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A Nihilist, with Siberia or death before him, fighting against a damnable tyranny the best might sacrifice everything for that. But English Socialism! It is infused with the spirit of shopkeeping; it appeals to the vulgarest minds; it keeps one eye on personal safety, the other on the capitalist's strong-box; it is stamped commonplace, like everything originating with the English lower classes.
On the contrary, as Bob shot a questioning glance toward him, he thought he detected for the first time in his life a strange uneasiness in the capitalist's habitually self-contained manner. He seemed to be framing an introduction for what he wished to say. "I have several matters to talk over with you, Bob," he began at last in a resolute tone.
The struggle waged according to La Follette's principles is not a mere bid for political power and the spoils of office, but a real political warfare that can only end by recognition of the small capitalist's claims in business and politics in so far as they relate, not to the restoration of competition, but to government ownership or control.
The demand of buyers, he would say, determines the particular direction of production: it settles whether hats should be made of silk or beaver; whether we should grow corn or spin cotton. But the ultimate force is the capitalist's desire for profit. So long as he can raise labourers' necessaries by employing part of his capital, he can employ the labour as he chooses.
The rich, rain-soaked earth slipped and gave way under his feet. He adopted the plan of walking on with an indifferent air, hoping that the other would not recognize him. But a hoarse, powerful voice behind him called: "Lazare!" The capitalist's name was Lazare. He made no reply but tried to overtake a group of officers who were walking a long way in front of him. "Lazare! O Lazare!"
Moreover, many of these employers adhere to the obsolete maxim of the Manchester economists, that labour is merely a sort of merchandise, of which the workman keeps a certain stock-in-trade, and that the capitalist's simple task, as a man of business, is to buy that labour as cheaply as possible, and that he has done with the seller as soon as his stock-in-trade is exhausted.
Our second capitalist, meanwhile, who deals with his capital as income, starts with setting the dancers to dance for his behoof at once; and he keeps the whole two hundred dancing and doing nothing else, so long as he has food with which to feed them. This life is charming so long as it lasts, but in two years' time it abruptly comes to an end. The capitalist's cupboard is bare.
Wilson's language is at times so conciliatory as to create doubt whether or not he will stand with Senator La Follette and the Republican "Insurgents" for the whole of the small capitalist's program, but it leaves no doubt that, if he lives up to his declared principles, he must aim at the government regulation, not of "Big Business" merely, but of all business as when he says that "business is no longer in any sense a private matter."
Sloyd was half inclined to be content; the firm would make a thousand; the balance would be good interest on the capitalist's ten thousand pounds; and there would still be enough of a victory to soothe the feelings of everybody concerned. "I'm expecting the gentleman who is associated with us. If you'll excuse me, I'll step out and see if he's arrived."
And the night before he's going to put his eighteen thousand into this lovely rubber stock that will net him two hundred per cent, at the very lowest, on the capitalist's word of honour, what does he do but sneak out and take the train for home on his return ticket that he'd made the capitalist buy him.
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