CHAPTER TWO.
WANTED, A MAN.
Five gentlemen sat side by side along a baize-covered table in a dingyroom in a dingier building not far from the principal pit-head ofMirkley Colliery. They were the representatives of the local CollieryOwners' Association, and they were assembled and met together for thepurpose of receiving a deputation representing the united interestsand collective wisdom of their _employes_.
It should be noted that although there were five gentlemen present,six chairs were set along the table.
Now a deputation may be defined as an instrument designed to extractfrom you something which you have not the slightest desire to give up.Consequently the reception of such, whether you be a damsel listeningfor the rat-a-tat of an undesired suitor who has written asking for aninterview, or a dethroned Royal Family sitting in its deserted abodeawaiting the irruption of a Committee of Public Safety composed ofthe greater part of its late loyal subjects armed with billhooks andasking for blood, is always an uncomfortable business at the best. Ourfive gentlemen do not appear to be enjoying their present position anymore than the two examples cited above. In fact, they look soexceedingly averse to interviews or arguments of any description, thatwe will leave them for a moment and divert our attention to thedeputation itself, which is delicately skirting puddles of coal-blackwater and heaps of pit refuse on its way from the boiler-house, whereits members have assembled, to the office-buildings of the colliery.
They are six in number, and we will describe them _seriatim_.
Mr Tom Winch is a professional agitator, though he calls himselfsomething else. He is loud-voiced, and ceaseless in argument of asort. His notion of a typical member of the upper classes is adebilitated imbecile suffering from chronic alcoholism and variousmaladies incident on over-indulgence, who divides his time betweengloating over money-bags and grinding the faces of the poor. Heprivately regards Trades Unions as an antiquated drag upon the wheelsof that chariot at the tail of which he hopes one day to see Capitalled captive, gentlemen like Mr Tom Winch handling the reins and plyingthe whip.
Mr Amos Entwistle is a working collier, and is rightly regarded byboth parties as a safe man. He is habitually sober, scrupulouslyhonest, and has worked at Belton Pit for nearly forty years. He looksupon Trades Unions as his father and mother.
Mr Jacob Entwistle is the Nestor of the party. (Amos is his son.) Heis a patriarchal old gentleman, with a long white beard, the manner ofan ambassador, the deafness of an adder, and the obstinacy of a mule.Altogether he is just the sort of man to prove a valuable asset to anyproperly constituted deputation. He is the senior member of the localbranch of the _Employes'_ Association. He regards himself as thefather and mother of Trades Unions.
Mr Albert Brash is an expert in the art of what may be calledRighteous Indignation. Never was there such an exploiter ofgrievances. Is short time declared? Mr Brash calls for an Act ofParliament. Is there an explosion of fire-damp? Mr Brash muttersdarkly that one of these days a director must swing. Does a carelessworker remove a pit-prop and bring down an avalanche of coal onhimself? Mr Brash raises clenched hands to heaven and clamours for arevolution. So persistently and so methodically does Mr Brash lay uponthe shoulders of Capital the responsibility for all the ills to whichflesh is liable, from a hard winter to triplets, that he hasultimately (as is the way in this short-sighted world of ours)achieved the position of Sir Oracle. His deportment is that of astage conspirator, and he rarely speaks above a hoarse and arrestingwhisper. He calls himself an Anarchist, but he quails at the passingof the most benevolent policeman. He regards Trades Unions aswell-meaning institutions, with but little discrimination as to theirchoice of leaders.
Mr James Killick is a thoroughly honest, thoroughly muddle-headedSocialist of a rather common type. Like many a wiser and moreobservant man before him, he has realised something of the grindingmisery and suffering of this world, and a great and vague desire tobetter things is surging inarticulately within him. He has come tothe conclusion, as most half-educated philosophers usually do, thatthe simplest remedy would be to take from those who have and givethe proceeds to those who have not. The fact that the world isdivided into men to whose hands money sticks like glue and menthrough whose fingers it slips like water, and that consequently aUtopian re-distribution of property would have to be repeated atinconveniently frequent intervals in order to preserve the socialbalance, has not yet been borne in on him. He regards Trades Unionismas a broken reed.
Mr Adam Wilkie is a Scot of the dourest and most sepulchralappearance. Native reticence and an extremely cautious manner ofexpressing himself have invested him with that halo of business acumenwhich appears to be inevitable to the Scot as viewed by the Sassenach,and his very silence is regarded with respectful admiration by hismore verbose colleagues. In reality, he is an intensely stupid,entirely placid individual. Still, he has kept himself by nativethrift in tolerable comfort all his life without extraneousassistance, and he consequently regards Trades Unionism as aninstitution specially and mercifully introduced by Providence for thepurpose of keeping the weak-kneed English out of the poorhouse.
"Who's to be there?" inquired Mr Brash of Mr Entwistle senior.
That patriarch, who was negotiating a mountainous waste-heap, made noreply.
"Who are we going to meet?" repeated Mr Brash in a louder tone.
"Eh?" inquires Mr Entwistle, giving his invariable answer to anysudden question.
"Who are we going to _meet_?" bawled Mr Winch.
Mr Entwistle, who was never at a loss a second time, smiledbenignantly and replied--
"Ay, that's so. But maybe we can manage to dry 'em at the fire in theoffice."
"I expect there will be five of them, Mr Winch," interpolated Amos,coming to the rescue. "Kirkley, Thompson, Crisp, Aymer, Montague----"
There was a grunt of disapproval from Mr Wilkie as the last name wasmentioned.
"Yon felly!" he observed darkly. "Aha! Mphm!"
Then he relapsed into silence. It was upon such safe utterances asthese that Mr Wilkie's reputation for profound wisdom was based.
"Is that all?" said Winch. "Because if it is, I'll undertake to learnthat lot right enough! Kirkley, of course, is just an empty-headedaristocrat: he don't count. Then that Crisp--he's too cautious to doanything. We can talk Thompson round all right: done it half a dozentimes meself. Aymer never knows his own mind two minutes together, andMoses is a coward. But _is_ that all? Ain't the big man going to bethere? He's the lad that counts in that crowd."
"He was away in London yesterday," said Entwistle junior. "But younever know----"
"Wallowing in the vice and luxury of the metropolis!" chanted Mr Brashsuddenly, as if from some internal missal. "The master absent,squandering his tainted millions, while we stay here and starve! If Iwas a Member o' Parliament----"
"Talk sense," said Amos Entwistle curtly. "He may be back for all weknow. Anyway, they're certain to bring him up if they can, becausethey know they can't do without him. Mind that tank-engine, father."
He impelled his aged parent, who, oblivious to delirious whistling,was resolutely obstructing the progress of a diminutive locomotivehauling a string of trucks, on to safer ground.
"Well, we'll hope for the best," said Mr Winch piously. "It would besomething if he was to come late, even. Give me twenty minutes withthe rest before he can get his oar in, and I'll undertake to make themoutvote him."
By this time the deputation had arrived at the managerial offices, andfive minutes later they were admitted to the presence of the Board.They did not know that they had been immediately preceded by anorange-coloured envelope, which was eagerly torn open by Lord Kirkley,the deputy-chairman.
"Good egg!" observed his lordship, with a sigh of heartfelt relief."Juggernaut's coming."
A gentle murmur of satisfaction was audible. Evidently the Board feltthe need of a little stiffening. We may as well describe them.
The Marquis of Kirkley was more accustomed to exercising a kindlydespotism ove
r rustics who lived contentedly on fourteen shillingsa-week than to splitting hairs with unbending mechanics earning fourpounds, whose views on the relations between master and man weredictated by a cast-iron bureaucracy, and who regarded not the elasticlaws of Give and Take. He was a handsome, breezy, kind-heartedpatrician of thirty-four, and considered Trades Unions a damnedinterfering nuisance.
James Crisp was a solicitor, and represented the Dean and Chapter ofKilchester, beneath the very foundation of whose mighty cathedral rana very profitable little seam of coal, which was chiefly responsiblefor making the bishopric of the diocese one of the richestecclesiastical plums in England. He was a shrewd man of business,probably the best qualified of those present to take the lead in thepresent instance. Consequently he remained studiously in thebackground. He regarded Trades Unions as inevitable, but by no meansinvulnerable.
Sir Nigel Thompson had inherited great possessions, including acolliery, from his father. There was no vice in him, but he loved coalabout as much as a schoolboy loves irregular verbs, and his onlypassions in life were old furniture and chemical research. He attendedunder compulsion, having torn himself from his comfortable house inLondon at the bidding of his manager, in whose hands he was reported(not altogether unjustly) to be as wax. He was full of theoreticalenthusiasm for Trades Unions, which he identified in some mysteriousway with the liberty of the individual; but wished mildly that peoplecould contrive to settle their affairs without dragging him north.Altogether a pleasant but entirely useless member of the Board.
Mr Alfred Aymer was the owner of Cherry Hill Colliery. He wasmiddle-aged, timorous, and precipitate. Left to himself, he wouldprobably have been a kind and fair-dealing employer. But it was hismisfortune to be so constituted that his opinions on any subject wereinvariably those of the last man with whom he had discussed it.Consequently his line of action in the affairs of life was somethingin the nature of an alternating electric current. After an interviewwith his manager he would issue a decree of unparalleled ferocity:after five minutes with a deputation of _employes_ he would rescindall previous resolutions and promise a perfectly fabulous bonus nextpay-day. In his present company he was an adamantine Capitalist, andregarded Trades Unions as the most pernicious of institutions.
Last of all came Mr Montague, whose surname at an earlier and lessdistinguished period in his history had probably rhymed with "noses."He came from London, where he earned a livelihood by acquiring thecontrolling interest in various commercial ventures, and making thesepay cent per cent. He had recently become proprietor of MarbledownColliery, and it was said that he was making a better thing out of itthan his _employes_. He regarded Trade Unions as an impertinentinfringement of the right of the upper classes to keep the lowerclasses in their proper place. From which the intelligent reader willhave no difficulty in deciding to which class Mr Montague consideredthat he himself belonged.
The deputation was introduced with the usual formalities. Its objectwas to effect the reinstatement of two _employes_ at MarbledownColliery, an engineman and a hewer, who had been summarily dismissedfrom their positions for endeavouring, in a society whose relationshad never been of the most cordial, to heighten dissension betweenmaster and man.
Mr Tom Winch's version of the case, delivered with great wealth ofdetail and a good deal of unnecessary shouting, was different. Themen, it appeared, were models of what enginemen and hewers should be.Their sole offence consisted in having incurred the dislike of themine-manager, Mr Dodd--whether through their own sturdy independenceas true-born Englishmen (_applause from Mr Brash_), or the naturaljealousy of an incompetent official towards two able and increasinglyprominent subordinates, it was not for Mr Winch to say. Proceeding,the orator warmed to his work, and mentioned that one man was as goodas another. Indeed, but for the merest accident of fortune, LordKirkley himself might be delving for coal in the bowels of the earth,what time Messrs Conlin and Murton, the dismissed _employes_, sate inthe House of Lords smoking cigars and drinking champagne.
After this singularly convincing peroration Mr Winch fell back intoline with his companions, amid the _sotto voce_ commendations ofMessrs Brash and Killick. Mr Aymer, who had been taking notes on asheet of paper, tore it up with a resigned air of finality. The casewas clear: these poor fellows must be reinstated.
The chairman conferred briefly with Mr Crisp.
"Would any other of you gentlemen like to say anything?" he inquired.
The question was communicated to Mr Entwistle senior, who steppedforward and delivered himself of a courtly but rambling discourse,consisting chiefly of reminiscences of something portentous butunintelligible which had happened forty years ago, and even to themost irrelevant mind presented no sort of bearing upon the casewhatsoever.
After this Lord Kirkley replied. His remarks were not convincing, forhe was hampered in dealing with the question by complete inability tounderstand where the men's grievance came in, and said so. The owners,he explained, tried to do the fair thing, and most of them didconsiderably more. Sick funds, pensions, benevolent schemes, and allthat sort of thing, didn't they know? He quite admitted that anemployer of labour had grave responsibilities and duties laid uponhim, and he for one had always tried to live up to them. But hang it!surely an employer had the right to get rid of a couple of fellows whowent about preaching anarchy and red revolution in all thepublic-houses in the district--what? He did not mind ordinarygrousing. It did everybody good to blow off steam periodically: he didit himself. But there was grousing and grousing: and when it came tothe sort of game that Messrs Conlin and Murton were playing, it washis lordship's opinion that a _ne plus ultra_ of thickness had beenattained.
The chairman concluded a somewhat colloquial address amid a deathlysilence, and the deputation and the board glared uncomfortably at oneanother. An _impasse_ had been reached, it was clear.
"It's all very well, gentlemen," broke in Killick suddenly, "for youaristocrats----"
Lord Kirkley, who was not without a certain sense of proportion,glanced involuntarily at Mr Montague and then at Mr Killick. Did thisomniscient and self-opinionated son of toil really see no moraldifference between a Peer of the realm, with centuries of clean-bredancestry behind him, and a man who wore diamond rings andelastic-sided boots? Mr Montague looked up, and regarded Mr Killickwith something akin to affection.
There was a sudden rumble underneath the windows, accompanied by thehoot of a motor-horn.
The drama having run itself to a deadlock, the _deus_ had dulyarrived--in his _machina_.