And although some Socialists may be in favour of free love, I never heard of a Socialist who had a word to say in favour of prostitution. It may be a very wicked thing to enable a free woman to give her love freely; but it is a much worse thing to allow, and even at times compel (for it amounts to that, by force of hunger) a free woman to sell her love—no, not her love, poor creature; the vilest never sold that—but to sell her honour, her body, and her soul.
I would do a great deal for Socialism if it were only to do that one good act of wiping out for ever the shameful sin of prostitution. This thing, indeed, is so horrible that I never think of it without feeling tempted to apologise for calling myself a man in a country where it is so common as it is in moral Britain.
There are several other common charges against Socialists; as that they are poor and envious—what we may call Have-nots-on-the-Have; that they are ignorant and incapable men, who know nothing, and cannot think; that, in short, they are failures and wasters, fools and knaves.
These charges are as true and as false as the others. There may be some Socialists who are ignorant and stupid; there may be some who are poor and envious; there may be some who are Socialists because they like cakes and ale better than work; and there may be some who are clever, but not too good—men who will feather their nests if they can find any geese for the plucking.
But I don't think that all Tories and Liberals are wise, learned, pure, unselfish, and clever men, eager to devote their talents to the good of their fellows, and unwilling to be paid, or thanked, or praised, for what they do.
I think there are fools and knaves,—even in Parliament,—and that some of the "Bounders-on-the-Bounce" find it pays a great deal better to toady to the "Haves" than to sacrifice themselves to the "Have-nots."
And I think I may claim that Socialists are in the main honest and sensible men, who work for Socialism because they believe in it, and not because it pays; for its advocacy seldom pays at all, and it never pays well; and I am sure that Socialism makes quicker progress amongst the educated than amongst the ignorant, and amongst the intelligent than amongst the dull.
As for brains: I hope such men as William Morris, Karl Marx, and Liebknecht are as well endowed with brains as—well, let us be modest, and say as the average Tory or Liberal leader.
But most of the charges and arguments I have quoted are not aimed at Socialism at all, but at Socialists.
Now, to prove that some of the men who espouse a cause are unworthy, is not the same thing as proving that the cause is bad.