Weel, I'm near the end o' my tether. It's been grand tae sit doon and
talk things ower wi' you. We're a' friends together, are we no? Whiles
I'll ha' said things wi' which you'll no agree; whiles, perhaps, we've
been o' the same way o' thinking. And what I'm surest of is that
there's no a question in this world aboot which reasonable men canna
agree.
We maun get together. We maun talk things over. Here and noo there's
ane great trouble threatening us. The man who works isna satisfied.
Nor is the man who pays him. I'll no speak of maister and man, for the
day when that was true of employer and workman has gone for aye.
They're partners the noo. They maun work together, produce together,
for the common gude.
We've seen strikes on a' sides, and in a' lands. In Britain and in
America I've seen them.
I deplore a strike. And that's because a strike is like a war, and
there's no need for either. One side can force a war--as the Hun did.
But if the Hun had been a reasonable, decent body--and I'm praying
we've taught him, all we Allies, that he maun become such if he's tae
be allowed tae go on living in the world at a'!--he could ha' found
the rest o' the world ready to talk ower things wi' him.
And when it comes tae a strike need ane side or the other act like the
Hun? Is it no always sae that i' the end a strike is settled, wi' both
sides giving in something to the other? How often maun one or the
other be beaten flat and crushed? Seldom, indeed. Then why canna we
get together i' the beginning, and avoid the bitterness, and the cost
of the struggle?
The thing we've a' seen maist often i' the war was the fineness of
humanity. Men who hadna seemed tae be o' much account proved
themselves true i' the great test. It turned oot, when the strain was
put upon them, that maist men were fine and brave and full of the
spirit of self sacrifice. Men learned that i' the trenches. Women
proved it at hame. It was one for a', and a' for one.
Shall we drop a' that noo that peace has come again? Shall we gie up
a' we ha' learned of how men of different minds can pull together for
a common end? I'm thinking we'll no be such fools. We had to pull
together i' the war to keep frae being destroyed. But noo we've a
chance to get something positive--to mak' something profitable and
worth while oot of pulling together. Before it was just a negative
thing that made us do it. It was fear, in a way. It was the threat
that the Hun made against all we held most dear and sacred.
Noo it's sae different. We worked miracles i' the war. We did things
the world had thought impossible. They've aye said that it was
necessity that was the mither of invention, and the war helped again
tae prove hoo true a saying that was. Weel, canna we make the
necessity for a better world the mother of new and greater inventions
than any we ha' yet seen? Can we no accomplish miracles still, e'en
though the desperate need for them has passed?
That's the thing I think of maist these days--that it would be a sair
thing and a tragic thing if the spirit that filled the world during
the war should falter the noo. We've suffered sae much--we've given
sae much of our best. We maun gain a' that we can in return. And the
way has been pointed tae us. It is but for us to follow it.
Things have aye been done in certain ways. Weel, they seemed ways gude
enow. But when the war came we found they were no gude enow, for all
we'd thocht. And because it was a case of must, we changed them.
There's many would gae back. They say that wi' the end o' the war
there maun be an end o' all the changes that it brought. But we could
do more, we could accomplish more, through those changes. I say it
would be a foolish thing and a wicked thing to go back.
It was each man for himself before the war. It couldna be sae when the
bad times came upon us. We had to draw together. Had we no done so we
should have perished. Men drew together in each country; nations
approached one another and stood together in the face of the common
peril. They have a choice now. They can draw apart again. Or they can
stay together and advance wi' a resistless force toward a better life
for a' mankind.
I've the richt to say a' this. I made my sacrifice. I maun wait, the
noo, until I dee before I see my bairn again. When I talk o' suffering
it's as ane who has suffered. When I speak of grief it's as ane who
has known it, and when I think of the tears that have been shed it is
as ane who has shed his share. When I speak of a mother's grief for
her son that is gone, and her hope that he has not deed in vain, it is
as one who has sought to comfort the mither of his ain son.
So it's no frae the ootside that auld Harry Lauder is looking on. It's
no just talk he's making when he speers sae wi' you. He kens what his
words mean, does Harry.
I ken weel what it means for men to pull together. I've seen them
doing sae wi' the shadow of death i' the morn upon their faces. I've
sung, do you mind, at nicht, for men who were to dee next day, and
knew it. And they were glad, for they knew that they were to dee sae
that the world micht have a better, fuller life. I'd think I was
cheating men who could no longer help themselves or defend themselves
against my cheating were I to gie up the task undone that they ha'
left tae me and tae the rest of us.
Aye, it's a bonny world they've saved for us. But it's no sae bonny
yet as it maun be--and as, God helping us, we'll mak' it!