“Whether or not it is possible to make a halt in the path of progress to destruction, which we have entered upon, I should scarcely care to venture to say. Many milliards in value have already been destroyed by the Revolution, and it would again require the sacrifice of milliards to restore something like order to the present disorganised condition of affairs.
“Whilst we in old Europe, thanks to your efforts, are fast hastening to ruin and destruction, there arises on the other side of the ocean, ever mightier and wealthier, a power that is settled on the firm basis of personal property and free competition, and whose citizens have never seriously entertained the falsities of Socialism.
“Every day that we delay the extrication of our country from the wretched maze into which an aberration of mind has led it, takes us nearer and nearer to the abyss. Hence I say, ‘Down with the socialistic gaol regime! Long live Liberty.’” (Loud applause from the Left and from the galleries. Hissing and uproar from the Right.)
The President called the last speaker to order for the concluding remarks contained in his speech, and gave instructions to clear the galleries immediately, by reason of the repeated manifestations of opinion by the occupants.
The clearance of the galleries occasioned no small amount of trouble. As I had to go with the others, I, unfortunately, can say no more as to the further progress of the sitting. But as the Government has a slavish majority at its back, there can hardly be any doubt as to the passing of the various measures proposed by the Chancellor. Not even the indignation of the Chancellor’s lady at the proposed Regulation of Dress Bill will have any effect in altering it.
CHAPTER XXX.
THREATENED STRIKE.
The Chancellor’s new proposals for getting rid of the great deficit have been received on all sides in Berlin with mockery and derision. To what lengths this dissatisfaction may yet go there is no foretelling. For a long time past there has been a great spirit of discontent amongst the artificers in metals, and more particularly amongst engineers. These men claim to have had a large share in bringing about the Revolution, and they complain that they are now shamefully cheated out of what Socialism had always promised them. It certainly cannot be denied that before the great Revolution they had over and over again been promised the full reward of their labours. This, as they maintain, had expressly and repeatedly appeared in black and white in the columns of the Onward. And shall they now put up with it, that they only receive the same wages as all the others?
They say that if they were to receive the full value of the machines and tools which are turned out of their shops, after deducting the cost of raw material and auxiliary material, they would get, at least, four times as much as they do now.
It is in vain that the Onward has endeavoured to point out to them that their interpretation is an entirely false one. Socialism, says this organ, never contemplated giving to each labourer in his special field the full reward of his work in that particular sphere of labour. It promised the nation as a whole the full reward of the labours effected by the whole people. Whatever these mechanics might turn out of their shops and mills, it was quite clear that the things turned out were not the result purely and simply of hand labour. Expensive machines and tools were equally necessary to their production. In a no less degree were large buildings and considerable means indispensable. All these accessories had not been produced by the workmen actually engaged at the time being. Seeing then that the Community finds all these buildings, plans, and means, it was assuredly only just that the Community should appropriate whatever remained after paying a certain wage calculated at one uniform rate for all persons in the country.
But these mechanics, somehow, cannot be brought to view the thing in this light. They say that if the State, or the Community, or whatever you like to call it, is now to take those profits which formerly were paid to shareholders for the loan of their capital, it comes to much the same thing to them in the long run. If this was to be the end of the affair, the great Revolution might just as well never have taken place at all.