Page:The Life of William Morris.djvu/570

ÆT. 52] The article opens in a tone that gives little promise of applying either light or wisdom to the situation. It was the time when the vices of that debased journalism with which he had deliberately associated himself infected Morris most deeply. The description of the riot itself, and the forecast of what might ensue from it, are not free from qualities most deeply alien from his own nature, tumid metaphor and tawdry declamation. So far the writing is characteristic not of himself, but of his party, or of any party of undisciplined and half-educated men, whether reactionaries or revolutionaries. But once he has paid this sacrifice to the taste of his colleagues, he speaks in his own voice with grave good-sense and temperate foresight.

"I should like to say a few words with the utmost seriousness to our comrades and supporters, on the policy of the Socialist League. I have said that we have been overtaken unprepared, by a revolutionary incident, but that incident was practically aimless. This kind of thing is what many of us have dreaded from the first, and we may be sure that it will happen again and again while the industrial outlook is what it is; but every time it happens it will happen with every-increasing tragedy. It is above all things our business to guard against the possible consequences of these surprises. At the risk of being misunderstood by hot-heads, I say that our business is more than ever Education.

"The Gospel of Discontent is in a fair way towards forcing itself on the whole of the workers; how can that discontent be used so as to bring about the New Birth of Society? That is the question we must always have before us. It is too much to hope that the whole working class can be educated in the aims of Socialism in due time, before other surprises take