And if that seemingly impossible thing were accomplished tomorrow, you would see thousands of people dying for want of air--or of the money to buy it--even as now thousands are dying for want of the other necessities of life.

You would see people going about gasping for breath, and telling each other that the likes of them could not expect to have air to breathe unless they had the money to pay for it.

Most of you here, for instance, would think and say so.

Even as you think at present that it's right for so few people to own the Earth, the Minerals and the Water, which are all just as necessary as is the air.

In exactly the same spirit as you now say: "It's Their Land," "It's Their Water," "It's Their Coal," "It's Their Iron," so you would say "It's Their Air," "These are their gasometers, and what right have the likes of us to expect them to allow us to breathe for nothing ?" And even while he is doing this the air monopolist will be preaching sermons on the Brotherhood of Man; he will be dispensing advice on "Christian Duty" in the Sunday magazines; he will give utterance to numerous more or less moral maxims for the guidance of the young.