Page:An Ulsterman for Ireland.djvu/18

AN ULSTERMAN FOR IRELAND bodies and souls that they sit now at ease as the gods of this lower world, and by the alembic of Money, and the crucible of starvation, extract from your blood, and sweat, and brain and marrow whatever there is in you marketable, whereby they may turn a penny and leave the offal of you to the poor houses or the fever hospital.

How this is done you shall hear. The broad land of Ireland, which was given to you by GOD, has been given by various Kings and Queens of England to some few thousand persons, who now claim it as absolutely theirs, with the growth upon it, and the minerals beneath it, and the air above it, "from the centre"—so says the Law—"up to the Heavens." But as you, the "millions" and "masses" cannot live without earth and air, these few thousand persons, having a monoply [sic] of the articles, and finding that men will give anything and do anything rather than die of hunger, cry out Free trade! Fair competition! No interference with bargains! You see these men are willing to sell us themselves for slaves, soul and body, for so much land, and shall we not purchase? Is it not fair supply and demand?

Thus also capitalists, having by their gigantic operations abolished all household and homespun manufactures, and having laws made to their hand by the other conspirators "the gentry" enabling them to combine, and forbidding poor men to combine against them under penalties, can wring out of the working classes (by the same enlightened system of fair competition) their health and strength 8