TRUE AND FALSE SOCIALISM 209 



And to fight for your right 



Till ye lay your masters low; 

 Small hope for you of better days 



Till ye lay your masters low." 



Now this system of teaching is bound to do harm De-struo- 

 rather than good because it misleads where it should ^Jt^con- 

 rightly direct, and pulls down where it should build up. structive 

 Its policy is i?^e-structive rather than cow-structive, and 

 this is a huge fundamental blunder. It, moreover, brings 

 ridicule on a great cause, and nothing kills more quickly 

 than ridicule. 



To prate of rich, idle classes and aristocrats and then 

 to assert that part of the workman's wages goes " to 

 keep the idle classes " is simply to pervert the truth and 

 with deliberate intent to injure. As a matter of fact 

 the rich, idle classes, who, by the way, derive their 

 wealth in many instances from sources altogether apart 

 from the British working man, give employment, and 

 good emplo3Tnent, too, to vast numbers of British 

 workers in various ways which need not be gone 

 into here. 



Then to talk of the " rich capitalist class, who will not 

 employ men unless they can make a profit " is simpty 

 childish nonsense. 



Who on this earth, unless he be born with a golden 

 spoon in his mouth, ever dreams of working save for a 

 profit? 



Does the seamstress, the clerk, the farmer, the pro- 

 fessional class, the soldier, sailor, parson, the British 

 workman, or even the Socialist himself, ever dream of 

 working for anything but a profit, and, if so, why in the 



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