," she said. "Very soon you'll be too busy to listen
to me at all--these are the last chances for me before your meetings
begin. But really what I'm saying will be splendidly useful in
speeches."

"All very well if getting in was all that mattered," he told her. "I
can't echo all your ideas, Chicky, and speeches have a way of rising up
against one at awkward moments afterwards."

"At any rate, you grant the main point," she said, "and so you must
grant what follows from it; and if you grant that, and put it in your
manifesto, you'll lose a few votes, but you'll gain hundreds. If
labour's not a commodity, but to be regulated by body and soul, then
wages must be regulated by body and soul too. Or, if you want to put it
in a way for a crowd to understand, you can say that we give even a
steam-engine the oil it must have before it begins to work, so how can
we deny a man the oil he wants before he begins to work?"

"That means a minimum of wages."

"Yes, a minimum consistent with human needs, below which wages cannot
and must not fail. That minimum should be just as much taken for granted
as the air a man breathes, or the water he drinks, or the free education
he gets as a boy. It isn't wages really; it's recognition of a man's
right to live and share the privileges of life, and be self-respecting,
just because he is a man. Everybody who is born, Ray, ought to have the
unquestioned right to live, and the amplest opportunity to become a good
and useful citizen. After that is granted, then wages should begin, and
each man, or woman, should have full freedom and opportunity to earn
what he, or she, was worth. That does away with the absurd idea of
equality, which can only be created artificially and would breed
disaster if we did create it."

"There's no such thing as equality in human nature, any more than in any
other nature, Estelle. Seeds from the same pod are different--some weak,
some strong. But I grant the main petition. The idea's first rate--a
firm basis of right to reasonable life, and security for every human
being as our low-water mark; while, on that foundation, each may lift an
edifice according to their power. So that none who has the power to rise
above the minimum would be prevented from doing so, and no Trades Union
tyranny should interfere to prevent the strong man working eight hours a
day if he desires to do so, because the weaker one can only work seven."

"I think the Trades Unions only want to pr