All poems occur as DIV0. Sonnets are
attributed as "type=sonnets"; the rest are "type=poem". All quotation
marks, hyphens, dashes, apostrophes and colons have been transcribed as
entity references. All <lg> (line groups) are attributed as cantos,
stanzas, couplets, verse paragraphs, etc. All poems with regularly indented
lines use the attribute "rend" in the <l> tag, with the value
"indent1" for one tab stop, "indent2" for two tab stops, etc. All split
lines are attributed as "type=I" for the initial portion, and "type=f" for
the final portion.
All apostrophes and single right quotation marks are encoded as
’.
Any hyphens occurring in line breaks have been removed; all hyphens are
encoded as ‐ and em dashes as —.
Dunce.--
What is money?
The Other Fellow.--
Something rare and
useless which you are compelled to obtain before anyone will let you get at
things that are needful, useful and plentiful.
Dunce.--
Oh! Then, I suppose, if you have not
got any money you had better leave off hoping for the plentiful things, and
set to work to make what you want for yourself.
Other Fellow.--
Why, old man, you
can't!
Dunce.--
How's that? I feel as if I
could.
Other Fellow.--
Not you. Money is there to
stop you. It is a means used not only for making it difficult for you to
get at what is ready-made, but also for making it dangerous for you
to start digging or planting, or making what you want for
yourself.
Dunce.--
Then what on earth is money good
for?
Other Fellow.--
Ah, that's where the joke
comes in. Money is a device for enabling some people to get at
whatever they want without paying for it.
Dunce.--
What is paying?
Other Fellow.--
Damaging yourself in some
way: parting with what you are in need of; enduring something
injurious; depriving yourself of health or strength or rest; spending more
than your exertions can restore to you; impoverishing your
life in some way. Money lets some people get all
they want, and more too, by only damaging other people; so
that they themselves are not required to pay at all.
Dunce.--
Oh, but I shouldn't like to do
that. Is there not enough of everything in this great big world for
everyone to get at what they are in want of without damaging
anyone?
Other Fellow.--
Yes; and now-a-days it can
all be got at too. But, then, there's not money enough to go
round; and as I said before, you are bound to get money before you will be
allowed to get at anything better, or even to
make and use anything better, for yourself. And if no one
gives you money which some one else has paid for, you will
have to pay for some yourself. But whether you are one of the people
who pay damage or no, when
Dunce.--
What people are they who don't
pay?
Other Fellow.--
Well, they have many names.
They call themselves "noble" people, and "gentle"
people; "upper" people, "higher" people, the
"best" people, and so on. They speak of one another's
"majesty," "highness," "grace,"
"holiness," and "eminence"; and are addressed as
"honorable," "reverend," "learned,"
"worshipful"; and, in the absence of the other epithets, never
miss getting themselves called "respectable."
Dunce.--
What pretty names! Why do they call
themselves all that?
Other Fellow.--
Their god only knows. (There
are three Ms and an N in their god's name. Aye! And he
is in the know, too; and "has mercy on them, miserable
sinners.") But they only call themselves by fancy names when money is
not being inquired about. When it is, and especially when they are thinking
about the man in the street, they call themselves Sovereigns, Legislators,
Owners, Employers, Pastors, Masters and Benefactors. And the man in the
street is mostly careful to get well out of the way of their
carriages-and-pairs before he has the cheek to nickname them
Bosses, Exploiters, Sweaters, Parasites, Loafers and Frauds. They are all
men of means, that's why.
Dunce.--
What is a man of means?
Other Fellow.--
I told you before: men
with money enough to procure necessaries, comforts, luxuries, leisure and
pleasure without paying for them and entirely at other folk's
expense; and then to force these folks to put up with them.
Dunce.--
But don't people pay for what
money they have?
Other Fellow.--
Some do; some
don't.
Dunce.--
Who have the most money; the people
who pay for it, or the people who don't?
Other Fellow.--
The people who don't.
They are called "rich" people, because they get more means than
they can use up. They grow tall and live a long time, and are very much
respected.
Dunce.--
And what are the people called who
pay for what money they have?
Other Fellow.--
They are called
"poor" people. They spend their time, strength and ability in
making necessaries, comforts and luxuries to give the rich people. They
generally die early, and often miserably. They are not at all respected or
envied.
Dunce.--
Why do they spend themselves like
that?
Other Fellow.--
To buy a little money with,
from the rich people whom they make the presents to. You see, they cannot
have any food or clothing for themselves till they have bought some money.
And without any food or clothing they could not go on spending their time
and strength again to-morrow, and then the rich people would miss
their luxuries.
Dunce.--
But when they have bought enough
money for their food and clothes, whom do they give it to? where do the
food and clothes come from?
Other Fellow.--
One question at a time,
please. They don't give in the money where the food and
clothes come from. They give the money to some people who have custody of
the food and clothing, but who have not made it; and these people give a
little of the money to the poor people who have made the food
and clothes, keeping the rest for themselves. Sometimes the money is handed
through several, and what passes on gets less and less, so that the men who
buy the last shillings of it with the time and toil which they have spent
away in providing the good are, you see, poor men also. This way of going
on is called "business."
Dunce.--
Stop! Let me understand. Then you
mean to say that some rich folk, whom for clearness I'll call Strong,
Sons & Co., get the full produce of the poor men's
life-time and life-strength, and turn it into counters, and
then hand back a very few of the counters so that the poor men may have
them as tickets for useful stuff for Strong & Co. to-morrow; and
then do you tell me that another lot of rich people, whom we'll call
Rong Brothers & Co., take the tickets as a bribe for the clothes and
food, and keep back part of the counters from the other poor men who have
made the clothes and food on like terms?
Other Fellow.--
Yes, that's something
like how it is. Only you've got to recollect that, with Strong, Sons
& Co., over the way, insisting upon having everything they can think of
for nothing, and forcing everybody to take their counters in
exchange or go without, Messrs. Rong Brothers & Co. couldn't
live at all (let alone live idly or "respectably")
if they did not stop some of the goods from going straight where they are
wanted, so as to be able to stop some of the counters coming from the other
direction. They then let the goods pass on their way on condition of
receiving more counters than they gave up in order to get the
goods into their custody. What do you think of it all?
Dunce.--
Why, if you ask me plainly, I think
the rich men are impudent rogues, and the poor men are damned fools. Which
are you, sir, may I ask?
Other Fellow.--
Oh, I'm one of the
damned fools, or I certainly should not have answered your questions on the
square. But, mark you, the impudence of the other gang is
legal. There's a deal in that.
And it takes a clever dunce like you to find out I am a fool. Most people
think a man wise and prudent who puts up with what is legal. But
you're right; I am a fool.
Dunce.--
Legal! legal!--what's
legal?
Other Fellow.--
Oh, come now! Have I got to
explain that too? Legal means according to Parliamentary law: the
business way of managing to live by money, at the cost of other
people's lives and liberties is according to law, whether fools
call it impudence or not.
Dunce.--
Isn't there any plainer word
to tell me what Parliamentary law is; and why it makes people seem wise who
put up with being impudently treated?
Other Fellow.--
Why, Parliamentary law is
whatever a few score of fellow have settled among themselves to make tens
of millions of other people conform to; in fact, everybody is made to
conform who has not extra money enough to make it worth the while of anyone
in office to let him go his own way instead.
Dunce.--
Oh! ah! But that isn't telling
me what "law" is. What is it those fellows want
you to conform to?
Other Fellow.--
Well, you've got to
conform to anything, no matter what, that more than half this little lot of
fellows want to see other people do. Sometimes it's one thing;
sometimes it's another: but it is always whatever this lot of
fellows suppose will turn out best for business.
Dunce.--
Then, it is only the wishes of the
bigger number of this little lot that all other people are made to conform
to? And the wishes of these law-fellows is whatever is good for
business? And business is the plan of getting most money into the hands of
people who pay least? And money is a means by which these people may make
it difficult for the rest of us to get at what is necessary in order to
make useful things with, and difficult to have the use of them when made?
(Scratches his head.) And folks are "damned fools" who
don't see the wisdom of putting up with it all.........Please, sir,
what is this country called?--because it seems to me that everyone in
it is off his chump.
Other Fellow.--
You dunce! It is a glorious
Empire! The land of the free!!
Dunce.--
Free what? Free business-law
makers? or free rich law-breakers? or free swindlers and sweaters?
or what?
Other Fellow.--
Sh--! It isn't
respectable to talk like that. Free citizens, of course! A
free citizen is a law-abiding citizen. You are free just as far as
you do what you are told.
Dunce.--
I say, you're having a game
with me! I'm not such a dunce that I don't know what
"free" means. It doesn't mean abiding by what you are
told, especially when you can't "abide" the chaps that
tell you, nor yet their impudence. Free means exactly the opposite. It
means living just how your own give-and-take commonsense
makes you want to live. It means not being made to toil when you are in
want of rest; and it means not being forced to be idle when you want to be
at work.
Other Fellow.--
Oh, that sort of freedom is
only fit for angels and the other lower animals. It may suit beavers and
birds and bees all right; but you and I are free citizens, you know,
because we can take our chance of choosing whose
wishes we will conform to. We can have a "Yes," or
"No," to give to anyone who wants to be a law-maker; and
if a certain number of others choose him too, then he can be one of those
whose will will become our law and everyone else's, that is, of
course, if he is one of those who, by counting heads, prevails
over the others in Parliament. You must see how much freer that makes a
citizen than having only himself to consult! And a country may well be
called free where nearly everyone can help choose his own
law-master, some one whose head may chance to count up on the right
side.
Dunce.--
Nearly everyone? I
suppose that means nine out of ten of us? Well, there's me and my
wife at home, and my aged mother, and my daughter, aged 22; and two strong
sons of 17 and 18. I suppose if nearly all of us can help choose whose
wishes we'll conform to (so that business may go on) we all of us at
home can have a choice; unless perhaps me, because everyone knows I'm
a dunce. My mother and wife and daughter and sons are very sharp
witted.
Other Fellow.--
No: on the contrary,
it's only you in all the family who may help choose someone to impose
on the lot of you his way of keeping business what it is, and
of keeping the rich people where they are,--that is, in position and
in possession.
Dunce.--
Lord! how queer! What knocks me is
your saying we are all free citizens. If many households are
constituted like mine, I should say it was only a small minority who may
even choose,
and it's a chance whose choice wins; and that believing in one master more than another has nothing to do with being free. But now, explain to me why anyone must choose any law-maker at all?
Other Fellow.--
Must choose?
Well, there's nothing to make you choose anyone if you
don't want to. And there's no reason, if you come
to that, why people who don't like to spend their lives in working
and suffering for the leisure and pleasure of those who take all their
means from them, and run the laws to save themselves from being
opposed,--no reason at all why they should choose anyone.
But I suppose they do it because they good-naturedly believe the man
they chooses cares more about them than himself; or because they believe it
is good for somebody else even if it isn't very advantageous for
themselves to have to conform to whomsoever wants to have his will made
into law. And then, you see, if the poor don't help choose, they
rightly suppose the rich will have all the choosing to themselves; and
everything would be more business-like than ever. For, if you
don't help choose, mark you, you have to conform to what
others choose, all the same.
Dunce.--
What a hell of a fix! But you keep
saying "have to conform," and
"make you conform," How's that? How can you
be made to do anything in a land of free citizens?
Other Fellow.--
What I mean by being made to
conform is that if it is known that you don't want to conform
you'll not get employed to help fatten any business man and his
covey. And if he don't want you for his job you'll starve, just
in proportion as you are free and law-abiding. That is your
impersonal, non-aggressive legal punishment at his hands. And if you
really set about going your own way as a man, wherever and whenever you
think the law is unfair, the you'll get a personal and direct
punishment. Why, man alive! you've heard of "coppers" and
police-courts, and soldiers and bullets and prisons and gallows, eh?
You live in the enemy's country wherever you go.
Dunce.--
Yes; but even now I can't
imagine how it is possible to get the prisons built, or to find police and
soldiers enough to do any particular harm with, if there are so few rich
people in comparison with poor people. For, I suppose it is only rich
people who care to build prisons or arsenals, or who will care to be
coppers or soldiers or hangmen?
Other Fellow.--
You Juggins! No. The rich
people can't do all that! Why they want all their time for the Turf,
and clubs, and big
"receptions," and "little" dinners, etc., etc., etc. The prison-builders, and bullet and bomb makers, gallows-men, soldiers and bobbies are all poor devils like you and me! The rich folk carry out their law against the poor with the help of the poor. If our sort didn't do it for them, and bully our own sort in favour of the big bugs, then it wouldn't get done at all, because it couldn't.
Dunce.--
Then being poor seems to make men do
whatever rich folk want done; even if it is to injure themselves and to
help kill one another.
Other Fellow.--
Yes: being poor means
being governed, body and soul. Being rich means governing.
Dunce.--
Govern? that's another new
word.
Other Fellow.--
Same as law. That is to say,
Government is a trick in two moves: First move, make your will
"law"; second move, injure people who disobey your will, that
is who "break" your law.
Dunce
(indignantly).--
And, top
of all this, you mean to tell me the people who are wise not to laugh at
the officers, spoil the arsenals, make a bonfire of law-papers and
title-deeds, and--
Other Fellow.--
For Peace and Quiet's
sake stop that nonsense. Why, it's tru-- it's
Anar--, at any rate it's revo-- I mean it's downright
unconstitutional to talk that way! It is quite constitutional
to lock men up for less than that sometimes.
Dunce
(after reflection).--
Well, I've got an idea that can't
be unconstitutional. Suppose all the poor people chose a little set of men
like themselves to make the laws, how would the rich people get along
then?
Other Fellow.--
Come, dunce; you're
getting quite a politician! And that's the very thing the rich folk
more than anyone else would be glad to see you stop at, because your
interests would have to lie their way then, and real change could be
avoided.
Dunce.--
How's that? Surely poor
men's laws would be all fair and square; and there would be plenty of
everything--bread, occupation, education, and liberty,--for
everyone then, and no money to hitch the wheels with.
Other Fellow.--
Poor men's laws! Ha!
ha! Poor men don't need laws to make them able to dig and plant, or
build machines and houses, or make roads, or steer ships, or take notice
and learn things, and think. They can do all that as easily as bees can
make a honeycomb and fill it, directly you sweep all the
legal money-rubbish out of the way, and let them get at the land,
and at the machinery they have already made. It is only par-
asites that can't get hold of what they want any way except by turning the workers' honey into money, and then wiping it into their own pockets by the great law-trick.
Dunce.--
Well, but poor men in the
talking-shop might talk their wills into law,
mightn't they? And make it illegal for anyone to live an
other people's cost.
Other Fellow.--
No: poor men are not
patent men, warranted to keep square where it is cheaper to
turn round. They are just like other men so far as that goes,
and once inside the "gas-house" their first job is to
stop there, and get themselves made into rich men if they can. Their
"honorable" position makes them change their tastes to
fit the present system and their memories get hazy about their mates in the
street. And it soon dawns upon them that in order to run any laws at
all with reference to a class that the laws don't
suit, it is needful to do more than talk and report and tie knots in
red tape. They must have the disposal of Tyranny's
tricolor!
Dunce.--
Eh? What's that?
Other Fellow.--
Tyranny's three colors, I say, Red,
Black, and Blue;--Soldiers, Priests and Policemen. If they have
truncheons, cordite, and hell-fire to drive their laws home with,
well and good. But law, without these little aids, ends in gas, and looks
silly. And these three implements cost money, don't you
see? How are law-makers to expect to get the business folks'
money to pay for brute force and clerical cunning, when it is to oppose
business and riches by it?
Dunce.--
Why, by taxes. I didn't know
what law was till you told me, but the tax-collector told me the law
could force me to pay my taxes, and had a right to the money
to keep up the Royal Family, and the Army, and the Church, and God knows
what. But if we had the government we could force the rich
people to pay for things we care about, couldn't
we?--Education, and Science, and Art, and beautiful smooth roads and
railways, and electric locomotion, and miles of splendid gardens and free
parks. Oh, my!
Other Fellow.--
How you do gallop on. It is
all wrong. Governments can only get money into their hands by taxing folks
who have money. And more and more people would be short of money, to pay
government or anyone else, if business got shaky or trade came to a
standstill. And business and trade would get shaky directly
people with a little money stopped a trick called "investing."
And they would stop investing if Govern-
ment couldn't be trusted to back up business for them, and to leave the control of the land and other capital just where it is. No, no, dunce. Even if it were any good to anyone to have this or that set or class of men forcing their notions on all the rest, there would still be no chance of getting government worked by our sort in our behalf. No need to waste time and energy that way. Everything that really wants doing by arrangements made directly among those able and willing to do it, without any formalities forced on them (with fines attached) by men at a distance not directly concerned in it. Red tape is expensive, mind you, besides tangling everybody's fingers.
Dunce.--
Then what earthly reason have the
people for not joining together and getting whatever
there's enough material and machinery for, without bothering about
the law? What is there to stop the poor policemen and soldiers from helping
the people to employ themselves without orders from officers. What earthly
reason--
Other Fellow.--
Look here! You forget the
Church. There's no earthly reason, but there's an
unearthly one. The priests and parsons who live at the
people's cost, like the rest of the business world. They don't
produce any wealth but they are allowed by the law to use up a good deal in
exchange for the service they do the Royalties and
Law-and-War-makers, Bankers and Stockbrokers,
Pleasure-seekers and loafing Landgrabbers. Their job is to keep the
people's minds dull and quiet, so that they should not make awkward
inquiries, and find out how the whole swindle began and what it's
kept going for. They chloroform the people's wits.
Dunce.--
That's a bit! How can they
chloroform anyone who doesn't choose?
Other Fellow.--
Why, by telling them
corrupting lies about wrongs and rights, and making out there's a
dreadful curse on people who don't believe what parsons and priests
say, and by keeping them so ignorant that they have no chance of
discovering where the lies come in. These lovers of darkness have the
decency to dress up in black; it is about the only honest thing they do.
They cadge for money to run their music, illuminations, scents, millinery,
and entertainments in church--bait for women and children' and,
bock of it all, their job is to steal a march on
straightforward progress, so as to keep the game as long as possible in the
hands of those classes whose interests it is to run churches. They are
after their own grub in the only way they
know. It is a very respectable way of lying, cheating and tyrannising. In this free country these black ones are all the sons of gentiles and nobles and highly-respectable commercials.
Dunce.--
Still I don't see how they can
tie the hands of the people and prevent soldiers and police from joining
them in trying for freedom.
Other Fellow.--
Tie their hands?
no. They know a trick worth two of that. They tie their
consciences while they are young. They are funks about
argument with men, but by flattering and baiting the women they get the
children trusted to them in the schools of ignorance, because the little
creatures are so defenceless against lies, that the best of them can be
made to grow up with just that shaped conscience that it suits law and
property for wage-slaves to have. When the people find out what the
Church is after, then there's hope for the people. Not
before.
Dunce.--
Well, your information has made me
feel sure of one thing. Law is only a fine word for coarse, cruel force
wrapped up in fraud and cunning. And its only use is to keep up property
and to keep rich people easy and unopposed. It is a big infernal
swindle!
Other Fellow.--
Agreed, old man. It is not
Power but Freedom we want. You are a dunce, and I am a fool; but I think it
would puzzle a philosopher to prove we were wrong.
Too long have been played
Moral tricks of mere trade,
They've brought us well-nigh to perdition;
For trade as a saviour
Of human behaviour
Is placed in a d------d false position.
The base of sound moral
Leaves room for no quarrel,
But binds every life to its brothers;
While the meaning of trade
Is--"Sell! Sell!--till you're 'made.'
"Get power, Number One; hang the others!"
"How shall I fill this church of mine
"On which my power depends?"--
"Say what old Mammon wants to hear,
"And he will help your ends."
"How shall I win an echoing name,
"As one too just to sin?"--
"Why, own a 'Daily,' sweat your staff,
"And puff yourself therein."
"But how to get the paper read?"--
The tradesman swift replies:
"Just advertise my shoddy, sir,
"And then I'll buy your lies."
"How shall I make my son a lord?"
Sighs yonder man of beer.
One who has done it tips the wink,
And whispers in his ear--
"Run your own venture on the cheap,
"And flatter those you sweat;
"Give moral reasons everywhere,
"And keep what of you get."
"How shall I get my weary wife
"An hour of needed rest?
"How shall I feed the little child
"That's starving at her breast?"
"Disguise your principles, my man,
"Accept a priest's advice,
"And sell your soul, to feed your child,
"At labour's lowest price."
"How shall I get our daughter wed?"
Cries Dives to his wife--
The answer was so infamous
I ran for my dear life.
Which Faith except everyone do keep whole and unqualified, without doubt
he shall progress indefinitely.
And the Capitalistic Faith is this: that we worship one Mammon in
Trinity and Trinity in Unity.
Neither confounding the monopolies nor dividing the substance
(especially not dividing the substance).
For there is one monopoly of the Money-Bag, another of the
Statute, and another of the Holy Church.
But the Mammon of the Money-Bag, of the Statute, and of the Holy
Church is all one; the vainglory equal, the majesty co-infernal.
Such as the Money-Bag is, such is the Statute, and such is the
Holy Church.
The Money-Bag indiscriminate, the Statute indiscriminate, and the
Holy Church indiscriminate.
The Money-Bag indefensible, the Statute indefensible, and the
Holy Church indefensible.
The Money-Bag infernal, the Statute infernal, and the Holy Church
infernal.
And yet they are not three infernals but one infernal.
As also there are not three indefensibles, nor three undiscriminated,
but one undiscriminated and one indefensible.
And yet there are not three Almighties but one Almighty.
So is the Money-bag a god, the Statute a god, and the Holy Church
a god.
And yet there are not three gods, but one god.
Likewise the Money-bag is Law, the Statute is Law, and the Holy
Church is Law.
And yet not three Laws, but one Law.
For like as we are compelled by the Capitalistic Verity to acknowledge
every privileged personage by himself to be God and
Law.
So are we forbidden by the Capitalistic superstition to say there be
three Gods, or three Laws.
The Money-Bag is made of none, neither needed nor earned.
The Statute is of the Money-Bag alone, not earned nor needed, but
purchased.
The Holy Church is of the Money-Bag and the Statute, neither
earned nor needed nor purchased, but resulting.
So there is one Mammon, not three Mammons; one Statute, not three
Statutes; one Holy Church, not three Holy Churches.
And in this Trinity none is afore or after the other, none is greater or
less than another.
But the whole three Jingoes are co-infernal together and
co-equal.
So that in all things as is aforesaid the Unity in Trinity and the
Trinity in Unity is to be worshipped.
This is the Capitalistic Faith, which except a man believe faithfully he
may possibly be saved.
Glory be taken from the Money-Bag, and from the Statute, and from
the Holy Church.
As it was in the beginning so it isn't now, nor ever will be
again. Progress without end. Amen.
The Lord said, "Sweat of the brow brings bread." It was
something shrewder the landlord said:--"Out of their
sweat-won bread we'll draw cake for ourselves, and our rights
by law." The parson in preaching quite left that out; the people were
foolish and dull, no doubt; but landlords'
hirelings have such an air when they mount in the pulpit or groan in
prayer. They have lived on the fat of the land, you see, by letting the
will of the landlord be, and by urging the winners of daily bread to bow to
God's will in all they said.
Well, a new day dawned, and the people awoke, and found it was only old
Mammon who spoke; they examined the swindle that held them fast, and got to
the back of the trick at last. The sweat of the patient, toil-worn
brow, buys more than the vouched-for bread by now. Surely, O world,
there's a sad mistake, for where are the people who made the cake?
How are they cared for, how are they fed? Care-worn and bound with
their crust of bread; while the folk whom they feed make a law, you see, to
keep themselves leisurely, merry, and free.
Men of the factory! men of the field! you who
have won all this plentiful yield, cry to the world for your
children's sake--
"Those who have made it shall taste of the cake!"
(back)