Its proletariat is, in the
truest and most pitiable sense, an army of labour. In that atmosphere
masters bear upon them the signs that they are more than men; and to
insult an officer is death.
If anyone ask how this extreme and unmistakable subordination of the
employed to the employers is brought about, we all know the answer. It is
brought about by hunger and hardness of heart, accelerated by a certain
kind of legislation, of which we have had a good deal lately in England,
but which was almost invariably borrowed from Prussia. Mr. Herbert
Samuel's suggestion that the poor should be able to put their money in
little boxes and not be able to get it out again is a sort of standing
symbol of all the rest. I have forgotten how the poor were going to
benefit eventually by what is for them indistinguishable from dropping
sixpence down a drain. Perhaps they were going to get it back some day;
perhaps when they could produce a hundred coupons out of the Daily Citizen;
perhaps when they got their hair cut; perhaps when they consented to be
inoculated, or trepanned, or circumcised, or something. Germany is full
of this sort of legislation; and if you asked an innocent German, who
honestly believed in it, what it was, he would answer that it was for the
protection of workmen.
And if you asked again "Their protection from what?" you would have the
whole plan and problem of the Servile State plain in front of you.
Pages:
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107