Source: The Scottish Leader,
15th March 1887, page 7
Note: This is a delivery of the
lecture Socialism: the End and the Means
Transcription: by Graham Seaman for MIA, January 2023
Mr William Morris, London, the well-known Socialist and poet, delivered a lecture last evening in the Tron Hall, Edinburgh, on "Socialism: The Means and the End." The audience, though not so large as the reputation of the lecturer might have led the promoters of the meeting to expect, was by no means a small one. The Rev. John Glasse presided.
The Chairman introduced Mr Morris as a gentleman who in his time has played many parts, and had played them all well. (Applause.) Different people admired him for different things, but they who were Socialists were all prepared to admire him for the courageous stand he had taken in the great movement. (Applause.) He (the chairman) had expressed his sympathy with that movement, and he had done more than express his sympathy—he had endorsed the movement altogether, and was quite prepared to take any share of the reproach, or blame,or merit there might be in conjunction with it. (Applause.) He had lived too long in the world to be so sanguine aas to imagine that they would have society coming over to them in a body, but society was gradually coming over to them. (Applause.) Hypocrisy was the homage paid by vice to virtue, and this gradual acceptance of socialistic measures was the homage which statesmen were paying to Socialism. (Applause.)
Mr Morris, who was well received, remarked at the outset that, while constant change was the condition of man's society on earth, there were some periods in which men were more conscious of the changes of the world. Such was the period preceding the French Revolution; and such was the period through which we were now passing. (Applause.) The prolonged commercial crisis had engendered discontent; and this discontent was founded on the consciousness of a break-up of the present commercial system. It was felt—as it had been felt at similar junctures in past times—that the conditions of human life under which we came into existence had fulfilled their purpose, and that they must now give place to others. (Applause.) It had fallen into a snare which at the beginning no-one could foresee. It came to this: it had succeeded, it had won the treasure, and now it could not lose it. In bygone times people suffered from the scarcity of commodities; they were now suffering from their over-abundance. (Applause.) The words of the prayer, "Give me peace, O Lord," had lost their meaning, and men were praying for war to bring a revival of trade. (Applause.) If the stock of merchandise with which the markets were now glutted could be reduced by one-half, without any equivalent being provided, there would be joy in many a household in Great Britain—(applause)—out of all proportion to the households in which there would be sorrow on account of the loss. It would actually be a blessing for the present if we could throw away the results of half our labour. And yet this would be no remedy. A period of greater activity would only lead to an increase of manufactories and machinery; they would not be stopped until the market was again glutted; and so each succeeding depression would be worse thn its predecessor. People were now consoling themselves with the prediction that there would be a great European war before long, and that the people on the Continent, driven by the commercial necessity, would fly at each other's throat. If that did occur he thought that surely it would be the last of these monstrosities. (Applause.) Our present commercial system, with its inevitable division of the people into two classes, was a condition of serfdom; and it was only not recognised as serfdom, because the non-producing class was not necessarily hereditary. John Ruskin had described property as something wich was good in itself, something which one had acquired justly, and something which he could use rightly. That, in point of fact, was the Communistic view of property; no man should hold as property what he could not use. If a man had 100 acres of land he could not use it himself; and when forced to use it, he used it only as an instrument of compulsion to make other people work for him. They had to give hime a portion of the results of that industry, which made the land useful, and without which it was worth nothing at all. (Applause.) They were impoverished for the benefit of a man who had not done a stroke of work to help them. (Applause.) A thief was punished because stealing was a bad way of distributing wealth; he did not work for what he took, but made others work harder to make up for the loss. His offence was simply that he lived without producing; yet [the] monopolising class made it their business to live without producing, and considered it one of the holiest duties of man to put their children in the same position as themselves. (Laughter and applause.) They were very much respected; they were praised for giving back a little of that which they had taken from other people; and if they got rich they could only prevent themselves from becoming hereditary legislators by dying or killing themselves. (Laughter.) As long as society was on that basis he held that it was not right to put the ordinary street thief in prison at all. (Applause.) Society was founded upon dishonesty. It was the natural consequences of society wherein each who would thrive must do so at the expense of his neighbour not thriving. We were all living in fear—some lest we should lose our domination, some lest we should lose our leisure, some lest we should lose the means of a decent livelihood—and that fear forced us to deal hardly with our fellowmen lest they should rise above us and take our place. (Applause.) On the contrary, he contended, society must be based on a principle of helpful honesty and not wasteful want; and he advocated as a means to this end the communisation of the means of production. (Applause.) He feared that there was little to be gained through Parliament, because the House of Commons was based on the presumption of the sacred rights of property, which he had called robbery. (Applause.) It was true that there might be concessions to popular feelings; but these concessions—such as peasant proprietorship—only retarded the thorough reforms at which Socialism aimed. (Applause.) He could not help feeling that in Parliament itself the reactionary party was getting stronger and stronger. A year ago there was a Liberal party tending to be Radical, with Gladstone at its head; to-day, undoubtedly, in spite of Gladstone, they were a very mixed throng indeed. On the other side there was a body of Liberals, not tending to be Whigs, but Whigs with a Tory tendency—(applause)—and also Whigs who were Tories, but did not think it was decent to change their names. (Applause.) All this made Parliament very dull, dead, and heavy work; but it was a good sign. It showed that the aim of the popular party was changing, and that the people were thinking not of any Parliamentary game in which they were to play no part, but of a great change in which they were to be actors themselves. (Applause.) The result of this splitting of parties was to show those on the defence [sic - should be 'fence': MIA] who had been playing this game. (Applause.) This change of parties would go on until there were none left but the Socialists on the one hand, and the haters of the people on the other. It would be sure to result in victory for Socialism, and upon that victory the new world would rise to crown the efforts of the part, and to stimulate to new efforts in the future. (Loud applause.)
At the close, Mr Morris replied to several questions, and a discussion followed.