are only able to buy back a VERY
SMALL PART. So you see that these little discs of metal--this
Money--is a device for enabling those who do not work to rob the
workers of the greater part of the fruits of their toil.'

The silence that ensued was broken by Crass.

'It sounds very pretty,' he sneered, 'but I can't make no 'ead or tail
of it, meself.'

'Look here!' cried Owen. 'The producing class--these people in number
four are supposed to be paid for their work. Their wages are supposed
to be equal in value to their work. But it's not so. If it were, by
spending all their wages, the producing class would be able to buy back
All they had produced.'

Owen ceased speaking and silence once more ensued. No one gave any
sign of understanding, or of agreeing or of disagreeing with what he
had said. Their attitude was strictly neutral. Barrington's pipe had
gone out during the argument. He relit it from the fire with a piece
of twisted paper.

'If their wages were really equal in value to the product of their
labour,' Owen repeated, 'they would be able to buy back not a small
part--but the Whole.'...

At this, a remark from Bundy caused a shout of laughter, and when
Wantley added point to the joke by making a sound like the discharge of
a pistol the merriment increased tenfold.

'Well, that's done it,' remarked Easton, as he got up and opened the
window.

'It's about time you was buried, if the smell's anything to go by,'
said Harlow, addressing Wantley, who laughed and appeared to think he
had distinguished himself.

'But even if we include the whole of the working classes,' continued
Owen, 'that is, the people in number three as well as those in number
four, we find that their combined wages are insufficient to buy the
things made by the producers. The total value of the wealth produced
in this country during the last year was L1,800,000,000, and the total
amount paid in wages during the same period was only L600,000,000. In
other words, by means of the Money Trick, the workers were robbed of
two-thirds of the value of their labour. All the people in numbers
three and four are working and suffering and starving and fighting in
order that the rich people in numbers one and two may live in luxury,
and do nothing. These are the wretches who cause poverty: they not
only devour or waste or hoard the things made by the worker, but as
soon as their own wants are supplied--they compel the workers to cease
w