Between You and Me Part 20

And there were some strikes that had serious consequences. There were strikes that delayed the building of ships, and the making of cannon and sh.e.l.l. And as a result of them men died, in France, and in Gallipoli, and in other places, who need no have died. They were laddies who'd dropped all, who'd gi'en up all that was dear to them, all comfort and safety, when the country called.

They had nae voice in the matters that were in dispute. None thought, when sic a strike was called, of hoo those laddies in the trenches wad be affected. That's what I canna forgie. That's what makes me wonder why the Anzacs, when they reach home, don't have a word to say themselves aboot the troubles that the union leaders would seem to be gaein' to bring aboot.

We're in a ficht still, even though peace has come. We're in a ficht wi' poverty, and disease, and all the other menaces that still threaten our civilization. We'll beat them, as we ha' beaten the other enemies. But we'll no beat them by quarrelling amang oorselves, any more than we'd ever have beaten the Hun if France and Britain had stopped the war, every sae often, to hae oot an argument o' their own.

We had differences with our gude friends the French, fraw time to time. Sae did the Americans, and whiles we British and our American cousins got upon ane anither's nerves. But there was never real trouble or difficulty, as the result and the winning of the war have shown.

Do you ken what it is we've a' got to think of the noo? It's production. We must produce more than we ha' ever done before. It's no a steady raise in wages that will help. Every time wages gang up a shilling or twa, everything else is raised in proportion. The workingman maun mak' more money; everyone understands that. But the only way he can safely get more siller is to earn more--to increase production as fast as he knows how.

It's the only way oot--and it's true o' both Britain and America. The more we mak' the more we'll sell. There's a market the noo for all we English speaking folk can produce. Germany is barred, for a while at least; France, using her best efforts and brains to get back upon her puir, bruised feet, canna gae in avily for manufactures for a while yet. We, in Britain, have only just begun to realize that the war is over. It took us a long time to understand what we were up against at the beginning, and what sort of an effort we maun mak' if we were to win the war.

And then, before we'd done, we were doing things we'd never ha dreamed it was possible for us tae do before the need was upon us. We in Britain had to do without things we'd regarded as necessities and we throve without them. For the sake of the wee bairns we went without milk for our tea and coffee, and scarce minded it. Aye, in a thousand little ways that had not seemed to us to matter at all we were deprived and harried and hounded.

Noo, what I'm thinking sae often is just this. We had a great problem to meet in the winning of the war. We solved it, though it was greater than any of those we were wont to call insoluble. Are there no problems left? There's the slum. There's the sort of poverty that afflicts a man who's willing tae work and can nicht find work enough tae do tae keep himself and his family alive and clad. There's all sorts of preventible disease. We used to shrug our shoulders and speak of such things as the act of G.o.d. But I'll no believe they're acts of G.o.d. He doesna do things in such a fashion. They're acts of man, and it's for man to mak' them richt and end what's wrong wi' the world he dwells in.

They used to shrug their shoulders in Russia, did those who had enough to eat and a warm, decent hoose tae live in. They'd hear of the sufferings of the puir, and they'd talk of the act of G.o.d, and how he'd ordered it that i' this world there maun always be some suffering.

And see what's come o' that there! The wrong sort of man has set to work to mak' a wrong thing richt, and he's made it worse than it ever was. But how was it he had the chance to sway the puir ignorant bodies in Russia? How was it that those who kenned a better way were not at work long agane? Ha' they anyone but themselves to blame that Trotzky and the others had the chance to persuade the Russian people tae let them ha' power for a little while'?

Oh, we'll no come to anything like that in Britain and America. I've sma' patience wi' those that talk as if the Bolsheviki would be ruling us come the morrow. We're no that sort o' folk, we Britons and Americans. We've settled our troubles our ain way these twa thousand years, and we'll e'en do sae again. But we maun recognize that there are things we maun do tae mak' the lot of the man that's underneath a happier and a better one.

He maun help, tae. He maun realize that there's a chance for him. I'm haulding mysel' as one proof of that--it's why I've told you sae muckle in this book of myself and the way that I've come frae the pit tae the success and the comfort that I ken the noo.

I had to learn, lang agane, that my business was not only mine. Maybe you'll think that I'm less concerned with others and their affairs than maist folk, and maybe that's true, tae. But I. canna forget others, gi'en I would. When I'm singing I maun have a theatre i' which to appear. And I canna fill that always by mysel'. I maun gae frae place to place, and in the weeks of the year when I'm no appearing there maun be others, else the theatre will no mak' siller enough for its owners to keep it open.

And then, let's gie a thought to just the matter of my performance.

There must be an orchestra. It maun play wi' me; it maun be able to accompany me. An orchestra, if it is no richt, can mak' my best song sound foolish and like the singing o' some one who dinna ken ane note of music frae the next. So I'm dependent on the musicians--and they on me. And then there maun be stage hands, to set the scenes. Folk wouldna like it if I sang in a theatre wi'oot scenery. There maun be those that sell tickets, and tak' them at the doors, and ushers to show the folk their seats.

And e'en before a'body comes tae the hoose to pay his siller for a ticket there's others I'm dependent upon. How do they ken I'm in the toon at a'? They've read it in the papers, maybe--and there's reporters and printers I've tae thank. Or they've seen my name and my picture on a h.o.a.rding, and I've to think o' the men who made the lithograph sheets, and the billposters who put them up. Sae here's Harry Lauder and a' the folk he maun have tae help him mak' a living and earn his bit siller! More than you'd thought' Aye, and more than I'd thought, sometimes.

There's a michty few folk i' this world who can say they're no dependant upon others in some measure. I ken o' none, myself. It's a fine thing to mind one's ain business, but if one gies the matter thought one will find, I think, that a man's business spreads oot more than maist folk reckon it does.

Here, again. In the States there's been trouble about the men that work on the railways. Can I say it's no my business? Is it no? Suppose they gae oot on strike? How am I to mak' my trips frae one toon the the next? And should I no be finding oot, if there's like that threatening to my business, where the richt lies? You will be finding it's sae, too, in your affairs; there's little can come that willna affect you, soon or late.

We maun all stand together, especially we plain men and women. It was sae that we won the war--and it is sae that we can win the peace noo that it's come again, and mak' it a peace sae gude for a' the world that it can never be broken again by war. There'd be no wars i' the world if peace were sae gude that all men were content. It's discontented men who stir up trouble in the world, and sae mak' wars possible.

We talk much, in these days, of cla.s.ses. There's a phrase it sickens me tae hear--cla.s.s consciousness. It's ane way of setting the man who works wi' his hands against him who works wi' his brain. It's no the way a man works that ought to count--it's that he works at all. Both sorts of work are needful; we canna get along without either sort.

Is no humanity a greater thing than any cla.s.s? We are all human. We maun all be born, and we maun all die in the end. That much we ken, and there's nae sae much more we can be siccar of. And I've often thought that the trouble with most of our hatreds an' our envy and malice is that folk do not know one another well enough. There's fewer quarrels among folk that speak the same tongue. Britain and America dwelt at peace for mair than a hundred years before they took the field together against a common enemy. America and Canada stand side by side--a great strong nation and a small one. There's no fort between them; there are no fichting ships on the great lakes, ready to loose death and destruction.

It's easier to have a good understanding when different peoples speak the same language. But there's a hint o' the way things must be done, I'm thinking, in the future. Britain and France used tae have their quarrels. They spoke different tongues. But gradually they built up a gude understanding of one another, and where's the man in either country the noo that wadna laugh at you if you said there was danger they micht gae tae war?

It's harder, it may be, to promote a gude understanding when there's a different language for a barrier. But walls can be climbed, and there's more than the ane way of pa.s.sing them. We've had a great lesson in that respect in the war. It's the first time that ever a coalition of nations held together. Germany and Austria spoke one language. But we others, with a dozen tongues or mair to separate us, were forged into one mighty confederation by our peril and our consciousness of richt, and we beat doon that barrier of various languages, sae that it had nae existence.

And it's not only foreign peoples that speak a different tongue at times. Whiles you'll find folk of the same family, the same race, the same country, who gie the same words different meanings, and grow confused and angry for that reason. There's a way they can overcome that, and reach an understanding. It's by getting together and talking oot all that confuses and angers them. Speech is a great solvent if a man's disposed any way at all to be reasonable, and I've found, as I've gone about the world, that most men want to be reasonable.

They'll call me an optimist, maybe. I'll no be ashamed of that t.i.tle.

There was a saying I've heard in America that taught me a lot. They've a wee cake there they call a doughnut--awfu' gude eating, though no quite sae gude as Mrs. Lauder's scones. There's round hole in the middle of a doughnut, always. And the Americans have a way of saying: "The optimist sees the doughnut; the pessimist sees the hole." It's a wise crack, you, and it tells you a good deal, if you'll apply it.

There's another way we maun be thinking. We've spent a deal of blood and siller in these last years. We maun e'en have something to show for all we've spent. For a muckle o' the siller we've spent we've just borrowed and left for our bairns and their bairns to pay when the time comes. And we maun leave the world better for those that are coming, or they'll be saying it's but a puir bargain we've made for them, and what we bought wasna worth the price.

CHAPTER XX

There's no sadder sicht my een have ever seen than that of the maimed and wounded laddies that ha' come hame frae this war that is just over. I ken that there's been a deal of talk aboot what we maun do for them that ha' done sae much for us. But I'm thinking we can never think too often of those laddies, nor mak' too many plans to mak' life easier for them. They didna think before they went and suffered. They couldna calculate. Jock could not stand, before the zero hour came in the trenches, and talk' wi' his mate.

He'd not be saying: "Sandy, man, we're going to attack in twa-three meenits. Maybe I'll lose a hand, Sandy, or a leg. Maybe it'll be you'll be hit. What'll we be doing then? Let's mak' our plans the noo.

How'll we be getting on without our legs or our arms or if we should be blind?"

No, it was not in such fashion that the laddies who did the fichting thought or talked wi' one another. They'd no time, for the one thing.

And for another, I think they trusted us.

Weel, each government has worked out its own way of taking care of the men who suffered. They're gude plans, the maist of them. Governments have shown more intelligence, more sympathy, more good judgment, than ever before in handling such matters. That's true in America as well as in Britain. It's so devised that a helpless man will be taken care of a' his life lang, and not feel that he's receiving any charity.

It's nae more than richt that it should be so; it would be a black shame, indeed, if it were otherwise. But still there's more tae be done, and it's for you and me and all the rest of us that didna suffer sae to do it.

There's many things a laddie that's been sair wounded needs and wants when he comes hame. Until he's sure of his food and his roof, and of the care of those dependent on him, if such there be, he canna think of anything else. And those things, as is richt and proper, his country will take in its charge.

But after that what he wants maist is tae know that he's no going to be helpless all his days. He wants to feel that he's some use in the world. Unless he can feel sae, he'd raither ha' stayed in a grave in France, alongside the thousands of others who have stayed there. It's an awfu' thing to be a laddie, wi' maist of the years of your life still before you to be lived, and to be thinking you micht better be dead.

I know what I'm talking aboot when I speak of this. Mind ye, I've pa.s.sed much time of late years in hospitals. I've talked to these laddies when they'd be lying there, thinking--thinking. They'd a' the time in the world to think after they began to get better. And they'd be knowing, then, that they would live--that the bullet or the sh.e.l.l or whatever it micht be that had dropped them had not finished them.

And they'd know, too, by then, that the limb was lost for aye, or the een or whatever it micht be.

Noo, think of a laddie coming hame. He's discharged frae the hospital and frae the army. He's a civilian again. Say he's blind. He's got his pension, his allowance, whatever it may be. There's his living. But is he to be just a hulk, needing some one always to care for him? That's a' very fine at first. Everyone's glad tae do it. He's a hero, and a romantic figure. But let's look a wee bit ahead.

Let's get beyond Jock just at first, when all the folks are eager to see him and have him talk to them. They're glad to sit wi' him, or tae tak' him for a bit walk. He'll no bore them. But let's be thinking of Jock as he'll be ten years frae noo. Who'll be remembering then hoo they felt when he first came home? They'll be thinking of the nuisance it is tae be caring for him a' the time, and of the way he's always aboot the hoose, needing care and attention.

What I'm afraid of is that tae many of the laddies wull be tae tired to fit themselves tae be other than helpless creatures, despite their wounds or their blindness. They can do wonders, if we'll help them. We maun not encourage those laddies tae tak' it tae easy the noo. It's a cruel hard thing to tell a boy like yon that he should be fitting himself for life. It seems that he ought to rest a bit, and tak'

things easy, and that it's a sma' thing, after all he's done, to promise him good and loving care all his days.

Aye, and that's a sma' thing enough--if we're sure we can keep our promise. But after every war--and any old timer can tell ye I'm tellin' ye the truth the noo--there have been crippled and blinded men who have relied upon such promises--and seen them forgotten, seen themselves become a burden. No man likes to think he's a burden. It irks him sair. And it will be irksome specially tae laddies like those who have focht in France.

It's no necessary that any man should do that. The miracles of to-day are all at the service of the wounded laddies. And I've seen things I'd no ha' believed were possible, had I had to depend on the testimony o' other eyes than my own. I've seen men sae hurt that it didna seem possible they could ever do a'thing for themselves again.

And I've seen those same men fend for themselves in a way that was as astonishing as it was heart rending.

The great thing we maun all do wi' the laddies that are sae maimed and crippled is never tae let them ken we're thinking of their misfortunes. That's a hard thing, but we maun do it. I've seen sic a laddie get into a 'bus or a railway carriage. And I've seen him wince when een were turned upon him. Dinna mistake me. They were kind een that gazed on him. The folk were gude folk; they were fu' of sympathy.

They'd ha' done anything in the world for the laddie. But--they were doing the one thing they shouldna ha' done.

Gi'en you're an employer, and a laddie wi' a missing leg comes tae ye seeking a job. You've sent for him, it may be; ye ken work ye can gie him that he'll be able tae do. A' richt--that's splendid, and it's what maun be done. But never let him know you're thinking at a' that his leg's gone. Mak' him feel like ithers. We maun no' be reminding the laddies a' the time that they're different noo frae ither folk.

That's the hard thing.

Gi'en a man's had sic a misfortune. We know--it's been proved a thousand times ower--that a man can rise above sic trouble. But he canno do it if he's thinking of it a' the time. The men that have overcome the handicaps of blindness and deformity are those who gie no thought at all to what ails them--who go aboot as if they were as well and as strong as ever they've been.

It's a hard thing not to be heeding such things.

But it's easier than what these laddies have had to do, and what they must go on doing a' the rest of their lives. They'll not be able to forget their troubles very long; there'll be plenty to remind them.

But let's not gae aboot the streets wi' our een like a pair of looking gla.s.ses in which every puir laddie sees himsel' reflected.