Page:The Case for Capitalism (1920).djvu/185

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

such a "stupendous, enormous, prodigious, overwhelming abundance of everything," that soon it would be necessary to reduce the hours of the workers to four or five hours aday. All young people would remain at the schools and universities until they were twenty-one years of age. At forty-five every one would retire on full pay. "Thus, for the first time in the history of humanity, the benefits and pleasures conferred upon mankind by science and civilization will be enjoyed equally by all, upon the one condition, that they shall do their share of the work in order to make all these things possible. These are the principles upon which the Co-operative Commonwealth will be organized; the State in which no one will be distinguished or honoured above his fellows except for Virtue or Talent; where no man will find his profit in another's loss, and we shall no longer be masters and servants, but brothers, free men, and friends; where there will be no weary broken men and women passing their joyless lives in toil and want, and no little children crying because they are hungry or cold."

I have given this detailed summary largely in Mr. Tressall's own words, because it is the only picture of a Socialistic State that I know