might live, I must more or less deal in negatives. I mean to say I
must point out where in my opinion we fall short in our present
attempts at decent life. I must ask the rich and well-to-do what
sort of a position it is which they are so anxious to preserve at any
cost? and if, after all, it will be such a terrible loss to them to
give it up? and I must point out to the poor that they, with
capacities for living a dignified and generous life, are in a
position which they cannot endure without continued degradation.

How do we live, then, under our present system? Let us look at it a
little.

And first, please to understand that our present system of Society is
based on a state of perpetual war. Do any of you think that this is
as it should be? I know that you have often been told that the
competition, which is at present the rule of all production, is a
good thing, and stimulates the progress of the race; but the people
who tell you this should call competition by its shorter name of WAR
if they wish to be honest, and you would then be free to consider
whether or no war stimulates progress, otherwise than as a mad bull
chasing you over your own garden may do. War or competition,
whichever you please to call it, means at the best pursuing your own
advantage at the cost of some one else's loss, and in the process of
it you must not be sparing of destruction even of your own
possessions, or you will certainly come by the worse in the struggle.
You understand that perfectly as to the kind of war in which people
go out to kill and be killed; that sort of war in which ships are
commissioned, for instance, "to sink, burn, and destroy;" but it
appears that you are not so conscious of this waste of goods when you
are only carrying on that other war called COMMERCE; observe,