ully established, gold and silver would
only be of value as metal and the State would purchase it from whoever
possessed and wished to sell it--at so much per pound as raw material:
instead of hiding it away in the vaults of banks, or locking it up in
iron safes, we shall make use of it. Some of the gold will be
manufactured into articles of jewellery, to be sold for paper money and
worn by the sweethearts and wives and daughters of the workers; some of
it will be beaten out into gold leaf to be used in the decoration of
the houses of the citizens and of public buildings. As for the silver,
it will be made into various articles of utility for domestic use. The
workers will not then, as now, have to eat their food with poisonous
lead or brass spoons and forks, we shall have these things of silver
and if there is not enough silver we shall probably have a
non-poisonous alloy of that metal.'

'As far as I can make out,' said Harlow, 'the paper money will be just
as valuable as gold and silver is now. Well, wot's to prevent artful
dodgers like old Misery and Rushton saving it up and buying and selling
things with it, and so livin' without work?'

'Of course,' said Crass, scornfully. 'It would never do!'

'That's a very simple matter; any man who lives without doing any
useful work is living on the labour of others, he is robbing others of
part of the result of their labour. The object of Socialism is to stop
this robbery, to make it impossible. So no one will be able to hoard
up or accumulate the paper money because it will be dated, and will
become worthless if it is not spent within a certain time after its
issue. As for buying and selling for profit--from whom would they buy?
And to whom would they sell?'

'Well, they might buy some of the things the workers didn't want, for
less than the workers paid for them, and then they could sell 'em
again.'

'They'd have to sell them for less than the price charged at the
National Stores, and if you think about it a little you'll see that it
would not be very profitable. It would be with the object of
preventing any attempts at private trading that the Administration
would refuse to pay compensation to private owners in a lump sum. All
such compensations would be paid, as I said, in the form of a pension
of so much per year.

'Another very effective way to prevent private trading would be to make
it a criminal offence against the well-being of the community. At
p