The Sequel Part 14

The allied armies were kept out of Berlin because their presence there would have given opportunity for tumult, and perhaps seriously interrupted the course of events the Humanists were, perhaps unconsciously, shaping in favor of the Allies.

The change in German politics cleared out the Hohenzollern regime, deposed the Kaiser and his cla.s.s, and as the chief policy doctrine of the Humanists was disarmament, it suited the Allies to let the people do the work for them.

The wisdom of this step was evident when news came through that the Humanist movement was spreading across France and England.

In Belgium and France it met with more opposition than it did in Germany. Strange to say the Belgian "Joan of Arc" was the leader. She preached the cause of "the capitalist" with much vigor. I do not know why she took up this political campaign. Maybe the wonderful response to her appeals for financial aid for the starving Belgians won her sympathy when she saw the capitalistic cla.s.s that helped her in danger of being destroyed.

Her eloquence, spiced by anecdote and parable, won many followers. She pointed out that the doctrine of the Humanist in abolishing world compet.i.tion hit at the fundamental principle that made for initiative and made man utilise thought and self-improvement.

"Abolish compet.i.tion or distinction," she said, "and all men come under the one rule, like so many animals."

She pointed to Joffre and Kitchener as successful examples of the old and well-tried system.

She pointed to Belgium's King, Albert, who fought throughout the war in the fighting line, sharing the lot of the soldier. She was joined in her campaign by many of her own s.e.x, even from Berlin, whence many had departed, at the advent of the Humanist campaign which was spreading throughout Germany.

When the Reichstag elections were decided, a force from each of the Allied armies entrained for Berlin and, to my delight, my company was among those favored.

It is difficult for one accustomed to plain writing to tell in fitting phrases the wonderful enthusiasm that reigned as our troop-trains slowly rolled into Berlin.

Along ten lines, crowded with continuous trains, we were conveyed to our destination. Our trains were preceded by slow trains which dropped guards at each bridge and station.

As our train steamed into the depot outside Berlin, I saw the wonderful system of getting away troops. As soon as a train arrived columns poured into a great park adjoining and took up allotted places.

As we pa.s.sed along the streets the populace did not show any of the fright and fear we fancied our presence would cause. They chatted, smiled and pointed at us as if it were an ordinary parade of troops and not the triumphant conquerors of their country.

Truth to tell, they were mighty sick of the war and the long preparation, and our presence proved it was all over.

I remember, best of all, the frenzied welcome we received from the Russian forces who had trained in from the south east.

They had kept the enemy busy on the east whilst we were moving up. It was like the meeting of many friends who had come through adversity together.

I can only picture one simile. I remember a story of two miners imprisoned in a mine. They were cut off from all help and separated, but began digging to meet one another. After many hours they cut through the wall of clay that stood between them. Their hand-grip must have been as ours was on that wonderful day in August.

It would take three days for all troops to detrain, so I sought the earliest opportunity of finding Miss Goche. Nap came with me. The only clue I had was that she had been removed to a concentration camp at Berlin. I found that camp. A military officer who could speak English saluted as we approached and informed us that all foreign military prisoners had been transferred to Belgium and given their liberty.

"Was a Miss Goche among them?" I anxiously asked.

"I cannot say," he replied.

My heart sank. I felt that it was a difficult task for a stranger unacquainted with German and a former enemy to attempt to trace the information.

Nap tapped me on the shoulder, and in order to cheer me said: "You've got a friend here, come and look him up."

There would be little difficulty in finding Wilbrid, he was now a public character. So we took a car for the Humanist headquarters and there we found him seated at a large desk in his shirt sleeves. On either side of him were two dictaphones, and into the cylinders he was alternatively dictating his correspondence. As one cylinder would fill it would automatically ring, and he would turn to the other, an a.s.sistant removing the filled cylinder.

We stood behind him at the end of the room afraid to interrupt, but he turned and, seeing me, rose and came with outstretched hand.

"My brother Jefson," he said. "I know your first desire. You have been to the concentration camp. I found your friend there. When I returned to Cologne I found she had been arrested for a.s.sisting your escape. I traced her to the camp, gave her your letter and saw much of her for your sake. But she has gone--to Belgium. She was high-spirited. I talked much to her of the Humanist creed, but she would have none of it: so on her release she left for Belgium and she joined the woman called the Belgian "Joan of Arc."

CHAPTER XXII.

The Great Combine.

"Your war has ended at last," said Wilbrid, after a long pause. "Ours is but beginning; and our conquest will not be limited by an empire's boundaries, or even by those of a continent. It will embrace the earth."

Having spoken he turned to the window and peered at the blood-red sunset contemplatively.

I surveyed his tall, spare figure, his steel grey hair and sharply-cut features, the latter pinked by the evening glow.

Here is a new Kaiser, I thought.

"You said a 'world conquest,'" I remarked to him. "Don't you think the days have gone when persons should 'talk big'? The great war should henceforth limit the ambitions of those who dream of world's dominion by conquest."

"Do not misunderstand me," he said. "We shall conquer the world because of the human appeal of our creed. Its basis is that the strength of a nation lies in the welfare of its producers--the working cla.s.s, and not in its mighty armaments or individual wealth. There is not an atom of national strength in the acc.u.mulation of much money by any individual.

Where wealth is in the hands of the few, misery stalks among the many; and, where the ma.s.ses are ill-fed and hopeless, moral and physical strength cannot exist."

Then he walked from the window to his desk and back again; his arms still behind him, flinging his phrases at us as he pa.s.sed to and fro.

"Great things can only be achieved by combination," he went on. "The victory of the Allies is proof of that. We are going to combine all workers, and, in order to make our combination supreme, we will not only organise those at work, but, also, those out of work. It is going to be a combination of all who can labor," he snapped out.

"Up till now," he continued, "there have been more men in the world than there have been jobs to go round; so there have always been many unemployed. Those unemployed are the men who keep down the wages of the workers. If there were no men or women to take the jobs from those who work, then the workers could demand shorter hours and a better share of the wealth they produce. It is the unemployed who have been keeping up the compet.i.tion in wages. That is where they have been useful to the employer.

"Up till now the workers have struggled to hold their jobs; and have fought to maintain or raise their wages without taking into account the thousands of unemployed who need work.

"Those out of work are humans after all, and when hunger drives them to take the work at lower wages, they're called 'scabs' and other vile names; and we have treated them as our bitterest enemies.

"Can you blame a man whose wife is sinking and whose children cry for food, if he is willing to take a job at less than the wage you get?

"Would not any man lower the wages scale and take another man's job for less, in order to save the life of his wife and the new baby? Should any union principles stand between him and his wife's life? That is why we are going to combine with the unemployed."

It had grown dark, so he stepped to the wall and touched a switch. As the light flooded the room I ventured a reply.

"Don't you think the human appeal in your creed is rather one-sided," I remarked. "Why not purge your workers' unions first! You know there are certain trade unions that make the entrance fees so high, that many of their own trade are excluded."

"There is a Wharf Laborers' Union in Australia that has an entrance fee that is considered to prohibit new membership, and it has as its secretary a Federal Minister of the Crown."

"I guess you're right just there," Nap put in. "The Union of Gla.s.s Blowers of the U.S.A. demand 1000 dollars as initiation fee; so they get fine pay and they're 'some' people, I guess."

"There are unions in Australia," I rejoined, "that not only demand a high entrance fee, but, in order to continue a monopoly of employment, are limiting the number of apprentices who desire to learn their trade.

"There are unionists who, when work is slack and members are unemployed, will advocate shorter hours at the same rate of pay so as to make room for their unemployed mates.

"And, perhaps, you are not aware that Australia is a land where Nature is so generous that in its short history it has reached the highest level in the world's wheat and wool production. Yet in that land, twenty times the size of your Germany and with one-thirteenth of your population, the workers discourage immigration of people of their own British race, because they foolishly fancy the newcomers would create compet.i.tion in their high-priced work; and that is in a wonderful land crying out for development and only having an average population of one person to the square mile."

I finished in a highly-strung manner, but Wilbrid came forward and put his hands on my shoulders.