Page 444 - lady-chatterlys-lover

talk a lot about nationalization, nationalization of royalties,
nationalization of the whole industry. But you can’t nation-
alize coal and leave all the other industries as they are. They
talk about putting coal to new uses, like Sir Clifford is try-
ing to do. It may work here and there, but not as a general
thing. I doubt. Whatever you make you’ve got to sell it. The
men are very apathetic. They feel the whole damned thing
is doomed, and I believe it is. And they are doomed along
with it. Some of the young ones spout about a Soviet, but
there’s not much conviction in them. There’s no sort of con-
viction about anything, except that it’s all a muddle and a
hole. Even under a Soviet you’ve still got to sell coal: and
that’s the difficulty.
We’ve got this great industrial population, and they’ve
got to be fed, so the damn show has to be kept going some-
how. The women talk a lot more than the men, nowadays,
and they are a sight more cock-sure. The men are limp, they
feel a doom somewhere, and they go about as if there was
nothing to be done. Anyhow, nobody knows what should be
done in spite of all the talk, the young ones get mad because
they’ve no money to spend. Their whole life depends on
spending money, and now they’ve got none to spend. That’s
our civilization and our education: bring up the masses to
depend entirely on spending money, and then the money
gives out. The pits are working two days, two and a half
days a week, and there’s no sign of betterment even for the
winter. It means a man bringing up a family on twenty-five
and thirty shillings. The women are the maddest of all. But
then they’re the maddest for spending, nowadays.