"Never, surely, against an earnest working mammonism was there brought by game-preserving aristocratic dilettantism, a stranger accusation since this world began. My Lords and Gentlemen--why it was _you_ that were appointed, by the fact and by the theory of your position on the earth, to make and administer laws. That is to say, in a world such as ours, to guard against 'gluts,' against honest operatives who had done their work remaining unfed! I say, you were appointed to preside over the distribution and appointment of the wages of work done; and to see well that there went no labourer without his hire, were it of money coins, were it of hemp gallows-ropes: that formation was yours, and from immemorial time has been yours, and as yet no other's. These poor shirt-spinners have forgotten much, which by the virtual unwritten law of their position they should have remembered; but by any written recognized law of their position, what have they forgotten? They were set to make shirts. The community, with all its voices commanded them, saying, 'make shirts;'--and there the shirts are! Too many shirts? Well, that is a novelty, in this intemperate earth, with its nine hundred millions of bare backs! But the community commanded you, saying, 'See that the shirts are well apportioned, that our human laws be emblems of God's law;' and where is the apportionment? Two millions shirt-less, or ill-shirted workers sit enchanted in work-house Bastiles, five millions more (according to some) in Ugoline hunger-cellars; and for remedy, you say--what say you? 'Raise our rents!' I have not in my time heard any stranger speech, not even on the shores of the Dead Sea. You continue addressing these poor shirt-spinners and over-producers in really a _too_ triumphant manner.