第236章

`Look here: you're a Socialist; well, I'm a Socialist too: that is, Ihave sense enough to believe that Socialism is practical and inevitable and right; it will come when the majority of the people are sufficiently enlightened to demand it, but that enlightenment will never be brought about by reasoning or arguing with them, for these people are simply not intellectually capable of abstract reasoning -they can't grasp theories.You know what the late Lord Salisbury said about them when somebody proposed to give them some free libraries: He said: "They don't want libraries: give them a circus." You see these Liberals and Tories understand the sort of people they have to deal with; they know that although their bodies are the bodies of grown men, their minds are the minds of little children.That is why it has been possible to deceive and bluff and rob them for so long.But your party persists in regarding them as rational beings, and that's where you make a mistake - you're simply wasting your time.

`The only way in which it is possible to teach these people is by means of object lessons, and those are being placed before them in increasing numbers every day.The trustification of industry - the object lesson which demonstrates the possibility of collective ownership - will in time compel even these to understand, and by the time they have learnt that, they will also have learned by bitter experience and not from theoretical teaching, that they must either own the trusts or perish, and then, and not, till then, they will achieve Socialism.But meanwhile we have this election.Do you think it will make any real difference - for good or evil - which of these two men is elected?'

`No.'

`Well, you can't keep them both out - you have no candidate of your own - why should you object to earning a few pounds by helping one of them to get in? There are plenty of voters who are doubtful whet to do; as you and I know there is every excuse for them being unable to make up their minds which of these two candidates is the worse, a word from your party would decide them.Since you have no candidate of your own you will be doing no harm to Socialism and you will be doing yourself a bit of good.If you like to come along with me now, I'll introduce you to Sweater's agent - no one need know anything about it.'

He slipped his arm through Barrington's, but the latter released himself.

`Please yourself,' said the other with an affectation of indifference.

`You know your own business best.You may choose to be a Jesus Christ if you like, but for my part I'm finished.For the future I intend to look after myself.As for these people - they vote for what they want; they get - what they vote for; and by God, they deserve nothing better! They are being beaten with whips of their own choosing and if I had my way they should be chastised with scorpions! For them, the present system means joyless drudgery, semi-starvation, rags and premature death.They vote for it all and uphold it.Well, let them have what they vote for - let them drudge - let them starve!'

The man with the scarred face ceased speaking, and for some moments Barrington did not reply.

`I suppose there is some excuse for your feeling as you do,' he said slowly at last, `but it seems to me that you do not make enough allowance for the circumstances.From their infancy most of them have been taught by priests and parents to regard themselves and their own class with contempt - a sort of lower animals - and to regard those who possess wealth with veneration, as superior beings.The idea that they are really human creatures, naturally absolutely the same as their so-called betters, naturally equal in every way, naturally different from them only in those ways in which their so-called superiors differ from each other, and inferior to them only because they have been deprived of education, culture and opportunity - you know as well as I do that they have all been taught to regard that idea as preposterous.

`The self-styled "Christian" priests who say - with their tongues in their cheeks - that God is our Father and that all men are brethren, have succeeded in convincing the majority of the "brethren" that it is their duty to be content in their degradation, and to order themselves lowly and reverently towards their masters.Your resentment should be directed against the deceivers, not against the dupes.'

The other man laughed bitterly.

`Well, go and try to undeceive them,' he said, as he returned to the platform in response to a call from his associates.`Go and try to teach them that the Supreme Being made the earth and all its fullness for the use and benefit of all His children.Go and try to explain to them that they are poor in body and mind and social condition, not because of any natural inferiority, but because they have been robbed of their inheritance.Go and try to show them how to secure that inheritance for themselves and their children - and see how grateful they'll be to you.'

For the next hour Barrington walked about the crowded streets in a dispirited fashion.His conversation with the renegade seemed to have taken all the heart out of him.He still had a number of the leaflets, but the task of distributing them had suddenly grown distasteful and after a while he discontinued it.All his enthusiasm was gone.Like one awakened from a dream he saw the people who surrounded him in a different light.For the first time he properly appreciated the offensiveness of most of those to whom he offered the handbills; some, without even troubling to ascertain what they were about, rudely refused to accept them; some took them and after glancing at the printing, crushed them in their hands and ostentatiously threw them away.Others, who recognized him as a Socialist, angrily or contemptuously declined them, often with curses or injurious words.