Crying for the Light Volume Ii Part 12

'Moral reform. Do you know,' continued Wentworth, 'that Trade Unionism seems to me essentially one-sided.'

'That is rather too rich,' said the visitor. 'All we seek is justice to ourselves.'

'But is not that unjust to the masters? A firm commences a business or works a mine. It is put to great expense; sinks an enormous amount of capital, and then because it chooses to employ individuals who have a right to be employed, who have as much right to earn their own living as other men, the Union withdraws their men, and the works have to be stopped, and many a firm has given up business in consequence, and thus the area of the unemployed and the amount of national poverty and distress is increased. No man can serve two masters. There must be a head somewhere, and a firm naturally may claim to be at the head of a business, and should be left to regulate its own affairs. What would become of a s.h.i.+p if the crew were to deprive the captain of his command, and to navigate it themselves?'

'What would you do, then?'

'Why, just act according to Christian principles.'

'Christian principles-what are they?'

'That man and master should do to each other as to themselves.'

Johnson blackened in his face and whispered something about nonsense.

'But that is not all.'

'No, I should think not,' said Johnson.

'My next demands are moral reform, and the power of the people.'

'Ah, now, that's coming to the point.'

'But I mean by the power of the people, not a vote at the dictation of a caucus, but the action of an educated independent people.'

Again Johnson frowned.

'Well, let me hear what you recommend. The future belongs to you, Mr.

Johnson.'

'Why, we want State aid against the selfishness of the rich, and State employment for the poor.'

'Well, that is rather a reversal of the system which has made England great by reason of the energy and freedom of her people. The State works clumsily and ineffectively. Look at the memoirs of officials, or Government reports, or the revelations of our great establishments, and you will see for yourself that the State works in a way which, if a private firm followed, it would soon be in the Bankruptcy Court. In America things in this respect are as bad as here. The abuses of the Civil Service there are greater than at home. A distinguished American writes: "The spoil system, introduced by President Jackson, which is now stigmatized as 'the American system,' imperils not only the purity, economy, and efficiency of the Government, but it destroys confidence in the method of popular government by party. It creates a mercenary political cla.s.s, an oligarchy of stipendiaries, a bureaucracy of the worst kind, which controls parties with relentless despotism." How do you like that, friend?'

'Not at all,' said Johnson.

'No; we must continue fighting on the old lines. Like Burke, I believe at this period of the world's history there is nothing new in politics or morals. Society has got into the groove which was the only one possible.

It must ever go on the old lines. Upset it, turn it topsey-turvy, as they did in France, or as the Socialists would do, and a little while again you will find it on the old lines. Share the wealth of the country, if you like, between you all; it won't make much difference to me, but the next generation will be as badly off as ever-worse off-for you will have taken from the labourer all motive for exertion.'

'And is this what I am to tell the United Buffaloes?'

'If you like.'

'If I do, not one of us will vote for you.'

'Then, perhaps the sooner I give up the contest the better.'

'That is what I think,' said Johnson, as he took up his hat and departed, leaving Wentworth to fear that his mission to Sloville was at an end.

Why, even, as he confessed to himself, the Tory programme was more attractive than his own. Toryism is never particular on the score of money. Its generosity at the expense of other people is prodigious.

Naturally, we all like a lavish expenditure. There is no one so popular as a spendthrift, as long as his money lasts, no one so hated as a screw.

When rosy-fingered morning next day dawned on Sloville, there was quite a crowd of visitors at the hotel patronized by Mr. Wentworth. Everybody is supernaturally and unusually wise when an election takes place, and, feeling how uncertain is human life, seems apparently determined to make the most of it. It is the harvest, if not of the busy bee, at any rate of the busybody. Before Mr. Wentworth had finished his coffee and bacon and eggs, while the dry toast in the rack was yet untouched, the aged and beery waiter announced as how there was a lady outside waitin' to speak to him.

'Show her in,' said the candidate, and in she walked with that boldness and self-possession, unpleasant in woman, which marks the advanced female.

'I hear, Mr. Wentworth, you are a candidate for our borough. May I ask what are your views on the subject of Women's Rights?-a question of vast importance to our s.e.x. You know our abject and degraded state; how we are trodden under foot by our lord and master, man.'

The lady was a spinster, or she would not have talked in that style, but at length she had said all that she wanted, and paused for a reply.

'I fear,' said Wentworth, 'that you and I can never agree. I don't believe that man and woman are the same. Nature has made them different.

A woman treads the earth with a lighter step, talks in a feebler voice.

If she succeeds on the platform or in public life, it is because of her exceptional performance in that character; and owing to her more excitable temperament and physical peculiarities, and to the duties devolving on her as wife and mother, I argue that she is unfitted for public life. Her duty is at home. It is there she reigns a queen, and where, I ask, can she desire a n.o.bler field? Our men are what their mothers make them. I say it is to the home that we have to look for the purification and elevation of our public life; it is to the mothers of to-day that we look for the great men of the morrow.'

'And is this all you've got to say?' said the lady, with a somewhat chap-fallen countenance. 'I did hope, as a journalist, I might have heard something more satisfactory. There are many of us in Sloville. We are affiliated to a society whose headquarters are in London, and we are determined to vote for no man.'

'Excuse me, I understood ladies had no votes.'

'I mean we are determined that no man shall vote for anyone who is not sound on the question of Women's Rights.'

'I am quite ready to give a widow, or any woman housekeeper, or any woman in business, a vote. As a Liberal I don't know whether I ought to say as much. The women will be sure to give a Tory vote. They are sure to vote as their favourite parson or priest wishes.'

'Not the emanc.i.p.ated female of the future.'

'Alas!' said Wentworth, 'I don't know her. I can only talk of woman as she is-charming, lovely, worthy of all honour, in her own peculiar sphere.'

'Thank you,' said the lady haughtily; 'we want something more;' and she went out of the room to report to her committee that on Women's Rights the candidate gave a very uncertain sound.

'Will you,' said one other fair enthusiast a little later on, 'vote for the repeal of the Vaccination Acts?'

'Certainly not,' said Mr. Wentworth. 'Why should I?'

'Because it is an interference with the freedom of the subject.'

In vain he argued all government, more or less, was that, and that small-pox was an awful malady, against which it behoved the nation to take every precaution. He spoke in vain. The anti-vaccinators did not go so far as to say, as the old opponents did, that vaccination made children as hairy as bullocks, or that it led them to bellow like bulls.

In our day they have s.h.i.+fted their grounds, but their opposition remains the same.

The Sabbatarians came next. They were Liberals mostly, with a sprinkling of Tory Evangelicals, yet rather than see any mitigation in the severity of the Jewish Sabbath, any attempt made to divert the working man from the public-house on a Sunday, they declared themselves dead against Mr.

Wentworth. The loafers, of course, were against him. He refused to treat them to beer. He kept no public-houses open. He did not even offer to stand gla.s.ses round when they called. If he was above obliging them, why should they put themselves out of their way to oblige him? He was for purity and independence. Little they cared for either the one or the other. Every hour it seemed to him that his chance grew less. What was the good of talking about an improved foreign policy, about the advancement of the people in political power, about the reduction of taxation, or free trade in land, or land reform, to such men? According to one cla.s.s, an election was simply an excuse for bribery and corruption. It meant money and beer. A candidate was to be bled to the uttermost farthing, and he was to repay himself how he could, and as best he could, when he got into Parliament. According to another cla.s.s, a General Election was simply an opportunity for fighting on side issues, and the ventilation of all sorts of fads.

Musing on these things, the waiter came to him to announce another visitor. Mr. Wentworth groaned.

'Not a lady, sir.'

'Thank G.o.d for that!' he replied.

'A gentleman this time.'

'Show him in.'