"A LITTLE HOLIDAY!"
[It is proposed that 450,000 colliers belonging to the Miners' Federation should cease work for a week or a fortnight. This, it is said, is regarded as an "amicable" Strike, not against the Masters, but to raise the price of coal by producing an artificial scarcity, and thus avoiding a threatened reduction of wages consequent upon over-production. This the Miners call, "Going on Play.">[
Out-of-Worker to Out-on-Player:—
Who talks of "Solidarity of Labour,"—
A favourite shibboleth in these our days?—
To recognise one's duty to one's neighbour
Is that which all—in theory—will praise.
And Unions are upheld, and "Blacklegs" scouted—
Friends of Fraternity their heads must break
To prove their loyal brotherhood undoubted!—
But here there seems to be some slight mistake.
Going on Play, mate, you of the broad shoulders?
Take holiday awhile from pick and lamp?
Well your hard toil impresses all beholders,
Sweating amidst black seams and choking "damp."
A "holiday," for rest and recreation,
None would begrudge you. But at the expense
Of every other worker in the nation?
I don't quite see it! Maybe I am dense.
A "friendly" Strike, you call it; "amicable"!
Nice sounding words! Strikes mostly mean hot war.
But in to-day's wild Socialistic Babel
Blest if I always know just where we are.
But if I'm out of work, or out of fuel,
Me and a many thousand like me, mate,
Your "friendly" conflict seems a leetle cruel
To us, with idle hands or empty grate.
I'd like to taste the sweets of "solidarity"
In this connection; so would my pale friend;
He's a poor Clerk. I fancy human charity,
All round, a lot of bitter strife would end;
And if that's "solidarity," I'm for it;
But in your "play" are you considering us?
No need for snivelling bunkum; I abhor it;
But does fraternity shape itself thus?
Must fight for your own hand? Oh, ah! precisely.
Only that's ISHMAEL, after all, right out.
Maybe that for yourself you're acting wisely,—
Though even that seems open to some doubt,—
But if your self-advancement means a smasher
To mill-hand, poor mechanic, labourer, clerk,
Without a fire to fry his slender "rasher,"
Fraternity's outlook still looks rather dark.
With Coal two bob a hundred, and still rising,
Poor folk who buy it by the fourteen pound,
(Dukes at St. James's Hall, this sounds surprising,
But if you'd understand it, just look round!)
Dockers and Brickies, charwomen and "childer,"
With such small deer, mate, as my friend and me,
Find one more "Social Question" to bewilder
The small brains left us by chill poverty.
Fighting our battle? Humph! A rather roundabout
Way of so doing! P'r'aps your Masters, too,
Would claim the same—there are such Bosses found about;
Westminsters, Liveseys, Norwoods, and that crew,
All for our good, not only Strike-Committees,
But Rate-payers' Defence Leagues, and the like!
Oh, the poor Propertied Classes! How one pities
Those victims of the School Board, Council, Strike!
If Miners and Mine-Owners pull together
To raise the price of Coal—well, it may suit
Both them and you. But, in this bitter weather,
Your "Solidarity" brings us bitter fruit.
When our pinched fire dies down to its last ember,
The picture of you "making holiday" thus
Won't warm our wives and kids. Strike!—but remember
That what is "Play" to you means death to us!
A POSER FOR MR. WEATHERBY.—Mrs. RAM is not in the least astonished at its being said that certain horses turn out "regular flyers," because, she says, "she has often heard of mares' nests."
"MINER PREMISES."—In the Coal Districts.
