“To deal with this, it will be necessary to reduce the hours of our workers to four or five hours a day... All young people will be allowed to continue at public schools and universities and will not be required to take any part in the work or the nation until they are twenty-one years of age. At the age of forty-five, everyone will be allowed to retire from the State service on full pay... All these will be able to spend the rest of their days according to their own inclinations; some will settle down quietly at home, and amuse themselves in the same ways as people of wealth and leisure do at the present day—with some hobby, or by taking part in the organization of social functions, such as balls, parties, entertainments, the organization of Public Games and Athletic Tournaments, Races and all kinds of sports.
“Some will prefer to continue in the service of the State. Actors, artists, sculptors, musicians and others will go on working for their own pleasure and honour... Some will devote their leisure to science, art, or literature. Others will prefer to travel on the State steamships to different parts of the world to see for themselves all those things of which most of us have now but a dim and vague conception. The wonders of India and Egypt, the glories of Rome, the artistic treasures of the continent and the sublime scenery of other lands.
“Thus—for the first time in the history of humanity—the benefits and pleasures conferred upon mankind by science and civilization will be enjoyed equally by all, upon the one condition, that they shall do their share of the work, that is necessary in order to make all these things possible.
“These are the principles upon which the CO-OPERATIVE COMMONWEALTH of the future will be organized. The State in which no one will be distinguished or honoured above his fellows except for Virtue or Talent. Where no man will find his profit in another’s loss, and we shall no longer be masters and servants, but brothers, free men, and friends. Where there will be no weary, broken men and women passing their joyless lives in toil and want, and no little children crying because they are hungry or cold.
“A State wherein it will be possible to put into practice the teachings of Him whom so many now pretend to follow. A society which shall have justice and co-operation for its foundation, and International Brotherhood and love for its law.
“Such are the days that shall be! but
What are the deeds of today,
In the days of the years we dwell in,
That wear our lives away?
Why, then, and for what we are waiting?
There are but three words to speak
‘We will it,’ and what is the foreman
but the dream strong wakened and weak?
“Oh, why and for what are we waiting, while
our brothers droop and die?
And on every wind of the heavens, a
wasted life goes by.
“How long shall they reproach us, where
crowd on crowd they dwell
Poor ghosts of the wicked city,
gold crushed, hungry hell?
“Through squalid life they laboured in
sordid grief they died
Those sons of a mighty mother, those
props of England’s pride.
They are gone, there is none can undo
it, nor save our souls from the curse,
But many a million cometh, and shall
they be better or worse?
“It is We must answer and hasten and open wide the door,
For the rich man’s hurrying terror, and the slow foot hope of the poor,
Yea, the voiceless wrath of the wretched and their unlearned discontent,
We must give it voice and wisdom, till the waiting tide be spent
Come then since all things call us, the living and the dead,
And o’er the weltering tangle a glimmering light is shed.”
As Barrington descended from the Pulpit and walked back to his accustomed seat, a loud shout of applause burst from a few men in the crowd, who stood up and waved their caps and cheered again and again. When order was restored, Philpot rose and addressed the meeting:
“Is there any gentleman wot would like to ask the Speaker a question?”
No one spoke and the Chairman again put the question without obtaining any response, but at length one of the new hands who had been “taken on” about a week previously to replace another painter who had been sacked for being too slow—stood up and said there was one point that he would like a little more information about. This man had two patches on the seat of his trousers, which were also very much frayed and ragged at the bottoms of the legs: the lining of his coat was all in rags, as were also the bottoms of the sleeves; his boots were old and had been many times mended and patched; the sole of one of them had begun to separate from the upper and he had sewn these parts together with a few stitches of copper wire. He had been out of employment for several weeks and it was evident from the pinched expression of his still haggard face that during that time he had not had sufficient to eat. This man was not a drunkard, neither was he one of those semi-mythical persons who are too lazy to work. He was married and had several children. One of them, a boy of fourteen years old, earned five shillings a week as a light porter at a Grocer’s.