Page:The cry for justice - an anthology of the literature of social protest. - (IA cryforjusticea00sinc).pdf/861

 *ment," replied Owen, "but it's not the cause of poverty; that's another matter altogether."

The others laughed derisively.

"Well, it seems to me to amount to the same thing," said Harlow, and nearly everyone agreed.

"It doesn't seem to me to amount to the same thing," Owen replied. "In my opinion we are all in a state of poverty even when we have employment. The condition we are reduced to when we're out of work is more properly described as destitution.

"Poverty," continued Owen after a short silence, "consists in a shortage of the necessaries of life. When those things are so scarce or so dear that people are unable to obtain sufficient of them to satisfy all their needs, they are in a condition of poverty. If you think that the machinery which makes it possible to produce all the necessaries of life in abundance is the cause of the shortage, it seems to me there must be something the matter with your minds."

"Oh, of course we're all bloody fools, except you," snarled Crass. "When they was servin' out the sense they give you such a 'ell of a lot there wasn't none left for nobody else."

"If there wasn't something wrong with your minds," continued Owen, "you would be able to see that we might have 'Plenty of Work' and yet be in a state of destitution. The miserable wretches who toil sixteen or eighteen hours a day—father, mother, and even the little children—making matchboxes, or shirts or blouses, have 'Plenty of Work,' but I for one don't envy them. Perhaps you think that if there was no machinery, and we all had to work thirteen or fourteen hours a day in order to obtain a bare living, we should not be in a condition