Chelsea’s piggeries
The Cotrnty Council of London having proved their inability to house the working class, by erecting rabbit hutches and letting them at a price that the average working man cannot afford, Chelsea has come to the rescue, and now the very poor may rejoice. They are going to be housed if they earn 25s. per week as a maximum (and enough to pay the rent as a minimum).. The rent is as much as 3s. for one room and 5s. for two, which, taking into consideration the intense honesty of the inhabitants, is very reasonable. How do we know they are so honest ? Well, listen!
“On the landings are coat-pegs and shelves overhead for hats . . Also on one side of the landings a washhouse with copper troughs, and on the other side a scullery. These will be used in common by eight families.”
Great Scott ! Eight families living in common and enabled to do so by the “generosity of Earl Cadogan” !
We have been told by the “hupper” class, that Socialism would break up the home, but eight families living in common ! surely this is the beginning ol the end. And an earl is “a doin’ of it !” Of course it is a great treat for the poor to be able to live so, but has the generous and doubtless noble Earl ever experienced the joy and happiness that must be the lot of eight families snaring one scullery ?
Truly the master class must have the utmost contempt for the workers when they ask them to live under such conditions, and a woeful lack of the sense of humour when they prate of their generosity in connection with such schemes, and expect us to be accordingly grateful. How long will the workers be content to be herded like pigs, while the mansions they have built are enjoyed by their masters ? You cannot blame the masters for making things best for themselves when the workers are content to allow them to do so. The only ones who can do aught to alter the conditions under which we live are ourselves. It is the historic mission of our class to emancipate ourselves and all mankind, without distinction of race or sex, and to do away with privilege, both aristocratic and plutocratic, and take from our masters the privileges they withhold from us, and by our organised might usher in the Socialist Commonwealth. The instrument for this purpose is the Socialist Party of Great Britain.
P. J. WALKLEY