Page:Ragged Trousered Philanthropists.djvu/345

The Great Oration 'Yes; and where's the money to come from for all this?' shouted Crass, fiercely.

'Hear, hear,' cried the man behind the moat.

'There's no money difficulty about it,' replied Owen. 'We can easily find all the money we shall need.'

'Of course,' said Slyme, 'there's all the money in the Post Office Savings Bank. The Socialists could steal that for a start. And as for the mines and land and factories, they can all be took from the owners by force.'

'There will be no need for force and no need to steal anything from anybody.'

'And there's another thing I objects to,' said Crass, 'and that's all this 'ere talk about hignorance. Wot about all the money wots spent every year for eddication!'

'You should rather say, What about all the money that's wasted every year on education! What can be more brutal or senseless than trying to "educate" a poor little hungry, ill-clad child? The majority of us forget in a year or two all that we learnt at school because the conditions of our lives are such as to destroy all inclination for culture or refinement. We must see that the children are properly clothed and fed and that they are not made to get up in the middle of the night to go to work for several hours before they go to school. We must make it illegal for any greedy, heartless profit-hunter to hire their labour for several hours in the evening after school, or all day until nearly midnight on Saturday. We must first see that our children are fed and clothed and cared for before we can expect a proper return for the money that we spend on education.'

'I don't mind admitting that this 'ere scheme of national ownership and industries is all right if it could only be done,' said Harlow, 'but at present all the land, railways and factories belongs to private capitalists; they can't be bought without money, and you say you ain't goin' to take 'em away by force, so I should like to know how the bloody 'ell you are goin' to get 'em!'

'We certainly don't propose to buy them with money, for the simple reason that there is not sufficient money in existence to pay for them. The people who own all these things now never really paid for them with money, they obtained possession of them by means of the "money trick" which I explained some time ago.' 333