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!
