MEETING BETWEEN MASTERS AND WORKMEN.
"Not for a moment take the scorner's chair;
While seated there, thou know'st not how a word,
A tone, a look, may gall thy brother's heart,
And make him turn in bitterness against thee."
"LOVE-TRUTHS."
The day arrived on which the masters were to have an interview with
a deputation of the work-people. The meeting was to take place in
a public room, at an hotel; and there, about eleven o'clock, the
mill-owners, who had received the foreign orders, began to collect.
Of course, the first subject, however full their minds might be of
another, was the weather. Having done their duty by all the showers
and sunshine which had occurred during the past week, they fell to
talking about the business which brought them together. There might
be about twenty gentlemen in the room, including some by courtesy,
who were not immediately concerned in the settlement of the present
question; but who, nevertheless, were sufficiently interested to
attend. These were divided into little groups, who did not seem
unanimous by any means. Some were for a slight concession, just
a sugar-plum to quieten the naughty child, a sacrifice to peace
and quietness. Some were steadily and vehemently opposed to the
dangerous precedent of yielding one jot or one tittle to the outward
force of a turn-out. It was teaching the work-people how to become
masters, said they. Did they want the wildest thing heareafter, they
would know that the way to obtain their wishes would be to strike
work. Besides, one or two of those present had only just returned
from the New Bailey, where one of the turn-outs had been tried for a
cruel assault on a poor north-country weaver, who had attempted to
work at the low price. They were indignant, and justly so, at the
merciless manner in which the poor fellow had been treated; and their
indignation at wrong, took (as it so often does) the extreme form of
revenge. They felt as if, rather than yield to the body of men who
were resorting to such cruel measures towards their fellow-workmen,
they, the masters, would sooner relinquish all the benefits to be
derived from the fulfilment of the commission, in order that the
workmen might suffer keenly. They forgot that the strike was in this
instance the consequence of want and need, suffered unjustly, as the
endurers believed; for, however insane, and without ground of reason,
such was their belief, and such was the cause of their violence. It
is a great truth, that you cannot extinguish violence by violence.
You may put it down for a time; but while you are crowing over your
imaginary success, see if it does not return with seven devils worse
than its former self!
No one thought of treating the workmen as brethren and friends, and
openly, clearly, as appealing to reasonable men, stating the exact
and full circumstances which led the masters to think it was the wise
policy of the time to make sacrifices themselves, and to hope for
them from the operatives.
In going from group to group in the room, you caught such a medley of
sentences as the following:
"Poor devils! they're near enough to starving, I'm afraid. Mrs.
Aldred makes two cows' heads into soup every week, and people come
several miles to fetch it; and if these times last we must try and do
more. But we must not be bullied into any thing!"
"A rise of a shilling or so won't make much difference, and they will
go away thinking they've gained their point."
"That's the very thing I object to. They'll think so, and whenever
they've a point to gain, no matter how unreasonable, they'll strike
work."
"It really injures them more than us."
"I don't see how our interests can be separated."
"The d----d brute had thrown vitriol on the poor fellow's ankles, and
you know what a bad part that is to heal. He had to stand still with
the pain, and that left him at the mercy of the cruel wretch, who
beat him about the head till you'd hardly have known he was a man.
They doubt if he'll live."
"If it were only for that, I'll stand out against them, even if it
were the cause of my ruin."
"Ay, I for one won't yield one farthing to the cruel brutes; they're
more like wild beasts than human beings."
(Well! who might have made them different?)
"I say, Carson, just go and tell Duncombe of this fresh instance of
their abominable conduct. He's wavering, but I think this will decide
him."
The door was now opened, and a waiter announced that the men were
below, and asked if it were the pleasure of the gentlemen that they
should be shown up.
They assented, and rapidly took their places round the official
table; looking, as like as they could, to the Roman senators who
awaited the irruption of Brennus and his Gauls.
Tramp, tramp, came the heavy clogged feet up the stairs; and in a
minute five wild, earnest-looking men stood in the room. John Barton,
from some mistake as to time, was not among them. Had they been
larger boned men, you would have called them gaunt; as it was, they
were little of stature, and their fustian clothes hung loosely upon
their shrunk limbs. In choosing their delegates, too, the operatives
had had more regard to their brains, and power of speech, than to
their wardrobes; they might have read the opinions of that worthy
Professor Teufelsdruch, in Sartor Resartus, to judge from the
dilapidated coats and trousers, which yet clothed men of parts and
of power. It was long since many of them had known the luxury of a
new article of dress; and air-gaps were to be seen in their garments.
Some of the masters were rather affronted at such a ragged detachment
coming between the wind and their nobility; but what cared they?
At the request of a gentleman hastily chosen to officiate as
chairman, the leader of the delegates read, in a high-pitched,
psalm-singing voice, a paper, containing the operatives' statement of
the case at issue, their complaints, and their demands, which last
were not remarkable for moderation.
He was then desired to withdraw for a few minutes, with his fellow
delegates, to another room, while the masters considered what should
be their definitive answer.
When the men had left the room, a whispered earnest consultation
took place, every one re-urging his former arguments. The conceders
carried the day, but only by a majority of one. The minority
haughtily and audibly expressed their dissent from the measures to be
adopted, even after the delegates re-entered the room; their words
and looks did not pass unheeded by the quick-eyed operatives; their
names were registered in bitter hearts.
The masters could not consent to the advance demanded by the workmen.
They would agree to give one shilling per week more than they had
previously offered. Were the delegates empowered to accept such
offer?
They were empowered to accept or decline any offer made that day by
the masters.
Then it might be as well for them to consult among themselves as to
what should be their decision. They again withdrew.
It was not for long. They came back, and positively declined any
compromise of their demands.
Then up sprang Mr. Henry Carson, the head and voice of the violent
party among the masters, and addressing the chairman, even before
the scowling operatives, he proposed some resolutions, which he,
and those who agreed with him, had been concocting during this last
absence of the deputation.
They were, firstly, withdrawing the proposal just made, and declaring
all communication between the masters and that particular Trades'
Union at an end; secondly, declaring that no master would employ any
workman in future, unless he signed a declaration that he did not
belong to any Trades' Union, and pledged himself not to assist or
subscribe to any society, having for its object interference with
the masters' powers; and, thirdly, that the masters should pledge
themselves to protect and encourage all workmen willing to accept
employment on those conditions, and at the rate of wages first
offered. Considering that the men who now stood listening with
lowering brows of defiance were all of them leading members of the
Union, such resolutions were in themselves sufficiently provocative
of animosity: but not content with simply stating them, Harry Carson
went on to characterise the conduct of the workmen in no measured
terms; every word he spoke rendering their looks more livid, their
glaring eyes more fierce. One among them would have spoken, but
checked himself in obedience to the stern glance and pressure on his
arm, received from the leader. Mr. Carson sat down, and a friend
instantly got up to second the motion. It was carried, but far from
unanimously. The chairman announced it to the delegates (who had been
once more turned out of the room for a division). They received it
with deep brooding silence, but spake never a word, and left the room
without even a bow.
Now there had been some by-play at this meeting, not recorded in the
Manchester newspapers, which gave an account of the more regular part
of the transaction.
While the men had stood grouped near the door, on their first
entrance, Mr. Harry Carson had taken out his silver pencil, and had
drawn an admirable caricature of them--lank, ragged, dispirited, and
famine-stricken. Underneath he wrote a hasty quotation from the fat
knight's well-known speech in Henry IV. He passed it to one of his
neighbours, who acknowledged the likeness instantly, and by him it
was sent round to others, who all smiled and nodded their heads.
When it came back to its owner he tore the back of the letter on
which it was drawn, in two; twisted them up, and flung them into
the fire-place; but, careless whether they reached their aim or not,
he did not look to see that they fell just short of any consuming
cinders.
This proceeding was closely observed by one of the men.
He watched the masters as they left the hotel (laughing, some of them
were, at passing jokes), and when all had gone, he re-entered. He
went to the waiter, who recognised him.
"There's a bit on a picture up yonder, as one o' the gentlemen threw
away; I've a little lad at home as dearly loves a picture; by your
leave I'll go up for it."
The waiter, good-natured and sympathetic, accompanied him up-stairs;
saw the paper picked up and untwisted, and then being convinced, by
a hasty glance at its contents, that it was only what the man had
called it, "a bit of a picture," he allowed him to bear away his
prize.
Towards seven o'clock that evening many operatives began to assemble
in a room in the Weavers' Arms public-house, a room appropriated for
"festive occasions," as the landlord, in his circular, on opening the
premises, had described it. But, alas! it was on no festive occasion
that they met there on this night. Starved, irritated, despairing
men, they were assembling to hear the answer that morning given by
the masters to their delegates; after which, as was stated in the
notice, a gentleman from London would have the honour of addressing
the meeting on the present state of affairs between the employers
and the employed, or (as he chose to term them) the idle and the
industrious classes. The room was not large, but its bareness of
furniture made it appear so. Unshaded gas flared down upon the lean
and unwashed artisans as they entered, their eyes blinking at the
excess of light.
They took their seats on benches, and awaited the deputation. The
latter, gloomily and ferociously, delivered the masters' ultimatum,
adding thereunto not one word of their own; and it sank all the
deeper into the sore hearts of the listeners for their forbearance.
Then the "gentleman from London" (who had been previously informed of
the masters' decision) entered. You would have been puzzled to define
his exact position, or what was the state of his mind as regarded
education. He looked so self-conscious, so far from earnest, among
the group of eager, fierce, absorbed men, among whom he now stood. He
might have been a disgraced medical student of the Bob Sawyer class,
or an unsuccessful actor, or a flashy shopman. The impression he
would have given you would have been unfavourable, and yet there was
much about him that could only be characterised as doubtful.
He smirked in acknowledgment of their uncouth greetings, and sat
down; then glancing round, he inquired whether it would not be
agreeable to the gentlemen present to have pipes and liquor handed
round; adding, that he would stand treat.
As the man who has had his taste educated to love reading, falls
devouringly upon books after a long abstinence, so these poor
fellows, whose tastes had been left to educate themselves into a
liking for tobacco, beer, and similar gratifications, gleamed up at
the proposal of the London delegate. Tobacco and drink deaden the
pangs of hunger, and make one forget the miserable home, the desolate
future.
They were now ready to listen to him with approbation. He felt it;
and rising like a great orator, with his right arm outstretched, his
left in the breast of his waistcoat, he began to declaim, with a
forced theatrical voice.
After a burst of eloquence, in which he blended the deeds of
the elder and the younger Brutus, and magnified the resistless
might of the "millions of Manchester," the Londoner descended to
matter-of-fact business, and in his capacity this way he did not
belie the good judgment of those who had sent him as delegate.
Masses of people, when left to their own free choice, seem to have
discretion in distinguishing men of natural talent; it is a pity
they so little regard temper and principles. He rapidly dictated
resolutions, and suggested measures. He wrote out a stirring
placard for the walls. He proposed sending delegates to entreat the
assistance of other Trades' Unions in other towns. He headed the list
of subscribing Unions, by a liberal donation from that with which
he was especially connected in London; and what was more, and more
uncommon, he paid down the money in real, clinking, blinking, golden
sovereigns! The money, alas, was cravingly required; but before
alleviating any private necessities on the morrow, small sums were
handed to each of the delegates, who were in a day or two to set out
on their expeditions to Glasgow, Newcastle, Nottingham, &c. These
men were most of them members of the deputation who had that morning
waited upon the masters. After he had drawn up some letters, and
spoken a few more stirring words, the gentleman from London withdrew,
previously shaking hands all round; and many speedily followed him
out of the room, and out of the house.
The newly-appointed delegates, and one or two others, remained behind
to talk over their respective missions, and to give and exchange
opinions in more homely and natural language than they dared to use
before the London orator.
"He's a rare chap, yon," began one, indicating the departed delegate
by a jerk of his thumb towards the door. "He's gotten the gift of the
gab, anyhow!"
"Ay! ay! he knows what he's about. See how he poured it into us about
that there Brutus. He were pretty hard, too, to kill his own son!"
"I could kill mine if he took part wi' the masters; to be sure, he's
but a step-son, but that makes no odds," said another.
But now tongues were hushed, and all eyes were directed towards the
member of the deputation who had that morning returned to the hotel
to obtain possession of Harry Carson's clever caricature of the
operatives.
The heads clustered together, to gaze at and detect the likenesses.
"That's John Slater! I'd ha' known him anywhere, by his big nose.
Lord! how like; that's me, by G----, it's the very way I'm obligated
to pin my waistcoat up, to hide that I've gotten no shirt. That _is_
a shame, and I'll not stand it."
"Well!" said John Slater, after having acknowledged his nose and his
likeness; "I could laugh at a jest as well as e'er the best on 'em,
though it did tell again mysel, if I were not clemming" (his eyes
filled with tears; he was a poor, pinched, sharp-featured man, with
a gentle and melancholy expression of countenance), "and if I could
keep from thinking of them at home, as is clemming; but with their
cries for food ringing in my ears, and making me afeard of going
home, and wonder if I should hear 'em wailing out, if I lay cold and
drowned at th' bottom o' th' canal, there,--why, man, I cannot laugh
at ought. It seems to make me sad that there is any as can make game
on what they've never knowed; as can make such laughable pictures on
men, whose very hearts within 'em are so raw and sore as ours were
and are, God help us."
John Barton began to speak; they turned to him with great attention.
"It makes me more than sad, it makes my heart burn within me, to see
that folk can make a jest of earnest men; of chaps who comed to ask
for a bit o' fire for th' old granny, as shivers in th' cold; for a
bit o' bedding, and some warm clothing to the poor wife as lies in
labour on th' damp flags; and for victuals for the childer, whose
little voices are getting too faint and weak to cry aloud wi' hunger.
For, brothers, is not them the things we ask for when we ask for more
wage? We donnot want dainties, we want bellyfuls; we donnot want
gimcrack coats and waistcoats, we want warm clothes, and so that we
get 'em we'd not quarrel wi' what they're made on. We donnot want
their grand houses, we want a roof to cover us from the rain, and the
snow, and the storm; ay, and not alone to cover us, but the helpless
ones that cling to us in the keen wind, and ask us with their eyes
why we brought 'em into th' world to suffer?" He lowered his deep
voice almost to a whisper.
"I've seen a father who had killed his child rather than let it clem
before his eyes; and he were a tender-hearted man."
He began again in his usual tone. "We come to th' masters wi' full
hearts, to ask for them things I named afore. We know that they've
gotten money, as we've earned for 'em; we know trade is mending, and
that they've large orders, for which they'll be well paid; we ask for
our share o' th' payment; for, say we, if th' masters get our share
of payment it will only go to keep servants and horses, to more dress
and pomp. Well and good, if yo choose to be fools we'll not hinder
you, so long as you're just; but our share we must and will have;
we'll not be cheated. _We_ want it for daily bread, for life itself;
and not for our own lives neither (for there's many a one here, I
know by mysel, as would be glad and thankful to lie down and die out
o' this weary world), but for the lives of them little ones, who
don't yet know what life is, and are afeard of death. Well, we come
before th' masters to state what we want, and what we must have,
afore we'll set shoulder to their work; and they say, 'No.' One would
think that would be enough of hard-heartedness, but it isn't. They go
and make jesting pictures of us! I could laugh at mysel, as well as
poor John Slater there; but then I must be easy in my mind to laugh.
Now I only know that I would give the last drop o' my blood to avenge
us on yon chap, who had so little feeling in him as to make game on
earnest, suffering men!"
A low angry murmur was heard among the men, but it did not yet take
form or words. John continued--
"You'll wonder, chaps, how I came to miss the time this morning; I'll
just tell you what I was a-doing. Th' chaplain at the New Bailey sent
and gived me an order to see Jonas Higginbotham; him as was taken
up last week for throwing vitriol in a knob-stick's face. Well, I
couldn't help but go; and I didn't reckon it would ha' kept me so
late. Jonas were like one crazy when I got to him; he said he could
na get rest night or day for th' face of the poor fellow he had
damaged; then he thought on his weak, clemmed look, as he tramped,
foot-sore, into town; and Jonas thought, may be, he had left them
at home as would look for news, and hope and get none, but, haply,
tidings of his death. Well, Jonas had thought on these things till he
could not rest, but walked up and down continually like a wild beast
in his cage. At last he bethought him on a way to help a bit, and he
got th' chaplain to send for me; and he telled me this; and that th'
man were lying in th' Infirmary, and he bade me go (to-day's the day
as folk may be admitted into th' Infirmary) and get his silver watch,
as was his mother's, and sell it as well as I could, and take the
money, and bid the poor knob-stick send it to his friends beyond
Burnley; and I were to take him Jonas's kind regards, and he humbly
axed him to forgive him. So I did what Jonas wished. But bless your
life, none on us would ever throw vitriol again (at least at a
knob-stick) if they could see the sight I saw to-day. The man lay,
his face all wrapped in cloths, so I didn't see _that_; but not a
limb, nor a bit of a limb, could keep from quivering with pain. He
would ha' bitten his hand to keep down his moans, but couldn't, his
face hurt him so if he moved it e'er so little. He could scarce mind
me when I telled him about Jonas; he did squeeze my hand when I
jingled the money, but when I axed his wife's name he shrieked out,
'Mary, Mary, shall I never see you again? Mary, my darling, they've
made me blind because I wanted to work for you and our own baby; oh,
Mary, Mary!' Then the nurse came, and said he were raving, and that I
had made him worse. And I'm afeard it was true; yet I were loth to go
without knowing where to send the money. . . . So that kept me beyond
my time, chaps."
"Did yo hear where the wife lived at last?" asked many anxious
voices.
"No! he went on talking to her, till his words cut my heart like a
knife. I axed th' nurse to find out who she was, and where she lived.
But what I'm more especial naming it now for is this,--for one thing
I wanted yo all to know why I weren't at my post this morning; for
another, I wish to say, that I, for one, ha' seen enough of what
comes of attacking knob-sticks, and I'll ha nought to do with it no
more."
There were some expressions of disapprobation, but John did not mind
them.
"Nay! I'm no coward," he replied, "and I'm true to th' backbone. What
I would like, and what I would do, would be to fight the masters.
There's one among yo called me a coward. Well! every man has a right
to his opinion; but since I've thought on th' matter to-day, I've
thought we han all on us been more like cowards in attacking the poor
like ourselves; them as has none to help, but mun choose between
vitriol and starvation. I say we're more cowardly in doing that than
in leaving them alone. No! what I would do is this. Have at the
masters!" Again he shouted, "Have at the masters!" He spoke lower;
all listened with hushed breath.
"It's the masters as has wrought this woe; it's the masters as should
pay for it. Him as called me coward just now, may try if I am one or
not. Set me to serve out the masters, and see if there's ought I'll
stick at."
"It would give th' masters a bit on a fright if one on them were
beaten within an inch of his life," said one.
"Ay! or beaten till no life were left in him," growled another.
And so with words, or looks that told more than words, they built up
a deadly plan. Deeper and darker grew the import of their speeches,
as they stood hoarsely muttering their meaning out, and glaring, with
eyes that told the terror their own thoughts were to them, upon their
neighbours. Their clenched fists, their set teeth, their livid looks,
all told the suffering their minds were voluntarily undergoing in
the contemplation of crime, and in familiarising themselves with its
details.
Then came one of those fierce terrible oaths which bind members
of Trades' Unions to any given purpose. Then, under the flaring
gaslight, they met together to consult further. With the distrust
of guilt, each was suspicious of his neighbour; each dreaded the
treachery of another. A number of pieces of paper (the identical
letter on which the caricature had been drawn that very morning) were
torn up, and _one was marked_. Then all were folded up again, looking
exactly alike. They were shuffled together in a hat. The gas was
extinguished; each drew out a paper. The gas was re-lighted. Then
each went as far as he could from his fellows, and examined the paper
he had drawn without saying a word, and with a countenance as stony
and immovable as he could make it.
Then, still rigidly silent, they each took up their hats and went
every one his own way.
He who had drawn the marked paper had drawn the lot of the assassin!
and he had sworn to act according to his drawing! But no one save God
and his own conscience knew who was the appointed murderer!