A Safety Match Part 4

"Your case was different, sir," said Amos Entwistle, with a practical man's quick perception of his opponent's weak points. "You were doing it for pleasure, to acquire experience--not to earn your bread. You could look forward to something better later on."

"And so can every man!" replied Juggernaut. "Each one of us is able if he likes to work his way up, and up, and up; and the lower he starts, the greater is his range of opportunity. The man at the bottom has the whole ladder to climb, instead of a few paltry rungs, as is the case of a man born near the top. Let him think of that, and be thankful!"

The chairman's sombre eyes glowed. His tone of raillery was gone: he was in sober earnest now. To him poverty and riches were nothing; he could have lived happily on a pound a-week: the salt of life lay in the overcoming of its difficulties.

But Amos Entwistle was a man of tough fibre--by far the strongest man, next to the chairman, in that a.s.semblage.

"You can't deny, sir," he persisted doggedly, "that it is very difficult for a poor man to rise. His employers don't help him much.

They are best satisfied with a man who keeps his proper station, as they call it."

"Tyrants!" interpolated Mr Winch hastily.

"Star Chamber!" added Mr Brash, _a propos de bottes_.

"Tyrants? Star Chamber?" Juggernaut surveyed the interrupter quizzically. "Here is a question for you, Mr Brash. Which is the worse--the tyranny of the harsh employer who gathers where he has not strawed, or the tyranny of a Trades Union which a man is forced to join, and which compels the best worker to slow down his pace to that of the worst, and frequently compels him to come out on strike over some question upon which he is perfectly satisfied? I won't attempt to place them in order of merit, but I should feel inclined to bracket----"

"Trades Unions," interrupted Mr Winch, who was beginning to feel himself unduly excluded from the present symposium, "are the first steps towards the complete emanc.i.p.ation of Labour"--he smacked his lips as over a savoury bakemeat--"from the degrading shackles of Capital. Every man his own master!"

Juggernaut nodded his head slowly.

"Ye-es," he said. "That sounds admirable. But what does it _mean_ exactly? As far as I can see, it means that every one who is at present a labourer is ultimately going to become a capitalist. In that case it rather looks as if there would be a shortage of hands if there was work to be done. Your Utopia, Mr Winch, appears to me to resemble the Grand Army of Hayti, which consists of five hundred privates and eleven hundred Generals. No, no; you must bear in mind this fact, that ever since the world began mankind has been divided up into masters and men, and will continue to be so divided until the end of time.

What we--you and I--have to do is to adjust the relations between the two in such a fas.h.i.+on as to make the conditions fair for both. I don't say that employers aren't frequently most high-handed and tyrannical, but I also say that _employes_ are extraordinarily touchy and thin-skinned. I think it chiefly arises from a sort of distorted notion that there is something degrading and undignified in obeying an order. Why, man, obedience and discipline are the very life-blood of every inst.i.tution worthy of the name. They are no cla.s.s affair either.

I have seen the captain of a company stand at attention without winking for ten minutes, and receive a d.a.m.ning from his colonel that no non-commissioned officer in the service would have dreamed of administering to a private of the line. Master and man each hold equally honourable positions; and what you must drum into the minds of your a.s.sociates, gentlemen--I'm speaking to the Board as much as to the deputation--is the fact that the interests of both are _identical_, instead of being as far apart as the poles, which appears to be your present impression. Neither can exist without the other. So far you have imbibed only half of that truth. You reiterate with distressing frequency, Mr Winch, the fact that Capital cannot exist without Labour. Perfectly true. Now try to absorb into your system the fact--equally important to a hair's-breadth--that Labour cannot exist without Capital. Each depends upon the other for existence, and what we have to do is to balance and balance and balance, employing a sense of proportion, proportion, _proportion_!"

Juggernaut's fist descended with a crash upon the table, and for a minute he was silent--free-wheeling, so to speak, over the pulverised remains of Mr Winch. Presently he continued, with one of his rare smiles--

"A Frenchman once said that an Englishman begins by making a speech and ends by preaching a sermon. I am afraid I have justified the gibe, but it's a good thing to thrash these matters out. I don't deny that the average employer is in the habit of giving his _employes_ their bare pound of flesh in the way of wages and no more. But I think the _employe_ has himself to blame for that. If you invoke the a.s.sistance of the law against your neighbour, that neighbour will give you precisely as much as the law compels him to give. Well, that is what organised Labour has done. It has its Trades Union, its Workmen's Compensation and Employers' Liability, and so on; and lately it has gouged out of a myopic Government a scheme of Old Age Pensions, to be eligible for which a man must on no account have exercised any kind of thrift throughout his working life. If he has, he is disqualified. All this legislation enables you to get the half-nelson on your employer.

Under the circ.u.mstances you can hardly expect him to throw in benevolence as well. You can't have your cake and eat it. The old personal relations between master and man are dead--dead as Queen Anne--and with them has died the master's sense of moral responsibility for the welfare of those dependent on him."

"Time, too! Degradation! Feudal system!" observed the ever-ready Mr Killick.

"Well, perhaps; but the Feudal System had its points, Mr Killick. It fostered one or two homely and healthy virtues like benevolence and loyalty and pride of race; and I don't think a man-at-arms ever lost his self-respect or felt degraded because he lived in time of peace under the protection of the Lord of the Manor whom he followed in time of war. Yes, I for one rather regret the pa.s.sing of the old order.

Listen, and I will tell you a story. Forty years ago Cherry Hill Pit was flooded--flooded for nearly three months during a bitter hard winter. Sir Nigel Thompson's father, the late baronet----"

Sir Nigel, who was puzzling out some specially complicated formula, suddenly looked up. He had an idea that his name had been mentioned; but as every one present appeared to be listening most intently to the chairman, he resumed his engrossing occupation with a sigh of relief.

"--paid full wages during the whole of that time; and as coal was naturally un.o.btainable in the village, he imported sufficient to supply the needs of the whole community. Not a house in the village lacked its kitchen fire or its Sunday dinner during all those weeks.

That was before the days of the Employers' Liability, gentlemen! If a similar disaster were to occur to-day, I doubt if Sir Nigel here would feel morally bound to do anything for such an independent and self-sufficient community. The present state of things may safeguard you against the ungenerous employer, but it eliminates the milk of human kindness from our mutual transactions, and that is always a matter for regret. That is all, gentlemen. You have our last word in this matter. These two men must go. If you would like to withdraw to the next room for a few minutes and consider whether you have anything further to say, we shall be glad to wait your convenience here."

The deputation rose and filed solemnly from the room, and the Board were left alone.

Presently Mr Aymer observed timidly--

"Mr Chairman, don't you think we might let Conlin stay, and content ourselves with dismissing Murton?"

"Afraid not," said Juggernaut. "It's a bit hard on Conlin, but we have to consider the greatest good of the greatest number. He's a plague-spot, and if we don't eradicate him he'll spread. Do you agree, Kirkley?"

"Bad luck on the poor devil, but I think you are right," a.s.sented his lords.h.i.+p.

"Crisp?"

Mr Crisp nodded.

"Nigel?"

Sir Nigel Thompson looked up from his seventh envelope with a contented sigh.

"I have it at last," he said. "It's a perfectly simple solution, really, but the obvious often escapes one's notice owing to its very proximity. The eye is looking further afield. Eh--what? My decision? I agree implicitly with you, Jack--that is, gentlemen, I support the chairman in his view of the case."

And this vigilant counsellor collected his envelopes and stuffed them into his pocket. The chairman continued--

"Montague?"

"Before I answer that question," began Mr Montague, "I should like to protetht--protest, I mean--against the arbitrary manner in which you have conducted this meeting, Mr Chairman. You have taken the case out of our hands in a manner which I consider most unwarrantable; and, speaking as the actual employer of the two men----"

Juggernaut swung rather deliberately round in his chair.

"Mr Montague," he said, "you got yourself into a hole, and you called--no, _howled_--for a meeting of directors to come and pull you out. These agitators settled down in your district because they knew that it was the most fertile district to work in. You are considered, rightly, the worst employer of labour here. You are greedy, unscrupulous, and tyrannical. It is men like you who discredit Capital in the eyes of Labour, and make conciliatory dealing between master and man almost an impossibility. We have bolstered you up through a very difficult crisis, sitting here and putting those poor fellows, five of whom are infinitely more honest than you are, quite undeservedly in the wrong, and imperilling our immortal souls by whitewas.h.i.+ng such employers as you. Accept the situation and be thankful!"

It is said that hard words break no bones. Still, if you happen to be a member of a race which has endured hard words (to say nothing of broken bones) for twenty centuries, and when the hard words on this particular occasion are delivered by a large man with angry blue eyes and a tongue like a whip-lash, you may be forgiven for losing your nerve a little. Mr Montague lost his. He flapped his ringed hands feebly, mumbled incoherently, and was understood to withdraw his objections unconditionally.

"Mr Amos Entwistle," announced a clerk at the door.

Entwistle junior re-entered the room.

"I am commissioned to inform you, Mr Chairman," he said, "that we acquiesce in your decision; but under protest. I should like to add, gentlemen," he continued, less formally but none the less earnestly, "that the Committee are very much dissatisfied with the result of the interview. I am afraid you haven't heard the last of this trouble.

Good-day, and thank you, gentlemen!"

"What does it all mean? Strike--eh?" inquired Lord Kirkley, as he and Juggernaut descended the stairs together five minutes later.

"Perhaps. If so, we'll fight."

"Righto--I'm on! I say, it was pretty smart of you finding out where those private supplies of theirs came from last time. We shall be able to put the lid on that sort of think in future--what?"

Juggernaut nodded, but said no more.

Mr Crisp, Sir Nigel Thompson, and Mr Aymer walked across to the latter's offices for luncheon. Mr Montague had gone home to lunch by himself. He usually did so.

"The chairman arrived at the meeting in the nick of time," said the lawyer. "Kirkley would have been no match for Winch."

"The chairman was very inflexible," sighed Mr Aymer, with all a weak man's pa.s.sion for compromise. "He has a way of brus.h.i.+ng aside obstacles which can only be described as Napoleonic. Is he always within his rights from a legal point of view?"

"From a legal point of view, practically never," said the lawyer simply. "From a common-sense point of view, practically always."

"He is a hard man--as hard as flint," mused Mr Aymer. "I wonder if he has a soft side to him _anywhere_. I wonder, for instance, how he would treat a woman."

"I wonder," said Mr Crisp.