This is the year of jubilee; and this the jubilee month of this jubilee year. The official dictum has gone forth from the conquered land of William the Robber, that the people of Australia shall join in holding a jubilee in commemoration of the fiftieth year of the reign of the present representative of English tyranny. Illuminations are being displayed, loyal demonstrations devised, money recklessly squandered - and all for what? Loyal cant says: To express the happiness of the people. Honesty says: To bolster up a tottering tyranny at the expense of the wretched slaves whom our barbarous system holds in subjection.
The people of Australia are jubilating - are they? Jubilating over what? Are they jubilating over the terrible fact that their three million square miles of land are, for the most part, held in enforced idleness by the villainous monopoly over which the State keeps guard? Are they jubilating because thousands of would-be willing workers are wandering about the streets in search of employment? Are they jubilating because the workers, who constitute by far the larger portion of our population of two and a half millions, are only in receipt of a very small portion of the wealth which they alone produce? Are they jubilating because the State-created banking monopolies absorb annually ten million pounds' worth of the product of their labor, for which they render little or no service whatever? Are they jubilating because our State-created monopolies annually drive twenty thousand of our population to pauperism, fifty thousand to drunkenness, thousands of our children to unhealthy and degrading factories, and thousands of our daughters to prostitution? Are they jubilating because they are robbed of eight million pounds annually by taxation? Are they jubilating because thousands of their fellows are asking for employment, instead of demanding restitution of the fruits of their past employment? Are they jubilating because their rulers are sending their spies and detectives to disturb their assemblages and prevent them from bettering their condition? Are they jubilating because their so-called "representatives" are seeking to create an Australian navy, the better to hold them in subjection, and to subjugate their more peaceable neighbours? Are they jubilating over the fact that monarchism has proved a curse, and democracy has proved no better? Are they jubilating over the fact that our political institutions are fast corrupting the best of us, and that while we support them we are tottering headlong to destruction?
Yes; of such is our Jubilee, whether we know it or not. Our people are jubilating because tyrants have commanded thern to jubliate; and tyranny has made them such cowards that they durst not refuse.
But all is not hopeless. Behind the glitter and tinsel of this empty show, this miserable sham, this feigned loyalty, is heard the earnest whisper of DISCONTENT. It is a whisper now; but like many another whisper, it may but herald in the hurricane.
And then? Then shall be celebrated THE PEOPLE'S JUBILEE! Then shall the people rejoice, that the dream of peace, progress and prosperity is realized. Then shall they rejoice that the usurpers have been dethroned, and that the bounties of nature are free to all who would partake of them. Freedom of opportunity for every individual to labor for his own sustenance and welfare, without fear of imprisonment for trespassing on monopolised lands, or imprisonment for being the victim of compulsory vagrancy. Freedom for everyone to think his own thought, to say his own say, and act his own act, without fear of imprisonment or murder by intolerant tyrants. Freedom for our daughters to live in comfort, without selling their bodies to secure the wealth which has been robbed from our brothers. Freedom to exchange without the thievish monopoly of land or money or a customs' tariff. Freedom to act out one's noblest aspiration, to vindicate which Luther sought, but failed: THE RIGHT OF PRIVATE JUDGMENT. Freedom to do unto others as you would have that others should do unto you, and to proclaim in real earnest: "Peace on earth: Goodwill to Men."
Then will be THE PEOPLE'S JUBILEE!
