Strong prejudices exist against me as being a Socialist. Your local newspapers have denounced me on this ground. To show that I deserve no condemnation on this account I shall draw your attention to the nature of Socialism. I have here a little book, stated to be published by the 'Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge.' If it had been stated to be a 'society' for disseminating 'malicious knowledge' the title-page would have been correct--for a more gross series of misrepresentations were never strung together. If what it says of Socialism were true, then I might be abused; but Socialism as I have learned or explained it, would never lead to the injury of peace or the disturbance of public order. The first paragraph of Godwin's 'Political Justice' is an epitome of Socialism as developed in this country hitherto s it is 'an investigation concerning that form of political society, that system of intercourse and reciprocal action extending beyond the bounds of a single family, which shall be found most conducive to the _general_ benefit--how may the peculiar and independent operation of each individual in the social state most effectually be preserved--how may the security each man ought to possess as to his life, and the employments of his faculties according to the dictates of his own understanding, be most certainly defended from invasion--how may the individuals of the human species be made to contribute most substantially to general improvement and happiness.' But I shall not content myself with one authority; and to avoid the charge of presumption, I have gathered much of my defence from other men's writings, and shall make them speak for me. Socialists have been declared to have dangerous metaphysical notions. The whole question has been expressed by the poet-philosopher Goethe in four lines, translated by Ebenezer Elliott, thus-- How like a stithy is this land! And we lie on it, like good metal Long hammer'd by a senseless hand; But will such thumping make a kettle? Meaning that senseless hammering and senseless legislation could neither make the dull iron into a kettle, nor a vicious people into an enlightened nation. Socialism says, all men have in them the true metal--the elements of goodness, which all governments are responsible for moulding. Socialism proposes to substitute other means than punishments for the prevention of crime, and that you may not think these chimeras of my own, I will read you the opinion of a Lord Cardinal to a certain High Chancellor of England, Sir Thomas More, who, in his 'Utopia.' says, 'When I was in England, the king depended much on his councils....