A People's Man Part 13

"You'll have to say a few words," Dale insisted. "They'll never leave off until you do."

Maraton nodded and turned towards the audience. He stood looking down at them for a moment or two, without speech. Even after silence had been established he seemed to be at a loss as to exactly what to say.

When at last he did speak, it was in an easy and conversational manner.

There was no sign of the fire or the frenzy with which he had kindled the enthusiasms of the people of the United States.

"I find it rather hard to know exactly what to say to you," he began.

"I am glad to be here and I have come to this country to work for you, if I may. But, you know, I have views of my own, and it isn't a very auspicious occasion for me to stand for the first time upon an English platform. I came as one of the audience to-night and I have listened to all that has been said. I don't think that I am in favour of your strike."

There was a murmur of wonder, mingled with discontent.

"Why not?" some one shouted from the back.

"Aye, why not?" a dozen voices echoed.

"I'll try and tell you, if you like," Maraton continued. "I didn't mean to say anything until after Manchester, but I'll tell you roughly what my scheme is. These individual strikes such as you're planning are just like pinp.r.i.c.ks on the hide of an elephant. How many are there of you? A thousand, say? Well, you thousand may get a shilling or two a week more. It won't alter your condition of life. It won't do much for you, any way. You will have spent your money, and in a year or two the masters will be taking it out of you some other way. A strike such as you are proposing causes inconvenience--no more. I'd bigger things in my mind for you."

He hesitated for a moment as though uncertain, even now, whether to go on. Glancing around the hall, his eyes for a moment met Julia's.

Something in her still face, the almost pa.s.sionate enquiry of her wonderful eyes, seemed to decide him. He lifted up his hands, his voice grew in volume.

"Let me tell you what I want, then. Let me tell you the dream which others have had before me, which is laughed to scorn by the enemies of the people, but which grows in substance and shape, year by year. I want to teach you how to smash the individual capitalist. I want to teach you how to frame laws which will bring the wealth of this country into a new and saner distribution. I want to teach you the folly of the old ideas that because of the wretched conditions in which you live, the better educated man, the man better equipped mentally and physically for his job, must gather to himself the wealth and you must become his slaves. What do you suppose, in the course of three or four generations, produces men of different mental and physical calibre? I will tell you. The circ.u.mstances of their bringing-up, the life they have to lead, their education, their environment. What chance have you under present conditions? None! For very shame, as the years pa.s.s on, you operatives will be better paid. What will it amount to? A few shillings a week more, the same life, the same anxieties, the same daily grinding toil, brainless, machine-like, leading you nowhere because there isn't a way out. There will still remain your masters; there will still remain you, the men. Can't you see what it is that I am aiming at? I want to make a great machine of all the industries of this country. The man with the gift for figures will find himself in the office, and the man with lesser brain power will find himself before a machine. But the two will be working for one aim and one end. They will both be parts of the machine, and for their livelihood they will take what that machine produces, distributed in a scientific and exact ratio. It's co-operation over again, you say? Very well, call it that.

Only I tell you why co-operation has failed up till now. It's because you've been in too much of a hurry. I am going to appeal to you presently, not for your own interests but in the interests of your children and your children's children, because the better days that are to come for you won't dawn yet awhile. It may be, even, that you will be called upon to make sacrifices, instead of finding yourselves better off. There are some great changes which time alone can govern."

"What about this strike?" some one shouted from the bottom of the hall.

"You are quite right, sir," Maraton replied swiftly. "I've wandered a little from my point. I think that the first thing I said to you was that this strike, if it took place, would be like the pinp.r.i.c.k on an elephant's hide. I want to teach you how to stab!"

There was a murmur of voices--approving this time, at any rate.

"Can't you see," Maraton continued, "that Society can easily deal with one strike at a time? That isn't the way to make yourself felt. What I want to see in this country is a simultaneous strike of wharfingers, dock labourers, railways, and all the means of communication; a strike which will stop the pulses of the nation, a strike which will cost hundreds of millions, a strike which may cost this country its place amongst the nations, but which will mark the dawn of new conditions.

I'd put out your forge fires from Glasgow to Sheffield and Sheffield to London. I'd take the big risks--the rioting, the revolutions, the starvation, the misery that will surely come. I'd do that for the sake of the new nation which would start again where the old one perished."

There was a sudden burst of applause. A little thrill seemed to have found its way, like zig-zag lightning, here and there amongst them. But there were many who sat and smoked in stolid silence. Maraton looked into their faces and sighed to himself. There were too many hungry people for his mission.

"We are half starved," a man called from the back of the ball. "My wage is a pound a week and four children to keep. It's fine talk, yours, but it won't feed 'em."

There was a murmur of sullen approval. Maraton's hand shot out, his finger quivered as it pointed to the man.

"I don't blame you," he said, "but it's the cry you've just raised which keeps you and a few other millions exactly in the places you occupy.

There are many generations as yet unborn, to come from your children and your children's children. Are they, then, to suffer as you have suffered?"

There was a little stir at the back of the platform. A tall, broad-shouldered man pushed his way through to the front. His face was pitted with smallpox; he had black, wiry hair; small, narrow eyes; a large, brutal mouth. He took up his position in the middle of the platform, ignoring Maraton altogether.

"Listen, lads," he began; "you are here to-night to decide whether or not you want another half-crown on to your wages. This man who has been talking to you has done big things in America. I know nothing about him and I'm not rightly sure that I know what's at the back of his head. If he is your friend, he's our friend, and we shall soon fall into line, but to-night you're here to meet about that half-crown. It's for you to say whether or no you'll have it. We've saved the money for the fight, saved it from your wages, got it with your sweat. You've given up your beer for it--aye, and maybe your baccy. We've saved the money and the time's come to fight. All that he says"--jerking his elbow towards Maraton--"sounds good enough. That'll come in later. Are you for the strike?"

There was no doubt about the reply--a roar of approving voices. Maraton smiled at them and stepped down from the platform. For the moment he was forgotten. Only Julia whispered pa.s.sionately in his ear as they moved out of the place.

"You should have gone on. They didn't understand. They have waited so long, they could have waited a little longer."

Maraton did not answer until they reached the street. Then he stood a few steps in the background, watching the people as they came out.

"I couldn't," he said simply. "I felt as though I were offering stones for bread. The stones were better, perhaps, but the cruelty was the same."

CHAPTER X

Maraton walked alone with Elisabeth on the following afternoon in the flower garden at Lyndwood. She was apologising for some unexpected additions to the number of their guests.

"Mother always forgets whom she has asked down for the week-end," she said, "and my uncle is far too sweet about it. I know that he wanted to have as much time as possible alone with you before Monday. It is on Monday you go to Manchester, isn't it?"

"On Monday," he answered, a little absently. "I have to make my bow to the democracy of your country in the evening."

"I wish I could make up my mind, Mr. Maraton," she continued, "whether you have come over here for good or for evil."

"For evil that good may come of it, I am afraid," he rejoined, "would be the kindest interpretation you could put upon my enterprise here."

"The Spectator calls you the Missionary of Unrest."

"The Spectator, I am afraid, will become more violent later on."

"Let us sit down here for a moment," she suggested, pointing to a seat.

"You see, we are just at the top of this long pathway, and we get a view of the roses all the way down."

"It is very beautiful," he admitted,--"far too beautiful."

She raised her eyebrows.

"Too beautiful? Is that possible?"

"Without a doubt," he declared. "Too much beauty is as bad as too little."

"And why is that? Surely it must be good for one to be surrounded by inspiring things?"

"I am not sure that beauty does inspire anything except content," he answered, smiling. "I call this garden of yours, for instance, a most vicious place, a perfect lotus-eater's Paradise. Positively, I feel the energy slipping out of my bones as I sit here."

"Then you shall be chained to that seat," she threatened. "You will not be able to go to Manchester and make trouble, and my uncle will be able to sleep at nights."

"I feel that everything in life is slipping away from me," he protested.

"I ought to be thinking over what lam going to say to your country people, and instead of that I am wondering whether there is anything more beautiful in the world than the blue haze over your meadows."

She laughed, and moved her parasol a little so that she could see him better.

"You know," she said, "my uncle declares that if only you could be taught to imbibe a little more of the real philosophy of living, you would become quite a desirable person."

"And what is the real philosophy of living?"

"Just now, with him, it is the laissez faire, the non-interference with the essential forces of life, especially the forces that concern other people," she explained.