'But I can't see as that proves that money is the cause of poverty,'

said Easton.

'Look here,' said Owen. 'The people in number four produce everything, don't they?'

'Yes; we knows all about that,' interrupted Harlow. 'But they gets paid for it, don't they? They gets their wages.'

'Yes, and what does their wages consist of?' said Owen.

'Why, money, of course,' replied Harlow, impatiently.

And what do they do with their money when they get it? Do they eat it, or drink it, or wear it?'

At this apparently absurd question several of those who had hitherto been attentive listeners laughed derisively; it was really very difficult to listen patiently to such nonsense.

'Of course they don't,' answered Harlow scornfully. 'They buy the things they want with it.'

'Do you think that most of them manage to save a part of their wages--put it away in the bank.'

'Well, I can speak for meself,' replied Harlow amid laughter. 'It takes me all my b.l.o.o.d.y time to pay my rent and other expenses and to keep my little lot in shoe leather, and it's dam little I spend on beer; p'r'aps a tanner or a bob a week at the most.'

'A single man can save money if he likes,' said Slyme.

'I'm not speaking of single men,' replied Owen. 'I'm referring to those who live natural lives.'

'What about all the money what's in the Post Office Savings Bank, and Building and Friendly Societies?' said Cra.s.s.

'A very large part of that belongs to people who are in business, or who have some other source of income than their own wages. There are some exceptionally fortunate workers who happen to have good situations and higher wages than the ordinary run of workmen. Then there are some who are so placed--by letting lodgings, for instance--that they are able to live rent free. Others whose wives go out to work; and others again who have exceptional jobs and work a lot of overtime--but these are all exceptional cases.'

'I say as no married workin' man can save any money at all!' shouted Harlow, 'not unless 'e goes without some of even the few things we are able to get--and makes 'is wife and kids go without as well.'

''Ear, 'ear,' said everybody except Cra.s.s and Slyme, who were both thrifty working men, and each of them had some money saved in one or other of the inst.i.tutions mentioned.

'Then that means,' said Owen, 'that means that the wages the people in division four receive is not equivalent to the work they do.'

'Wotcher mean, equivalent?' cried Cra.s.s. 'Why the 'ell don't yer talk plain English without draggin' in a lot of long words wot n.o.body can't understand?'

'I mean this,' replied Owen, speaking very slowly. 'Everything is produced by the people in number four. In return for their work they are given--Money, and the things they have made become the property of the people who do nothing. Then, as the money is of no use, the workers go to shops and give it away in exchange for some of the things they themselves have made. They spend--or give back--ALL their wages; but as the money they got as wages is not equal in value to the things they produced, they find that they are only able to buy back a VERY SMALL PART. So you see that these little discs of metal--this Money--is a device for enabling those who do not work to rob the workers of the greater part of the fruits of their toil.'

The silence that ensued was broken by Cra.s.s.

'It sounds very pretty,' he sneered, 'but I can't make no 'ead or tail of it, meself.'

'Look here!' cried Owen. 'The producing cla.s.s--these people in number four are supposed to be paid for their work. Their wages are supposed to be equal in value to their work. But it's not so. If it were, by spending all their wages, the producing cla.s.s would be able to buy back All they had produced.'

Owen ceased speaking and silence once more ensued. No one gave any sign of understanding, or of agreeing or of disagreeing with what he had said. Their att.i.tude was strictly neutral. Barrington's pipe had gone out during the argument. He relit it from the fire with a piece of twisted paper.

'If their wages were really equal in value to the product of their labour,' Owen repeated, 'they would be able to buy back not a small part--but the Whole.'...

At this, a remark from Bundy caused a shout of laughter, and when Wantley added point to the joke by making a sound like the discharge of a pistol the merriment increased tenfold.

'Well, that's done it,' remarked Easton, as he got up and opened the window.

'It's about time you was buried, if the smell's anything to go by,'

said Harlow, addressing Wantley, who laughed and appeared to think he had distinguished himself.

'But even if we include the whole of the working cla.s.ses,' continued Owen, 'that is, the people in number three as well as those in number four, we find that their combined wages are insufficient to buy the things made by the producers. The total value of the wealth produced in this country during the last year was 1,800,000,000, and the total amount paid in wages during the same period was only 600,000,000. In other words, by means of the Money Trick, the workers were robbed of two-thirds of the value of their labour. All the people in numbers three and four are working and suffering and starving and fighting in order that the rich people in numbers one and two may live in luxury, and do nothing. These are the wretches who cause poverty: they not only devour or waste or h.o.a.rd the things made by the worker, but as soon as their own wants are supplied--they compel the workers to cease working and prevent them producing the things they need. Most of these people!' cried Owen, his usually pale face flushing red and his eyes shining with sudden anger, 'most of these people do not deserve to be called human beings at all! They're devils! They know that whilst they are indulging in pleasures of every kind--all around them men and women and little children are existing in want or dying of hunger.'

The silence which followed was at length broken by Harlow:

'You say the workers is ent.i.tled to all they produce, but you forget there's the raw materials to pay for. They don't make them, you know.'

'Of course the workers don't create the raw materials,' replied Owen.

'But I am not aware that the capitalists or the landlords do so either.

The raw materials exist in abundance in and on the earth, but they are of no use until labour has been applied to them.'

'But then, you see, the earth belongs to the landlords!' cried Cra.s.s, unguardedly.

'I know that; and of course you think it's right that the whole country should belong to a few people--'

'I must call the lecturer to horder,' interrupted Philpot. 'The land question is not before the meeting at present.'

'You talk about the producers being robbed of most of the value of what they produce,' said Harlow, 'but you must remember that it ain't all produced by hand labour. What about the things what's made by machinery?'

'The machines themselves were made by the workers,' returned Owen, 'but of course they do not belong to the workers, who have been robbed of them by means of the Money Trick.'

'But who invented all the machinery?' cried Cra.s.s.

'That's more than you or I or anyone else can say,' returned Owen, 'but it certainly wasn't the wealthy loafer cla.s.s, or the landlords, or the employers. Most of the men who invented the machinery lived and died unknown, in poverty and often in actual want. The inventors too were robbed by the exploiter-of-labour cla.s.s. There are no men living at present who can justly claim to have invented the machinery that exists today. The most they can truthfully say is that they have added to or improved upon the ideas of those who lived and worked before them.

Even Watt and Stevenson merely improved upon steam engines and locomotives already existing. Your question has really nothing to do with the subject we are discussing: we are only trying to find out why the majority of people have to go short of the benefits of civilization. One of the causes is--the majority of the population are engaged in work that does not produce those things; and most of what IS produced is appropriated and wasted by those who have no right to it.

'The workers produce Everything! If you walk through the streets of a town or a city, and look around, Everything that you can see--Factories, Machinery, Houses, Railways, Tramways, Ca.n.a.ls, Furniture, Clothing, Food and the very road or pavement you stand upon were all made by the working cla.s.s, who spend all their wages in buying back only a very small part of the things they produce. Therefore what remains in the possession of their masters represents the difference between the value of the work done and the wages paid for doing it.

This systematic robbery has been going on for generations, the value of the acc.u.mulated loot is enormous, and all of it, all the wealth at present in the possession of the rich, is rightly the property of the working cla.s.s--it has been stolen from them by means of the Money Trick.'...

For some moments an oppressive silence prevailed. The men stared with puzzled, uncomfortable looks alternately at each other and at the drawings on the wall. They were compelled to do a little thinking on their own account, and it was a process to which they were unaccustomed. In their infancy they had been taught to distrust their own intelligence and to leave 'thinking' to their 'pastors' and masters and to their 'betters' generally. All their lives they had been true to this teaching, they had always had blind, unreasoning faith in the wisdom and humanity of their pastors and masters. That was the reason why they and their children had been all their lives on the verge of starvation and nakedness, whilst their 'betters'--who did nothing but the thinking--went clothed in purple and fine linen and fared sumptuously every day.

Several men had risen from their seats and were attentively studying the diagrams Owen had drawn on the wall; and nearly all the others were making the same mental efforts--they were trying to think of something to say in defence of those who robbed them of the fruits of their toil.

'I don't see no b.l.o.o.d.y sense in always runnin' down the rich,' said Harlow at last. 'There's always been rich and poor in the world and there always will be.'

'Of course,' said Slyme. 'It says in the Bible that the poor shall always be with us.'

'What the b.l.o.o.d.y 'ell kind of system do you think we ought to 'ave?'

demanded Cra.s.s. 'If everything's wrong, 'ow's it goin' to be altered?'

At this, everybody brightened up again, and exchanged looks of satisfaction and relief. Of course! It wasn't necessary to think about these things at all! Nothing could ever be altered: it had always been more or less the same, and it always would be.

'It seems to me that you all HOPE it is impossible to alter it,' said Owen. 'Without trying to find out whether it could be done, you persuade yourselves that it is impossible, and then, instead of being sorry, you're glad!'