Voices were heard asking if he could better it.
"No," Harry replied, "I can't, I wish I could." He took his place beside the table, and gazed for a few moments at the faces below him. Angela observed that his face was pale, though the carriage of his head was brave. "I wish," he repeated, "that I could. Because, after all these fireworks, it is such a tame thing just to tell you that there wasn't a word of sense in the whole speech."
Here there were signs of wrath, but the general feeling was to let the speaker have his say.
"Do you suppose—any of you—that Dick believes that the Lords go rolling drunk to the House? Of course he doesn't. Do you suppose that he thinks you such fools as to believe it? Of course he doesn't. But then, you see, Dick must have his fireworks. And it was a first-rate speech. Do you suppose he believes the Lords are a worn-out lot? Not he. He knows better. And if any of you feel inclined to think so, go and look at them. You will find them as well set up as most, and better. You can hear some of them in the House of Commons, where you send them, you electors. Wherever there are Englishmen working, fighting, or sporting, there are some of those families among them. As for their corruption, that's fireworks, too. Dick has told you some beautiful stories which he challenged anybody to dispute. I dare say they are all true. What he forgot to tell you is that he has picked out these stories from the last hundred and fifty years, and expects you to believe that they all happened yesterday. Shall we charge you, members of the club, with all the crimes of the Whitechapel Road for a hundred years? If you want to upset the House of Lords, go and do it. But don't do it with lies on your lips, and on false pretences. You know how virtuous and moral you are yourselves. Then just remember that the members of the House of Lords are about as moral as you are, or rather better. Abolish the House of Lords if you like. How much better will you be when it is gone? You can go on abolishing. There is the Church. Get it disestablished. Think how much better you will all be when the churches are pulled down. Yet you couldn't stay away any more then than you do. You want the Land Laws reformed. Get them reformed, and think how much land you will get for yourselves out of that reform.
"Dick Coppin says you have got the power. So you have. He says the last Reform Bill gave it to you. There he makes a mistake. You have always had the power. You have always had all the power there is. It is yours, because you are the people, and what the people want they will have. Your power is your birthright. You are an irresistible giant, who has only to roar in order to get what he wants.
"Well, why don't you roar? Because you don't know what you do want. Because your leaders don't know any more than yourselves; because they go bawling for things which will do you no good, and don't know what it is you do want.
"You think that by making yourselves into clubs and calling yourselves Radicals, you are getting forward. You think that by listening to a chap like my cousin Dick, who's a clever fellow and a devil for fireworks, you somehow improve your own condition. Did you ever ask yourselves what difference the form of government makes? I have been in America where, if anywhere, the people have it their own way. Do you think work is more plentiful, wages better, hours shorter, things cheaper in a republic? Do you think the heels of your boots last any longer? If you do, think so no longer. Whether the House of Lords, or the Church, or the Land Laws stand or fall, that, my friends, makes not the difference of a penny-piece to any single man among us. You who agitate for their destruction are generously giving your time and trouble for things which help no man. And yet there are so many things that can help us.
"It comes of your cursed ignorance" (Harry was warming up)—"I say, your cursed ignorance. You know nothing; you understand nothing of your own country. You do not know how its institutions have grown up; why it is so prosperous; why changes, when they have to be made, should be made slowly and not before they are necessary; nor how you yourselves may climb up, if you will, into a life above you, much happier, much more pleasant. You do not respect the old institutions, because you don't know them; you desire new things because you don't understand the old. Go—learn—make your orators learn, and make them teach you. And then send them to the House of Commons to represent you.
"You think that governments can do everything for you. You fools! has any government ever done anything for you? Has it raised your wages—has it shortened your hours? Can it protect you against rogues and adulterers? Will it ever try to better your position? Never, never, never!—because it cannot. Does any government ask what you want—what you ought to want? No. Can it give you what you want? No.
"Listen. You want clean streets and houses in which decent folks can live. The government has appointed sanitary officers. Yet, look about you! Put your heads in the courts of Whitechapel. What has the sanitary officer done? You want strong and well-built houses. There are government inspectors; yet, look at the lath and plaster houses that a child could kick over. You want honest food—all that you eat and drink is adulterated. How does the government help you there?