that seemingly impossible thing were
accomplished tomorrow, you would see thousands of people dying for want
of air--or of the money to buy it--even as now thousands are dying for
want of the other necessities of life. You would see people going about
gasping for breath, and telling each other that the likes of them could
not expect to have air to breathe unless they had the money to pay for
it. Most of you here, for instance, would think and say so. Even as
you think at present that it's right for so few people to own the
Earth, the Minerals and the Water, which are all just as necessary as
is the air. In exactly the same spirit as you now say: "It's Their
Land," "It's Their Water," "It's Their Coal," "It's Their Iron," so you
would say "It's Their Air," "These are their gasometers, and what right
have the likes of us to expect them to allow us to breathe for
nothing?" And even while he is doing this the air monopolist will be
preaching sermons on the Brotherhood of Man; he will be dispensing
advice on "Christian Duty" in the Sunday magazines; he will give
utterance to numerous more or less moral maxims for the guidance of the
young. And meantime, all around, people will be dying for want of some
of the air that he will have bottled up in his gasometers. And when
you are all dragging out a miserable existence, gasping for breath or
dying for want of air, if one of your number suggests smashing a hole
in the side of one of the gasometers, you will all fall upon him in the
name of law and order, and after doing your best to tear him limb from
limb, you'll drag him, covered with blood, in triumph to the nearest
Police Station and deliver him up to "justice" in the hope of being
given a few half-pounds of air for your trouble.'

'I suppose you think the landlords ought to let people live in their
'ouses for nothing?' said Crass, breaking the silence that followed.

'Certainly,' remarked Harlow, pretending to be suddenly converted to
Owen's views, 'I reckon the landlord ought to pay the rent to the
tenant!'

'Of course, Landlordism is not the only cause,' said Owen, ignoring
these remarks. 'The wonderful system fosters a great many others.
Employers of labour, for instance, are as great a cause of poverty as
landlords are.'

This extraordinary statement was received with astonished silence.

'Do you mean to say that if I'm out of work and a master gives me a
job, that 'e's doin' me a injury?' said Crass at lengt