hat my opinions are right and that everyone who
differs from me is wrong. If I didn't think their opinions were wrong
I wouldn't differ from them. If I didn't think my own opinions right I
wouldn't hold them.'

'But there's no need to keep on arguin' about it day after day,' said
Crass. 'You've got your opinion and I've got mine. Let everyone enjoy
his own opinion, I say.'

A murmur of approbation from the crowd greeted these sentiments; but
Owen rejoined:

'But we can't both be right; if your opinions are right and mine are
not, how am I to find out the truth if we never talk about them?'

'Well, wot do you reckon is the cause of poverty, then?' demanded
Easton.

'The present system--competition--capitalism.'

'It's all very well to talk like that,' snarled Crass, to whom this
statement conveyed no meaning whatever. 'But 'ow do you make it out?'

'Well, I put it like that for the sake of shortness,' replied Owen.
'Suppose some people were living in a house--'

'More supposin'!' sneered Crass.

'And suppose they were always ill, and suppose that the house was badly
built, the walls so constructed that they drew and retained moisture,
the roof broken and leaky, the drains defective, the doors and windows
ill-fitting and the rooms badly shaped and draughty. If you were asked
to name, in a word, the cause of the ill-health of the people who lived
there you would say--the house. All the tinkering in the world would
not make that house fit to live in; the only thing to do with it would
be to pull it down and build another. Well, we're all living in a
house called the Money System; and as a result most of us are suffering
from a disease called poverty. There's so much the matter with the
present system that it's no good tinkering at it. Everything about it
is wrong and there's nothing about it that's right. There's only one
thing to be done with it and that is to smash it up and have a
different system altogether. We must get out of it.'

'It seems to me that that's just what you're trying to do,' remanded
Harlow, sarcastically. 'You seem to be tryin' to get out of answering
the question what Easton asked you.'

'Yes!' cried Crass, fiercely. 'Why don't you answer the bloody
question? Wot's the cause of poverty?'

'What the 'ell's the matter with the present system?' demanded Sawkins.

'Ow's it goin' to be altered?' said Newman.

'Wot the bloody 'ell sort of a system do YOU think we ought to 'ave