Page:The rise, progress, and phases of human slavery.djvu/154

which has become trite from use—"Honesty is the best policy;" but they use it, like other good things, only to improve their opportunities of cheating. A tacit understanding not to cheat one another is often necessary to their success in cheating the rest of mankind, which, after all, is the main business of their lives. As this iniquitous class can grow rich only by grinding and cheating their fellow-creatures, that is, by robbery and oppression, they are, by the very nature of their pursuits and practices, irreconcilable enemies of society. It is their interest that the working-classes should be always at variance amongst themselves—always a prey to ignorance—given to mutual jealousy and mistrust—and filled with prejudices and superstitions, by which they may at all times have their passions inflamed against those who would unite, enlighten, and emancipate them from bondage. It is the interest of this class, too, that the mass of the people should never own a house, nor even rent an acre of land, so that they may be forced to become wages-slaves to profitmongers, and pay to them every few years in rent more than the value of their wretched tenements. In short, profitmongers, as the main supports of all aristocracies and of all tyrannies in the world, are constrained by the very necessities of their positition and by the very nature of their pursuits, to ignore the Ten Commandments in practice, and to trample under foot the Gospel of the Saviour. There cannot, then, be even a semblance of real reform in society without beginning with clipping the claws and drawing the teeth of the profitmongers. The human race is, indeed, without hope of salvation either in this world or the next, until their present unlimited and irresponsible power of murder and robbery over the mass of mankind shall be wrenched from profitmongers and landlords.