Railways Coalmines
Tramways Omnibuses
Gas Water
Milk Bread
Meat Butter and cheese
Vegetables Beer
Houses Shops
Boots Clothing
and other necessaries.
On all those needful things you are now paying big percentages of profit
to private dealers, all of which the Municipality would save you.
And you can municipalise all those things and save all that money by
sticking together as a Labour Party, and by paying _one penny a week_.
Again I advise you to read those books by George Haw and R. B. Suthers.
Read them, and give them to other workers to read.
And then set about making a Labour Party _at once_.
Next as to Parliament. You ought to put at least 200 Labour members into
the House. Never mind Liberalism and Toryism. Mr. Morley said in January
that what puzzled him was to "find any difference between the new
Liberalism and the new Conservatism." Do not try to find a difference,
John. Have a Labour Party.
"Self-interest is the strongest motive in human nature." Take care of
your own interests and stand by your own class.
You will ask, perhaps, what these 200 Labour representatives are to do.
They should do anything and everything they can do in the House of
Commons for the interests of the working class.
But if you want programmes and lists of measures, get the Fabian
Parliamentary and Municipal programmes, and study them. You will find
the particulars as to price, etc., at the end of this book.
But here are some measures which you might be pushing and helping
whenever a chance presents itself, in Parliament or out of Parliament.
Removal of taxation from articles used by the workers, such as tea
and tobacco, and increase of taxation on large incomes and on land.
Compulsory sale of land for the purpose of Municipal houses, works,
farms, and gardens.
Nationalisation of railways and mines.
Taxation to extinction of all mineral royalties.
Vastly improved education for the working classes.
Old age pensions.
Adoption of the Initiative and Referendum.
Universal adult suffrage.
Eight hours' day and standard rates of wages in all Government and
Municipal works.
Establishment of a Department of Agriculture.
State insurance of life.
Nationalisation of all banks.
The second ballot.
Abolition of property votes.
Formation of a citizen army for home defence.
Abolition of workhouses.
Solid legislation on the housing question.
Government inquiry into the food question, with a view to restore
British agriculture.
Those are a few steps towards the desired goal of _Socialism_.
You may perhaps wonder why I do not ask you to found a Socialist Party.
I do not think the workers are ready for it. And I feel that if you
found a Labour Party every step you take towards the emancipation of
Labour will be a step towards _Socialism_.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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