The British working man, as he is generally known, is a manly and very independent personage. As a rule his master is more afraid of him than he is of his master. Yet, according to the picture drawn of him by the Socialists, he is a timorous, cowardly, whining, pitiful creature who has to cringe to his tyrannic employers:
See the toiler, how he slaves
For a trifle of his toil.
How disease and death he braves,
Yet the masters take the spoil;
And how often, cap in hand,
Trembling, pleading piteously,
He is forced to take his stand
In the mart of slavery.
Oh! ye tyrants of the earth,
Who make others' ruin your trade,
'Midst licentious love and mirth
Fashion, pomp, and church parade.
Do you never think, oh, tell
[16] Of the hideous crime and shame
That has made this earth a hell
Of commercial fraud and shame?[47]
During the week the British workers work at most five and a half days out of seven, and as a rule they work during from eight to ten hours a day. Generally speaking, the pace at which British workmen work is not forced. Except in a few special industries overwork among the working men is practically unknown. Besides, the pace at which work is performed is as a rule determined not by the employer, but by the employees. Nevertheless we read, "It is monstrous that, while some half million of men are vainly seeking employment, millions of their fellows should have no respite from arduous ill-requited toil and should be hastening to a premature death through overwork."[48] In prose and verse the British workers are constantly told that they are slaves[49] who are driven into starvation and suicide:
Let them brag until in the face they are black
That over oceans they hold their sway,
Of the flag of Old England, the Union Jack,
About which I have something to say.
'Tis said that it floats o'er the free; but it waves
Over thousands of hard-worked, ill-paid British slaves,
Who are driven to pauper and suicide graves—
The starving poor of Old England.
Chorus.
'Tis the poor, the poor the taxes have to pay,
The poor who are starving every day,
Who faint and die on the King's highway—
The starving poor of Old England.
There's the slaves of the needle and the slaves of the mine,
[17] The postmen, and the sons of the plough,
And the hard-worked servants on the railway line,
Who get little by the sweat of their brow.
'Tis said that the labourer is worthy of his hire;
But of whom does he get it? we'd like to enquire.
Not of any mill-owner, or farmer, or squire,
Who grind down the poor of Old England.[50]
Now let us cast a glance at the Socialist picture of the society of the future under Socialistic rule.
The first thing which Socialism would do would be to organise work, for "practical Socialism is a kind of national scheme of co-operation, managed by the State."[51] There would be no more employers, for "under Socialism all the work of the nation would be managed by the nation for the nation,"[52] and all would have plenty to eat, because "Socialism would leave no man to starve."[53] "All the work of the nation would be organised—that is to say, it would be ordered or arranged so that no one need be out of work, and so that no useless work need be done, and so that no work need be done twice where once would serve."[54]