ome and ’is young ’uns, and does a good turn to a fellow creature
when ’e can, I reckon ’e stands as much chance of getting into
’eaven—if there _is_ sich a place—as some of these ’ere Bible-busters,
whether ’e ever goes to church or chapel or not.”
These sentiments were echoed by everyone with the solitary exception of
Slyme, who said that Philpot would find out his mistake after he was
dead, when he would have to stand before the Great White Throne for
judgement!
“And at the Last Day, when yer sees the moon turned inter Blood, you’ll
be cryin’ hout for the mountings and the rocks to fall on yer and ’ide
yer from the wrath of the Lamb!”
The others laughed derisively.
“I’m a Bush Baptist meself,” remarked the man on the upturned pail.
This individual, Dick Wantley by name, was of what is usually termed a
“rugged” cast of countenance. He reminded one strongly of an ancient
gargoyle, or a dragon.
Most of the hands had by now lit their pipes, but there were a few who
preferred chewing their tobacco. As they smoked or chewed they
expectorated upon the floor or into the fire. Wantley was one of those
who preferred chewing and he had been spitting upon the floor to such
an extent that he was by this time partly surrounded by a kind of
semicircular moat of dark brown spittle.
“I’m a Bush Baptist!” he shouted across the moat, “and you all knows
wot that is.”
This confession of faith caused a fresh outburst of hilarity, because
of course everyone knew what a Bush Baptist was.
“If ’evven’s goin’ to be full of sich b—r’s as Hunter,” observed Eaton,
“I think I’d rather go to the other place.”
“If ever ole Misery DOES get into ’eaven,” said Philpot, “’e won’t stop
there very long. I reckon ’e’ll be chucked out of it before ’e’s been
there a week, because ’e’s sure to start pinchin’ the jewels out of the
other saints’ crowns.”
“Well, if they won’t ’ave ’im in ’eaven, I’m sure I don’t know wot’s to
become of ’im,” said Harlow with pretended concern, “because I don’t
believe ’e’d be allowed into ’ell, now.”
“Why not?” demanded Bundy. “I should think it’s just the bloody place
for sich b—r’s as ’im.”
“So it used to be at one time o’ day, but they’ve changed all that now.
They’ve ’ad a revolution down there: deposed the Devil, elected a
parson as President, and started puttin’ the fire out.”
“From what I hears of it,” continued Harlow when the laughter had
ceased, “’ell is a bloody fine place to live in just now. There’s
underground railways and ’lectric trams, and at the corner of nearly
every street there’s a sort of pub where you can buy ice-cream, lemon
squash, four ale, and American cold drinks; and you’re allowed to sit
in a refrigerator for two hours for a tanner.”
Although they laughed and made fun of these things the reader must not
think that they really doubted the truth of the Christian religion,
because—although they had all been brought up by “Christian” parents
and had been “educated” in “Christian” schools—none of them knew enough
about Christianity to either really believe it or disbelieve it. The
imposters who obtain a comfortable living by pretending to be the
ministers and disciples of the Workman of Nazareth are too cunning to
encourage their dupes to acquire anything approaching an intelligent
understanding of the subject. They do not want people to know or
understand anything: they want them to have Faith—to believe without
knowledge, understanding, or evidence. For years Harlow and his
mates—when children—had been “taught” “Christianity” in day school,
Sunday School and in church or chapel, and now they knew practically
nothing about it! But they were “Christians” all the same. They
believed that the Bible was the word of God, but they didn’t know where
it came from, how long it had been in existence, who wrote it, who
translated it or how many different versions there were. Most of them
were almost totally unacquainted with the contents of the book itself.
But all the same, they believed it—after a fashion.
“But puttin’ all jokes aside,” said Philpot, “I can’t believe there’s
sich a place as ’ell. There may be some kind of punishment, but I don’t
believe it’s a real fire.”
“Nor nobody else, what’s got any sense,” replied Harlow,
contemptuously.
“I believe as THIS world is ’ell,” said Crass, looking around with a
philosophic expression. This opinion was echoed by most of the others,
although Slyme remained silent and Owen laughed.
“Wot the bloody ’ell are YOU laughin’ at?” Crass demanded in an
indignant tone.
“I was laughing because you said you think this world is hell.”
“Well, I don’t see nothing to laugh at in that,” said Crass.
“So it IS a ’ell,” said Easton. “There can’t be anywheres much worse
than this.”
“’Ear, ’ear,” said the man behind the moat.
“What I was laughing at is this,” said Owen. “The present system of
managing the affairs of the world is so bad and has produced such
dreadful results that you are of the opinion that the earth is a hell:
and yet you are a Conservative! You wish to preserve the present
system—the system which has made the world into a hell!”
“I thought we shouldn’t get through the dinner hour without politics if
Owen was ’ere,” growled Bundy. “Bloody sickenin’ I call it.”
“Don’t be ’ard on ’im,” said Philpot. “’E’s been very quiet for the
last few days.”
“We’ll ’ave to go through it today, though,” remarked Harlow
despairingly. “I can see it comin’.”
“I’M not goin’ through it,” said Bundy, “I’m orf!” And he accordingly
drank the remainder of his tea, closed his empty dinner basket and,
having placed it on the mantelshelf, made for the door.
“I’ll leave you to it,” he said as he went out. The others laughed.
Crass, remembering the cutting from the Obscurer that he had in his
pocket, was secretly very pleased at the turn the conversation was
taking. He turned roughly on Owen:
“The other day, when we was talkin’ about the cause of poverty, you
contradicted everybody. Everyone else was wrong! But you yourself
couldn’t tell us what’s the cause of poverty, could you?”
“I think I could.”
“Oh, of course, you think you know,” sneered Crass, “and of course you
think your opinion’s right and everybody else’s is wrong.”
“Yes,” replied Owen.
Several men expressed their abhorrence of this intolerant attitude of
Owen’s, but the latter rejoined:
“Of course I think that my opinions are right and that everyone who
differs from me is wrong. If I didn’t think their opinions were wrong I
wouldn’t differ from them. If I didn’t think my own opinions right I
wouldn’t hold them.”
“But there’s no need to keep on arguin’ about it day after day,” said
Crass. “You’ve got your opinion and I’ve got mine. Let everyone enjoy
his own opinion, I say.”
A murmur of approbation from the crowd greeted these sentiments; but
Owen rejoined:
“But we can’t both be right; if your opinions are right and mine are
not, how am I to find out the truth if we never talk about them?”
“Well, wot do you reckon is the cause of poverty, then?” demanded
Easton.
“The present system—competition—capitalism.”
“It’s all very well to talk like that,” snarled Crass, to whom this
statement conveyed no meaning whatever. “But ’ow do you make it out?”
“Well, I put it like that for the sake of shortness,” replied Owen.
“Suppose some people were living in a house—”
“More supposin’!” sneered Crass.
“And suppose they were always ill, and suppose that the house was badly
built, the walls so constructed that they drew and retained moisture,
the roof broken and leaky, the drains defective, the doors and windows
ill-fitting and the rooms badly shaped and draughty. If you were asked
to name, in a word, the cause of the ill-health of the people who lived
there you would say—the house. All the tinkering in the world would not
make that house fit to live in; the only thing to do with it would be
to pull it down and build another. Well, we’re all living in a house
called the Money System; and as a result most of us are suffering from
a disease called poverty. There’s so much the matter with the present
system that it’s no good tinkering at it. Everything about it is wrong
and there’s nothing about it that’s right. There’s only one thing to be
done with it and that is to smash it up and have a different system
altogether. We must get out of it.”
“It seems to me that that’s just what you’re trying to do,” remanded
Harlow, sarcastically. “You seem to be tryin’ to get out of answering
the question what Easton asked you.”
“Yes!” cried Crass, fiercely. “Why don’t you answer the bloody
question? Wot’s the cause of poverty?”
“What the ’ell’s the matter with the present system?” demanded Sawkins.
“’Ow’s it goin’ to be altered?” said Newman.
“Wot the bloody ’ell sort of a system do YOU think we ought to ’ave?”
shouted the man behind the moat.
“It can’t never be altered,” said Philpot. “Human nature’s human nature
and you can’t get away from it.”
“Never mind about human nature,” shouted Crass. “Stick to the point.
Wot’s the cause of poverty?”
“Oh, b—r the cause of poverty!” said one of the new hands. “I’ve ’ad
enough of this bloody row.” And he stood up and prepared to go out of
the room.
This individual had two patches on the seat of his trousers and the
bottoms of the legs of that garment were frayed and ragged. He had been
out of work for about six weeks previous to having been taken on by
Rushton & Co. During most of that time he and his family had been
existing in a condition of semi-starvation on the earnings of his wife
as a charwoman and on the scraps of food she brought home from the
houses where she worked. But all the same, the question of what is the
cause of poverty had no interest for him.
“There are many causes,” answered Owen, “but they are all part of and
inseparable from the system. In order to do away with poverty we must
destroy the causes: to do away with the causes we must destroy the
whole system.”
“What are the causes, then?”
“Well, money, for one thing.”
This extraordinary assertion was greeted with a roar of merriment, in
the midst of which Philpot was heard to say that to listen to Owen was
as good as going to a circus. Money was the cause of poverty!
“I always thought it was the want of it!” said the man with the patches
on the seat of his trousers as he passed out of the door.
“Other things,” continued Owen, “are private ownership of land, private
ownership of railways, tramways, gasworks, waterworks, private
ownership of factories, and the other means of producing the
necessaries and comforts of life. Competition in business—”
“But ’ow do you make it out?” demanded Crass, impatiently.
Owen hesitated. To his mind the thing appeared very clear and simple.
The causes of poverty were so glaringly evident that he marvelled that
any rational being should fail to perceive them; but at the same time
he found it very difficult to define them himself. He could not think
of words that would convey his thoughts clearly to these others who
seemed so hostile and unwilling to understand, and who appeared to have
made up their minds to oppose and reject whatever he said. They did not
know what were the causes of poverty and apparently they did not WANT
to know.
“Well, I’ll try to show you one of the causes,” he said nervously at
last.
He picked up a piece of charred wood that had fallen from the fire and
knelt down and began to draw upon the floor. Most of the others
regarded him, with looks in which an indulgent, contemptuous kind of
interest mingled with an air of superiority and patronage. There was no
doubt, they thought, that Owen was a clever sort of chap: his work
proved that: but he was certainly a little bit mad.
By this time Owen had drawn a circle about two feet in diameter. Inside
he had drawn two squares, one much larger than the other. These two
squares he filled in solid black with the charcoal.
“Wot’s it all about?” asked Crass with a sneer.
“Why, can’t you see?” said Philpot with a wink. “’E’s goin’ to do some
conjurin’! In a minit ’e’ll make something pass out o’ one o’ them
squares into the other and no one won’t see ’ow it’s done.”
When he had finished drawing, Owen remained for a few minutes awkwardly
silent, oppressed by the anticipation of ridicule and a sense of his
inability to put his thoughts into plain language. He began to wish
that he had not undertaken this task. At last, with an effort, he began
to speak in a halting, nervous way:
[Illustration]
“This circle—or rather the space inside the circle—is supposed to
represent England.”
“Well, I never knowed it was round before,” jeered Crass. “I’ve heard
as the WORLD is round—”
“I never said it was the shape—I said it was supposed to REPRESENT
England.”
“Oh, I see. I thought we’d very soon begin supposin’.”
“The two black squares,” continued Owen, “represent the people who live
in the country. The small square represents a few thousand people. The
large square stands for the remainder—about forty millions—that is, the
majority.”
“We ain’t sich bloody fools as to think that the largest number is the
minority,” interrupted Crass.
“The greater number of the people represented by the large black square
work for their living: and in return for their labour they receive
money: some more, some less than others.”
“You don’t think they’d be sich bloody fools as to work for nothing, do
you?” said Newman.
“I suppose you think they ought all to get the same wages!” cried
Harlow. “Do you think it’s right that a scavenger should get as much as
a painter?”
“I’m not speaking about that at all,” replied Owen. “I’m trying to show
you what I think is one of the causes of poverty.”
“Shut up, can’t you, Harlow,” remonstrated Philpot, who began to feel
interested. “We can’t all talk at once.”
“I know we can’t,” replied Harlow in an aggrieved tone: “but ’e takes
sich a ’ell of a time to say wot ’e’s got to say. Nobody else can’t get
a word in edgeways.”
“In order that these people may live,” continued Owen, pointing to the
large black square, “it is first necessary that they shall have a PLACE
to live in—”
“Well! I should never a thought it!” exclaimed the man on the pail,
pretending to be much impressed. The others laughed, and two or three
of them went out of the room, contemptuously remarking to each other in
an audible undertone as they went:
“Bloody rot!”
“Wonder wot the bloody ’ell ’e thinks ’e is? A sort of schoolmaster?”
Owen’s nervousness increased as he continued:
“Now, they can’t live in the air or in the sea. These people are land
animals, therefore they must live on the land.”
“Wot do yer mean by animals?” demanded Slyme.
“A human bean ain’t a animal!” said Crass indignantly.
“Yes, we are!” cried Harlow. “Go into any chemist’s shop you like and
ask the bloke, and ’e’ll tell you—”
“Oh, blow that!” interrupted Philpot. “Let’s ’ear wot Owen’s sayin’.”
“They must live on the land: and that’s the beginning of the trouble;
because—under the present system—the majority of the people have really
no right to be in the country at all! Under the present system the
country belongs to a few—those who are here represented by this small
black square. If it would pay them to do so, and if they felt so
disposed, these few people have a perfect right—under the present
system—to order everyone else to clear out!
“But they don’t do that, they allow the majority to remain in the land
on one condition—that is, they must pay rent to the few for the
privilege of being permitted to live in the land of their birth. The
amount of rent demanded by those who own this country is so large that,
in order to pay it, the greater number of the majority have often to
deprive themselves and their children, not only of the comforts, but
even the necessaries of life. In the case of the working classes the
rent absorbs at the lowest possible estimate, about one-third of their
total earnings, for it must be remembered that the rent is an expense
that goes on all the time, whether they are employed or not. If they
get into arrears when out of work, they have to pay double when they
get employment again.
“The majority work hard and live in poverty in order that the minority
may live in luxury without working at all, and as the majority are
mostly fools, they not only agree to pass their lives in incessant
slavery and want, in order to pay this rent to those who own the
country, but they say it is quite right that they should have to do so,
and are very grateful to the little minority for allowing them to
remain in the country at all.”
Owen paused, and immediately there arose a great clamour from his
listeners.
“So it IS right, ain’t it?” shouted Crass. “If you ’ad a ’ouse and let
it to someone, you’d want your rent, wouldn’t yer?”
“I suppose,” said Slyme with resentment, for he had some shares in a
local building society, “after a man’s been careful, and scraping and
saving and going without things he ought to ’ave ’ad all ’is life, and
managed to buy a few ’ouses to support ’im in ’is old age—they ought
all to be took away from ’im? Some people,” he added, “ain’t got common
honesty.”
Nearly everyone had something to say in reprobation of the views
suggested by Owen. Harlow, in a brief but powerful speech, bristling
with numerous sanguinary references to the bottomless pit, protested
against any interference with the sacred rights of property. Easton
listened with a puzzled expression, and Philpot’s goggle eyes rolled
horribly as he glared silently at the circle and the two squares.
“By far the greatest part of the land,” said Owen when the row had
ceased, “is held by people who have absolutely no moral right to it.
Possession of much of it was obtained by means of murder and theft
perpetrated by the ancestors of the present holders. In other cases,
when some king or prince wanted to get rid of a mistress of whom he had
grown weary, he presented a tract of our country to some “nobleman” on
condition that he would marry the female. Vast estates were also
bestowed upon the remote ancestors of the present holders in return for
real or alleged services. Listen to this,” he continued as he took a
small newspaper cutting from his pocket-book.
Crass looked at the piece of paper dolefully. It reminded him of the
one he had in his own pocket, which he was beginning to fear that he
would not have an opportunity of producing today after all.
“Ballcartridge Rent Day.
“The hundredth anniversary of the Battle of Ballcartridge occurred
yesterday and in accordance with custom the Duke of Ballcartridge
handed to the authorities the little flag which he annually presents to
the State in virtue of his tenure of the vast tract of this country
which was presented to one of his ancestors—the first Duke—in addition
to his salary, for his services at the battle of Ballcartridge.
“The flag—which is the only rent the Duke has to pay for the great
estate which brings him in several hundreds of thousands of pounds per
annum—is a small tricoloured one with a staff surmounted by an eagle.
“The Duke of Blankmind also presents the State with a little coloured
silk flag every year in return for being allowed to retain possession
of that part of England which was presented—in addition to his
salary—to one of His Grace’s very remote ancestors, for his services at
the battle of Commissariat—in the Netherlands.
“The Duke of Southward is another instance,” continued Owen. “He ‘owns’
miles of the country we speak of as ‘ours’. Much of his part consists
of confiscated monastery lands which were stolen from the owners by
King Henry VIII and presented to the ancestors of the present Duke.
“Whether it was right or wrong that these parts of our country should
ever have been given to those people—the question whether those
ancestor persons were really deserving cases or not—is a thing we need
not trouble ourselves about now. But the present holders are certainly
not deserving people. They do not even take the trouble to pretend they
are. They have done nothing and they do nothing to justify their
possession of these ‘estates’ as they call them. And in my opinion no
man who is in his right mind can really think it’s just that these
people should be allowed to prey upon their fellow men as they are
doing now. Or that it is right that their children should be allowed to
continue to prey upon our children for ever! The thousands of people on
those estates work and live in poverty in order that these three men
and their families may enjoy leisure and luxury. Just think of the
absurdity of it!” continued Owen, pointing to the drawings. “All those
people allowing themselves to be overworked and bullied and starved and
robbed by this little crowd here!”
Observing signs of a renewal of the storm of protests, Owen hurriedly
concluded:
“Whether it’s right or wrong, you can’t deny that the fact that this
small minority possesses nearly all the land of the country is one of
the principal causes of the poverty of the majority.”
“Well, that seems true enough,” said Easton, slowly. “The rent’s the
biggest item a workin’ man’s got to pay. When you’re out of work and
you can’t afford other things, you goes without ’em, but the rent ’as
to be paid whether you’re workin’ or not.”
“Yes, that’s true enough,” said Harlow impatiently; “but you gets value
for yer money: you can’t expect to get a ’ouse for nothing.”
“Suppose we admits as it’s wrong, just for the sake of argyment,” said
Crass in a jeering tone. “Wot then? Wot about it? ’Ow’s it agoin’ to be
altered.”
“Yes!” cried Harlow triumphantly. “That’s the bloody question! ’Ow’s it
goin’ to be altered? It can’t be done!”
There was a general murmur of satisfaction. Nearly everyone seemed very
pleased to think that the existing state of things could not possibly
be altered.
“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 they 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 the 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,”
answered Owen, “and the lowest usually gets the job. The successful
tenderer has usually cut the price so fine that to make it pay he has
to scamp the work, pay low wages, and drive and sweat the men whom he
employs. He wants them to do two days’ work for one day’s pay. The
result is that a job which—if it were done properly—would employ say
twenty men for two months, is rushed and scamped in half that time with
half that number of men.
“This means that—in one such case as this—ten men are deprived of one
month’s employment; and ten other men are deprived of two months’
employment; and all because the employers have been cutting each
other’s throats to get the work.”
“And we can’t ’elp ourselves, you nor me either,” said Harlow.
“Supposing one of us on this job was to make up ’is mind not to tear
into it like we do, but just keep on steady and do a fair day’s work:
wot would ’appen?”
No one answered; but the same thought was in everyone’s mind. Such a
one would be quickly marked by Hunter; and even if the latter failed to
notice it would not be long before Crass reported his conduct.
“We can’t ’elp ourselves,” said Easton, gloomily. “If one man won’t do
it there’s twenty others ready to take ’is place.”
“We could help ourselves to a certain extent if we would stand by each
other. If, for instance, we all belonged to the Society,” said Owen.
“I don’t believe in the Society,” observed Crass. “I can’t see as it’s
right that a inferior man should ’ave the same wages as me.”
“They’re a drunken lot of beer-swillers,” remarked Slyme. “That’s why
they always ’as their meetings in public ’ouses.”
Harlow made no comment on this question. He had at one time belonged to
the Union and he was rather ashamed of having fallen away from it.
“Wot good ’as the Society ever done ’ere?” said Easton. “None that I
ever ’eard of.”
“It might be able to do some good if most of us belonged to it; but
after all, that’s another matter. Whether we could help ourselves or
not, the fact remains that we don’t. But you must admit that this
competition of the employers is one of the causes of unemployment and
poverty, because it’s not only in our line—exactly the same thing
happens in every other trade and industry. Competing employers are the
upper and nether millstones which grind the workers between them.”
“I suppose you think there oughtn’t to be no employers at all?” sneered
Crass. “Or p’raps you think the masters ought to do all the bloody work
theirselves, and give us the money?”
“I don’t see ’ow its goin’ to be altered,” remarked Harlow. “There MUST
be masters, and SOMEONE ’as to take charge of the work and do the
thinkin’.”
“Whether it can be altered or not,” said Owen, “Landlordism and
Competing Employers are two of the causes of poverty. But of course
they’re only a small part of the system which produces luxury,
refinement and culture for a few, and condemns the majority to a
lifelong struggle with adversity, and many thousands to degradation,
hunger and rags. This is the system you all uphold and defend, although
you don’t mind admitting that it has made the world into a hell.”
Crass slowly drew the Obscurer cutting from his waistcoat pocket, but
after a moment’s thought he replaced it, deciding to defer its
production till a more suitable occasion.
“But you ’aven’t told us yet ’ow you makes out that money causes
poverty,” cried Harlow, winking at the others. “That’s what I’M anxious
to ’ear about!”
“So am I,” remarked the man behind the moat. “I was just wondering
whether I ’adn’t better tell ole Misery that I don’t want no wages this
week.”
“I think I’ll tell ’im on Saterday to keep MY money and get ’imself a
few drinks with it,” said Philpot. “It might cheer ’im up a bit and
make ’im a little more sociable and friendly like.”
“Money IS the principal cause of poverty,” said Owen.
“’Ow do yer make it out?” cried Sawkins.
But their curiosity had to remain unsatisfied for the time being
because Crass announced that it was “just on it”.