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The Oblong on the pail, who perhaps felt safer than the others because he was, as usual, surrounded by a moat.

'Poverty,' resumed the lecturer, 'consists of a shortage of the necessaries of life which are produced from the Raw Materials by the Workers, aided by Machinery.

'Now there is plenty of Raw Material, plenty of Labour, plenty of Machinery—and yet nearly everybody is going short of nearly everything.

'It is the Money System which is the cause of this shortage, which makes the worker starve in the midst of the means of abundance, and binds him in helpless idleness with a fetter of gold.

'Let us examine the details of this imbecile Money System.'

Owen took a piece of charred wood from the grate and drew a quadrangular figure on the wall.

'To discover the cause of shortage of the things that can be made by work, we must find how the people spend their time. This oblong represents the whole of the adult population of the country. All these people help to consume the things made by work, but though the majority are workers, only a comparatively small number actually produce the benefits of civilization, or the necessaries of life.'

The lecturer turned to the drawing on the wall to make some addition to it, then paused irresolutely and let his arm drop to his side.

He knew how unwilling his hearers were to think about such subjects as the cause of poverty. He knew they would ridicule what he said and refuse to try to understand his meaning if it was at all obscure. They would not worry their heads about such an unimportant matter; it would be different if it were a smutty story, or a game of hooks and rings or shove halfpenny, or some question concerning 223