Page:William-morris-and-the-early-days-of-the-socialist-movement.djvu/102

Rh not only for the pleasure of doing it, but actually, as you folk do here, as a means of livelihood. But I tell you frankly that I should not, even if I could, work at the kind of work and in the kind of way of working, that you do—not even though offered a thousand pounds a week for so doing, instead of the paltry one or two pounds a week which you are asked to be content with, and which I regret to think you so frequently are content with. Sooner than work in an ironworks or coal mine as you folks do for ten or twelve hours a day, every week day, year out and year in, all my life, I should rebel rather, and take whatever consequences my rebellion might bring upon me.

'But I shall tell you what kind of work I should like to do, and what conditions I should like to work under, and I should like you and all workers to have. And to show you that what I speak of is not a wholly impossible thing, as many people suppose Socialist conditions of work would be, I shall, if you will listen to me just a little while, tell of how working people used to live and work in this country—in England, at any rate—so far back as five hundred years ago, before there were any labour-saving inventions or any of the wonderful means of producing wealth easily and abundantly that we nowadays possess.'

With this characteristic opening, Morris proceeded with his story (retold by him so often in his lectures) of how the workers worked and fared in the fourteenth century, the 'Golden Age of English labour,' as it has been called, concluding his address with a warmly affectionate account (I can hardly think of a better phrase) of what work and life might again be under Socialism. He spoke in his accustomed conversational way, his voice fairly strong, though inclining to grow husky towards the end. The evening had grown dark while he was speaking, and huge gleams of flame from the furnaces darted across the sky. The audience had now augmented to some sixty or eighty, chiefly miners, who listened with marked attention and interest. There were, however, a sprinkling of 'drunks' among the