e capitalist and the landlord system and grown only poorer and sicker and more miserable and afraid. Because it is not by charity and paltry reforms that we shall improve conditions for the weakest classes - not by taxes, not by electing one capitalist government over another, not even by abolishing the House of Lords! - but by turning over the land, and industry, to the people who work it. Because socialism is the only system for a fair society: a society in which the good things of the world are shared, not amongst the idlers of the world, but amongst the workers" - amongst yourselves: you, who have made the rich man rich, and been kept, for your labours, only ill and half-starved!''
There was a second''s silence, then a burst of thunderous applause. I looked at Ralph - his cheeks were red, now, and his lashes wet with tears - then seized his hand, and raised it. And then, as the cheers at last died down, I looked at Florence, who had moved to join Annie and Cyril, and was watching me with her fingers at her lips.
Behind us, the chairman approached to shake our hands; and when this was done we made our way off the platform,
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and were surrounded at once by smiles and congratulations and more applause.
''What a triumph!'' Annie called, stepping forward to greet us first. ''Ralph, you were magnificent!''
Ralph blushed. ''It was all Nancy''s doing,'' he said selfconsciously. Annie smirked, and turned to me. ''Bravo!'' she said. ''What a performance! If I had had a flower, I would have thrown it!'' She could not say any more, however, for behind her had come an elderly lady, who now pushed forward to catch my eye. It was Mrs Macey, of the Women''s Cooperative Guild.