Sequence 4

time when it has ceased to be a progressive and expanding
force in the evolution of society.

We are living to-day in a potential Age of Plenty, when the
productive capacity of the world, thanks to man's technical
and scientific conquest of nature, is so enormous that there
should not be any man, woman, or child poor, ill-clad, ill-shod
or badly housed. A steadily rising standard of living for the
millions of workers can be achieved. But from the very fact
that all production is governed by the demand of private pro-
perty to receive its toll in rent and interest arises the tragic
paradox that, while colossal wealth is piled up in the hands of
the few, poverty, unemployment, ill-health, ruin and social
degredation are the lot of the millions.

Because all the means from which are produced the necessities
of life are privately owned and the products are distributed only
on condition that from their production a private profit is
secured, vast quantities of wheat are used as fuel for locomotives,
coffee is thrown into the sea by thousands of tons, live stock
is ruthlessly destroyed, land is forced out of cultivation so that
prices may be forced up to a profitable level. Meanwhile mil-
lions of workers walk the streets unemployed, real wages de-
crease, slum increase, disease and desolation sprea.

Who dare speak of "prosperity returning" is a country
where 5s. a week for the sustenance of a child is too great a
burden; in a country where miners winning coal deep down in
the earth receive less than £2 a week; in a country where skilled
engineers for a full week's toil take home a meagre 58s.; in a
country where the agricultural worker and his family face life
on 30s. a week; in a country where millions of its "citizens"
find insecurity and low wages their portion? Poverty is to-day,
as it has been in the whole era of industrial Capitalism, the
inevitable fate of the mass of human beings. It is Poverty the
Socialist fights.

The Fruits of Anarchy

Capitalism moves inexorably towards an ever-deepening
crisis. At times the movement may seem for a moment to
be checked; at times the supporters of the system will hail
the coming of "properity"-but the disease is incurable within
Capitalism. The scramble for markets, which goes by the name
of international trade, is in fact a fierce economic conflict
leading, as the past abundantly proves, to the clash of armed
forces. In every country the Capitalist class is now fighting
for its own hand from behind tariff walls and restrictions which

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