It will, no doubt, [OOY]| be a cause of wonderment to future generations [OOY]| that the people of our age, highly developed as [OOY]| they were in some directions, tolerated so meekly [OOY]| the shameless robbery of the masses by persons who [OOY]| appeared to have no qualities of mind or body [OOY]| which might account for the mesmerism they [OOY]| exercised over the millions of their fellow [OOY]| men.
POWER OF PRIESTHOODS.
The power [OOY]| of priesthoods in ancient civilisations is more [OOY]| comprehensible, in that the people who supported [OOY]| them were impressed with the belief that the wrath [OOY]| of God or of Nature was appeased, and His favor [OOY]| propitiated, by the efforts of these parasitic [OOY]| groups, who surrounded themselves with a veil of [OOY]| superstition, and through it appeared to the [OOY]| masses as beings who had attained an awful height [OOY]| of moral superiority.
SUBJECTION TO [OOY]| CAPITALISTS INCOMPREHENSIBLE.
The [OOY]| subjugation of the people by great fighting men in [OOY]| an age when the security depended upon military [OOY]| prowess, as in the rude struggles between tribes, [OOY]| and when the civilised empires withstood the waves [OOY]| of barbarian invasion, or by a class possessed of [OOY]| superior culture, ability, or learning, as in [OOY]| ancient Greece, is comprehensible; but the control [OOY]| of our modern laboring classes by the capitalists [OOY]| of today is without any such reason or excuse.
[OOY]|THE RICH AND THE ARTS
Our leisured class [OOY]| for the most part, completely fails to fulfil the [OOY]| service to humanity which is the best its [OOY]| defenders claim for its justification ~~ namely, [OOY]| the devotion of persons freed from manual toil for [OOY]| the cultivation of the arts and sciences. The best [OOY]| artistic production is not by any means the [OOY]| outcome of the efforts of the wealthy; in fact, [OOY]| almost every picture, book, or musical composition [OOY]| of value has been produced by persons who are [OOY]| under the necessity of earning a living.
[OOY]|Appreciation of art is very weak amongst the [OOY]| wealthy. The Press and the Stage, which cater for [OOY]| them, are a sure indication of that fact. It is [OOY]| principally in Continental countries, especially [OOY]| Germany, where art is cheap enough for the [OOY]| populace to patronise it, that the works of great [OOY]| musicians and of great playwrights can be produced [OOY]| on a commercial basis.
ART-CULTURE OF THE [OOY]| PROLETARIAT.
A much higher artistic level [OOY]| is reached in the North of England, and in the [OOY]| great industrial centres of Scotland, where the [OOY]| cultural needs of a more prosperous proletariat is [OOY]| catered for by classical concerts in the great [OOY]| halls at popular prices, and where repertory [OOY]| theatres have grown up in cities like Manchester, [OOY]| Liverpool, and Glasgow, than in the south and [OOY]| west, where the masses have been kept ignorant and [OOY]| poor.
A COMPARISON OF SCHOOLS.
As [OOY]| far as refinement or morality is concerned, the [OOY]| reverend centres of learning at Oxford and [OOY]| Cambridge, pre-eminently the preserves of the rich [OOY]| and aristocratic, have earned for themselves a [OOY]| reputation for vulgar rowdiness of which a camp of [OOY]| private soldiers would be ashamed. State schools [OOY]| where the children of the workers are educated are [OOY]| not the breeding grounds of unnamable vices such [OOY]| as the schools for the sons of the wealthy are [OOY]| well known to be, and the adult life of the men of [OOY]| the wealthy classes is best understood by the [OOY]| existence of a traffic in women, so lucrative that [OOY]| no legal penalties can suppress it.
THE [OOY]| REAL WHITE SLAVES.
The owners of the means [OOY]| of life and of capital are concerned in the [OOY]| terrible social evil which poisons the human race, [OOY]| not only as the clients of the procurers and [OOY]| immoral women, but as landlords drawing high rents [OOY]| from brothels, dance halls, hotels, and other [OOY]| places of assignation; as bankers and bank [OOY]| shareholders earning a percentage upon this, as [OOY]| upon any other business; as lawyers earning fees [OOY]| in the mass of legal business to which the [OOY]| existence of prostitution gives rise; and as the [OOY]| purveyors, direct and indirect, of pictures, [OOY]| books, films, liquor, drugs, and spurious remedies [OOY]| which all contribute to debauch the people.
[OOY]|INDIVIDUAL VIRTUES MUST NOT BLIND.
The [OOY]| philanthropic efforts of a minority of the [OOY]| leisured class ought not to blind us to the evils [OOY]| of its existence as a class, any more than the [OOY]| individual virtues of slave owners justified [OOY]| slavery. The endowment of charities or the more [OOY]| enlightened efforts towards social reform of [OOY]| Rockefeller, Carnegie, or Cadbury ought not to [OOY]| blind us to the fact that the surplus capital they [OOY]| control is earned by men, women and children [OOY]| deprived of the means to become complete human [OOY]| beings.
BOURNVILLE.
Cadbury's [OOY]| settlement at Bournville, with its much lauded [OOY]| means to improve the lot of the workers, is [OOY]| perhaps the best of these experiments. The [OOY]| conditions are as favorable as possible to such an [OOY]| enterprise, as, to begin with, the manufacture of [OOY]| chocolate and cocoa is an occupation harmless to [OOY]| the workers and beneficial to the world. But [OOY]| first to last, our question must be: Have the [OOY]| workers concerned been adequately rewarded for [OOY]| their labor before their employers abstracted the [OOY]| profits they devote to themselves or their [OOY]| philanthropic enterprises? In respect to the [OOY]| colored labor of the cocoa plantations, the answer [OOY]| must be emphatically: No! Shameless as the [OOY]| exploitation of white labor is, the robbery of the [OOY]| black man is infinitely more iniquitous. [OOY]| Conditions approximately to slavery still exist, [OOY]| and the tribal life and the natural development of [OOY]| backward races is broken up in a cruel and [OOY]| dangerous manner. The whole transport of the raw [OOY]| material by sea and overland is productive of a [OOY]| profit made at the expense of the well-being of [OOY]| the workers, and, within the actual scope of the [OOY]| Cadburys themselves, the exploitation is just as [OOY]| flagrant, though palliated by a sensible and [OOY]| profitable kindness.
The girls at [OOY]| Bournville are certainly well fed and healthy, [OOY]| their lives brightened by social intercourse in [OOY]| the shape of lectures, swimming and games. This, [OOY]| however, gives them no security of employment, no [OOY]| means by which they could develop exceptional [OOY]| talents, find the means to travel, or provide [OOY]| adequately for sickness and old age. The work of [OOY]| earning profits to support the Cadbury family and [OOY]| their social efforts (no halo of credit for which [OOY]| surrounds the girl workers) takes the best [OOY]| energies of their youth, and little remains for [OOY]| themselves after their services to their employers [OOY]| are rendered
The married employees, [OOY]| accommodated though they may be with cheap and [OOY]| pleasant houses in the Bournville model village, [OOY]| are not by any means able to live up to the [OOY]| standard which members of the Cadbury family would [OOY]| think necessary for themselves. Nor can these men [OOY]| and women, however humbly they may be content to [OOY]| live, prevent their children from entering [OOY]| employment which presents the worst features of [OOY]| exploitation and oppression.
CAPITALIST [OOY]| CHARITIES.
The imposing charities of [OOY]| multi-millionaires are nothing but a small return, at [OOY]| the arbitrary will of an individual, generally [OOY]| very ignorant of the problems he has to tackle, of [OOY]| wealth created by the community. While society [OOY]| leaves the power of providing it with art, [OOY]| literature, education and amusement to [OOY]| individuals, it is likely to be ill-served in that [OOY]| respect, for the people have no safeguard that the [OOY]| descendants of the philanthropic Carnegies, [OOY]| Rockefellers, Cadburys, and Rowntrees may not be [OOY]| as parsimonious as their progenitors were [OOY]| charitable, or may not spend their substance as [OOY]| injuriously as a Stanford White or a Harry [OOY]| Thaw.
MISERY NOT SET-OFF BY LIBRARIES.
[OOY]|The value of libraries and other great gifts to [OOY]| the nation is more than cancelled by the abject [OOY]| misery for which the system of profiteering is [OOY]| responsible. Religious philanthropists distribute [OOY]| Bibles which have been manufactured by sweated [OOY]| Englishwomen who are subsidised by the earnings of [OOY]| shame. Thus a famous leader in the Sunday school [OOY]| movement was once proved to draw the money he [OOY]| spent upon his projects from a hideous chemical [OOY]| process which blasted the bodies of the men and [OOY]| women he employed, and whom he did not protect [OOY]| from the ravages of their ghastly employment, even [OOY]| as the law prescribed.
PROFITS BEFORE [OOY]| PURITY.
Property owners who collect the [OOY]| rents of brothels and places of assignation, [OOY]| shareholders who derive their incomes from the [OOY]| sale of drink and drugs, or from businesses where [OOY]| the starvation rate of wages forces women on the [OOY]| streets, are powerful members of councils of [OOY]| social purity, just as anti-gamblers are often [OOY]| financially interested in sporting papers, or [OOY]| temperance advocates are shareholders in [OOY]| breweries.