The discussion, like the questions, was very discursive. The usual 'cranks' had their usual say—each dilating on his own particular theme. Tochatti, an Anarchist tailor from Glasgow, discoursed on the advantages of Anarchism over State Socialism, inasmuch as Anarchism would allow the free play of all our human faculties without artificial hindrances of any kind. This observation brought to his feet Mordhorst, a Danish Socialist, who insisted that it was not less law but more law that we needed—law that would sternly put down landlordism, sweating, and all other abominations of the existing Capitalist system. He was followed by Munsey, a postal telegraphic official, a very earnest worker in the branch, who complained that the lectures were becoming too learned and far-fetched for useful Socialist teaching. What was wanted was plain statements of Socialist economics, such as a workman could understand. The subject discussed by the lecturer was, he said, no doubt interesting, but it did not concern Socialists much at present. What we had to do was to get the workers organised for Socialism. The Social Revolution depended solely on the working class. 'Who would be free, themselves must strike the blow.'
These familiar free-lances, having fired their shafts, the discussion was continued by several speakers who took up the theme of the lecture, and made some instructive points of criticism. Morris himself, in concluding the debate, which he had listened to with much more patience than I had expected, said he had greatly enjoyed the lecture. Many of the ideas in it were fresh and interesting to him. He heartily agreed that all diversities of body and mind which implied suffering, inferiority, or incapacity of any kind for the service or enjoyment of life, were hateful. No right-thinking person could derive pleasure or pride from beholding among their fellows the lack of capacity for giving happiness to others, any more than the lack of means of obtaining happiness for themselves. Yet these were the chief diversities that life afforded to-day.
