City of Endless Night Part 26

"And who," asked h.e.l.lar, "did you think owned Berlin?"

I confessed that I had never thought of that.

"Few of our intellectual cla.s.s have ever thought of that," replied h.e.l.lar, "unless they are well read in political history. But at the time of the Hohenzollern restoration labour owned all property in true communal ownership. They did not release it to the Royal House, but merely turned over the administration of the property to the Emperor as an agent."

These belated explanations of the fundamental ideas of German society quite confused and confounded me, though h.e.l.lar seemed in no wise surprised at my ignorance, since as a chemist I had originally been supposed to know only of atoms and valences and such like matters.

Seeking a way out of these contradictions I asked: "How is it then that labour is so powerless, since you say that it owns the state, and even the Emperor rules by its permission?"

"Napoleon--have you ever heard of him?"

"Yes," I admitted--and then recalling my role as a German chemist I hastened to add--"Napoleon was a directing chemist who achieved a plan for increasing the food supply in his day by establishing the sugar beet industry."

"Is that so?" exclaimed h.e.l.lar. "I didn't know that. I thought he was only an Emperor--anyway, Napoleon said that if you tell men they are equal you can do as you please with them. So when William III was elected to the throne by labour, he insisted that they retain the power and re-elect him every five years. He was very popular because he invented the armoured city--our new Berlin--some day I will tell you of that--and so of course he was re-elected, and his son after him. Though most of the intellectuals do not know that it exists the ceremony of election is a great occasion on the labour levels. The Emperor speaks all day through the horns and on the picture screens. The workers think he is actually speaking, though of course it is a collection of old films and records of the Royal Voice. When they have seen and heard the speeches, the labourers vote, and then go back to their work and are very happy."

"But suppose they should sometime fail to re-elect him?"

"No danger," said h.e.l.lar; "there is only one name on the ballot and the ballots are dumped into the paper mill without inspection."

"Most extraordinary," I exclaimed.

"Most ordinary," contradicted h.e.l.lar; "it is not even an exclusively German inst.i.tution; we have merely perfected it. Voting everywhere is a very useful device in organized government. In the cruder form used in democracies there were two or more candidates. It usually made little difference which was elected; but the system was imperfect because the voters who voted for the candidate which lost were not pleased. Then there was the trouble of counting the ballots. We avoid all this."

"It is all very interesting," I said, "but who is the real authority?"

"Ah," said h.e.l.lar, "this matter of authority is one of our most subtle conceptions. The weakness of ancient governments was in the fact that the line of authority was broken. It came somewhere to an end. But now authority flows up from labour to the Emperor and then descends again to labour through the administrative line of which we are one link. It is an unbroken circuit."

But I was still unsatisfied, for it annoyed me not to be able to understand the system of German politics, as I had always prided myself that, for a scientist, I understood politics remarkably well.

~2~

I had gone to h.e.l.lar for enlightenment because I was gravely alarmed over the rumours of a strike among the labourers in the Protium Works. I had read in the outside world of the murder and destruction of these former civil wars of industry. With a working population so cruelly held to the treadmill of industrial bondage the idea of a strike conjured up in my fancy the beginning of a b.l.o.o.d.y revolution. With so vast a population so utterly dependent upon the orderly processes of industry the possible terrors of an industrial revolution were horrible beyond imagining; and for the moment all thoughts of escape, or of my own plans for negotiating the surrender of Berlin to the World State, were swept aside by the stern responsibilities that devolved upon me as the Director of Works wherein a terrible strike seemed brewing.

The first rumour of the strike of the labourers in the Protium Works had come to me from the Listening-in-Service. Since Berlin was too complicated and congested a spot for wireless communication to be practical, the electrical conduct of sound was by antiquated means of metal wires. The workers' Free Speech Halls were all provided with receiving horns by which they made their appeals to His Majesty, of which I shall speak presently. These instruments were provided with cut-offs in the halls. They had been so designed by the electrical engineers, who were of the intellectual caste, that not even the workers who installed and repaired them knew that the cut-offs were a blind and that the Listening-in-Service heard every word that was said at their secret meetings, when all but workers were, by law and custom, excluded from the halls.

And so the report came to me that the workers were threatening strike.

Their grievance came about in this fashion. My new process had reduced the number of men needed in the works. This would require that some of the men be transferred to other industries. But the transfer was a slow process, as all the workers would have to be examined anatomically and their psychic reflexes tested by the labour a.s.signment experts and those selected re-trained for other labour. That work was proceeding slowly, for there was a shortage of experts because some similar need of transfers existed in one of the metal industries. Moreover, my labour psychologist considered it dangerous to transfer too many men, as they were creatures of habit, and he advised that we ought merely to cease to take on new workers, but wait for old age and death to reduce the number of our men, meanwhile retaining the use of the old extraction process in part of the works.

"Impossible," I replied, "unless you would have your rations cut and the city put on a starvation diet. Do you not know that the reserve store of protium that was once enough to last eight years is now reduced to less than as many months' supply?"

"That is none of my affair," said the labour psychologist; "these chemical matters I do not comprehend. But I advise against these transfers, for our workers are already in a furor about the change of operations in the work."

"But," I protested, "the new operations are easier than the old; besides we can cut down the speed of operations, which ought to help you take care of these surplus men."

"Pardon, Herr Chief," returned the elderly labour psychologist, "you are a great chemist, a very great chemist, for your invention has upset the labour operation more than has anything that ever happened in my long experience, but I fear you do not realize how necessary it is to go slow in these matters. You ask men who have always opened a faucet from left to right to now open one that moves in a vertical plane. Here, I will show you; move your arm so; do you not see that it takes different muscles?"

"Yes, of course, but what of it? The solution flows faster and the operation is easier."

"It is easy for you to say that; for you or me it would make no difference since our muscles have all been developed indiscriminately."

"But what are your labour gymnasiums for, if not to develop all muscles?"

"Now do not misunderstand me. I serve as an interpreter between the minds of the workers and your mind as Director of the Works. As for the muscles developed in the gymnasium, those were developed for sport and not for labour. But that is not the worst of it; you have designed the new benches so low that the mixers must stoop at their work. It is very painful."

"Good G.o.d," I cried, "what became of the stools? The mixers are to sit down--I ordered two thousand stools."

"That I know, Herr Chief, but the equipment expert consulted me about the matter and I countermanded the order. It would never do. I did not consult you, it is true, but that was merely a kindness. I did not wish to expose your lack of knowledge, if I may call it such."

"Call it what you please," I snapped, for at the time I thought my labour psychologist was a fool, "but get those stools, immediately."

"But it would never do."

"Why not?"

"Because these men have always stood at their work."

"But why can they not sit down now?"

"Because they never have sat down."

"Do they not sit down to eat?"

"Yes, but not to work. It is very different. You do not understand the psychic immobility of labour. Habits grow stronger as the mentality is simplified. I have heard that there are animals in the zoological garden that still perform useless operations that their remote ancestors required in their jungle life."

"Then do you infer that these men who must stand at their work inherited the idea from their ancestors?"

"That is a matter of eugenics. I do not know, but I do know that we are preparing for trouble with these changes. Still I hope to work it out without serious difficulty, if you do not insist on these transfers.

When workmen have already been forced to change their habitual method of work and then see their fellows being removed to other and still stranger work it breeds dangerous unrest."

"One thing is certain," I replied; "we cannot delay the installation of the new method; as fast as the equipment is ready the new operation must replace the old."

"But the effect of that policy will be that there will not be enough work, and besides the work is, as you say, lighter and that will result in the cutting down of the food rations."

"But I have already arranged that," I said triumphantly; "the Rationing Bureau have adjusted the calorie standards so that the men will get as much food as they have been used to."

"What! you have done that?" exclaimed the labour psychologist; "then there will be trouble. That will destroy the balance of the food supply and the expenditure of muscular energy and the men will get fat. Then the other men will accuse them of stealing food and we shall have bloodshed."

"A moment ago," I smiled, "you told me I did not know your business. Now I will tell you that you do not know mine. We ordered special food bulked up in volume; the scheme is working nicely; you need not worry about that. As for the other matter, this surplus of men, it seems to me that the only thing is to cut down the working hours temporarily until the transfers can be made."

The psychologist shook his head. "It is dangerous," he said, "and very unusual. I advise instead that you have the operation engineers go over the processes and involve the operations, both to make them more nearly resemble the old ones, and to add to the time and energy consumption of the tasks."

"No," I said emphatically, "I invented a more economical process for this industry and I do not propose to see my invention prost.i.tuted in this fashion. I appreciate your advice, but if we cannot transfer the workers any faster, then the labour hours must be cut. I will issue the order tomorrow. This is my final decision."

I was in authority and that settled the matter. The psychologist was very decent about it and helped me fix up a speech and that next night the workers were ordered to a.s.semble in their halls and I made my speech into a transmitting horn. I told them that they had been especially honoured by their Emperor, who, appreciating their valuable service, had granted them a part-time vacation and that until further notice their six-hour shifts were to be cut to four. I further told them that their rations would not be reduced and advised them to take enough extra exercise in the gymnasium to offset their shorter hours so they would not get fat and be the envy of their fellows.

~3~

For a time the workers seemed greatly pleased with their shorter hours.

And then, from the Listening-in-Service, came the rumour of the strike.

The first report of the strike gave me no clue to the grievance and I asked for fuller reports. When these came the next day I was shocked beyond belief. If I had antic.i.p.ated anything in that interval of terror it was that my workers were to strike because their communications had been shut off or that they were to strike in sympathy for their fellows and demand that all hours be shortened like their own. But the grievance was not that. My men were to go on strike for the simple reason that their hours had been shortened!