Britain for the British

by Robert Blatchford

Now I know that belief to be wrong. I know that if every working man and woman in England turned teetotaler to-morrow, if they all remained single, if they all worked like niggers, if they all worked for twelve hours a day, if they lived on oatmeal and water, and if they saved every farthing they could spare, they would, at the end of twenty years, be a great deal worse off than they are to-day.

Sobriety, thrift, industry, skill, self-denial, holiness, are all good things; but they would, if adopted by all the workers, simply enrich the idle and the wicked, and reduce the industrious and the righteous to slavery.

Teetotalism will not do; industry will not do; saving will not do; increased skill will not do; keeping single will not do; reducing the population will not do. Nothing will do but Socialism.

I mean to make these things plain to you if I can.

I will begin by answering a statement made by a Tory M.P. As reported in the Press, the M.P. said, "There was nothing to prevent the son of a crossing-sweeper from rising to be Lord Chancellor of England."

This, at first sight, would seem to have nothing to do with the theories regarding thrift, temperance, and prudent marriages. But we shall find that it arises from the same error.

This error has two faces. On one face it says that any man may do well if he will try, and on the other face it says that those who do not do well have no one but themselves to blame.

The error rises from a slight confusion of thought. Men know that a man may rise from the lowest place in life to almost the highest, and they suppose that because one man can do it, all men can do it; they know that if one man works hard, saves, keeps sober, and remains single, he will get more money than other men who drink and spend and take life easily, and they suppose because thrift, single life, industry, and temperance spell success to one man, they would spell success to all.

I will show you that this is a mistake, and I will show you why it is a mistake. Let us begin with the crossing-sweeper.

We are told that "there is nothing to prevent the son of a crossing-sweeper from becoming Lord Chancellor of England." But our M.P. does not mean that there is nothing to prevent the son of some one particular crossing-sweeper from becoming Chancellor; he means that there is nothing to prevent any son of any crossing-sweeper, or the son of any very poor man, from becoming rich and famous.