Note 47 — Chapter IV
Reading edition
Tract No. 2, dated 1884, which is now very rare, has for motto the words of the late John Hay:
“For always in thine eyes, O Liberty! Shines that high light whereby the world is saved; And, though thou slay us, we will trust in thee.”
Certain sections of this manifesto deserve quotation as illustrative of Shaw's original and characteristic mode of expression:
“That, under existing circumstances, wealth cannot be enjoyed without dishonour, or forgone without misery.
“That the most striking result of our present system of farming out the national land and capital to private individuals has been the division of society into hostile classes, with large appetites and no dinners at one extreme, and large dinners and no appetites at the other.
“That the State should compete with private individuals—especially with parents—in providing happy homes for children, so that every child may have a refuge from the tyranny or neglect of natural custodians.
“That men no longer need special political privileges to protect them against women; and that the sexes should henceforth enjoy equal political rights.
“That the established Government has no more right to call itself the State than the smoke of London has to call itself the weather. “That we had rather face a civil war than such another century of suffering as the present one has been.”
Tract No. 3, addressed “To Provident Landlords and Capitalists,” urged the proprietary classes to support “all undertakings having for their object the parcelling out of waste or inferior lands among the labouring class, and the attachment to the soil of a numerous body of peasant proprietors.” Among the probable results of such a reform was mentioned (section 5): “The peasant proprietor, having a stock in the country, will, unlike the landless labourer of to-day, have a common interest with the landlord in resisting revolutionary proposals.”