Page:Ragged Trousered Philanthropists.djvu/238

The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists 'If you go down town you will see half a dozen drapers' shops within a stone's throw of each other, all selling the same things. You can't possibly think that all those shops are really necessary? You know that one of them would serve the purpose for which they are all intended. If you will admit that five out of the six shops are really unnecessary, you must also admit that the men who built them, and the assistants engaged in them, and the men who design and write and print their advertisements, are all doing unnecessary work, wasting their time and labour, which might be employed in helping to produce those things we are short of at present. You must admit that none of these people are engaged in producing either the necessaries of life or the benefits of civilisation. They handle them, and haggle over them, and display them, and make profit out of them, but these people themselves produce nothing that is necessary to life or happiness, and the things that some of them do produce are only necessary to the present imbecile system.'

'What the 'ell sort of a bloody system do you think we ought to 'ave, then?' interrupted the man on the pail.

'Yes. You're very good at finding fault,' sneered Slyme, 'but why don't you tell us 'ow it's all going to be put right?'

'Well, that's not what we're talking about now, is it?' replied Owen. 'At present we're only trying to find out how it is that there is not sufficient produced for everyone to have enough of the things that are made by work. Although most of the people in number three work very hard they produce Nothing.'

'This is a lot of bloody rot!' exclaimed Crass, impatiently.

'Even if there is more shops than what's actually necessary,' cried Harlow, 'it all helps people to get a livin'! If half of 'em was shut up it would just mean that all them what works there would be out of a job. Live and let live, I say: all these things makes work.'

Ear 'ear!' shouted the man behind the moat.

'Yes, I know it makes "work",' replied Owen, 'but we can't live on mere "work", you know. To live in comfort we need a sufficiency of the things that can be made by work. A man might work very hard and yet be wasting his time if he were not producing something necessary or useful.

'Why are there so many shops and stores and emporiums? Do you imagine they exist for the purpose of giving those who 226