Chapter 45 The Great Oration (continued 2)

“Of course,” cried Crass, eagerly clutching at this last straw. “The thing sounds all right till you comes to look into it, but it wouldn’t never work!”

“It would be very easy to deal with any difficulty of that sort,” replied Barrington, “if it were found that too many people were desirous of pursuing certain callings, it would be known that the conditions attached to those kinds of work were unfairly easy, as compared with other lines, so the conditions in those trades would be made more severe. A higher degree of skill would be required. If we found that too many persons wished to be doctors, architects, engineers and so forth, we would increase the severity of the examinations. This would scare away all but the most gifted and enthusiastic. We should thus at one stroke reduce the number of applicants and secure the very best men for the work—we should have better doctors, better architects, better engineers than before.

“As regards those disagreeable tasks for which there was a difficulty in obtaining volunteers, we should adopt the opposite means. Suppose that six hours was the general thing; and we found that we could not get any sewer men; we should reduce the hours of labour in that department to four, or if necessary to two, in order to compensate for the disagreeable nature of the work.

“Another way out of such difficulties would be to have a separate division of the Industrial army to do all such work, and to make it obligatory for every man to put in his first year of State service as a member of this corps. There would be no hardship in that. Everyone gets the benefit of such work; there would be no injustice in requiring everyone to share. This would have the effect also of stimulating invention; it would be to everyone’s interest to think out means of doing away with such kinds of work and there is no doubt that most of it will be done by machinery in some way or other. A few years ago the only way to light up the streets of a town was to go round to each separate gas lamp and light each jet, one at a time: now, we press a few buttons and light up the town with electricity. In the future we shall probably be able to press a button and flush the sewers.”

“What about religion?” said Slyme. “I suppose there won’t be no churches nor chapels; we shall all have to be atheists.”

“Everybody will be perfectly free to enjoy their own opinions and to practise any religion they like; but no religion or sect will be maintained by the State. If any congregation or body of people wish to have a building for their own exclusive use as a church or chapel or lecture hall it will be supplied to them by the State on the same terms as those upon which dwelling houses will be supplied; the State will construct the special kind of building and the congregation will have to pay the rent, the amount to be based on the cost of construction, in paper money of course. As far as the embellishment or decoration of such places is concerned, there will of course be nothing to prevent the members of the congregation if they wish from doing any such work as that themselves in their own spare time of which they will have plenty.”

“If everybody’s got to do their share of work, where’s the minister and clergymen to come from?”

“There are at least three ways out of that difficulty. First, ministers of religion could be drawn from the ranks of the Veterans—men over forty-five years old who had completed their term of State service. You must remember that these will not be worn out wrecks, as too many of the working classes are at that age now. They will have had good food and clothing and good general conditions all their lives; and consequently they will be in the very prime of life. They will be younger than many of us now are at thirty; they will be ideal men for the positions we are speaking of. All well educated in their youth, and all will have had plenty of leisure for self culture during the years of their State service and they will have the additional recommendation that their congregation will not be required to pay anything for their services.

“Another way: If a congregation wished to retain the full-time services of a young man whom they thought specially gifted but who had not completed his term of State service, they could secure him by paying the State for his services; thus the young man would still remain in State employment, he would still continue to receive his pay from the National Treasury, and at the age of forty-five would be entitled to his pension like any other worker, and after that the congregation would not have to pay the State anything.

“A third—and as it seems to me, the most respectable way—would be for the individual in question to act as minister or pastor or lecturer or whatever it was, to the congregation without seeking to get out of doing his share of the State service. The hours of obligatory work would be so short and the work so light that he would have abundance of leisure to prepare his orations without sponging on his co-religionists.”

“’Ear, ’ear!” cried Harlow.

“Of course,” added Barrington, “it would not only be congregations of Christians who could adopt any of these methods. It is possible that a congregation of agnostics, for instance, might want a separate building or to maintain a lecturer.”

“What the ’ell’s an agnostic?” demanded Bundy.

“An agnostic,” said the man behind the moat, “is a bloke wot don’t believe nothing unless ’e see it with ’is own eyes.”

“All these details,” continued the speaker, “of the organization of affairs and the work of the Co-operative Commonwealth, are things which do not concern us at all. They have merely been suggested by different individuals as showing some ways in which these things could be arranged. The exact methods to be adopted will be decided upon by the opinion of the majority when the work is being done. Meantime, what we have to do is to insist upon the duty of the State to provide productive work for the unemployed, the State feeding of schoolchildren, the nationalization or Socialization of Railways; Land; the Trusts, and all public services that are still in the hands of private companies. If you wish to see these things done, you must cease from voting for Liberal and Tory sweaters, shareholders of companies, lawyers, aristocrats, and capitalists; and you must fill the House of Commons with Revolutionary Socialists. That is—with men who are in favour of completely changing the present system. And in the day that you do that, you will have solved the poverty ‘problem’. No more tramping the streets begging for a job! No more hungry children at home. No more broken boots and ragged clothes. No more women and children killing themselves with painful labour whilst strong men stand idly by; but joyous work and joyous leisure for all.”

“Is there any more questions?” cried Philpot.

“Is it true,” said Easton, “that Socialists intend to do away with the Army and Navy?”

“Yes; it is true. Socialists believe in International Brotherhood and peace. Nearly all wars are caused by profit-seeking capitalists, seeking new fields for commercial exploitation, and by aristocrats who make it the means of glorifying themselves in the eyes of the deluded common people. You must remember that Socialism is not only a national, but an international movement and when it is realized, there will be no possibility of war, and we shall no longer need to maintain an army and navy, or to waste a lot of labour building warships or manufacturing arms and ammunition. All those people who are now employed will then be at liberty to assist in the great work of producing the benefits of civilization; creating wealth and knowledge and happiness for themselves and others—Socialism means Peace on earth and goodwill to all mankind. But in the meantime we know that the people of other nations are not yet all Socialists; we do not forget that in foreign countries—just the same as in Britain—there are large numbers of profit seeking capitalists, who are so destitute of humanity, that if they thought it could be done successfully and with profit to themselves they would not scruple to come here to murder and to rob. We do not forget that in foreign countries—the same as here—there are plenty of so-called ‘Christian’ bishops and priests always ready to give their benediction to any such murderous projects, and to blasphemously pray to the Supreme Being to help his children to slay each other like wild beasts. And knowing and remembering all this, we realize that until we have done away with capitalism, aristocracy and anti-Christian clericalism, it is our duty to be prepared to defend our homes and our native land. And therefore we are in favour of maintaining national defensive forces in the highest possible state of efficiency. But that does not mean that we are in favour of the present system of organizing those forces. We do not believe in conscription, and we do not believe that the nation should continue to maintain a professional standing army to be used at home for the purpose of butchering men and women of the working classes in the interests of a handful of capitalists, as has been done at Featherstone and Belfast; or to be used abroad to murder and rob the people of other nations. Socialists advocate the establishment of a National Citizen Army, for defensive purposes only. We believe that every able bodied man should be compelled to belong to this force and to undergo a course of military training, but without making him into a professional soldier, or taking him away from civil life, depriving him of the rights of citizenship or making him subject to military ‘law’ which is only another name for tyranny and despotism. This Citizen Army could be organized on somewhat similar lines to the present Territorial Force, with certain differences. For instance, we do not believe—as our present rulers do—that wealth and aristocratic influence are the two most essential qualifications for an efficient officer; we believe that all ranks should be attainable by any man, no matter how poor, who is capable of passing the necessary examinations, and that there should be no expense attached to those positions which the Government grant, or the pay, is not sufficient to cover. The officers could be appointed in any one of several ways: They might be elected by the men they would have to command, the only qualification required being that they had passed their examinations, or they might be appointed according to merit—the candidate obtaining the highest number of marks at the examinations to have the first call on any vacant post, and so on in order of merit. We believe in the total abolition of courts martial, any offence against discipline should be punishable by the ordinary civil law—no member of the Citizen Army being deprived of the rights of a citizen.”

“What about the Navy?” cried several voices.

“Nobody wants to interfere with the Navy except to make its organization more democratic—the same as that of the Citizen Army—and to protect its members from tyranny by entitling them to be tried in a civil court for any alleged offence.

“It has been proved that if the soil of this country were scientifically cultivated, it is capable of producing sufficient to maintain a population of a hundred millions of people. Our present population is only about forty millions, but so long as the land remains in the possession of persons who refuse to allow it to be cultivated we shall continue to be dependent on other countries for our food supply. So long as we are in that position, and so long as foreign countries are governed by Liberal and Tory capitalists, we shall need the Navy to protect our overseas commerce from them. If we had a Citizen Army such as I have mentioned, of nine or ten millions of men and if the land of this country was properly cultivated, we should be invincible at home. No foreign power would ever be mad enough to attempt to land their forces on our shores. But they would now be able to starve us all to death in a month if it were not for the Navy. It’s a sensible and creditable position, isn’t it?” concluded Barrington. “Even in times of peace, thousands of people standing idle and tamely starving in their own fertile country, because a few land ‘Lords’ forbid them to cultivate it.”

“Is there any more questions?” demanded Philpot, breaking a prolonged silence.

“Would any Liberal or Tory capitalist like to get up into the pulpit and oppose the speaker?” the chairman went on, finding that no one responded to his appeal for questions.

The silence continued.

“As there’s no more questions and no one won’t get up into the pulpit, it is now my painful duty to call upon someone to move a resolution.”

“Well, Mr Chairman,” said Harlow, “I may say that when I came on this firm I was a Liberal, but through listenin’ to several lectures by Professor Owen and attendin’ the meetings on the hill at Windley and reading the books and pamphlets I bought there and from Owen, I came to the conclusion some time ago that it’s a mug’s game for us to vote for capitalists whether they calls theirselves Liberals or Tories. They’re all alike when you’re workin’ for ’em; I defy any man to say what’s the difference between a Liberal and a Tory employer. There is none—there can’t be; they’re both sweaters, and they’ve got to be, or they wouldn’t be able to compete with each other. And since that’s what they are, I say it’s a mug’s game for us to vote ’em into Parliament to rule over us and to make laws that we’ve got to abide by whether we like it or not. There’s nothing to choose between ’em, and the proof of it is that it’s never made much difference to us which party was in or which was out. It’s quite true that in the past both of ’em have passed good laws, but they’ve only done it when public opinion was so strong in favour of it that they knew there was no getting out of it, and then it was a toss up which side did it.

“That’s the way I’ve been lookin’ at things lately, and I’d almost made up my mind never to vote no more, or to trouble myself about politics at all, because although I could see there was no sense in voting for Liberal or Tory capitalists, at the same time I must admit I couldn’t make out how Socialism was going to help us. But the explanation of it which Professor Barrington has given us this afternoon has been a bit of an eye opener for me, and with your permission I should like to move as a resolution, ‘That it is the opinion of this meeting that Socialism is the only remedy for Unemployment and Poverty.’”

The conclusion of Harlow’s address was greeted with loud cheers from the Socialists, but most of the Liberal and Tory supporters of the present system maintained a sulky silence.

“I’ll second that resolution,” said Easton.

“And I’ll lay a bob both ways,” remarked Bundy. The resolution was then put, and though the majority were against it, the Chairman declared it was carried unanimously.

By this time the violence of the storm had in a great measure abated, but as rain was still falling it was decided not to attempt to resume work that day. Besides, it would have been too late, even if the weather had cleared up.

“P’raps it’s just as well it ’as rained,” remarked one man. “If it ’adn’t some of us might ’ave got the sack tonight. As it is, there’ll be hardly enough for all of us to do tomorrer and Saturday mornin’ even if it is fine.”

This was true: nearly all the outside was finished, and what remained to be done was ready for the final coat. Inside all there was to do was to colour wash the walls and to give the woodwork of the kitchen and scullery the last coat of paint.

It was inevitable—unless the firm had some other work for them to do somewhere else—that there would be a great slaughter on Saturday.

“Now,” said Philpot, assuming what he meant to be the manner of a school teacher addressing children, “I wants you hall to make a speshall heffort and get ’ere very early in the mornin’—say about four o’clock—and them wot doos the most work tomorrer, will get a prize on Saturday.”

“What’ll it be, the sack?” inquired Harlow.

“Yes,” replied Philpot, “and not honly will you get a prize for good conduck tomorrer, but if you all keep on workin’ like we’ve bin doing lately till you’re too hold and wore hout to do any more, you’ll be allowed to go to a nice workhouse for the rest of your lives! and each one of you will be given a title—‘Pauper!’”

And they laughed!

Although the majority of them had mothers or fathers or other near relatives who had already succeeded to the title—they laughed!

As they were going home, Crass paused at the gate, and pointing up to the large gable at the end of the house, he said to Philpot:

“You’ll want the longest ladder—the 65, for that, tomorrow.”

Philpot looked up at the gable.

It was very high.