"Exactly. And a society of workers running their own business would not have the gumption to see that the new methods would be a gain in the end?"
"The fact remains that they have tried and failed," he said.
"That merely proves that the workers without their managers are hopeless," I said. "What can you expect from a section of the community that has never been educated? You can't make a man slave ten hours a day for a living wage and then expect him to have the organising ability of Martin the cigar merchant, or the vision of Gamage the universal provider. A rich merchant in London said to me when I asked him point blank if he always thought of his profits: 'Profits be blowed! The great thing is the game of business!' I don't see any reason in the world why the manager of say The Enfield Cycle Company should not be as energetic and as capable if he were managing a factory for the Cycle Guild."
"The workers would interfere with him," said the official; "every workman who had a grudge against him would try to get him put off the managership."
"Lord!" I cried, "for a representative of Labour you seem to have a poor opinion of the democracy you speak for! If that is your attitude to your fellow-workmen I quite understand your modest demands for Labour. If the rank and file of the Trade Unions can't rise higher than squabbling about whether a manager should be sacked or not, the Trade Unions had better content themselves with the programme their leaders have arranged for them. They had better concentrate their attention on trifles like a Minimum Wage or an Old Age Pension."
A disturbing thought comes to me to-night. Democracy means rule by the majority ... and the majority is always wrong. The only comfort I can find lies in the thought that the majority of to-day represents the opinions of the minority of yesterday. Democracy will always be twenty years behind its time.
* * *
To-day has been a very wet Sunday. I did not get up till one o'clock. Margaret came over about tea-time and invited me to sample some drop scones she had been making. She was in a skittish mood, and she began to turn my bothy upside down on the allegation that it was time for autumn cleaning. I ordered her to the door, and she sat down on my bed and laughed at me. I said that I would throw a drop scone at her head if it were not for the danger of shying weights about indiscriminately, and she threw my pillow at me. I rose from my chair and went to her.
"Out you come, you besom!" I cried and I seized her by the shoulders. We struggled ... and I suddenly realised that as we paused for breath her face was very near mine. I threw my arms around her and kissed her straight on the lips. Then slowly we parted and we stood looking at each other. Her face had become very serious.
"You—you shouldn't have done that!" she gasped.