to be hoped that the Fabian Society will immediately, and publicly,
repudiate this dishonest pamphlet.

The statements contained in the pamphlet "Facts for Socialists," may
be misleading and utterly dishonest, but they are very useful for
propaganda purposes. Nothing is more likely to inflame the masses than
to be told that the "idle rich" take more than two-thirds of the
national income. The practical effect of this pamphlet may be seen in
utterances such as the following: "It has been estimated that in our
country of the wealth produced, one-third is enjoyed by those who earn
it and two-thirds by those who have not laboured for it. To put it in
other words, of every three pounds earned by labour, one pound goes to
him who earned it and two pounds to others who have done nothing
towards its production."[143] "For two-thirds of his time the worker
is a slave, labouring not for himself but for others."[144] "On the
average at the present time the workers produce nearly four times as
much as they consume."[145] "Nearly two-thirds of the wealth produced
is retained by an eighth of the population."[146] "The great mass of
the people, the weekly wage-earners, four out of five of the whole
population, toil perpetually for less than a third of the aggregate
product of labour, at an annual wage averaging at most _40l._ per
adult, and are hurried into unnecessarily early graves by the severity
of their lives."[147] "Out of the wealth which his labour creates, the
worker receives but one-third. He is paid one-third the value of his
labour, and when he seeks to lay it out he is robbed of one-half its
purchasing power, and all this is done by a Christian people."[148]
"Q. How does the capitalist act? A. He extorts from those labourers
who are excluded from the land a share of all that they produce, under
threat of withholding from them the implements of production and thus
refusing to let them work at all.--Q. On what terms does the
capitalist allow the labourers to work? A. The capitalist agrees to
return to them as wages about a quarter of what they have produced by
their work, keeping the remaining three-quarters for himself and his
class.--Q. What is this system called? A. The capitalist system."[149]
"By analysing the returns of the income-tax, various economists show
that the value received by the working class and the superintendents
of labour amount to a third or less of the wealth produced. The
income-tax returns, however