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Updated: June 6, 2025
"We have said that the working class was the only class to whom the word 'Empire, and the things of which it was the symbol, did not appeal; that to the propertied classes 'Empire' meant high dividends and financial security, whereas to the working class that meant only the things it was in rebellion against.
I can but infer that they are afraid of something, and a moment's thought discloses what they fear. Just as in meddling with my nut-tree, so everywhere they are in danger of trouble with people of the propertied or employing kind; and behind these people stands the policeman, and behind the policeman that dim object of dread called "a summons."
In Victoria and South Australia the constitutional question is at rest for another decade; but though it is not at present on the tapis, there is every probability that within the next five years New South Wales will abandon the nominated Upper House for one elected by a propertied constituency, such as that of the South Australian and Victorian Legislative Councils.
This was still the day of the "gentleman," of small clothes, silver shoe-buckles, powdered wigs, and lace ruffles. Only taxpayers and propertied persons could vote, and public office was still invested with certain prerogatives and privileges. Democracy was little more than a name. There was, however, a distinct division of sentiment, and the drift towards democracy was accelerated by immigration.
As to this second part of the indictment: I am accused of instigating the unpropertied classes to hatred and contempt of the propertied classes. "By this presentation," says the indictment, "working men will plainly be incited to hatred and contempt of the bourgeoisie, that is to say, the unpropertied classes will be inflamed against the propertied classes."
The committee continued with the following comments which were naïve in the extreme considering that for generations all law had been made by and for the propertied interests: "It is a singular fact that the smallest sums advanced have always been chargeable with the highest rates of interest.... It is a fact worthy of consideration that by far the greater number of loans effected at these establishments are less than one dollar, and of the whole twelve-fifteenths are in sums less than one dollar and a half."
It definitely fixed the attitude of the Republican party on the currency question; it gave the party control of the executive chair and of Congress at an important time; and it ensured the domination of the propertied classes and the laissez faire philosophy in the party organization.
Let us begin with the educated and propertied classes and exact a couple of years' service in a destroyer or a waterplane, or an airship, or a, research laboratory, or a training camp, from the sons of everybody who, let us say, pays income tax without deductions. Let us mix with these a big proportion a proportion we may increase steadily of keen scholarship men from the elementary schools.
As one of many illustrations of the ethics of the propertied class, the appended newspaper dispatch from Newport, R. I., on Jan. 2, 1903, brings out some significant facts: "William C. Schermerhorn, whose death is announced in New York, and who was a cousin of Mrs. William Astor, was one of Newport's pioneer summer residents.
At all events, the propertied classes, in the main, secured what they wanted. And, as fast as their interests changed, so did the acts and dicta of Government change.
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