The Wise Men of the East
sensible man you'll use whatever talents and intelligence you possess for your own benefit. Don't think about Socialism or any other "ism." Concentrate your mind on getting money, it doesn't matter how you get it. If you can't get it honestly, get it dishonestly; but get it! It is the only thing that counts. Do as I do—rob them, exploit them, and then they'll have some respect for you!'
'There's something in what you say,' replied Owen after a long pause, 'but it's not all. Circumstances make us what we are. And anyhow the children are worth fighting for.'
'You may think so now,' said the other, 'but you'll come to see it my way some day. As for the children, if their parents are satisfied to let them grow up to be half-starved drudges for other people, I don't see why you or I need trouble about it. If you like to listen to reason,' he continued after a pause, 'I can put you on to something that will be worth more to you than all your Socialism.'
'What do you mean?'
'Look here: you're a Socialist. Well, I'm a Socialist too: that is, I have 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
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