CHAPTER XXXII.—THE ENTHUSIAST.
Philip was a little bothered by what Madge had told him. In honest dealing he was unable to comprehend how man or woman could have any knowledge or design which might not be communicated to the person who was nearest in affection to him or her. He took for granted that he must stand nearest in affection to Madge. If the knowledge or design was not intended to hurt anybody, why should there be any mystery about it? The more light that shone upon one’s work, the better it would be done. Those who by choice worked in the dark must be trying to deceive somebody—maybe themselves. He had as little liking for mysteries as Aunt Hessy herself, because he could not see the use of them.
Had he consulted his brother Coutts on this subject, he would have learned from that City philosopher that the business of every man was to cheat—well, if the sound was more pleasing, overreach—every other man. Only a fool would make plain to others what he was going to do and how he meant to do it—and the fool paid the penalty of his folly by going promptly to the wall. He would have learned that in the race for Fortune there are many runners who want to be first to reach the winning-post. Therefore, it behoved every racer to keep the qualities of his horse dark, and to keep his fellows ignorant of the turns on the course where he purposed to put on an extra spurt and outwit them.
‘A clever lie,’ Coutts would have said with his cynical smile, ‘often saves much trouble, and wins the game. Most of the losers grin and bear, and whilst congratulating the winner, laugh at the “truthful James” who grumbles that he has lost because he did not understand or could not submit to the recognised rules of the course.’
‘But how can a lie be necessary?’ Philip would have asked—‘how can it be useful unless you mean to cheat?’
That was his great stumbling-block: he could not understand the use of a lie, any more than he could understand a captain in a fog running his vessel straight ahead without regard to compass or charts.
Coutts would regard him pityingly, and answer with the calmness of one whose principles are founded upon established law:
‘Why I tell a lie is because I wish to gain an advantage over somebody. If gaining this advantage be cheating, then I must cheat, because everybody else is doing the same thing; or I must submit to be cheated. However, in the City it is vulgar to talk about cheating and lies in connection with respectable business transactions. When we profit by the ignorance of others, we call it rules of trade, custom, and may occasionally go so far as to speak of sharp practice; but so long as a man keeps on the right side of the law, we never use such rude language as you do. When he gets to the wrong side of the law, however—that is, when he is found out—we are down upon him as heavily as you like. You had better not meddle with business, Philip, for you will be fleeced as easily as a sick sheep.’
Philip turned away in disgust from the ethics of selfishness as expounded by his brother, and refused to believe that the primary rule for success in business was to do the best for yourself no matter what others lose, or that any enterprise of moment had ever been carried to a successful issue under the guidance of such a theory. People might hold their tongues when silence meant no harm to any one and possible good to somebody. That was right, and that was what Madge was doing.
So, after the first sensation of bother—for it was not displeasure or suspicion of any kind: only a mixed feeling of regret and astonishment that there could be, even for a brief period, a thought which they might not both possess—he proceeded with the work in hand. She gave him what is most precious to the enthusiast, sympathy and faith in his visions.
‘People of experience,’ he told her, ‘say that I am aiming at an ideal condition of men, which is pretty as an ideal, and absolutely impracticable until human nature has so altered that all men are honest. Besides, they say, I am really striving after community of interest, which has been tried before and failed. Robert Owen tried it long ago—Hawthorne and his friends tried it—and failed. I answer, that although my object is the same as theirs, my way of reaching it is different. It is certainly community of interest that I seek to establish, but under this condition—that the most industrious and most gifted shall take their proper places and reap their due reward. Every man is to stand upon his own merits: if fortune be his aim, let him win it by hard work of hand and brain. The man who works hardest will get most, and he who works least will get least. I think that is perfectly simple, and easily understood by any man or woman who is willing to work. There are to be no drones, as I have said, to hamper the progress of the workers.’
Madge could see it all, and the scheme was a noble one in her eyes, which ought to be workable—if they could only get rid of the drones. But that ‘if’ introduced Philip to his troubles.
The question as to the price of the land Philip desired to purchase had been settled with amazing promptitude after he had, in the rough but emphatic phrase, ‘put his foot down.’ Wrentham came to him with looks of triumph and the exclamation, ‘See the conquering hero comes.’ He was under the impression that he had done a good stroke of business.
‘I treated the greedy beggars to what I call the don’t-care-a-brass-farthing style. I was only an agent, and my principal said take it or leave it. I didn’t care which way they decided, at the same time I had a conviction that they were throwing away a good offer—cash down. We had some fencing—I wish you had been there—and at last they agreed to accept a sum which is only two hundred beyond what you offered, so I closed the bargain.’
The difference was not of much consequence; but for a moment Philip thought it strange that Wrentham had been able to conclude the bargain so easily after what he had told him. The thought, however, passed from his mind immediately.
Now came the business of starting the work. Here Caleb Kersey proved useful, not only in organising the labourers but in dealing with the mechanics. The difficulty was much the same with the skilled and unskilled workers—namely, to enable them to understand that it was better and honester to employer and employed to be paid for the work done than for the time spent over it. Prospective profit did not count for anything in the minds of most of the men; and the ‘honesty’ that was in the system was regarded as only another word for extra profit to the employer.
‘Gammon!’ was the general remark; ‘you don’t take us in with that chaff. We get so much an hour, and we mean to have it.’
In spite of this, however, Philip, aided by Caleb, collected a band of workmen sufficient for his purpose. For a time all went well. There were grumblings occasionally; but most of the men began in a short time to comprehend how they could improve their own position by the amount of work produced. But these presently found themselves hampered and scoffed at by those whose chief object was to ‘put in time.’ That was the grievance of the real workers: the grievance of the master, which was not found out until too late, was that the highest market price for the best materials was paid for the worst. The groans became more numerous, and their outcries louder, as their pay decreased in accordance with their own decrease of production. But they said they had ‘put in time,’ and ought to be paid accordingly. They were completely satisfied with this argument, which proved to themselves beyond question that they were being injured by the man who pretended to be their friend.
Next the unions spoke, and all the men who belonged to them were withdrawn. Those who remained were picketed and boycotted until Philip took what was considered by his friends another mad step.
‘Look here, lads, you who are willing to stand by me—you shall have your home in the works, and before long we shall have help enough. I am sorry that we should have had this breakdown; but I expected something of the sort; and when I started this scheme of mutual labour for mutual profit—I ought to say the system of individual work—I was prepared to encounter much misunderstanding, but I was inspired by the hope that in the end I should find real help amongst the real workers. I am convinced that there are plenty of men willing to work if they can find it. Now, why should we not work together? The principle is a very simple one, and easily understood. You want to get as much as you can. So do I. But in getting it, let us try to deserve it by really earning it. I am trying to earn my share of the profit that ought to come from the capital that I hold in trust. At the same time, I will not allow any man to share with me who says he cannot produce, but must be paid for the time he spends inside our gates.’
He was striving to bridge that troublous sea which lies between capital and labour; and the great pillars of his bridge were to be productive labour on the one side and honest buyers on the other. The men applauded these sentiments, satisfied that nothing was wanting except the honest buyers.
‘The real capital of the world is Brains,’ he said; ‘and to carry out the work which they devise, the labourer of all degrees is as necessary as the man with money.’
‘Hear, hear!’ cried a grim-visaged fellow who was leaving Philip’s service; ‘and, consequently, the labourer ought to have share and share alike in the profits with the money-man.’
‘Undoubtedly; and he should, likewise, take his share in the losses,’ was Philip’s reply; and he endeavoured to explain his projected scheme of the regulation of wages by results.
But this was not easy to understand. So long as he talked of sharing profits, the thing was clear enough; but when it came to be a question of also sharing losses, the majority could not see it. Philip was impatient of their stubborn refusal to believe in what was so plain and simple to him—that when a man was paid for what he produced he would be the gainer or loser according to the degree of his industry.
However, Philip persevered eagerly with his scheme, and in his character of honest buyer of labour he met with many surprises.
Work was scamped: he detected it, and dismissed the scampers. They went to join the clamorous crowd of incompetent or lazy workmen who cry that they only want work, but do not add to the cry that they want it on their own terms.
The few real workers who remained became disheartened because they were so few, and some of them were frightened by vicious crowds outside. They had wives and families dependent on them; but they must obey the inexorable majority, although in doing so they would have to accept charity or starvation. They accepted the charity, and clamoured more loudly than ever against the tyranny of capital which left them no other alternative. They loafed about public-houses, drank beer, discussed their grievances, whilst their wives went out charing or washing. And they called themselves over their pewter pots the ill-used, down-trodden people of England!
‘I wish you could get rid of all that sham,’ Philip said, irritated at last with himself as much as with the men. ‘So long as you are mean enough to live upon the earnings of your wives, and what you can borrow or obtain from charity, and thus supported, refuse to work unless the terms and the nature of your work be exactly what you choose to accept, you will never have the right to call yourselves honest sellers of labour. I want you to understand me. I say that if a man wants work, he should be ready to take up any job that is offered him, whether it is in his line or not. The nature of the work is of no consequence so long as a man can do it, for all work is honourable. What is of consequence is that a man should be independent of the parish and the earnings of his wife. I say, here is work; come and do it: you shall not only have payment for what you do, but a share in whatever extra profit it may produce.’
That speech settled the whole affair so far as the men were concerned. All, except some half-dozen, left him, and filled their haunts with outcries against the new monopolist who wanted them actually to produce so much work for so much pay. Meanwhile, they got on comfortably enough with the earnings of their wives and the parish loaves.
‘God forbid that we should call such creatures workmen!’ cried Philip in his desperation; ‘but the country is crowded with them—a disgrace as much to legislation as to human nature. Let us see how we can do without them.’
He could have done without them if he had been allowed a fair chance. But in the first place, there was Wrentham’s frankly declared objection that the scheme was all nonsense, and could never succeed until all men ceased to be greedy or lazy. And then there was the hardest blow of all to Philip in the sudden change which came over Caleb Kersey.
Caleb had entered upon the work with an enthusiasm as strong as that of Philip himself, although not so openly expressed. There was a glow of hopefulness and happiness on his honest brown face when Philip first laid the plans before him. Here was the Utopia of which he had vaguely dreamed: here was the chance for poor men to take their place in the social sphere according to their capacities and without regard to the conditions under which they started. Here was the chance for every man to have his fair share of the world’s wealth.
‘I hadn’t the means to work it out as you have, sir, but my notion has always been something of the kind that you have got into ship-shape form. I’ll try to help you.’
And he kept his word. There was no more earnest worker on Shield’s Land (that was the name Philip had given to the estate he purchased) than Caleb. Example, advice, and suggestions of the practical advantage each man would secure if he faithfully followed out the rules Philip had laid down, were given by him to all his fellow-workmen.
Suddenly the enthusiasm disappeared. The light seemed to fade from his eyes; and Caleb, who had been the sustaining force of the workers, became dull and listless.
About Wrentham’s opposition there was a degree of lightness; as if one should say, ‘Just as you please, sir; I don’t believe in it, but I am entirely at your command,’ which did not affect personal intercourse. With Caleb it was the reverse, because he felt more deeply. Wrentham could be at his ease because he regarded the whole affair as a matter of business out of which he was to make some money. Caleb thought only of the possibilities the scheme suggested of the future of the workman.
Philip had given up all hope of persuading Wrentham to believe in his theories; but he could not give up Caleb. So he resolved to speak to him.
‘What is wrong, Kersey? You have not lost heart because those fellows have left us?’
‘No, not because of that’ (hesitatingly and slowly); ‘but they were not so much to blame in leaving us as you may think, sir.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, they did not understand you; and when they saw things coming in in the raw state at higher prices than could be got for them when made up, they didn’t see where the profit you spoke of was to come from.’
‘Oh——!’ murmured Philip, curiosity aroused, and the note passing through the stages of surprise and perplexity to suspicion. ‘Why have you not told me about this before?’
‘It weren’t my place, sir; Mr Wrentham has charge of these things.’
A pause, during which Philip tried a paper-knife on the desk as if it were a rapier. Then: ‘All right; I’ll see about that. But you have not answered me as to yourself. You are sulking for some reason. You say it is not the loss of the men which has put you out of sorts; I know it is nothing connected with me, or you would tell me. Then what is it?’
There was no answer; but Caleb bowed his head and moved as if he wished to go.
‘You have not heard anything about Pansy?’ said Philip suddenly, moved by a good-natured desire to discover the cause of the man’s depression, in the hope that he might be able to relieve it.
There was a lurch of the broad shoulders, and Caleb’s dark eyes flashed like two bull’s-eye lanterns on his master. ‘No—have you?’
The question was an awkward one for Philip, remembering what he had thought about the attentions of his brother to the gardener’s daughter. He was immediately relieved from his unpleasant position by Caleb himself. ‘No—I won’t ask you that, sir; it ’ud be hard lines for you to have to speak about’——
The rest was a mumble, and Caleb again moved towards the door. Philip called him back. ‘I won’t pretend not to know what you mean, Kersey,’ he said kindly; ‘but if you listen to what is said by envious wenches or spiteful lads, you are a confounded fool. Trust her, man; trust her. That is the way to be worthy of a worthy woman.’
‘And the way to be fooled by an unworthy one,’ said Wrentham, who came in as the last sentence was being uttered. Then seeing Philip’s frown and Caleb’s scowl, he added apologetically: ‘I beg your pardon. I thought and hope you were speaking generally, not of any one in particular.’
‘Come to my chambers this afternoon, Kersey; I want to speak to you.’
Caleb gave one of his awkward nods and left the office.