Books: The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists

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However, no one took the trouble to reply to Weakling, and the Band
proceeded to the consideration of the next business, which was Mr
Grinder's offer - on behalf of the `Cosy Corner Refreshment Company' -
to take the Kiosk on the Grand Parade. Mr Grinder submitted a plan of
certain alterations that he would require the Corporation to make at
the Kiosk, and, provided the Council agreed to do this work he was
willing to take a lease of the place for five years at £20 per year.

Councillor Didlum proposed that the offer of the `Cosy Corner
Refreshment Co. Ltd' be accepted and the required alterations
proceeded with at once. The Kiosk had brought in no rent for nearly
two years, but, apart from that consideration, if they accepted this
offer they would be able to set some of the unemployed to work.
(Applause.)

Councillor Rushton seconded.

Dr Weakling pointed out that as the proposed alterations would cost
about £175 - according to the estimate of the Borough Engineer - and,
the rent being only £20 a year, it would mean that the Council would
be £75 out of pocket at the end of the five years; to say nothing of
the expense of keeping the place in repair during all that time.
(Disturbance.) He moved as an amendment that the alterations be made,
and that they then invite tenders, and let the place to the highest
bidder. (Great uproar.)

Councillor Rushton said he was disgusted with the attitude taken up by
that man Weakling. (Applause.) Perhaps it was hardly right to call
him a man. (Hear! Hear!) In the matter of these alterations they had
had the use of Councillor Grinder's brains: it was he who first
thought of making these improvements in the Kiosk, and therefore he -
or rather the company he represented - had a moral right to the
tenancy. (Loud cheers.)

Dr Weakling said that he thought it was understood that when a man was
elected to that Council it was because he was supposed to be willing
to use his brains for the benefit of his constituents. (Sardonic
laughter.)

The Mayor asked if there was any seconder to Weakling's amendment, and
as there was not the original proposition was put and carried.

Councillor Rushton suggested that a large shelter with seating
accommodation for about two hundred persons should be erected on the
Grand Parade near the Kiosk. The shelter would serve as a protection
against rain, or the rays of the sun in summer. It would add
materially to the comfort of visitors and would be a notable addition
to the attractions of the town.

Councillor Didlum said it was a very good idear, and proposed that the
Surveyor be instructed to get out the plans.

Dr Weakling opposed the motion. (Laughter.) It seemed to him that
the object was to benefit, not the town, but Mr Grinder.
(Disturbance.) If this shelter were erected, it would increase the
value of the Kiosk as a refreshment bar by a hundred per cent. If Mr
Grinder wanted a shelter for his customers he should pay for it
himself. (Uproar.) He (Dr Weakling) was sorry to have to say it, but
he could not help thinking that this was a Put-up job. (Loud cries of
`Withdraw' `Apologize' `Cast 'im out' and terrific uproar.)

Weakling did not apologize or withdraw, but he said no more. Didlum's
proposition was carried, and the `hand' went on to the next item on
the agenda, which was a proposal by Councillor Didlum to increase the
salary of Mr Oyley Sweater, the Borough Engineer, from fifteen pounds
to seventeen pounds per week.

Councillor Didlum said that when they had a good man they ought to
appreciate him. (Applause.) Compared with other officials, the
Borough Engineer was not fairly paid. (Hear, hear.) The magistrates'
clerk received seventeen pounds a week. The Town Clerk seventeen
pounds per week. He did not wish it to be understood that he thought
those gentlemen were overpaid - far from it. (Hear, hear.) It was
not that they got too much but that the Engineer got too little. How
could they expect a man like that to exist on a paltry fifteen pounds
a week? Why, it was nothing more or less than sweating! (Hear,
hear.) He had much pleasure in moving that the Borough Engineer's
salary be increased to seventeen pounds a week, and that his annual
holiday be extended from a fortnight to one calendar month with hard
la- he begged pardon - with full pay. (Loud cheers.)

Councillor Rushton said that he did not propose to make a long speech -
it was not necessary. He would content himself with formally
seconding Councillor Didlum's excellent proposition. (Applause.)

Councillor Weakling, whose rising was greeted with derisive laughter,
said he must oppose the resolution. He wished it to be understood
that he was not actuated by any feeling of personal animosity towards
the Borough Engineer, but at the same time he considered it his duty
to say that in his (Dr Weakling's) opinion, that official would be
dear at half the price they were now paying him. (Disturbance.) He
did not appear to understand his business, nearly all the work that
was done cost in the end about double what the Borough Engineer
estimated it could be done for. (Liar.) He considered him to be a
grossly incompetent person (uproar) and was of opinion that if they
were to advertise they could get dozens of better men who would be
glad to do the work for five pounds a week. He moved that Mr Oyley
Sweater be asked to resign and that they advertise for a man at five
pounds a week. (Great uproar.)

Councillor Grinder rose to a point of order. He appealed to the
Chairman to squash the amendment. (Applause.)

Councillor Didlum remarked that he supposed Councillor Grinder meant
`quash': in that case, he would support the suggestion.

Councillor Grinder said it was about time they put a stopper on that
feller Weakling. He (Grinder) did not care whether they called it
squashing or quashing; it was all the same so long as they nipped him
in the bud. (Cheers.) The man was a disgrace to the Council; always
interfering and hindering the business.

The Mayor - Alderman Sweater - said that he did not think it
consistent with the dignity of that Council to waste any more time
over this scurrilous amendment. (Applause.) He was proud to say that
it had never even been seconded, and therefore he would put Mr
Didlum's resolution - a proposition which he had no hesitation in
saying reflected the highest credit upon that gentleman and upon all
those who supported it. (Vociferous cheers.)

All those who were in favour signified their approval in the customary
manner, and as Weakling was the only one opposed, the resolution was
carried and the meeting proceeded to the next business.

Councillor Rushton said that several influential ratepayers and
employers of labour had complained to him about the high wages of the
Corporation workmen, some of whom were paid sevenpence-halfpenny an
hour. Sevenpence an hour was the maximum wage paid to skilled workmen
by private employers in that town, and he failed to see why the
Corporation should pay more. (Hear, hear.) It had a very bad effect
on the minds of the men in the employment of private firms, tending to
make them dissatisfied with their wages. The same state of affairs
prevailed with regard to the unskilled labourers in the Council's
employment. Private employers could get that class of labour for
fourpence-halfpenny or fivepence an hour, and yet the corporation paid
fivepence-halfpenny and even sixpence for the same class of work.
(Shame.) It was not fair to the ratepayers. (Hear, hear.)
Considering that the men in the employment of the Corporation had
almost constant work, if there was to be a difference at all, they
should get not more, but less, than those who worked for private
firms. (Cheers.) He moved that the wages of the Corporation workmen
be reduced in all cases to the same level as those paid by private
firms.

Councillor Grinder seconded. He said it amounted to a positive
scandal. Why, in the summer-time some of these men drew as much as
35/- in a single week! (Shame.) and it was quite common for unskilled
labourers - fellers who did nothing but the very hardest and most
laborious work, sich as carrying sacks of cement, or digging up the
roads to get at the drains, and sich-like easy jobs - to walk off with
25/- a week! (Sensation.) He had often noticed some of these men
swaggering about the town on Sundays, dressed like millionaires and
cigared up! They seemed quite a different class of men from those who
worked for private firms, and to look at the way some of their
children was dressed you'd think their fathers was Cabinet Minstrels!
No wonder the ratepayers complained ot the high rates. Another
grievance was that all the Corporation workmen were allowed two days'
holiday every year, in addition to the Bank Holidays, and were paid
for them! (Cries of `shame', `Scandalous', `Disgraceful', etc.) No
private contractor paid his men for Bank Holidays, and why should the
Corporation do so? He had much pleasure in seconding Councillor
Rushton's resolution.

Councillor Weakling opposed the motion. He thought that 35/- a week
was little enough for a man to keep a wife and family with (Rot), even
if all the men got it regularly, which they did not. Members should
consider what was the average amount per week throughout the whole
year, not merely the busy time, and if they did that they would find
that even the skilled men did not average more than 25/- a week, and
in many cases not so much. If this subject had not been introduced by
Councillor Rushton, he (Dr Weakling) had intended to propose that the
wages of the Corporation workmen should be increased to the standard
recognized by the Trades Unions. (Loud laughter.) It had been proved
that the notoriously short lives of the working people - whose average
span of life was about twenty years less than that of the well-to-do
classes - their increasingly inferior physique, and the high rate of
mortality amongst their children was caused by the wretched
remuneration they received for hard and tiring work, the excessive
number of hours they have to work, when employed, the bad quality of
their food, the badly constructed and insanitary homes their poverty
compels them to occupy, and the anxiety, worry, and depression of mind
they have to suffer when out of employment. (Cries of `Rot', `Bosh',
and loud laughter.) Councillor Didlum said, `Rot'. It was a very
good word to describe the disease that was sapping the foundations of
society and destroying the health and happiness and the very lives of
so many of their fellow countrymen and women. (Renewed merriment and
shouts of `Go and buy a red tie.') He appealed to the members to
reject the resolution. He was very glad to say that he believed it
was true that the workmen in the employ of the Corporation were a
little better off than those in the employ of private contractors, and
if it were so, it was as it should be. They had need to be better off
than the poverty-stricken, half-starved poor wretches who worked for
private firms.

Councillor Didlum said that it was very evident that Dr Weakling had
obtained his seat on that Council by false pretences. If he had told
the ratepayers that he was a Socialist, they would never have elected
him. (Hear, hear.) Practically every Christian minister in the
country would agree with him (Didlum) when he said that the poverty of
the working classes was caused not by the `wretched remuneration they
receive as wages', but by Drink. (Loud applause.) And he was very
sure that the testimony of the clergy of all denominations was more to
be relied upon than the opinion of a man like Dr Weakling. (Hear,
hear.)

Dr Weakling said that if some of the clergymen referred to or some of
the members of the council had to exist and toil amid the same sordid
surroundings, overcrowding and ignorance as some of the working
classes, they would probably seek to secure some share of pleasure and
forgetfulness in drink themselves! (Great uproar and shouts of
`Order', `Withdraw', `Apologize'.)

Councillor Grinder said that even if it was true that the haverage
lives of the working classes was twenty years shorter than those of
the better classes, he could not see what it had got to do with Dr
Weakling. (Hear, hear.) So long as the working class was contented
to die twenty years before their time, he failed to see what it had
got to do with other people. They was not runnin' short of workers,
was they? There was still plenty of 'em left. (Laughter.) So long
as the workin' class was satisfied to die orf - let 'em die orf! It
was a free country. (Applause.) The workin' class adn't arst Dr
Weakling to stick up for them, had they? If they wasn't satisfied,
they would stick up for theirselves! The working men didn't want the
likes of Dr Weakling to stick up for them, and they would let 'im know
it when the next election came round. If he (Grinder) was a wordly
man, he would not mind betting that the workin' men of Dr Weakling's
ward would give him `the dirty kick out' next November. (Applause.)

Councillor Weakling, who knew that this was probably true, made no
further protest. Rushton's proposition was carried, and then the
Clerk announced that the next item was the resolution Mr Didlum had
given notice of at the last meeting, and the Mayor accordingly called
upon that gentleman.

Councillor Didlum, who was received with loud cheers, said that
unfortunately a certain member of that Council seemed to think he had
a right to oppose nearly everything that was brought forward.

(The majority of the members of the Band glared malignantly at
Weakling.)

He hoped that for once the individual he referred to would have the
decency to restrain himself, because the resolution he (Didlum) was
about to have the honour of proposing was one that he believed no
right-minded man - no matter what his politics or religious opinions -
could possibly object to; and he trusted that for the credit of the
Council it would be entered on the records as an unopposed motion.
The resolution was as follows:

`That from this date all the meetings of this Council shall be opened
with prayer and closed with the singing of the Doxology.' (Loud
applause.)

Councillor Rushton seconded the resolution, which was also supported
by Mr Grinder, who said that at a time like the present, when there
was sich a lot of infiddles about who said that we all came from
monkeys, the Council would be showing a good example to the working
classes by adopting the resolution.

Councillor Weakling said nothing, so the new rule was carried nem.
con., and as there was no more business to be done it was put into
operation for the first time there and then. Mr Sweater conducting
the singing with a roll of paper - the plan of the drain of `The Cave' -
and each member singing a different tune.

Weakling withdrew during the singing, and afterwards, before the Band
dispersed, it was agreed that a certain number of them were to meet
the Chief at the Cave, on the following evening to arrange the details
of the proposed raid on the finances of the town in connection with
the sale of the Electric Light Works.

Chapter 40

Vive la System!

The alterations which the Corporation had undertaken to make in the
Kiosk on the Grand Parade provided employment for several carpenters
and plasterers for about three weeks, and afterwards for several
painters. This fact was sufficient to secure the working men's
unqualified approval of the action of the Council in letting the place
to Grinder, and Councillor Weakling's opposition - the reasons of
which they did not take the trouble to inquire into or understand -
they as heartily condemned. All they knew or cared was that he had
tried to prevent the work being done, and that he had referred in
insulting terms to the working men of the town. What right had he to
call them half-starved, poverty-stricken, poor wretches? If it came
to being poverty-stricken, according to all accounts, he wasn't any
too well orf hisself. Some of those blokes who went swaggering about
in frock-coats and pot-'ats was just as 'ard up as anyone else if the
truth was known.

As for the Corporation workmen, it was quite right that their wages
should be reduced. Why should they get more money than anyone else?

`It's us what's got to find the money,' they said. `We're the
ratepayers, and why should we have to pay them more wages than we get
ourselves? And why should they be paid for holidays any more than
us?'

During the next few weeks the dearth of employment continued, for, of
course, the work at the Kiosk and the few others jobs that were being
done did not make much difference to the general situation. Groups of
workmen stood at the corners or walked aimlessly about the streets.
Most of them no longer troubled to go to the different firms to ask
for work, they were usually told that they would be sent for if
wanted.

During this time Owen did his best to convert the other men to his
views. He had accumulated a little library of Socialist books and
pamphlets which he lent to those he hoped to influence. Some of them
took these books and promised, with the air of men who were conferring
a great favour, that they would read them. As a rule, when they
returned them it was with vague expressions of approval, but they
usually evinced a disinclination to discuss the contents in detail
because, in nine instances out of ten, they had not attempted to read
them. As for those who did make a half-hearted effort to do so, in
the majority of cases their minds were so rusty and stultified by long
years of disuse, that, although the pamphlets were generally written
in such simple language that a child might have understood, the
argument was generally too obscure to be grasped by men whose minds
were addled by the stories told them by their Liberal and Tory
masters. Some, when Owen offered to lend them some books or pamphlets
refused to accept them, and others who did him the great favour of
accepting them, afterwards boasted that they had used them as toilet
paper.

Owen frequently entered into long arguments with the other men, saying
that it was the duty of the State to provide productive work for all
those who were willing to do it. Some few of them listened like men
who only vaguely understood, but were willing to be convinced.

`Yes, mate. It's right enough what you say,' they would remark.
`Something ought to be done.'

Others ridiculed this doctrine of State employment: It was all very
fine, but where was the money to come from? And then those who had
been disposed to agree with Owen could relapse into their old apathy.

There were others who did not listen so quietly, but shouted with many
curses that it was the likes of such fellows as Owen who were
responsible for all the depression in trade. All this talk about
Socialism and State employment was frightening Capital out of the
country. Those who had money were afraid to invest it in industries,
or to have any work done for fear they would be robbed. When Owen
quoted statistics to prove that as far as commerce and the quantity
produced of commodities of all kinds was concerned, the last year had
been a record one, they became more infuriated than ever, and talked
threateningly of what they would like to do to those bloody Socialists
who were upsetting everything.

One day Crass, who was one of these upholders of the existing system,
scored off Owen finely. A little group of them were standing talking
in the Wage Slave Market near the Fountain. In the course of the
argument, Owen made the remark that under existing conditions life was
not worth living, and Crass said that if he really thought so, there
was no compulsion about it; if he wasn't satisfied - if he didn't want
to live - he could go and die. Why the hell didn't he go and make a
hole in the water, or cut his bloody throat?

On this particular occasion the subject of the argument was - at first -
the recent increase of the Borough Engineer's salary to seventeen
pounds per week. Owen had said it was robbery, but the majority of
the others expressed their approval of the increase. They asked Owen
if he expected a man like that to work for nothing! It was not as if
he were one of the likes of themselves. They said that, as for it
being robbery, Owen would be very glad to have the chance of getting
it himself. Most of them seemed to think the fact that anyone would
be glad to have seventeen pounds a week, proved that it was right for
them to pay that amount to the Borough Engineer!

Usually whenever Owen reflected upon the gross injustices, and
inhumanity of the existing social disorder, he became convinced that
it could not possibly last; it was bound to fall to pieces because of
its own rottenness. It was not just, it was not common sense, and
therefore it could not endure. But always after one of these
arguments - or, rather, disputes - with his fellow workmen, he almost
relapsed into hopelessness and despondency, for then he realized how
vast and how strong are the fortifications that surround the present
system; the great barriers and ramparts of invincible ignorance,
apathy and self-contempt, which will have to be broken down before the
system of society of which they are the defences, can be swept away.

At other times as he thought of this marvellous system, it presented
itself to him in such an aspect of almost comical absurdity that he
was forced to laugh and to wonder whether it really existed at all, or
if it were only an illusion of his own disordered mind.

One of the things that the human race needed in order to exist was
shelter; so with much painful labour they had constructed a large
number of houses. Thousands of these houses were now standing
unoccupied, while millions of the people who had helped to build the
houses were either homeless or herding together in overcrowded hovels.

These human beings had such a strange system of arranging their
affairs that if anyone were to go and burn down a lot of the houses he
would be conferring a great boon upon those who had built them,
because such an act would `Make a lot more work!'

Another very comical thing was that thousands of people wore broken
boots and ragged clothes, while millions of pairs of boots and
abundance of clothing, which they had helped to make, were locked up
in warehouses, and the System had the keys.

Thousands of people lacked the necessaries of life. The necessaries
of life are all produced by work. The people who lacked begged to be
allowed to work and create those things of which they stood in need.
But the System prevented them from so doing.

If anyone asked the System why it prevented these people from
producing the things of which they were in want, the System replied:

`Because they have already produced too much. The markets are
glutted. The warehouses are filled and overflowing, and there is
nothing more for them to do.'

There was in existence a huge accumulation of everything necessary. A
great number of the people whose labour had produced that vast store
were now living in want, but the System said that they could not be
permitted to partake of the things they had created. Then, after a
time, when these people, being reduced to the last extreme of misery,
cried out that they and their children were dying of hunger, the
System grudgingly unlocked the doors of the great warehouses, and
taking out a small part of the things that were stored within,
distributed it amongst the famished workers, at the same time
reminding them that it was Charity, because all the things in the
warehouses, although they had been made by the workers, were now the
property of the people who do nothing.

And then the starving, bootless, ragged, stupid wretches fell down and
worshipped the System, and offered up their children as living
sacrifices upon its altars, saying:

`This beautiful System is the only one possible, and the best that
human wisdom can devise. May the System live for ever! Cursed be
those who seek to destroy the System!'

As the absurdity of the thing forced itself upon him, Owen, in spite
of the unhappiness he felt at the sight of all the misery by which he
was surrounded, laughed aloud and said to himself that if he was sane,
then all these people must be mad.

In the face of such colossal imbecility it was absurd to hope for any
immediate improvement. The little already accomplished was the work
of a few self-sacrificing enthusiasts, battling against the opposition
of those they sought to benefit, and the results of their labours
were, in many instances, as pearls cast before the swine who stood
watching for opportunities to fall upon and rend their benefactors.

There was only one hope. It was possible that the monopolists,
encouraged by the extraordinary stupidity and apathy of the people
would proceed to lay upon them even greater burdens, until at last,
goaded by suffering, and not having sufficient intelligence to
understand any other remedy, these miserable wretches would turn upon
their oppressors and drown both them and their System in a sea of
blood.