To the Editor of "The Pall Mall Gazette."
Sir: I am disappointed of my Gazette to-day, and shall be grievously busy to morrow. I think it better, therefore, to follow up my own letter, if you will permit me, with a simple and brief statement of the facts, than to wait till I see your correspondent W. R. G.'s reply, if he has vouchsafed me one.
These are the facts. The laborious poor produce "the means of life" by their labor. Rich persons possess themselves by various expedients of a right to dispense these "means of life," and keeping as much means as they want of it for themselves, and rather more, dispense the rest, usually only in return for more labor from the poor, expended in producing various delights for the rich dispenser. The idea is now gradually entering poor men's minds, that they may as well keep in their own hands the right of distributing "the means of life" they produce; and employ themselves, so far as they need extra occupation, for their own entertainment or benefit, rather than that of other people. There is something to be said, nevertheless, in favor of the present arrangement, but it cannot be defended in disguise; and it is impossible to do more harm to the cause of order, or the rights of property, than by endeavors, such as that of your correspondent, to revive the absurd and, among all vigorous thinkers, long since exploded notion of the dependence of the poor upon the rich.
I am, Sir, your obedient servant,
J. Ruskin.
January 28.