The Reign of Terror. The Great Money Trick
During the next four weeks the usual reign of terror continued at “The
Cave”. The men slaved like so many convicts under the vigilant
surveillance of Crass, Misery and Rushton. No one felt free from
observation for a single moment. It happened frequently that a man who
was working alone—as he thought—on turning round would find Hunter or
Rushton standing behind him: or one would look up from his work to
catch sight of a face watching him through a door or a window or over
the banisters. If they happened to be working in a room on the ground
floor, or at a window on any floor, they knew that both Rushton and
Hunter were in the habit of hiding among the trees that surrounded the
house, and spying upon them thus.
There was a plumber working outside repairing the guttering that ran
round the bottom edge of the roof. This poor wretch’s life was a
perfect misery: he fancied he saw Hunter or Rushton in every bush. He
had two ladders to work from, and since these ladders had been in use
Misery had thought of a new way of spying on the men. Finding that he
never succeeded in catching anyone doing anything wrong when he entered
the house by one of the doors, Misery adopted the plan of crawling up
one of the ladders, getting in through one of the upper windows and
creeping softly downstairs and in and out of the rooms. Even then he
never caught anyone, but that did not matter, for he accomplished his
principal purpose—every man seemed afraid to cease working for even an
instant.
The result of all this was, of course, that the work progressed rapidly
towards completion. The hands grumbled and cursed, but all the same
every man tore into it for all he was worth. Although he did next to
nothing himself, Crass watched and urged on the others. He was “in
charge of the job”: he knew that unless he succeeded in making this
work pay he would not be put in charge of another job. On the other
hand, if he did make it pay he would be given the preference over
others and be kept on as long as the firm had any work. The firm would
give him the preference only as long as it paid them to do so.
As for the hands, each man knew that there was no chance of obtaining
work anywhere else at present; there were dozens of men out of
employment already. Besides, even if there had been a chance of getting
another job somewhere else, they knew that the conditions were more or
less the same on every firm. Some were even worse than this one. Each
man knew that unless he did as much as ever he could, Crass would
report him for being slow. They knew also that when the job began to
draw to a close the number of men employed upon it would be reduced,
and when that time came the hands who did the most work would be kept
on and the slower ones discharged. It was therefore in the hope of
being one of the favoured few that while inwardly cursing the rest for
“tearing into it”, everyone as a matter of self-preservation went and
“tore into it” themselves.
They all cursed Crass, but most of them would have been very glad to
change places with him: and if any one of them had been in his place
they would have been compelled to act in the same way—or lose the job.
They all reviled Hunter, but most of them would have been glad to
change places with him also: and if any one of them had been in his
place they would have been compelled to do the same things, or lose the
job.
They all hated and blamed Rushton. Yet if they had been in Rushton’s
place they would have been compelled to adopt the same methods, or
become bankrupt: for it is obvious that the only way to compete
successfully against other employers who are sweaters is to be a
sweater yourself. Therefore no one who is an upholder of the present
system can consistently blame any of these men. Blame the system.
If you, reader, had been one of the hands, would you have slogged? Or
would you have preferred to starve and see your family starve? If you
had been in Crass’s place, would you have resigned rather than do such
dirty work? If you had had Hunter’s berth, would you have given it up
and voluntarily reduced yourself to the level of the hands? If you had
been Rushton, would you rather have become bankrupt than treat your
“hands” and your customers in the same way as your competitors treated
theirs? It may be that, so placed, you—being the noble-minded paragon
that you are—would have behaved unselfishly. But no one has any right
to expect you to sacrifice yourself for the benefit of other people who
would only call you a fool for your pains. It may be true that if any
one of the hands—Owen, for instance—had been an employer of labour, he
would have done the same as other employers. Some people seem to think
that proves that the present system is all right! But really it only
proves that the present system compels selfishness. One must either
trample upon others or be trampled upon oneself. Happiness might be
possible if everyone were unselfish; if everyone thought of the welfare
of his neighbour before thinking of his own. But as there is only a
very small percentage of such unselfish people in the world, the
present system has made the earth into a sort of hell. Under the
present system there is not sufficient of anything for everyone to have
enough. Consequently there is a fight—called by Christians the “Battle
of Life”. In this fight some get more than they need, some barely
enough, some very little, and some none at all. The more aggressive,
cunning, unfeeling and selfish you are the better it will be for you.
As long as this “Battle of Life” System endures, we have no right to
blame other people for doing the same things that we are ourselves
compelled to do. Blame the system.
But that IS just what the hands did not do. They blamed each other;
they blamed Crass, and Hunter, and Rushton, but with the Great System
of which they were all more or less the victims they were quite
content, being persuaded that it was the only one possible and the best
that human wisdom could devise. The reason why they all believed this
was because not one of them had ever troubled to inquire whether it
would not be possible to order things differently. They were content
with the present system. If they had not been content they would have
been anxious to find some way to alter it. But they had never taken the
trouble to seriously inquire whether it was possible to find some
better way, and although they all knew in a hazy fashion that other
methods of managing the affairs of the world had already been proposed,
they neglected to inquire whether these other methods were possible or
practicable, and they were ready and willing to oppose with ignorant
ridicule or brutal force any man who was foolish or quixotic enough to
try to explain to them the details of what he thought was a better way.
They accepted the present system in the same way as they accepted the
alternating seasons. They knew that there was spring and summer and
autumn and winter. As to how these different seasons came to be, or
what caused them, they hadn’t the remotest notion, and it is extremely
doubtful whether the question had ever occurred to any of them: but
there is no doubt whatever about the fact that none of them knew. From
their infancy they had been trained to distrust their own intelligence,
and to leave the management of the affairs of the world—and for that
matter of the next world too—to their betters; and now most of them
were absolutely incapable of thinking of any abstract subject whatever.
Nearly all their betters—that is, the people who do nothing—were
unanimous in agreeing that the present system is a very good one and
that it is impossible to alter or improve it. Therefore Crass and his
mates, although they knew nothing whatever about it themselves,
accepted it as an established, incontrovertible fact that the existing
state of things is immutable. They believed it because someone else
told them so. They would have believed anything: on one
condition—namely, that they were told to believe it by their betters.
They said it was surely not for the Like of Them to think that they
knew better than those who were more educated and had plenty of time to
study.
As the work in the drawing-room proceeded, Crass abandoned the hope
that Owen was going to make a mess of it. Some of the rooms upstairs
being now ready for papering, Slyme was started on that work, Bert
being taken away from Owen to assist Slyme as paste boy, and it was
arranged that Crass should help Owen whenever he needed someone to lend
him a hand.
Sweater came frequently during these four weeks, being interested in
the progress of the work. On these occasions Crass always managed to be
present in the drawing-room and did most of the talking. Owen was very
satisfied with this arrangement, for he was always ill at ease when
conversing with a man like Sweater, who spoke in an offensively
patronizing way and expected common people to kowtow to and “Sir” him
at every second word. Crass however, seemed to enjoy doing that kind of
thing. He did not exactly grovel on the floor, when Sweater spoke to
him, but he contrived to convey the impression that he was willing to
do so if desired.
Outside the house Bundy and his mates had dug deep trenches in the damp
ground in which they were laying new drains. This work, like that of
the painting of the inside of the house, was nearly completed. It was a
miserable job. Owing to the fact that there had been a spell of bad
weather the ground was sodden with rain and there was mud everywhere,
the men’s clothing and boots being caked with it. But the worst thing
about the job was the smell. For years the old drain-pipes had been
defective and leaky. The ground a few feet below the surface was
saturated with fetid moisture and a stench as of a thousand putrefying
corpse emanated from the opened earth. The clothing of the men who were
working in the trenches became saturated with this fearful odour, and
for that matter, so did the men themselves.
They said they could smell and taste it all the time, even when they
were away from the work at home, and when they were at meals. Although
they smoked their pipes all the time they were at work, Misery having
ungraciously given them permission, several times Bundy and one or
other of his mates were attacked with fits of vomiting.
But, as they began to realize that the finish of the job was in sight,
a kind of panic seized upon the hands, especially those who had been
taken on last and who would therefore be the first to be “stood still”.
Easton, however, felt pretty confident that Crass would do his best to
get him kept on till the end of the job, for they had become quite
chummy lately, usually spending a few evenings together at the
Cricketers every week.
“There’ll be a bloody slaughter ’ere soon,” remarked Harlow to Philpot
one day as they were painting the banisters of the staircase. “I reckon
next week will about finish the inside.”
“And the outside ain’t goin’ to take very long, you know,” replied
Philpot.
“They ain’t got no other work in, have they?”
“Not that I knows of,” replied Philpot gloomily; “and I don’t think
anyone else has either.”
“You know that little place they call the ‘Kiosk’ down the Grand
Parade, near the bandstand,” asked Harlow after a pause.
“Where they used to sell refreshments?”
“Yes; it belongs to the Corporation, you know.”
“It’s been closed up lately, ain’t it?”
“Yes; the people who ’ad it couldn’t make it pay; but I ’eard last
night that Grinder the fruit-merchant is goin’ to open it again. If
it’s true, there’ll be a bit of a job there for someone, because it’ll
’ave to be done up.”
“Well, I hope it does come orf,” replied Philpot. “It’ll be a job for
some poor b—rs.”
“I wonder if they’ve started anyone yet on the venetian blinds for this
’ouse?” remarked Easton after a pause.
“I don’t know,” replied Philpot.
They relapsed into silence for a while.
“I wonder what time it is?” said Philpot at length. “I don’t know ’ow
you feel, but I begin to want my dinner.”
“That’s just what I was thinking; it can’t be very far off it now. It’s
nearly ’arf an hour since Bert went down to make the tea. It seems a
’ell of a long morning to me.”
“So it does to me,” said Philpot; “slip upstairs and ask Slyme what
time it is.”
Harlow laid his brush across the top of his paint-pot and went
upstairs. He was wearing a pair of cloth slippers, and walked softly,
not wishing that Crass should hear him leaving his work, so it happened
that without any intention of spying on Slyme, Harlow reached the door
of the room in which the former was working without being heard and,
entering suddenly, surprised Slyme—who was standing near the
fireplace—in the act of breaking a whole roll of wallpaper across his
knee as one might break a stick. On the floor beside him was what had
been another roll, now broken into two pieces. When Harlow came in,
Slyme started, and his face became crimson with confusion. He hastily
gathered the broken rolls together and, stooping down, thrust the
pieces up the flue of the grate and closed the register.
“Wot’s the bloody game?” inquired Harlow.
Slyme laughed with an affectation of carelessness, but his hands
trembled and his face was now very pale.
“We must get our own back somehow, you know, Fred,” he said.
Harlow did not reply. He did not understand. After puzzling over it for
a few minutes, he gave it up.
“What’s the time?” he asked.
“Fifteen minutes to twelve,” said Slyme and added, as Harlow was going
away: “Don’t mention anything about that paper to Crass or any of the
others.”
“I shan’t say nothing,” replied Harlow.
Gradually, as he pondered over it, Harlow began to comprehend the
meaning of the destruction of the two rolls of paper. Slyme was doing
the paperhanging piecework—so much for each roll hung. Four of the
rooms upstairs had been done with the same pattern, and Hunter—who was
not over-skilful in such matters—had evidently sent more paper than was
necessary. By getting rid of these two rolls, Slyme would be able to
make it appear that he had hung two rolls more than was really the
case. He had broken the rolls so as to be able to take them away from
the house without being detected, and he had hidden them up the chimney
until he got an opportunity of so doing. Harlow had just arrived at
this solution of the problem when, hearing the lower flight of stairs
creaking, he peeped over and observed Misery crawling up. He had come
to see if anyone had stopped work before the proper time. Passing the
two workmen without speaking, he ascended to the next floor, and
entered the room where Slyme was.
“You’d better not do this room yet,” said Hunter. “There’s to be a new
grate and mantelpiece put in.”
He crossed over to the fireplace and stood looking at it thoughtfully
for a few minutes.
“It’s not a bad little grate, you know, is it?” he remarked. “We’ll be
able to use it somewhere or other.”
“Yes; it’s all right,” said Slyme, whose heart was beating like a
steam-hammer.
“Do for a front room in a cottage,” continued Misery, stooping down to
examine it more closely. “There’s nothing broke that I can see.”
He put his hand against the register and vainly tried to push it open.
“H’m, there’s something wrong ’ere,” he remarked, pushing harder.
“Most likely a brick or some plaster fallen down,” gasped Slyme, coming
to Misery’s assistance. “Shall I try to open it?”
“Don’t trouble,” replied Nimrod, rising to his feet. “It’s most likely
what you say. I’ll see that the new grate is sent up after dinner.
Bundy can fix it this afternoon and then you can go on papering as soon
as you like.”
With this, Misery went out of the room, downstairs and away from the
house, and Slyme wiped the sweat from his forehead with his
handkerchief. Then he knelt down and, opening the register, he took out
the broken rolls of paper and hid them up the chimney of the next room.
While he was doing this the sound of Crass’s whistle shrilled through
the house.
“Thank Gord!” exclaimed Philpot fervently as he laid his brushes on the
top of his pot and joined in the general rush to the kitchen. The scene
here is already familiar to the reader. For seats, the two pairs of
steps laid on their sides parallel to each other, about eight feet
apart and at right angles to the fireplace, with the long plank placed
across; and the upturned pails and the drawers of the dresser. The
floor unswept and littered with dirt, scraps of paper, bits of plaster,
pieces of lead pipe and dried mud; and in the midst, the steaming
bucket of stewed tea and the collection of cracked cups, jam-jars and
condensed milk tins. And on the seats the men in their shabby and in
some cases ragged clothing sitting and eating their coarse food and
cracking jokes.
It was a pathetic and wonderful and at the same time a despicable
spectacle. Pathetic that human beings should be condemned to spend the
greater part of their lives amid such surroundings, because it must be
remembered that most of their time was spent on some job or other. When
“The Cave” was finished they would go to some similar “job”, if they
were lucky enough to find one. Wonderful, because although they knew
that they did more than their fair share of the great work of producing
the necessaries and comforts of life, they did not think they were
entitled to a fair share of the good things they helped to create! And
despicable, because although they saw their children condemned to the
same life of degradation, hard labour and privation, yet they refused
to help to bring about a better state of affairs. Most of them thought
that what had been good enough for themselves was good enough for their
children.
It seemed as if they regarded their own children with a kind of
contempt, as being only fit to grow up to be the servants of the
children of such people as Rushton and Sweater. But it must be
remembered that they had been taught self-contempt when they were
children. In the so-called “Christian” schools they attended then they
were taught to “order themselves lowly and reverently towards their
betters”, and they were now actually sending their own children to
learn the same degrading lessons in their turn! They had a vast amount
of consideration for their betters, and for the children of their
betters, but very little for their own children, for each other, or for
themselves.
That was why they sat there in their rags and ate their coarse food,
and cracked their coarser jokes, and drank the dreadful tea, and were
content! So long as they had Plenty of Work and plenty of—Something—to
eat, and somebody else’s cast-off clothes to wear, they were content!
And they were proud of it. They gloried in it. They agreed and assured
each other that the good things of life were not intended for the
“Likes of them”, or their children.
“Wot’s become of the Professor?” asked the gentleman who sat on the
upturned pail in the corner, referring to Owen, who had not yet come
down from his work.
“P’raps ’e’s preparing ’is sermon,” remarked Harlow with a laugh.
“We ain’t ’ad no lectures from ’im lately, since ’e’s been on that
room,” observed Easton. “’Ave we?”
“Dam good job too!” exclaimed Sawkins. “It gives me the pip to ’ear
’im, the same old thing over and over again.”
“Poor ole Frank,” remarked Harlow. “’E does upset ’isself about things,
don’t ’e?”
“More fool ’im!” said Bundy. “I’ll take bloody good care I don’t go
worryin’ myself to death like ’e’s doin’, about such dam rot as that.”
“I do believe that’s wot makes ’im look so bad as ’e does,” observed
Harlow. “Several times this morning I couldn’t help noticing the way ’e
kept on coughing.”
“I thought ’e seemed to be a bit better lately,” Philpot observed;
“more cheerful and happier like, and more inclined for a bit of fun.”
“He’s a funny sort of chap, ain’t he?” said Bundy. “One day quite
jolly, singing and cracking jokes and tellin’ yarns, and the next you
can’t hardly get a word out of ’im.”
“Bloody rot, I call it,” chimed in the man on the pail. “Wot the ’ell’s
the use of the likes of us troublin’ our ’eads about politics?”
“Oh, I don’t see that.” replied Harlow. “We’ve got votes and we’re
really the people what control the affairs of the country, so I reckon
we ought to take SOME interest in it, but at the same time I can’t see
no sense in this ’ere Socialist wangle that Owen’s always talkin’
about.”
“Nor nobody else neither,” said Crass with a jeering laugh.
“Even if all the bloody money in the world WAS divided out equal,” said
the man on the pail, profoundly, “it wouldn’t do no good! In six
months’ time it would be all back in the same ’ands again.”
“Of course,” said everybody.
“But ’e ’ad a cuff the other day about money bein’ no good at all!”
observed Easton. “Don’t you remember ’e said as money was the principal
cause of poverty?”
“So it is the principal cause of poverty,” said Owen, who entered at
that moment.
“Hooray!” shouted Philpot, leading off a cheer which the others took
up. “The Professor ’as arrived and will now proceed to say a few
remarks.”
A roar of merriment greeted this sally.
“Let’s ’ave our bloody dinner first, for Christ’s sake,” appealed
Harlow, with mock despair.
As Owen, having filled his cup with tea, sat down in his usual place,
Philpot rose solemnly to his feet, and, looking round the company,
said:
“Genelmen, with your kind permission, as soon as the Professor ’as
finished ’is dinner ’e will deliver ’is well-known lecture, entitled,
‘Money the Principal Cause of being ’ard up’, proving as money ain’t no
good to nobody. At the hend of the lecture a collection will be took up
to provide the lecturer with a little encouragement.” Philpot resumed
his seat amid cheers.
As soon as they had finished eating, some of the men began to make
remarks about the lecture, but Owen only laughed and went on reading
the piece of newspaper that his dinner had been wrapped in. Usually
most of the men went out for a walk after dinner, but as it happened to
be raining that day they were determined, if possible, to make Owen
fulfill the engagement made in his name by Philpot.
“Let’s ’oot ’im,” said Harlow, and the suggestion was at once acted
upon; howls, groans and catcalls filled the air, mingled with cries of
“Fraud!” “Imposter!” “Give us our money back!” “Let’s wreck the ’all!”
and so on.
“Come on ’ere,” cried Philpot, putting his hand on Owen’s shoulder.
“Prove that money is the cause of poverty.”
“It’s one thing to say it and another to prove it,” sneered Crass, who
was anxious for an opportunity to produce the long-deferred Obscurer
cutting.
“Money IS the real cause of poverty,” said Owen.
“Prove it,” repeated Crass.
“Money is the cause of poverty because it is the device by which those
who are too lazy to work are enabled to rob the workers of the fruits
of their labours.”
“Prove it,” said Crass.
Owen slowly folded up the piece of newspaper he had been reading and
put it into his pocket.
“All right,” he replied. “I’ll show you how the Great Money Trick is
worked.”
Owen opened his dinner basket and took from it two slices of bread but
as these were not sufficient, he requested that anyone who had some
bread left would give it to him. They gave him several pieces, which he
placed in a heap on a clean piece of paper, and, having borrowed the
pocket knives they used to cut and eat their dinners with from Easton,
Harlow and Philpot, he addressed them as follows:
“These pieces of bread represent the raw materials which exist
naturally in and on the earth for the use of mankind; they were not
made by any human being, but were created by the Great Spirit for the
benefit and sustenance of all, the same as were the air and the light
of the sun.”
“You’re about as fair-speakin’ a man as I’ve met for some time,” said
Harlow, winking at the others.
“Yes, mate,” said Philpot. “Anyone would agree to that much! It’s as
clear as mud.”
“Now,” continued Owen, “I am a capitalist; or, rather, I represent the
landlord and capitalist class. That is to say, all these raw materials
belong to me. It does not matter for our present argument how I
obtained possession of them, or whether I have any real right to them;
the only thing that matters now is the admitted fact that all the raw
materials which are necessary for the production of the necessaries of
life are now the property of the Landlord and Capitalist class. I am
that class: all these raw materials belong to me.”
“Good enough!” agreed Philpot.
“Now you three represent the Working class: you have nothing—and for my
part, although I have all these raw materials, they are of no use to
me—what I need is—the things that can be made out of these raw
materials by Work: but as I am too lazy to work myself, I have invented
the Money Trick to make you work FOR me. But first I must explain that
I possess something else beside the raw materials. These three knives
represent—all the machinery of production; the factories, tools,
railways, and so forth, without which the necessaries of life cannot be
produced in abundance. And these three coins’—taking three halfpennies
from his pocket—“represent my Money Capital.”
“But before we go any further,” said Owen, interrupting himself, “it is
most important that you remember that I am not supposed to be merely
‘a’ capitalist. I represent the whole Capitalist Class. You are not
supposed to be just three workers—you represent the whole Working
Class.”
“All right, all right,” said Crass, impatiently, “we all understand
that. Git on with it.”
Owen proceeded to cut up one of the slices of bread into a number of
little square blocks.
“These represent the things which are produced by labour, aided by
machinery, from the raw materials. We will suppose that three of these
blocks represent—a week’s work. We will suppose that a week’s work is
worth—one pound: and we will suppose that each of these ha’pennies is a
sovereign. We’d be able to do the trick better if we had real
sovereigns, but I forgot to bring any with me.”
“I’d lend you some,” said Philpot, regretfully, “but I left me purse on
our grand pianner.”
As by a strange coincidence nobody happened to have any gold with them,
it was decided to make shift with the halfpence.
“Now this is the way the trick works—”
“Before you goes on with it,” interrupted Philpot, apprehensively,
“don’t you think we’d better ’ave someone to keep watch at the gate in
case a Slop comes along? We don’t want to get runned in, you know.”
“I don’t think there’s any need for that,” replied Owen, “there’s only
one slop who’d interfere with us for playing this game, and that’s
Police Constable Socialism.”
“Never mind about Socialism,” said Crass, irritably. “Get along with
the bloody trick.”
Owen now addressed himself to the working classes as represented by
Philpot, Harlow and Easton.
“You say that you are all in need of employment, and as I am the
kind-hearted capitalist class I am going to invest all my money in
various industries, so as to give you Plenty of Work. I shall pay each
of you one pound per week, and a week’s work is—you must each produce
three of these square blocks. For doing this work you will each receive
your wages; the money will be your own, to do as you like with, and the
things you produce will of course be mine, to do as I like with. You
will each take one of these machines and as soon as you have done a
week’s work, you shall have your money.”
The Working Classes accordingly set to work, and the Capitalist class
sat down and watched them. As soon as they had finished, they passed
the nine little blocks to Owen, who placed them on a piece of paper by
his side and paid the workers their wages.
“These blocks represent the necessaries of life. You can’t live without
some of these things, but as they belong to me, you will have to buy
them from me: my price for these blocks is—one pound each.”
As the working classes were in need of the necessaries of life and as
they could not eat, drink or wear the useless money, they were
compelled to agree to the kind Capitalist’s terms. They each bought
back and at once consumed one-third of the produce of their labour. The
capitalist class also devoured two of the square blocks, and so the net
result of the week’s work was that the kind capitalist had consumed two
pounds worth of the things produced by the labour of the others, and
reckoning the squares at their market value of one pound each, he had
more than doubled his capital, for he still possessed the three pounds
in money and in addition four pounds worth of goods. As for the working
classes, Philpot, Harlow and Easton, having each consumed the pound’s
worth of necessaries they had bought with their wages, they were again
in precisely the same condition as when they started work—they had
nothing.
This process was repeated several times: for each week’s work the
producers were paid their wages. They kept on working and spending all
their earnings. The kind-hearted capitalist consumed twice as much as
any one of them and his pile of wealth continually increased. In a
little while—reckoning the little squares at their market value of one
pound each—he was worth about one hundred pounds, and the working
classes were still in the same condition as when they began, and were
still tearing into their work as if their lives depended upon it.
After a while the rest of the crowd began to laugh, and their merriment
increased when the kind-hearted capitalist, just after having sold a
pound’s worth of necessaries to each of his workers, suddenly took
their tools—the Machinery of Production—the knives away from them, and
informed them that as owing to Over Production all his store-houses
were glutted with the necessaries of life, he had decided to close down
the works.
“Well, and wot the bloody ’ell are we to do now?” demanded Philpot.
“That’s not my business,” replied the kind-hearted capitalist. “I’ve
paid you your wages, and provided you with Plenty of Work for a long
time past. I have no more work for you to do at present. Come round
again in a few months’ time and I’ll see what I can do for you.”
“But what about the necessaries of life?” demanded Harlow. “We must
have something to eat.”
“Of course you must,” replied the capitalist, affably; “and I shall be
very pleased to sell you some.”
“But we ain’t got no bloody money!”
“Well, you can’t expect me to give you my goods for nothing! You didn’t
work for me for nothing, you know. I paid you for your work and you
should have saved something: you should have been thrifty like me. Look
how I have got on by being thrifty!”
The unemployed looked blankly at each other, but the rest of the crowd
only laughed; and then the three unemployed began to abuse the
kind-hearted Capitalist, demanding that he should give them some of the
necessaries of life that he had piled up in his warehouses, or to be
allowed to work and produce some more for their own needs; and even
threatened to take some of the things by force if he did not comply
with their demands. But the kind-hearted Capitalist told them not to be
insolent, and spoke to them about honesty, and said if they were not
careful he would have their faces battered in for them by the police,
or if necessary he would call out the military and have them shot down
like dogs, the same as he had done before at Featherstone and Belfast.
“Of course,” continued the kind-hearted capitalist, “if it were not for
foreign competition I should be able to sell these things that you have
made, and then I should be able to give you Plenty of Work again: but
until I have sold them to somebody or other, or until I have used them
myself, you will have to remain idle.”
“Well, this takes the bloody biskit, don’t it?” said Harlow.
“The only thing as I can see for it,” said Philpot mournfully, “is to
’ave a unemployed procession.”
“That’s the idear,” said Harlow, and the three began to march about the
room in Indian file, singing:
“We’ve got no work to do-oo-oo”
We’ve got no work to do-oo-oo!
Just because we’ve been workin’ a dam sight too hard,
Now we’ve got no work to do.”
As they marched round, the crowd jeered at them and made offensive
remarks. Crass said that anyone could see that they were a lot of lazy,
drunken loafers who had never done a fair day’s work in their lives and
never intended to.
“We shan’t never get nothing like this, you know,” said Philpot. “Let’s
try the religious dodge.”
“All right,” agreed Harlow. “What shall we give ’em?”
“I know!” cried Philpot after a moment’s deliberation. “‘Let my lower
lights be burning.’ That always makes ’em part up.”
The three unemployed accordingly resumed their march round the room,
singing mournfully and imitating the usual whine of street-singers:
“Trim your fee-bil lamp me brither-in,
Some poor sail-er tempest torst,
Strugglin’ ’ard to save the ’arb-er,
Hin the dark-niss may be lorst,
So let my lower lights be burning,
Send ’er gleam acrost the wave,
Some poor shipwrecked, struggling seaman,
You may rescue, you may save.”
“Kind frens,” said Philpot, removing his cap and addressing the crowd,
“we’re hall honest British workin’ men, but we’ve been hout of work for
the last twenty years on account of foreign competition and
over-production. We don’t come hout ’ere because we’re too lazy to
work; it’s because we can’t get a job. If it wasn’t for foreign
competition, the kind’earted Hinglish capitalists would be able to sell
their goods and give us Plenty of Work, and if they could, I assure you
that we should hall be perfectly willing and contented to go on workin’
our bloody guts out for the benefit of our masters for the rest of our
lives. We’re quite willin’ to work: that’s hall we arst for—Plenty of
Work—but as we can’t get it we’re forced to come out ’ere and arst you
to spare a few coppers towards a crust of bread and a night’s lodgin’.”
As Philpot held out his cap for subscriptions, some of them attempted
to expectorate into it, but the more charitable put in pieces of cinder
or dirt from the floor, and the kind-hearted capitalist was so affected
by the sight of their misery that he gave them one of the sovereigns he
had in his pocket: but as this was of no use to them they immediately
returned it to him in exchange for one of the small squares of the
necessaries of life, which they divided and greedily devoured. And when
they had finished eating they gathered round the philanthropist and
sang, “For he’s a jolly good fellow,” and afterwards Harlow suggested
that they should ask him if he would allow them to elect him to
Parliament.