Yet, paradoxical as it may appear, the assertion is probably true that “bad times”--especially in connection with unemployment--are enemies rather than friends of the Socialist cause. It is quite a mistake to suppose that Socialism gains its firmest grip first upon the poorest; that its chief allies are hunger and cold. In England the poorest are often impervious to a direct political or social appeal; they are sunk below the level of consciousness which can respond to any hope of change. The skilled artisans of Colne Valley and Jarrow vote Socialist when trade is good and all the factories are working overtime. The slums of Southwark or Ancoats fail to respond to the vision of a new good time coming, although their present state is beyond measure deplorable. What they are looking for is a relief of the immediate necessities of the moment, for food and drink for the day. Given these, they are content until the next scarcity arrives. More especially is this true of unemployment. When the artisan or labourer is in work, he will find leisure to interest himself in various social gospels, study the exhortation of the street corners, inquire the meaning of capital value and class war and the exploitation of the working man. When he is out of work, he is naturally filled with but one impulse, which passes quickly from a terror into an obsession--an impulse to obtain work again. That impulse operates even amongst the men who remain in the factory. They see their companions turned away, tramping the streets in search of a job, undergoing all the privations which they themselves have experienced in similar vicissitudes in the past. They know that they have no security but one week’s notice: that any Saturday the announcement will be made to them that their services will no longer be required. Under such circumstances the whole social problem narrows itself down to the one problem of maintenance; or rather, the problem of maintenance enlarges itself to fill the whole horizon. Yesterday or to-morrow men may cherish the dream of a transformed society. To-day the question is merely the continuance of such work as will provide for immediate food and shelter. That is why Socialism has grown in times of prosperity, and withered in times of decline. It is the “Tariff Reformer,” and not the Socialist, who seems likely to gain in days of trade depression. In those days “work for all” is a more persuasive appeal than “Justice to the worker,” or “State ownership of all the means of production.” Man, fallen to bedrock and fighting for his life, has little inclination to turn to visions of universal justice in a redeemed Society.