money. I mean they can commence making labor money, not plutocrats' money—money that represents product created by labor, not money that represents the mines that the usurpers have stolen from the laborers by their wicked schemes of law and disorder. I mean the money that Robert Owen used to issue, that Josia Warren used to issue, and that Proudhon and all the other great champions of the working classes have tried to introduce as the laborers substitute for the plutocrats' gold. These pioneers can easily make a paper money to give to any member who raises a certain product and deposits it with them for sale. It's a sort of I.O.U., that the receiver gives to the producer to record his indebtedness to the producer. This Labor I.O.U., or Labor-note as it is called, can pass from one to another just as the plutocrat's money does to-day; and, so far as the pioneers are concerned, it can take its place. It's just the thing that Labor wants; it helps us to exchange our product with each other, by giving equal value for equal value; it dosn't cost anything to make, beyond the trifling cost of paper, ink, and labor, of which it takes but very little to produce; it can't rob us as gold does, because it doesn't bear interest. ‘Bearing’ interest, you know, is the polite name for filching interest; because money hasn't the power to reproduce its species, as animals and plants do, but it only gains for some that which others have lost. Now I think I have shown you the nature of the undertaking that I had resolved upon when I got released from your jail; and I think I have said enough to show you that it is the readiest, if not the only way, to secure justice, not alone for ourselves, but for all our fellow-men, women and children. Before concluding, I shall give you a number of facts and figures to show how I have worked it all out; and to let you see that the scheme is not at all utopian; but that, with your present means, it will enable you to amass, step by step, all the wealth and advantages that I have described to you, and a great deal more than I could tell you in a single lecture.”
Harry then went on to lay his facts and figures before them, showing them every possible and likely transaction that the pioneers could engage in, and showing them, week by week, and month by month, how their little share capital would be spent and what returns it would give. He vouched for the accuracy of the figures, which everyone could test for themselves. He had consulted the various technical and industrial works in the Melbourne Public Library, besides gleaming valuable information from the current newspapers and many practical men both in business and private capacities; and therefore he could speak with authority on the matter.
When Harry had ceased speaking, he was greeted with round upon round of applause, nearly everyone present taking part in it, although the audience was a very mixed one, and there were many present, tempted thither by curiosity, who felt anything but comfortable at the cutting thrusts they received every now and then from Harry's remarks, especially when he trod too severely on their corns of conscience and charged them with being thieves. But somehow they seemed to recognize that his censures, though severe, were well deserved; that his objections were against
