And I assume that as a family man you would rather live in a comfortable and healthy house than in an uncomfortable and unhealthy house; that you would be glad if you could buy beef, bread, gas, coal, water, tea, sugar, clothes, boots, and furniture for less money than you now pay for them; and that you would think it a good thing, and not a bad thing, if your wife had less work and more leisure, fewer worries and more nice dresses, and if your children had more sports, and better health, and better education. And I assume that you would like to pay lower rents, even if some rich landlord had to keep fewer race-horses. And I assume that as a humane man you would prefer that other men and women and their children should not suffer if their sufferings could be prevented. If, then, I assure you that you are paying too much and are being paid too little, and that many other Britons, especially weak women and young children, are enduring much preventible misery; and if I assert, further, that I know of a means whereby you might secure more ease and comfort, and they might secure more justice, you will, surely, as a kind and sensible man, consent to listen to the arguments and statements I propose to place before you. Suppose a stranger came to tell you where you could get a better house at a lower rent, and suppose your present landlord assured you that the man who offered the information was a fool or a rogue, would you take the landlord's word without investigation? Would it not be more practical and hard-headed to hear first what the bringer of such good news had to tell? Well, the Socialist brings you better news than that of a lower rent. Will you not hear him? Will you turn your back on him for no better reason than because he is denounced as a fraud by the rich men whose wealth depends upon the continuation of the present system? Your "betters" tell you that you always display a wise distrust of new ideas. But to reject an idea because it is new is not a proof of shrewdness and good sense; it is a sign of bigotry and ignorance. Trade Unionism was new not so long ago, and was denounced, and is still denounced, by the very same persons who now denounce _Socialism_. If you find a newspaper or an employer to be wrong when he denounces Trade Unionism, which you do understand, why should you assume that the same authority is right in denouncing _Socialism_, which you do not understand? You know that in attacking Trade Unionism the employer and the pressman are speaking in their own interest and against yours; why, then, should you be ready to believe that in counselling you against _Socialism_ the same men are speaking in your interest and not in their own? I ask you, as a practical man, to forget both the Socialist and the non-Socialist, and to consider the case for and against _Socialism_ on its merits. As I said in _Merrie England_--