"You have done nothing for your girls—you leave them to the mercies of employers, who have got to cut down expenses to the last farthing. They are paid starvation wages. They are kept in unwholesome rooms. They are bound to the longest hours. They are oppressed with fines. The girls grow up narrow-chested, stooping, consumptive—they are used up wholesale. And what do you do for them. Nothing. There are girls and women in this hall: can any one of them here get up and say that the working-men have raised a finger for them?
"The worst charge any man can bring against you is that you care nothing for your girls.
"Why, it is only the other day that a Dressmakers' Association has been opened among you—you all know where it is. You all know what it tries to do for the girls. Yet, what single man among you has ever had the pluck to stand up for his sisters who are working in it?"
Then Harry stepped right to the edge of the platform and spread out his hands, changing his voice.
"You are good fellows," he said, "and you've given me fair play. There isn't a country in the world, except Ireland, where I could have had this fair play. Don't misunderstand me—I tell you, and I don't think you knew it before, that the time has come when the people should leave off caring much about the Government, or expecting any good thing for themselves from any government; because it can't be done in that way. You must find out for yourselves what you want, and then you must have that done. You must combine for these things as you did for wages, and you will get them. And if you spend half the energy in working for yourselves that you have spent in working for things that do you no good you will be happy indeed.
"Your politics, I say again, will do nothing for you—do you hear—nothing at all; but yours is the power. Let us repeat it again and again—all the power is yours. Try what Government can do. Send Dick Coppin into Parliament—he's a clever chap—and tell him to do what he can for you. He will do nothing. Therefore, work for yourselves, and by yourselves. Make out what you want, and resolve to have it—nobody can prevent you. The world is yours to do what you like with. Here in England, as in America, the working-man is master—provided the working-man knows what he wants. The first thing you want, I reckon, is good lodging. The second, is good food. The third is good drink—good, unadulterated beer, and plenty of it. The fourth is good and sensible education. The fifth is holiday and pleasure; and the last, which is also the first, is justice for our girls. But don't be fools. I have been among you in this club a good many times. It goes to my heart every time I come to see so many clever men and able men wasting their time in grievances which don't hurt them, when they are surrounded by a hundred grievances which they have only to perceive in order to sweep them away.
"I am a Radical, like yourselves; but I am a Social Radical. As for your political jaw, it plays the game of those who use you. Politics is a game of lying accusations and impossible promises. The accusations make you angry—the promises make you hopeful. But you get nothing in the long run; and you never will. Because—promise what they may—it is not laws or measures that will improve our lot; it is by our own resolution that it shall be improved. Hold out your hands and take the things that are offered you—everything is yours if you like to have it. You are in a beautiful garden filled with fruits, if you care to pick them; but you do not. You lie grubbing in the mud, and crying out for what will do you no good. Voices are calling to you—they offer you such a life as was never yet conceived by the lordliest House of Lords—a life full of work, and full of pleasure. But you don't hear—you are deaf. You are blind—you are ignorant."
He stopped; a hoarse shout greeted his peroration. Harry wondered for a moment if this was applause or disapproval. It was the former. Then one man rose and spoke.
"Damn him!" he cried. Yet the phrase was used in no condemnatory spirit; as when a mother addresses her boy as a naughty little rogue-pogue. "Damn him! He shall be our next member."
"No," said Harry, clapping his cousin on the shoulder, "here is your next member; Dick Coppin is your boy. He is clever—he is ambitious. Tell him what you want, and he'll get it for you if any one can. But, O men! find out what you want, and have it. Yours—yours—yours is the power. You are the masters of the world. Leave the humbug of Radicalism, and Liberalism, and Toryism. Let dead politics bury their dead—learn to look after your own interests. You are the kings and lords of humanity. The old kings and lords are no more—they are swept away! They are only shadows of the past. With you are the sceptre and the crown. You sit upon the throne, and when you know how to reign, you shall reign as never yet king was known to reign; but first find out what you want."