Margaret Steel has left school, and to-morrow morning she goes off at five o\'clock to the factory.

To-day Margaret is a bright-eyed, rosy-cheeked lassie; in three years she will be hollow-eyed and pale-faced. Never again will she know what it is to waken naturally after sleep; the factory syren will haunt her dreams always. She will rise at half-past four summer and winter; she will tramp the two mile road to the factory, and when six comes at night she will wearily tramp home again. Possibly she will marry a factory worker and continue working in the factory, for his wage will not keep up a home. In the neighbouring town hundreds of homes are locked all day ... and Bruce the manufacturer\'s daughters are in county society. Heigh ho! It is a queer thing civilisation!

I wonder when the people will begin to[Pg 162] realise what wagery means. When they do begin to realise they will commence the revolution by driving women out of industry. To-day the women are used by the profiteer as instruments to exploit the men. Surely a factory worker has the right to earn enough to support a family on. The profiteer says "No! You must marry one of my hands, and then your combined wages will set up a home for you."

I spoke of this to the manager of Bruce\'s factory once.

"But," he said, "if we did away with female labour we\'d have to close down. We couldn\'t compete with other firms."

"Not if they abolished female labour too?"

"I was thinking of the Calcutta mills where labour is dirt cheap," he said.

"I see," I said, "so the Scotch lassie is to compete with the native?"

"It comes to that," he admitted.

I think I see a very pretty problem awaiting Labour in the near future. As the Trade unions become more powerful and show their determination to take the mines and factories into their own hands, capitalists will turn[Pg 163] to Asia and Africa. The exploitation of the native is just beginning. At a time when Britain is a Socialistic State all the evils of capitalism will be reproduced with ten-fold intensity in India and China and Africa. I see an Asia ruled by lash and revolver; the profiteer has a short way with the striker in Eastern climes. The recent history of South Africa is sinister. A few years ago our brothers died presumably that white men should have the rights of citizenship in the Transvaal. What they seemed to have died for was the right of profiteers to shoot white strikers from the windows of the Rand Club. If white men are treated thus I tremble for the fate of the black man who strikes.

Yes, the present profiteering system is a preparation for an exploited East. Margaret Steel and her fellows are slaving so that a Persia may be "opened up," a Mexico robbed of its oil wells.

*         *         *

To-day I gave a lesson on Capital.

"If," I said, "I have a factory I have to pay out wages and money for machinery and raw material. When I sell my cloth I get[Pg 164] more money than I paid out. This money is called profit, and with this money I can set up a new factory.

"Now what I want you to understand is this:—Unless work is done by someone there is no wealth. If I make a fortune out of linen I make it by using the labour of your fathers, and the machinery that was invented by clever men. Of course, I have to work hard myself, but I am repaid for my work fully. Margaret Steel at this moment standing at a loom, is working hard too, but she is getting a wage that is miserable.

"Note that the owner of the factory is getting an income of, say, ten thousand pounds a year. Now, what does he do with the money?"

"Spends it on motor cars," said a boy.

"Buys cigarettes," said a girl.

"Please, sir, Mr. Bruce gives money to the infirmary," said another girl.

"He keeps it in a box beneath the bed," said another, and I found that the majority in the room favoured this theory. This suggestion reminded me of the limitations of childhood, and I tried to talk more simply. I told them of banks and stocks, I talked of[Pg 165] luxuries, and pointed out that a man who lived by selling expensive dresses to women was doing unnecessary labour.

Tom Macintosh showed signs of thinking deeply.

"Please, sir, what would all the dressmakers and footmen do if there was no money to pay them?"

"They would do useful work, Tom," I said. "Your father works from six to six every day, but if all the footmen and chauffeurs and grooms and gamekeepers were doing useful work, your father would only need to work maybe seven hours a day. See? In Britain there are forty millions of people, and the annual income of the country is twenty-four hundred million pounds. One million of people take half this sum, and the other thirty-nine millions have to take the other half."

"Please, sir," said Tom, "what half are you in?"

"Tom," I said, "I am with the majority. For once the majority has right on its side."

*         *         *

Bruce the manufacturer had an advertisement in to-day\'s local paper. "No [Pg 166]encumbrances," says the ad. Bruce has a family of at least a dozen, and he possibly thinks that he has earned the right to talk of "encumbrances." I sympathise with the old chap.

But I want to know why gardeners and chauffeurs must have no encumbrances. If the manorial system spreads, a day will come when the only children at this school will be the offspring of the parish minister. Then, I suppose, dominies and ministers will be compelled to be polygamists by Act of Parliament.

I like the Lord of the Manor\'s damned impudence. He breeds cattle for showing, he breeds pheasants for slaughtering, he breeds children to heir his estates. Then he sits down and pens an advertisement for a slave without "encumbrances." Why he doesn\'t import a few harem attendants from Turkey I don\'t know; possibly he is waiting till the Dardanelles are opened up.

*         *         *

I have just been reading a few schoolboy howlers. I fancy that most of these howlers are manufactured. I cannot be persuaded that any boy ever defined a lie as "An[Pg 167] abomination unto the Lord but a very present help in time of trouble." Howlers bore me; so do most school yarns. The only one worth remembering is the one about the inspector who was ratty.

"Here, boy," he fired at a sleepy youth, "who wrote Hamlet?"

The boy started violently.

"P—please, sir, it wasna me," he stammered.

That evening the inspector was dining with the local squire.

"Very funny thing happened to-day," he said, as they lit their cigars.

"I was a little bit irritated, and I shouted at a boy, \'Who wrote Hamlet?\' The little chap was flustered. \'P—please, sir, it wasna me!\' he stuttered."

The squire guffawed loudly.

"And I suppose the little devil had done it after all!" he roared.

*         *         *

Lawson came down to see me to-night, and as usual we talked shop.

"It\'s all very well," he said, "for you to talk about education being all wrong. Any idiot can burn down a house that took many[Pg 168] men to build. Have you got a definite scheme to put in its place?"

The question was familiar to me. I had had it fired at me scores of times in the days when I talked Socialism from a soap-box in Hyde Park.

"I think I have a scheme," I said modestly.

Lawson lay back in his chair.

"Good! Cough it up, my son!"

I smoked hard for a minute.

"We............