'I hear from our solicitors that you have drawn five thousand pounds
out of first-class mortgages. Now, this is a large sum of money. How
do you intend to re-invest it? I don't see how you could get better
interest than you have been getting unless you accept doubtful
security. I hope that neither this paper _La Voix du Peuple_ or
Panama has tempted you.'
'It is very kind of you, Harold, to come to Paris to inquire into this
matter. You won't think that I am ungrateful, will you?'
'No.'
'Then I would sooner say nothing about this money.... I have re-
invested it, and I think well invested it. I am satisfied, it is my
own money. I am of age and quite capable of judging.'
'You know a great deal more than I do, Mildred, about art and
literature and all that kind of thing, but I have had business
experience that you have not, and I feel it my duty to tell you if you
have invested your money in _La Voix du Peuple_ that I can only look
upon it as lost.'
'Come, Harold. Let us admit, for the sake of argument, that I have
invested the whole or part of my money in this paper.'
'Then you have done so. If you hadn't, you would not feel inclined to
discuss hypothetical investments.'
'Why not? For you impugn the integrity of my dearest friends. The
circulation of the paper is going up steadily. When we reach sixty
thousand I shall have invested my money, supposing I have put it into
the paper at twenty per cent., and will then receive not 250 pounds
but 1000 pounds a year. You will admit there is a difference.'
'I should think there was. I wish I could get twenty per cent, for my
money. But I thought that getting a big interest for money was against
your principles. I thought that the Socialists said that interest was
"unpaid labour." Isn't that the expression you use?'
'Yes, it is. I had scruples on this point, but M. Delacour overruled
my scruples. Your objection is answered by the theory that individual
sacrifice is unavailing: indeed, it is as useless as giving charity,
quite. A case of intense suffering is brought under the notice of a
_bourgeois;_ it awakens in him a certain hysterical pity, or, I should
say, remorse, for he feels that a system that permits such things to
be cannot be wholly right. He relieves this suffering, and then he
thinks he is a virtuous man; he thinks he has done a good action; but
a moment's reflection shows us that this good action is only
selfishness in disguise--that it is nothing more than a personal
gratification, a balm to his wound, which, by a sort of reflective
action, he has received from outraged humanity. Charity is of no use;
it is individual, and nothing individual is of any value; the movement
must be general.'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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