ACT SECOND.
SCENE I.
A large Meeting Hall in Stairway, densely filled with people. The election of a member, for that district, to the House of Privilege, is over, the votes have been counted, and Vergli, to the intense surprise of the party, influenced by Sanctimonious, the Ardrigh of Saxscober, and which has hitherto been the paramount power in Stairway, has been declared to be the returned candidate. The crowded meeting is awaiting his arrival, to hear an address from him.
[Enter Vergli, Scrutus, Verita, Maxim and Members of Vergli’s Election Committee. He receives an immense ovation. The chair is taken by Verita, who, on silence being obtained, rises and introduces the new Member of Privilege for Stairway in the following speech:
Verita. “Friends; Right has triumphed. Vergli is returned. The Cause of Progress, Human love and Truth Has made another bound, and left behind The prison ground wherein it was confined. For what does Vergli’s advent here portend? Why, that the voice of Reason shall be heard, Not trembling in the slums, or whispering In muffled accents its convincing words; But ringing through the House of Privilege, Echoing in the Chamber of the Bores, Re-echoing in the press and through our land, Filling the brains of Men with new-born thought, Thought, recreated from a vanished past, Whose sombre clouds are hastening away, And with them the dark ages which they clothed. Now have the people won their voice a place, And soon that voice, falling from Vergli’s lips, Will cry aloud the human rights of Man, Which term, of course, includes the Woman too. Vergli is Woman’s friend, undoubtedly. His creed does not coerce her with its weight, No Saulite dictum soils his honest lips, To him the human rights are not controlled By that inhuman thief, Sex Privilege. His mission here is to assist the weak, To lift the suffering from out the mire, To give to all a chance of Happiness. To see appalling Contrasts shall not live, To order Labour to protect itself, And Capital to share with Labour’s toil The golden grain accruing from the two, Instead of fabricating Millionaires.”
A Voice. “Fat-stomached monsters! Greedy Cormorants!”
[Cheers and laughter.
Verita. “You wrong the Cormorant! He fills his pouch, To satiate hunger legitimate. ‘Fat-stomached Misshapes!’ That, I grant they are, Sinners, beside which all the lordly Bores, Are saints immaculate and preferable. Toil is ennobling, ease contemptible, ‘Away with such!’ That is our Vergli’s cry. But let him speak. We’ll listen to his voice, Hearken to accents that we love so well. I yield to our new representative, One who is such in deed, as well as name.”
Vergli (rising). “Comrades, my thanks to you of either sex, My cordial gratitude for all your toil, Which has resulted in a victory. Nor can I pass from Gratitude’s fond side, Till I have bidden her seek that of one, Whose heart is with us, though it beats behind The gilded barrier of Palace walls. Ye know that dauntless spirit, nameless here, Nameless, because its mention would entail Suffering on one, whose name our hearts revere. [Murmurs of assent. And yet one other I would speak of, too. One, who since last ye fondly greeted me, Has sunk to sleep in Nature’s kind embrace; My Mother, Merani, who taught Vergli To make the Cause of all who suffer woe, His own. To save the disinherited, And preach the Gospel of Fair Play and Truth. [Murmurs of assent. The Gospel of Fair Play means equal laws, And equal opportunities to all, Women and Men, to live an honoured life, To toil, but reap the fruits of honest toil. Fair Play demands that men who sow shall reap, Not toil to bolster up a selfish Log! For instance, let us take as an example Two men of Property. One owns a mill, The other owns a coal mine. Both pay well. How should these owners work their properties? Is not the wages system a mistake? Would not Co-operation simplify And bind together owner, workman, all? Let him who owns and those who work, receive Their fair division of the profits reaped. The owner gives the land and the machines To work the raw material, yielding gain. Let this be calculated as his toil, And grain, proportionate to such, bestowed, While those, whose labour has produced the grain, Receive their fair share of the profits too. Thus all would have an interest in the work, And feel they laboured not, nor toiled in vain. Strikes and disputes would fade like restless dreams, And Brotherhood would knit the hearts of men. Fair Play demands that money for the State Shall be collected, so that all shall pay, And pay in due proportion to their means, Allowance given for the right to live. He who earns just sufficient for his needs Should not be asked to give his daily bread, But all who profit by their toil should yield Unto the State their equitable share; Commodities required in daily life, And necessary to the weal of Man, Should not be taxable, but free as air, And luxuries alone be charged upon. Fair Play demands that Squalor shall not be, That bread and wholesome food shall be Man’s due, That able-bodied persons shall not loaf, That none shall be denied the right to work, That habitations must be fit abodes, Not dens of Misery and Pestilence, That cruelty to man or to the brute Shall be a most severely punished Crime, For Cruelty to anything that feels Is Crime undoubtedly. We have no right, No right, I say, and say it solemnly, To mete out pain to any sentient thing. The Gospel of Fair Play demands this. Hark! Comrades, its far-famed tenets sound aloud ‘Thou shalt not kill,’ ‘Be merciful, be just,’ ‘Do unto others what ye would have done Unto yourselves.’ These are Fair Play’s commands. He who would reap the grain of Happiness Must sow as he would reap. He must be just. And now I would point out that Truth derides, Derides with scorn all priestly superstition. If priests would be, they must adhere to Truth, They must not seek to bolster up a lie. Truth only dwells in Nature. She abides With her sole God, the endless Universe. Go, seek her there, and not in fairy tales, Proclaim her as she is, not cloaked in sham. Truth is a meteor leading on to more, Leading to where abounding knowledge reigns. Where Truth is not, Falsehood alone can be. Comrades, I pray ye, give your hearts to Truth And let your reasoning be drilled by her. Laws or Religions founded on a lie Cannot be good, nay more, they are pernicious. Laws born of Truth must be what men should frame. I go to struggle to attain this end. Now, let me map a programme and a creed, Both of which shall be our unerring guide, And which shall ultimately Freedom win And give to all the disinherited That which is theirs, their own, their simple right, The right of all things living to enjoy And to preserve their lives in Comfort’s arms. But first take in the fact that Human Life, And much of brute creation can exist, And is intended to exist on grain, On fruit, on vegetables, likewise herbs, And not upon the bleeding, tortured flesh Of animals, bred for immoral use, As such flesh-eating is, when Nature’s laws Proclaim Man and a part of brute Creation Intended to be non-carnivorous. I urge this point upon you. All around Land bids you live upon her wholesome fruit. Throughout the world the natural food of Man Teems in unbounded wealth awaiting him. Let him put forth his hand, and pluck, and eat. Rememb’ring always also Moderation. Kill not for food, and where Necessity Demands the sacrifice of sentient life, Kill with all kindness and with due regard To Physical—and Mental—feelings. Pain Is a nerve-racking, dread experience, Especially unto the dumb Creation, Who cannot question, yet are forced to bear That dread experience, all unwillingly. Our programme then must be to fashion laws Akin to Nature for the people’s good, To overturn the thief, Sex Privilege, To make all property, when worked by toil Co-operative in the profits shared, And land, the birthright of the Human race. Wealth must remember what its duties are, And never hoard its substance greedily. Taxation must be regulated by Far juster and more equitable laws Than now prevail. Justice must reign, and though Equality can never be until All men are perfect, we must have a care That ghastly contrasts are impossible. To Woman give all reverence. Hark! ye, Men, The crime of Prostitution, is a crime In Vergli’s eyes worse than foul murder’s act. Woman and Man were born to be together, But Nature’s tie should bind the two as one. It is the marriage service, which no creed Should dare to trample on or overturn. See here I stand a disinherited, I am the Prince of Scota, yet denied By that false creed of Sanctimonious, The right to call myself legitimate. By that same creed my mother was condemned And called a Prostitute, while Isola, Who did not wish to wed my father, holds The empty title of a Consort Queen And stands by him his legal prostitute. Oh! hideous travesty of Nature’s law, Oh! hateful doctrine of a priestly creed. Call it not God’s, for Nature cries it Shame! And Nature is alone the real, true God. So now I leave ye bent on Evolution. Men have declared us Revolutionists, Not so, we are but Evolutionists, Evolving Order out of Chaos, and Creating where Creation is required. Let us be true unto our principles, Come weal, come woe, stick to them everyone, And if we work and practise what we preach, Assuredly shall Victory be ours.”