“Yet surely,” I said, “there is something wrong _somewhere_, if these four people are well able to do useful work, and if that work is actually _needed_ by the community, and they elect to sit idle?”
“I think there _is_,” said Arthur: “but it seems to me to arise from a Law of God—that every one shall do as much as he can to help others—and not from any _rights_, on the part of the community, to exact labour as an equivalent for food that has already been fairly earned.”
“I suppose the _second_ form of the problem is where the ‘idle mouths’ possess _money_ instead of _material_ wealth?”
“Yes,” replied Arthur: “and I think the simplest case is that of _paper_-money. _Gold_ is itself a form of material wealth; but a bank-note is merely a _promise_ to hand over so much _material_ wealth when called upon to do so. The father of these four ‘idle mouths,’ had done (let us say) five thousand pounds’ worth of useful work for the community. In return for this, the community had given him what amounted to a written promise to hand over, whenever called upon to do so, five thousand pounds’ worth of food, &c. Then, if he only uses _one_ thousand pounds’ worth himself, and leaves the rest of the notes to his children, surely they have a full right to _present_ these written promises, and to say ‘hand over the food, for which the equivalent labour has been already done.’ Now I think _this_ case well worth stating, publicly and clearly. I should like to drive it into the heads of those Socialists who are priming our ignorant paupers with such sentiments as ‘Look at them bloated haristocrats! Doing not a stroke o’ work for theirselves, and living on the sweat of _our_ brows!’ I should like to _force_ them to see that the _money_, which those ‘haristocrats’ are spending, represents so much labour _already done_ for the community, and whose equivalent, in _material_ wealth, is _due from the community_.”
“Might not the Socialists reply ‘Much of this money does not represent _honest_ labour _at all_. If you could trace it back, from owner to owner, though you might begin with several legitimate steps, such as gift, or bequeathing by will, or ‘value received,’ you would soon reach an owner who had no moral right to it, but had got it by fraud or other crimes; and of course his successors in the line would have no better right to it than _he_ had.”