At the Museum he surprised her by the extent of his knowledge. She had heard enough by the time they went to lunch and better liked the Park, where they sat for a while in the afternoon. Medora saw wealth and beauty and power pass by while Kellock commented.
“That’s the sort of thing we’re out to alter,” he said. But she was not feeling in a socialistic mood.
“Why?” she asked. “Why shouldn’t there be beautiful horses and beautiful clothes in the world?”
“It isn’t the horses and clothes. It’s where they come from, Medora. The horses are bred for money, and the clothes are spun and made for money. But who makes the money? Do the people that ride the horses and wear the clothes make it? No—you and I make it. The workers make it. You and I have just as much right to ride in a carriage as the Queen of England.
“The wealth of the world is exploited,” he explained, “and the result is poverty and superfluity. The world could get on perfectly well without those horses and those clothes—yes, and those people; but it couldn’t get on without us. We’re carrying on the work of civilisation, not those dolls and puppets toying together. Poverty and wealth are the result of the same vicious factor in our social system. They are interdependent and spring from the same rotten roots. Banish poverty and you do away with hunger and ignorance and misery and immorality and other ills, all of which spring from it. And there’s only one way to banish poverty, and that’s to banish wealth. Then you get a self-respecting order of humanity instead of the present arrangement. If the nation’s rich, the people are rich. It all comes back to brain power, and the moment labour is strong enough in brain power, the rest follows. The Trade Unions are only a first little instalment. In fact they’re almost past their work now. We’ve gone beyond them. Syndicalism says good-bye to the poor and good-bye to the rich. Then we shall get face to face with reality.”
“And what becomes of all these handsome, dashing, prosperous people then?” she asked.
“Nothing worse than what becomes of us. They will be left with a great deal more than they deserve, because they’ve never lifted their fingers to help the real good of the world. The revolution in this country, when it comes, will be bloodless—merely a readjustment in conformity with reason and justice. We’re out against the system, not against the individual which battens on it. When we make war on rats and sparrows and wood pigeons, we’re not quarrelling with the individual rat or sparrow, but against the class. They’ve got to go, because they’re unsocial and harm the community and take for themselves what was grown and garnered for their betters. And that’s what the classes are doing. They take for themselves what was earned by their betters.”
“Why are we their betters?”
“Because we justify our existence and they do not. Our lives are a round of work; their lives are a round of luxury and pleasure. We earn the money and they spend it. We save and they waste. Do they spend it on the community? No. They spend it on themselves.”
“They’re taxed and all that.”