s, able-bodied and outdoor."[564] "If the people were of my mind
they would not tolerate for twelve months that the Royal paupers
should wear robes and have every luxury, and the honest, industrious
aged poor should wear rags and eat a crust or be imprisoned for being
hungry."[565] (Has ever anybody in Great Britain, or in any other
country, been imprisoned "for being hungry"?)

"Is it possible that this degrading monarchical superstition can
survive in England much longer? Has the schoolmaster now been abroad
so long in vain? Will the English people never take their destinies
into their own hands and close the long era of monarchical and
aristocratic robbery? Are we never to have a Government that can hear
the bitter cry of the outcast, and, hearing, act? We know the goal.
The goal is the Democratic Republic."[566]

Many further extracts regarding English and foreign monarchs might be
given, but they are so indescribably coarse and so offensive--even the
late Queen is most shamelessly slandered, abused, and calumniated--that
they are hardly fit for publication, and their authors shall be
nameless.

FOOTNOTES:

[561] See Appendix.

[562] Bax and Quelch, _A New Catechism of Socialism_, p. 37.

[563] _Platform, Constitutions, Rules, and Standing Orders, Socialist
Labour Party_, pp. 2, 3.

[564] See _The Socialist Annual_, 1907, p. 25.

[565] Glyde, _Britain's Disgrace_, p. 9.

[566] Davidson, _The New Book of Kings_, p. 107.

CHAPTER XV

SOCIALIST VIEWS ON PARLIAMENT AND THE NATIONAL ADMINISTRATION

The opinion of most Socialists with regard to the British Parliament
is well summed up in the phrase "Parliament a way to the Democracy?
Why, 'tis not a road at all, but only a barricade across our
road."[567] It will be seen in this and the following Chapter that
Socialism means either to capture and hold that barricade or to pull
it down.

Let us take note of some representative Socialist opinions on the
British Parliament. "The House of Commons is a machine elaborately
contrived by the exploiting classes to serve their own ends. In the
race for Parliamentary seats the wisest and the best are nowhere. They
are rarely even permitted to start. The prizes are for the richest,
the most unscrupulous, cunning, and pushing. And without a complete
revolution in our ideas regarding the objects as well as the methods
of legislation, it must always remain so."[568] "Parliament is
appointed, we are told, to ful