Endymion Part 35

"Then it would rather seem that they have no capital now to spare to purchase our goods?"

"Not so," said Thornberry sharply, "as I have shown; but were it so, it does not affect my principle. If there were free exchange, we should find employment and compensation in other countries, even if the States were logged, which I don't believe thirty millions of people with boundless territory ever can be."

"But after all," said Endymion, "America is as little in favour of free exchange as we are. She may send us her bread-stuffs; but her laws will not admit our goods, except on the payment of enormous duties."

"Pish!" said Thornberry; "I do not care this for their enormous duties.

Let me have free imports, and I will soon settle their duties."

"To fight hostile tariffs with free imports," said Endymion; "is not that fighting against odds?"

"Not a bit. This country has nothing to do but to consider its imports.

Foreigners will not give us their products for nothing; but as for their tariffs, if we were wise men, and looked to our real interests, their hostile tariffs, as you call them, would soon be falling down like an old wall."

"Well, I confess," said Endymion, "I have for some time thought the principle of free exchange was a sound one; but its application in a country like this would be very difficult, and require, I should think, great prudence and moderation."

"By prudence and moderation you mean ignorance and timidity," said Thornberry scornfully.

"Not exactly that, I hope," said Endymion; "but you cannot deny that the home market is a most important element in the consideration of our public wealth, and it mainly rests upon the agriculture of the country."

"Then it rests upon a very poor foundation," said Thornberry.

"But if any persons should be more tempted than others by free exchange, it should be the great body of the consumers of this land, who pay unjust and excessive prices for every article they require. No, my dear Mr. Ferrars; the question is a very simple one, and we may talk for ever, and we shall never alter it. The laws of this country are made by the proprietors of land, and they make them for their own benefit. A man with a large estate is said to have a great stake in the country because some hundreds of people or so are more or less dependent on him. How has he a greater interest in the country than a manufacturer who has sunk 100,000 pounds in machinery, and has a thousand people, as I had, receiving from him weekly wages? No home market, indeed! Pah! it is an affair of rent, and nothing more or less. And England is to be ruined to keep up rents. Are you going? Well, I am glad we have met. Perhaps we shall have another talk together some day. I shall not return to the works. There is little doing there, and I must think now of other things. The subscriptions to the League begin to come in apace. Say what they like in the House of Commons and the vile London press, the thing is stirring."

Wishing to turn the conversation a little, Endymion asked Mrs.

Thornberry whether she occasionally went to London.

"Never was there," she said, in a sharp, clear voice; "but I hope to go soon."

"You will have a great deal to see."

"All I want to see, and hear, is the Rev. Servetus Frost," replied the lady. "My idea of perfect happiness is to hear him every Sunday. He comes here sometimes, for his sister is settled here; a very big mill.

He preached here a month ago. Should not I have liked the bishop to have heard him, that's all! But he would not dare to go; he could not answer a point."

"My wife is of the Unitarian persuasion," said Thornberry. "I am not. I was born in our Church, and I keep to it; but I often go to chapel with my wife. As for religion generally, if a man believes in his Maker and does his duty to his neighbours, in my mind that is sufficient."

Endymion bade them good-bye, and strolled musingly towards his hotel.

Just as he reached the works again, he encountered Enoch Craggs, who was walking into Manchester.

"I am going to our inst.i.tute," said Enoch. "I do not know why, but they have put me on the committee."

"And, I doubt not, they did very wisely," said Endymion.

"Master Thornberry was glad to see you?" said Enoch.

"And I was glad to see him."

"He has got the gift of speech," said Enoch.

"And that is a great gift."

"If wisely exercised, and I will not say he is not exercising it wisely.

Certainly for his own purpose, but whether that purpose is for the general good--query?"

"He is against monopoly," observed Endymion inquiringly.

"Query again?" said Enoch.

"Well; he is opposed to the corn laws."

"The corn laws are very bad laws," said Enoch, "and the sooner we get rid of them the better. But there are worse things than the corn laws."

"Hem!" said Endymion.

"There are the money laws," said Enoch.

"I did not know you cared so much about them at Manchester," said Endymion. "I thought it was Birmingham that was chiefly interested about currency."

"I do not care one jot about currency," said Enoch; "and, so far as I can judge, the Birmingham chaps talk a deal of nonsense about the matter. Leastwise, they will never convince me that a slip of irredeemable paper is as good as the young queen's head on a twenty-shilling piece. I mean the laws that secure the acc.u.mulation of capital, by which means the real producers become mere hirelings, and really are little better than slaves."

"But surely without capital we should all of us be little better than slaves?"

"I am not against capital," replied Enoch. "What I am against is capitalists."

"But if we get rid of capitalists we shall soon get rid of capital."

"No, no," said Enoch, with his broad accent, shaking his head, and with a laughing eye. "Master Thornberry has been telling you that. He is the most inveterate capitalist of the whole lot; and I always say, though they keep aloof from him at present, they will be all sticking to his skirts before long. Master Thornberry is against the capitalists in land; but there are other capitalists nearer home, and I know more about them. I was reading a book the other day about King Charles--Charles the First, whose head they cut off--I am very liking to that time, and read a good deal about it; and there was Lord Falkland, a great gentleman in those days, and he said, when Archbishop Laud was trying on some of his priestly tricks, that, 'if he were to have a pope, he would rather the pope were at Rome than at Lambeth.' So I sometimes think, if we are to be ruled by capitalists, I would sooner, perhaps, be ruled by gentlemen of estate, who have been long among us, than by persons who build big mills, who come from G.o.d knows where, and, when they have worked their millions out of our flesh and bone, go G.o.d knows where. But perhaps we shall get rid of them all some day--landlords and mill-lords."

"And whom will you subst.i.tute for them?"

"The producers," said Enoch, with a glance half savage, half triumphant.

"What can workmen do without capital?"

"Why, they make the capital," said Enoch; "and if they make the capital, is it not strange that they should not be able to contrive some means to keep the capital? Why, Job was saying the other day that there was nothing like a principle to work upon. It would carry all before it. So say I. And I have a principle too, though it is not Master Thornberry's.

But it will carry all before it, though it may not be in my time. But I am not so sure of that."

"And what is it?" asked Endymion.

"CO-OPERATION."

CHAPTER LXIV

This strangely-revived acquaintance with Job Thornberry was not an unfruitful incident in the life of Endymion. Thornberry was a man of original mind and singular energy; and, although of extreme views on commercial subjects, all his conclusions were founded on extensive and various information, combined with no inconsiderable practice. The mind of Thornberry was essentially a missionary one. He was always ready to convert people; and he acted with ardour and interest on a youth who, both by his ability and his social position, was qualified to influence opinion. But this youth was gifted with a calm, wise judgment, of the extent and depth of which he was scarcely conscious himself; and Thornberry, like all propagandists, was more remarkable for his zeal and his convictions, than for that observation and perception of character which are the finest elements in the management of men and affairs.

"What you should do," said Thornberry, one day, to Endymion, "is to go to Scotland; go to the Glasgow district; that city itself, and Paisley, and Kilmarnock--keep your eye on Paisley. I am much mistaken if there will not soon be a state of things there which alone will break up the whole concern. It will burst it, sir; it will burst it."