Suppression of all sub-contracting and sweating (an ignorant
confusion between a harmless industrial method and its occasional
abuse).
Universal suffrage for all adults, men and women alike.
Public payment for all public service.
These of course were only means tending towards the ideal, "to wit, the
supplanting of the present state by a society of equality of condition,"
and then follows a sentence paraphrased from the Fabian Basis embodying
a last trace of that Utopian idealism which imagines that society can be
constituted so as to enable men to live in freedom without eternal
vigilance, namely, "When this great change is completely carried out,
the genuine liberty of all will be secured by the free play of social
forces with much less coercive interference than the present system
entails."
From these extracts it will be seen that the Manifesto, drafted by
William Morris, but mutilated and patched up by the other two, bears the
imprint neither of his style, nor that of Shaw, but reminds one rather
of mid-Victorian dining-room furniture, solid, respectable, heavily
ornate, and quite uninteresting. Happily there is not much of it!
Unity was attained by the total avoidance of the contentious question of
political policy. But fifteen active Socialists sitting together at a
period when parties were so evenly divided that a General Election was
always imminent could not refrain from immediate politics, and the
S.
Pages:
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252