Major stopped for a few seconds in the complete silence of the barn, then he continued in a louder voice.
“Our lives are miserable, difficult and short! We’re born, we’re given very little food – just enough to keep us alive –, we’re forced to work to the last atom of our strength; and when we’re no longer useful, we’re slaughtered⁷ with horrible cruelty. No animal in England knows the meaning of happiness or free time after they are one year old. No animal in England is free. The life of an animal is misery and slavery⁸. That’s the truth!”
He paused, looked around and then went on.
“But is all this normal, is it natural? Does this happen because our land is so poor that it can’t give a decent life to those who live on it? No, comrades, a thousand times no! England has a fertile soil⁹, its climate is good, it’s capable of giving large quantities of food to an enormously greater number of animals than now live in it. This single farm of ours would support a dozen horses, twenty cows, hundreds of sheep and all of them would live in a comfort and a dignity that are now beyond our imagination. Why then do we continue in this miserable condition? Because nearly the whole of the produce¹⁰ of our work is stolen from us by human beings! This, comrades, is the answer to all our problems. It’s summed up in a single word – Man! Man is the only real enemy we have. Remove Man from the scene, and the cause of hunger and overwork is abolished forever!”
A murmur11 of approval came from the animals in the barn.
“Man is the only creature that consumes without producing.
They don’t give milk, they don’t lay eggs, they’re too weak to pull the plough, they can’t run fast enough to catch rabbits. Yet, Man is lord of all animals. They make us work, they give us the minimum that will prevent us from dying, and the rest they keep for themselves.