"But," he said, "if we did away with female labour we'd have to close
down. We couldn't compete with other firms."
"Not if they abolished female labour too?"
"I was thinking of the Calcutta mills where labour is dirt cheap," he
said.
"I see," I said, "so the Scotch lassie is to compete with the native?"
"It comes to that," he admitted.
I think I see a very pretty problem awaiting Labour in the near future.
As the Trade Unions become more powerful and show their determination to
take the mines and factories into their own hands, capitalists will
turn to Asia and Africa. The exploitation of the native is just
beginning. At a time when Britain is a Socialistic State all the evils
of capitalism will be reproduced with ten-fold intensity in India and
China and Africa. I see an Asia ruled by lash and revolver; the
profiteer has a short way with the striker in Eastern climes. The recent
history of South Africa is sinister. A few years ago our brothers died
presumably that white men should have the rights of citizenship in the
Transvaal. What they seemed to have died for was the right of profiteers
to shoot white strikers from the windows of the Rand Club. If white men
are treated thus I tremble for the fate of the black man who strikes.
Yes, the present profiteering system is a preparation for an exploited
East. Margaret Steel and her fellows are slaving so that a Persia may be
"opened up," a Mexico robbed of its oil wells.
* * *
To-day I gave a lesson on Capital.
"If," I said, "I have a factory I have to pay out wages and money for
machinery and raw material. When I sell my cloth I get more money than
I paid out. This money is called profit, and with this money I can set
up a new factory.
"Now what I want you to understand is this:--Unless work is done by
someone there is no wealth. If I make a fortune out of linen I make it
by using the labour of your fathers, and the machinery that was invented
by clever men. Of course, I have to work hard myself, but I am repaid
for my work fully. Margaret Steel at this moment standing at a loom, is
working hard too, but she is getting a wage that is miserable.
"Note that the owner of the factory is getting an income of, say, ten
thousand pounds a year. Now, what does he do with the money?"
"Spends it on motor cars," said a boy.
"Buys cigarettes," said a girl.
"Please, sir, Mr. Bruce gives money to the infirmary," said another
girl.
"He keeps it in a box beneath the bed," said another, and I found that
the majority in the room favoured this theory. This suggestion reminded
me of the limitations of childhood, and I tried to talk more simply. I
told them of banks and stocks, I talked of luxuries, and pointed out
that a man who lived by selling expensive dresses to women was doing
unnecessary labour.
Tom Macintosh showed signs of thinking deeply.
"Please, sir, what would all the dressmakers and footmen do if there was
no money to pay them?"
"They would do useful work, Tom," I said. "Your father works from six to
six every day, but if all the footmen and chauffeurs and grooms and
gamekeepers were doing useful work, your father would only need to work
maybe seven hours a day. See? In Britain there are forty millions of
people, and the annual income of the country is twenty-four hundred
million pounds. One million of people take half this sum, and the other
thirty-nine millions have to take the other half."
"Please, sir," said Tom, "what half are you in?"
"Tom," I said, "I am with the majority. For once the majority has right
on its side."
* * *
Bruce the manufacturer had an advertisement in to-day's local paper. "No
encumbrances," says the ad. Bruce has a family of at least a dozen, and
he possibly thinks that he has earned the right to talk of
"encumbrances." I sympathise with the old chap.
But I want to know why gardeners and chauffeurs must have no
encumbrances. If the manorial system spreads, a day will come when the
only children at this school will be the offspring of the parish
minister. Then, I suppose, dominies and ministers will be compelled to
be polygamists by Act of Parliament.
I like the Lord of the Manor's damned impudence. He breeds cattle for
showing, he breeds pheasants for slaughtering, he breeds children to
heir his estates. Then he sits down and pens an advertisement for a
slave without "encumbrances." Why he doesn't import a few harem
attendants from Turkey I don't know; possibly he is waiting till the
Dardanelles are opened up.
* * *
I have just been reading a few schoolboy howlers. I fancy that most of
these howlers are manufactured. I cannot be persuaded that any boy ever
defined a lie as "An abomination unto the Lord but a very present help
in time of trouble." Howlers bore me; so do most school yarns. The only
one worth remembering is the one about the inspector who was ratty.
"Here, boy," he fired at a sleepy youth, "who wrote _Hamlet_?"
The boy started violently.
"P--please, sir, it wasna me," he stammered.
That evening the inspector was dining with the local squire.
"Very funny thing happened to-day," he said, as they lit their cigars.
"I was a little bit irritated, and I shouted at a boy, 'Who wrote
_Hamlet_?' The little chap was flustered. 'P--please, sir, it wasna me!'
he stuttered."
The squire guffawed loudly.
"And I suppose the little devil had done it after all!" he roared.
* * *
Lawson came down to see me to-night, and as usual we talked shop.
"It's all very well," he said, "for you to talk about education being
all wrong. Any idiot can burn down a house that took many men to build.
Have you got a definite scheme to put in its place?"
The question was familiar to me. I had had it fired at me scores of
times in the days when I talked Socialism from a soap-box in Hyde Park.
"I think I have a scheme," I said modestly.
Lawson lay back in his chair.
"Good! Cough it up, my son!"