第208章

`The masons, carpenters, painters.glaziers, and all the others engaged in maintaining these unnecessary stores and shops will all be thrown out of employment, but all of them who are willing to work will be welcomed by the State and will be at once employed helping either to produce or distribute the necessaries and comforts of life.They will have to work fewer hours than before...They will not have to work so hard - for there will be no need to drive or bully, because there will be plenty of people to do the work, and most of it will be done by machinery - and with their paper money they will be able to buy abundance of the things they help to produce.The shops and stores where these people were formerly employed will be acquired by the State, which will pay the former owners fair compensation in the same manner as to the factory owners.Some of the buildings will be utilized by the State as National Service Stores, others transformed into factories and others will be pulled down to make room for dwellings, or public buildings...It will be the duty of the Government to build a sufficient number of houses to accommodate the families of all those in its employment, and as a consequence of this and because of the general disorganization and decay of what is now called "business", all other house property of all kinds will rapidly depreciate in value.The slums and the wretched dwellings now occupied by the working classes - the miserable, uncomfortable, jerry-built "villas" occupied by the lower middle classes and by "business" people, will be left empty and valueless upon the hands of their rack renting landlords, who will very soon voluntarily offer to hand them and the ground they stand upon to the state on the same terms as those accorded to the other property owners, namely - in return for a pension.Some of these people will be content to live in idleness on the income allowed them for life as compensation by the State: others will devote themselves to art or science and some others will offer their services to the community as managers and superintendents, and the State will always be glad to employ all those who are willing to help in the Great Work of production and distribution.

`By this time the nation will be the sole employer of labour, and as no one will be able to procure the necessaries of life without paper money, and as the only way to obtain this will be working, it will mean that every mentally and physically capable person in the community will be helping in the great work of PRODUCTION and DISTRIBUTION.We shall not need as at present, to maintain a police force to protect the property of the idle rich from the starving wretches whom they have robbed.There will be no unemployed and no overlapping of labour, which will be organized and concentrated for the accomplishment of the only rational object - the creation of the things we require...For every one labour-saving machine in use today, we will, if necessary, employ a thousand machines! and consequently there will be produced such a stupendous, enormous, prodigious, overwhelming abundance of everything that soon the Community will be faced once more with the serious problem of OVER-PRODUCTION.

`To deal with this, it will be necessary to reduce the hours of our workers to four or five hours a day...All young people will be allowed to continue at public schools and universities and will not be required to take any part in the work or the nation until they are twenty-one years of age.At the age of forty-five, everyone will be allowed to retire from the State service on full pay...All these will be able to spend the rest of their days according to their own inclinations; some will settle down quietly at home, and amuse themselves in the same ways as people of wealth and leisure do at the present day - with some hobby, or by taking part in the organization of social functions, such as balls, parties, entertainments, the organization of Public Games and Athletic Tournaments, Races and all kinds of sports.

`Some will prefer to continue in the service of the State.Actors, artists, sculptors, musicians and others will go on working for their own pleasure and honour...Some will devote their leisure to science, art, or literature.Others will prefer to travel on the State steamships to different parts of the world to see for themselves all those things of which most of us have now but a dim and vague conception.The wonders of India and Egypt, the glories of Rome, the artistic treasures of the continent and the sublime scenery of other lands.

`Thus - for the first time in the history of humanity - the benefits and pleasures conferred upon mankind by science and civilization will be enjoyed equally by all, upon the one condition, that they shall do their share of the work, that is necessary in order to, make all these things possible.

`These are the principles upon which the CO-OPERATIVE COMMONWEALTH of the future will be organized.The State in which no one will be distinguished or honoured above his fellows except for Virtue or Talent.Where no man will find his profit in another's loss, and we shall no longer be masters and servants, but brothers, free men, and friends.Where there will be no weary, broken men and women passing their joyless lives in toil and want, and no little children crying because they are hungry or cold.

`A State wherein it will be possible to put into practice the teachings of Him whom so many now pretend to follow.A society which shall have justice and co-operation for its foundation, and International Brotherhood and love for its law.

`Such are the days that shall be! but What are the deeds of today, In the days of the years we dwell in, That wear our lives away?

Why, then, and for what we are waiting?

There are but three words to speak "We will it," and what is the foreman but the dream strong wakened and weak?

`Oh, why and for what are we waiting, while our brothers droop and die?

And on every wind of the heavens, a wasted life goes by.