Source: The Eastern Evening News, Tuesday 9 March 1886
Note: This is a delivery of the lecture Socialism. The text seems to be a literal copy of Morris's manuscript; it was also published first as a special supplement to the local socialist paper, Daylight, and later as a separate pamphlet.
Transcription: by Graham Seaman for MIA, October 2022
Last evening Mr. W. Morris, author of "The Earthly Paradise," and other poems, a member of the Executive of the Socialist League, in response to an invitation from the Norwich Branch of the League, lectured on the principles of Socialism in the Victoria Hall, Norwich. Mr. O. Reynolds presided, and amongst the audience there were the Rev. Cunningham Geikie D.D., the Rev. W. A. Barrett, the HP. G. 8. Barrett, B.A., Messrs. M.P. Squirrel, R. Lee Bliss, F.J. Quick, and others. There was a large audience.
THE CHAIRMAN introduced the lecturer with a few observations on the characer of the Norwich Socialist League.
THE LECTURER, who was well received, said it might be assumed that though everyone present had heard the word "Socialism," by far the majority did not understand what the term meant. Those who understood the principles of the system, therefore, would pardon him if he dealt with his subject in a somewhat elementary manner. He was the more bound to do so because there was nothing special—no technical knowledge—required to understand it. It simply required a certain amount of attention and common sense to understand the principles, which, above all things, ware practical. They had to consider what society was when it was true society, and what it is now when, as he thought, it was false society. It was probable that some of than who did not understand what Socialism meant might think they understood pretty well what the arrangement of the present society was. That assumption he must beg leave to deny. It was only, in fact, by something about Socialism that they could learn what present society was, what it aimed at doing, and what were the means by which it carried out those aims; while, on the other hand, if they did understand thoroughly what the present society was and what it aimed at, they would, negatively at all events, understand what the aims of Socialism were. Most people never put to themselves the question—Why am I In the social position in which I am? Why is the workman, the beggar, the pauper, the criminal, in his position? And why is the great capitalist, the landowner—in a word—the rich man in his position? Few people doubted the necessity for the existence of the classes into which society is divided, and few suspected that the arrangement might net go on for ever. Even those who felt most discontented with their own lot had supposed that it was necessary to the existence of society that there should be rich and poor classes. People as a rule did not trouble their heads as to what made some poor and some rich classes. Most people supposed that the existence of the two classes was accidental, or, possibly, a provision of nature or Providence, so deeply rested and abstruse in its origin that it was not worth while to inquire into it. But Socialists believed they knew how these classes existed, and that the present order of things would ere long give place to something else, and that something else would be true society, or a simple society—a condition of things in which there would be no rich, and, consequently, no poor. [Hear, hear.] Let them consider how the present society was composed, since by the light of contrast they would see things lucidly which might otherwise puzzle them. The society of to-day was founded on the necessity of the human race for constant labour. There could be no question that men must labour in order to live. For ages work and wealth had been unequally divided. Ever since history had been real history there had always been a class which had had much work and little wealth, and another which had had much wealth and little work. What was the composition of society at present? It was divided into two great classes—those who possessed the monopoly of all the means of producing wealth except one, and those who possessed nothing but that one, namely, the power of labour inherent in their bodies. The one class possessed nothing but the power in their own bodies, while the other possessed everything requisite to make that labour fruitful. Thus the former could only work as they obtained leave from their masters to do so, and unless they rebelled the workers must accept the terms under which it was offered them, since they had to live on from day to day. The consequence was that workmen competed with each other for employment. They sold their labour power at a Dutch auction to their misters, who were able nowadays to dispense with the exercise of visible force in compelling people to work. The fear of starvation now took the place of the whip. There was another remarkable distinction between the classes besides that one possessed, and the other lacked wealth. The class which lacked wealth was the class which produced it. The wealth owners did nothing but consume it. If by chance the whole of the wage-earners or lower class were to perish or leave the community the production of wealth would come to a standstill until their former masters learned to descend to the position of their former saves and work for their livelihood. If, on the contrary, the master disappeared the production of wealth would go on just as it did now. Distribution of wealth would, he hoped, then be altered. It would be asked whether the possessing classes did not work? Undoubtedly a large part did work. But for the most part their work was very unfruitful. Their useful occupations were physic, education, and the fine arts. In some cases they were probably paid too high in proportion to other workmen. so that they partly earned their livelihood and partly fleeced it from the workers. As to those who did nothing useful, some did not pretend to do anything except amuse themselves, and probably they did the least harm of those who did nothing useful. Some were engaged in work which our system of injustice made necessary. Those people would not be in existence if we behaved properly. Lawyers and clergymen were the parasites of the system. Some of them tried to do as much good as they could, but whatever good they did was outside their profession. The rest of the people doing a useless work were engaged in gambling or fighting for their individual shares of the tribute which their class had compelled the working class to yield to them. The tribute taken from the working class was about two-thirds of all they produced. Besides this tribute, taken by the rich class, not by the individual employer, the worker had to pay taxes. He had, among other things, to pay for the National Debt, with which he bed nothing whatever to do, and the advantage of which was in the possession of the rich class. In the long run labour paid for all taxes. Then the workman had to pay a heavier rent in proportion to his income than the rich. Then he had to pay the commission of the middlemen to distribute the goods be had made. Lastly, if the worker was fairly well-to-do he had to pay another little tax, to a benefit society or a trades union, a tax for the precariousness of his employment, which was brought about by the gambling of his masters. In short, he had to help to pay his poor-rates, and thus he actually enabled his master to shut his factory gates, and when there was a trade dispute to pay for keeping them out of the Workhouse. There was a class struggle always going on between employer and employed, although neither of them might be conscious of it. The interests of the two classes were opposed to each other. It was the object of the employing class to get as much as it could out of its privilege. All it made could only be made at the expense of the workers. If the workers succeeded in raising their„standard of life they could only do so at the expense of the rich. What one gained the other lost. There was a constant war between the capitalist and his workman, in which the capitalist must always win, until the workers resolved to be an inferior class no longer. Meanwhile the privilege of the possessing class consisted in their power of living on the - unpaid labour of others. If the capital of the rich men consisted of land he forced his tenant to improve it, exacted tribute in the form of rent, and when the transaction came to an end he could begin the game all over again, and through his heirs carry it on for ever. If he had houses he received in rent the value of the buildings many times over, and at the end the house and the land once more. If a man's capital consisted of cash he went into the labour market, and directly or indirectly bought the labour power of men, women, and children, and used it for the production of wares which should bring him in a profit, keeping down livelihood to as low a point as he could in order that the profit might be greater. If that seemed shocking it must be remembered that the competition or war with capitalists compelled him to do so whether he would or not. He must do that or be ruined. He did not do anything to earn those profits which he pocketed, for he did nothing useful. He might be a shareholder, a sleeping partner, or buy the brain power of a manager or a foreman on higher terms than he bought the hand power of the ordinary workman and do nothing but look on. Mostly the capitalist seemed to be doing something, and received the pompous title of "organiser of labour." But all he did even then was, not to organise labour, but to organise the battle with his immediate enemies, the other capitalists, who were in the same line of business as himself, and would, if they could, take all his business from him and reduce him to nothing. So both his idleness and luxury served to make life harder and bitterer for all. Briefly this was the position of society in this age of commerce. This was the constitution of our present sham society. If he had stated the matter truly this was but a sorry result of all the struggles of man towards a higher civilization and a higher life. If we were not to go further than this we had better have stopped before we reached our present position. It might he that nothing could be done, but that the good nature and kindness of individuals might more or less palliate evil, the source of which could never be dried up. It might be hoped that some new religion might arise to take hold of the hearts of men so that they would forego the excitement of gambling with other people's money and the pleasure of living luxuriously at other people's expense, and would live justly and austerely, considering themselves nothing more than trustees of that wealth which the people had made and entrusted to their care. He could not say that this would not be done. Probably in one way or another it would happen. When it did the leaders of humanity would at once manifest their newly gained moral sense by educating their fellow-men to release them from that position of authority which compelled them to live in a way which they had found out be be degrading to themselves and oppressive to their fellows. In sober earnest no man was good enough to be the irresponsible master over others. Equality of fellowship was absolutely necessary for developing the innate good and restraining the innate evil which existed in everyone. He hoped for the rise of a new religion called Socialism, which proclaimed the necessity of association among men if the progress of the race was to be anything more than a name. Society must be the condition of man's existence as man, and the aim of that society was some thing far more than the greatest happiness of the greeted number. It was to offer to everyone an opportunity for the tall development of individual capacity and faculties. He denied the title of society to any system which degraded one class in order to exalt another. In a true society injury to one would be an injury to all, and would be so felt when people had really developed a new system of morals to go with that society. Instead of the system which now existed, Socialism asserted that each should pay his tribute to nature, and each in return receive a share of wealth which he has created. Bo would there be avoided the waste of the few and the want of the many and so should we rise above the perpetual condition of war, in which lived the beasts not unhappily, since their memory was limited, end they were not conscious of bodily fear, anxiety, and aspirations. Some would say that all this was impossible, but the Socialists claimed that the progress of mankind had really been steadily in this direction, and that all we had to do was to help by developing its obvious and conscious outcome. Mr. Morris then pointed out that in the definite history of the world there had been three conditions under which production had gone on, In classical times there was slavery; in the middle ages serfdom; in our own day, wage labour and capital. To suppose that while former systems had passed away, the latter must last as long as the world was unscientific. The thing must change in some direction, and there were abundant signs of that. There had always been a double thread running through the history of mankind—the tendency to individual gain and the tendency of combination for gain. Whenever the latter had appeared it had always done so with renewed force and wider scope. In these latter times combination for the productive of wealth had progressed immensely, with the result that the productive force of labour had so increased as to become at last an absolute evil to us under our present condition of production. The consciousness of the struggle which had long been going on could not be longer delayed. Trades unions became the visible token of the commercial struggle. Trades unions claimed a rise in wages when the selling price of the article they made rose, admitting the necessity of their accepting a lower wage when it fell; but people were now feeling that the real question was whether the master had any claims to any profit at all—that was, whether the masters were necessary and whether it was not possible for the workmen to employ themselves. Accordingly trades unions, once abused by the upper classes, were now petted by them, because they acknowledged the necessity of masters as an employing class. It was felt that they were no longer [the enemy]. The class struggle in England was en entering into a new phase. Trades unions no longer represented the whole class of the workers, but rather were charged with the office of keeping the human machinery in good working order and freeing it from all grit of discontent. He did not mean to say that they were not capable of directing the whole movement, and that they would do so was his great and particular hope. Again, look at the change which had come over the world of politics. The difference between Tories and Liberals was so small that no one but a party man could take any interest in the contests between them. The real movement of the day was outside the conception of political parties. True, those parties were conscious of the existence of the great class. of workers, but they looked upon that class merely as instruments to be played with for the good of a society, instead of a great force slowly but surely developing into a new society, and only needing a completer organization of their scattered elements to be that society. Such a contingency our Parliamentary system did not recognise. It could see nothing but the relation of master and servant in various forms throughout society. When Parliament discovered that the relation of master and servant was unbearable, and produced misery and suffering that could not be palliated, the function of Parliament would be gone, and it would find itself face to face with revolution — that was to say, with the new birth of society. All that was progressive in the Parliamentary struggle would melt into the revolution, whilst its reactionary part would openly oppose the happiness of mankind, yielding one might hope to the mere threat of force so as to avoid the misery of civil war. Nobody and nothing could help the working classes unless they helped themselves, and when they did help themselves they would be irresistible. A further sign of the times was that the peoples of the Continent were fully awake to the revolution. Nothing but mere brute force of armed men or abject poverty prevented the outbreak. Perhaps they were waiting for the awakening of England, the great country of commercialism. The aim of Socialism was to make the best by man's effort of the chances of happiness which the life of man upon earth offered, and to assure to everyone born into the world his full share of that chance. This could only be ensured by men combining themselves for this benefit. They wanted to make people leave off saying, "This is mine" and "This is thine," and to say "This is ours." They looked forward to a society in which all wealth would be the property of the community, held collectively. At present property meant the power of preventing other people from using wealth. A man might refuse to cultivate a tract of land or allow others to do to, while the law aided and abetted him in that folly. But as Socialists understood property it meant the possession of wealth which they could use personally for their own needs as human beings. A Socialist community would hold wealth only for the purpose of using it, and could only use it by satisfying the need of all its members. Everybody's reasonable needs therefore must be satisfied first by food and shelter, and next by pleasure, bodily and mental, which would include the full development of every individual according to his capacity. All must work for the commonweal. Trade was said to be suffering depression from overproduction, a term which had been made to do duty for a great many explanations in the prevent crisis. Surely over-production, if it were an evil, with a little arrangement could be turned into a blessing. One of the great economic lights of Manchester told him that the best thing that could possibly happen for the benefit of trade was a European war. [Laughter.] But the real remedy lies in the hands of the working classes themselves. l Whatever they demanded must be yielded if reason backed their demands. If the working classes could only see the condition under which we lived as it really was all the dangers of change would seem as nothing. and our capitalistic society would not be worth six minutes' purchase. It was with this belief he had been trying to teach them the new good tidings of Socialism. [Loud cheers.]
In response to the CHAIRMAN's invitation one or two questions were submitted to the lecturer, who in each case gave careful and lucid replies. The Rev. CUNNINGHAME GEIKIE, D.D., said he came there that night delighted to have a chance of meeting Mr. Morris. He looked upon him as a great genius, and had heard him with perfect respect. He had read the lecturer's poems, and thought they would live when they had "their toes to the daisies." He was of opinion that there was a great deal of truth in what the lecturer had said, and be strongly believed that there needed to be vast changes in society. There was no doubt of that. [Hear, hear.] But he thought that the principles propounded by the lecturer were nebulous and entirely unsafe. [Hear, hear.] He (Dr. Geikie) had always admitted that a man was better than his surroundings, and that a poor man was equal to a rich man in relation to God; but he did not see anything of a paradise in what Mr. Morris had stated that night. On the contrary, he thought that instead of its being a gospel of peace it was a gospel of universal disaster. ["No," and cheers.]
Mr. E. BURGESS proposed a vote of thanks to the lecturer, which Mr. THOMAS seconded, the Rev. C. GEIKIE supporting the proposition.
The vote having been carried unanimously, Mr. MORRIS replied, and the proceedings terminated.