“Why, all of it”.
“But fix your mind upon some particular piece of England—some street, or field, that you know—and then tell me: did that belong to the English?”
“Belonged to some Englishman”.
“But you don't mean to say that some Englishman is the English?”
“Ah, yes, I know what you are driving at”, said the mechanic, with a patronizing nod: “but the point is this: that, apart from vague theorizing, a man did manage to make a good living before these dogs overran the country”.
“But—a good living? How much did you make?—forty shillings a week? toiling in grime six days, sleeping the seventh? I call that a deadly living”.
“Well, I don't, you see. Besides, I made, not forty, but forty-five shillings, under the sliding-scale”.
“Yes, but no brave nation would submit one day to such petty squalors after it was shown the way to escape them”.
“There is no way”, said the mechanic: “there are the books, and the talkers; but the economic laws that govern the units like you and me are as relentless as gravitation. Don't believe anyone who talks to you about 'ways of escape'”.
“But suppose someone has a new thought?”