."
A friend once reported to me a saying of Matthew Arnold's, that he did
not believe in any man of intelligence taking a desperate view of the
social problem in England. I am afraid that saying relegates me to the
ranks of the fools, but I am content to remain there. I believe that
never since 1381, which is the date of the Peasants' Revolt, has England
presented such a spectacle of the happiness of the tens, of the misery of
the millions. It is not by any means the artisan, or the general or the
agricultural labourer, who is the only sufferer. All society groans
under the slavery of stupendous toil and a pittance wage. The negro
slavery of the Southern States of America was better than the white
slavery of to-day all over the earth, but more particularly in Europe and
in America. Capitalism is built on the dreadful wrong of recompensing
Labour, not according to the worth of its work, but according to the
worth of its members in the market of unlimited competition, and that
soon comes to mean the payment of what will hold body and soul together
when in the enjoyment of health and strength. Landlordism is built on
the dreadful wrong of sharing with Capitalism the plunder of Labour. Why
are rents high in Australia? Because here Labour is scarcer, its wages
correspondingly higher, and therefore Landlordism steps in to filch from
Labour its hard-won comforts, and once more reduce it to the necessities
of existence. The American slavers had to spend more in housing and
keeping any fixed number of their slaves in serviceable condition than
Capitalism spends in wages. Capitalism and Landlordism, like good
Christian Institutions, leave the living to keep alive their living, and
the dead to bury their dead. This cannot continue for ever. At least
all the intelligent portion of the community will grow to see the
injustice and attempt to abolish it. But when will the great mass of
unintelligent people who have won a large enough share of the plunder of
their fellows to minister to their own comforts--when will these, also,
awake and see? England will realize the desperation of her social
problem when its desperation is shown her by fire and blood--then, and
not till then! What shall teach her her sins to herself is what is even
now teaching her her sins to Ireland.

I make no apology for several poems in the First Part which are fierce,
which are even blood-thirsty. As I felt I wrote, and I will not lessen
the tr