I went "drumming" last night. I like the American word "drummer," it is
so much more expressive than our "commercial traveller."
I made a series of postcards, and I went round the shops trying to place
them. One man refused to take them up because the profits would not be
large enough. As the profits work out at 41½ per cent I begin to wonder
what he usually makes.
To-day I talked to the bairns about commerce, and I pointed out that
much in commerce was thieving.
"This is commerce," I said: "Suppose I am a pig-dealer. I hear one day
from a friend that pigs will rise in price in a few days. I at once set
out on a tour of neighbouring farms, and by nightfall I have bought
twenty pigs at the market price. Next morning pigs have doubled in
price, and these farmers naturally want to shoot me. Why don't they
shoot me?"
"They would be hanged," said Violet Brown.
"Because they would buy pigs in the same way if they had the chance,"
said Margaret Steel.
I went on to say that buying pigs like that is stealing, and I said that
the successful business man is usually the man who is most unscrupulous.
I told them of the murderous system that allows a big firm to place a
shop next door to a small merchant and undersell him till his business
dies. It is all done under the name of competition, but of course there
is no more competition about the affair than there is about the
relationship between a wolf and a lamb.
I try very very hard to keep my bairns from low ideals. Some one, Oscar
Wilde or Shaw, I think, says that love of money is the root of all good.
That is the sort of paradox that isn't true, and not even funny. I see
farmers growing rich on child labour: fifteen pence a day for spreading
manure. I meet the poor little boys of thirteen and fourteen on the
road, and the smile has gone from their faces; their bodies are bent
and racked.
When I was thirteen I went to the potato-gathering at a farm. Even now,
when I pass a field where potatoes are being lifted, the peculiar smell
of potato earth brings back to me those ten days of misery. I seldom had
time to straighten my back. I had but one thought all day: When will
that sun get down to the west? My neighbour, Jock Tamson, always seemed
fresh and cheerful, but, unfortunately, I did not discover the cause of
his optimism until the last day.
"Foo are you feenished so quick, Jock?" I asked.
Jock winked and nodded his head in the direction of the farmer.
"Look!" he said, and he skilfully tramped a big potato into the earth
with his right foot; then he surreptitiously happed it over with his
left.