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Leila's Books
England For All
England For All
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Scanned, proofed and corrected from the original edition for your reading pleasure. It is also searchable and contains hyper-links to chapters.
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Preface
In this changeful period, when the minds of men are much troubled about the future, and many seem doubtful whither we are bound, I have attempted to suggest for the Democratic party in this country a clear and definite policy. The views expressed in this little work do not, I am aware, accord with the commonly received politics and economy of the day. Holding, as I do, strong opinions as to the capacity of the great English-speaking democracies to take the lead in the social reorganization of the future, I think it right to state them, and to show at the same time how seriously the working people suffer under our present landlord and capitalist system.
From the luxurious classes, as a whole, I expect little support. They have plenty of writers ready to champion their cause. To the people alone I appeal, and their approval will be my reward.
It was for the Democratic Federation that I originally wrote this book, and I present to its members the first copies to-day.
For the ideas and much of the matter contained in Chapters II and III, I am indebted to the work of a great thinker and original writer, which will, I trust, shortly be made accessible to the majority of my countrymen.
***
An excerpt from the Introduction:
It is impossible to survey our modern society without at once seeing that there is something seriously amiss in the conditions of our every-day life. All may indeed lament the inequalities around them, the wasted wealth and excessive luxury of the rich, the infinite misery and degradation of the poor. So clear is the mischief which results from causes apparently beyond control, that now and then a paroxysm of self-reproach seizes upon the comfortable classes, and they try some new-fangled scheme of charity to remedy the ills which, for the moment, they think must be due to them. But this temporary feeling is very short-lived. The conditions of human existence are said to be unchangeable by collective, far less by individual, action, and religion is often called in to justify the let-alone policy which is so far the most convenient to the well-to-do.
Possibly, however, a change is at hand. In England as elsewhere, ideas in these days move fast. That disgust with both the political parties in the State which has long been felt by the more intelligent of the working-class – that rooted impression that men in broadcloth, no matter how they label themselves, are banded together, in spite of their pledges at the polls, to keep the men in fustian from their fair share of the enjoyments of life, is spreading now from the abler men to the less far-sighted. More and more clear is it becoming to our people that their interest in politics is something which, if fully understood, lies far deeper than that of their daily or weekly wage. “We working men,” said one, “shall never know our real interest in politics till the mother teaches the truth about them to her child;” and this phrase by itself happily shows that a very different view of the duty of the community to all is growing up from that indifference and sluggishness which have hitherto checked progress. How could it be otherwise? Is it conceivable that the men who make the wealth of the country will permanently be satisfied with a system which shuts them out for ever from all interest in their own land? that they will be content to live from hand to mouth on the strength of mere phrases, and that they will always consent to be deprived of their due share of representation? They are indeed shortsighted who so suppose. Now therefore it becomes necessary that people of all classes who desire that our existing society should be peacefully modified should be content to examine, a little more deeply than heretofore, into the present state of things.
This, so far as the wealthy are concerned, from the most selfish point of view; for there is nothing here in the eternal fitness of things. The evolution of mankind will not stand still, in order that landowners and capitalists may continue their present leisurely existence, or that the well-to-do generally may regard the sufferings of the toilers as of small account. Such poverty as now exists is not an inseparable accompaniment of human society; neither is such excessive concentration of wealth an incentive to human progress. The gospel of greed and selfishness, of corruption and competition, now proclaimed as the only means of social salvation, is seen to be false in its principles, and baneful in its results. This furious development of wealth, on which we sometimes congratulate ourselves, has done little to elevate, and much to lower, the tone even of the classes which have benefited by it....
***
Preface
In this changeful period, when the minds of men are much troubled about the future, and many seem doubtful whither we are bound, I have attempted to suggest for the Democratic party in this country a clear and definite policy. The views expressed in this little work do not, I am aware, accord with the commonly received politics and economy of the day. Holding, as I do, strong opinions as to the capacity of the great English-speaking democracies to take the lead in the social reorganization of the future, I think it right to state them, and to show at the same time how seriously the working people suffer under our present landlord and capitalist system.
From the luxurious classes, as a whole, I expect little support. They have plenty of writers ready to champion their cause. To the people alone I appeal, and their approval will be my reward.
It was for the Democratic Federation that I originally wrote this book, and I present to its members the first copies to-day.
For the ideas and much of the matter contained in Chapters II and III, I am indebted to the work of a great thinker and original writer, which will, I trust, shortly be made accessible to the majority of my countrymen.
***
An excerpt from the Introduction:
It is impossible to survey our modern society without at once seeing that there is something seriously amiss in the conditions of our every-day life. All may indeed lament the inequalities around them, the wasted wealth and excessive luxury of the rich, the infinite misery and degradation of the poor. So clear is the mischief which results from causes apparently beyond control, that now and then a paroxysm of self-reproach seizes upon the comfortable classes, and they try some new-fangled scheme of charity to remedy the ills which, for the moment, they think must be due to them. But this temporary feeling is very short-lived. The conditions of human existence are said to be unchangeable by collective, far less by individual, action, and religion is often called in to justify the let-alone policy which is so far the most convenient to the well-to-do.
Possibly, however, a change is at hand. In England as elsewhere, ideas in these days move fast. That disgust with both the political parties in the State which has long been felt by the more intelligent of the working-class – that rooted impression that men in broadcloth, no matter how they label themselves, are banded together, in spite of their pledges at the polls, to keep the men in fustian from their fair share of the enjoyments of life, is spreading now from the abler men to the less far-sighted. More and more clear is it becoming to our people that their interest in politics is something which, if fully understood, lies far deeper than that of their daily or weekly wage. “We working men,” said one, “shall never know our real interest in politics till the mother teaches the truth about them to her child;” and this phrase by itself happily shows that a very different view of the duty of the community to all is growing up from that indifference and sluggishness which have hitherto checked progress. How could it be otherwise? Is it conceivable that the men who make the wealth of the country will permanently be satisfied with a system which shuts them out for ever from all interest in their own land? that they will be content to live from hand to mouth on the strength of mere phrases, and that they will always consent to be deprived of their due share of representation? They are indeed shortsighted who so suppose. Now therefore it becomes necessary that people of all classes who desire that our existing society should be peacefully modified should be content to examine, a little more deeply than heretofore, into the present state of things.
This, so far as the wealthy are concerned, from the most selfish point of view; for there is nothing here in the eternal fitness of things. The evolution of mankind will not stand still, in order that landowners and capitalists may continue their present leisurely existence, or that the well-to-do generally may regard the sufferings of the toilers as of small account. Such poverty as now exists is not an inseparable accompaniment of human society; neither is such excessive concentration of wealth an incentive to human progress. The gospel of greed and selfishness, of corruption and competition, now proclaimed as the only means of social salvation, is seen to be false in its principles, and baneful in its results. This furious development of wealth, on which we sometimes congratulate ourselves, has done little to elevate, and much to lower, the tone even of the classes which have benefited by it....
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