OUR DEAR OLD FRIEND THE FOREIGN SPY

Strikes and Unemployment

This record—and it is by no means exhaustive—of Punch's humanitarian activities must not blind us to the fact that throughout these years the principal object of his sympathy and compassion was not the working man but the middle-class tax-and rate-payer. In 1893 Punch depicts him bound to a post and in danger of being drowned by the rising tide of rates—L.C.C., Asylums, Libraries, Baths, Vestries. Punch, as we have seen, did not acquit the coal owners and coal merchants of rapacity, but he was not any more sympathetic to the miners—witness the following dialogue printed in the same year:—

THE STRIKER'S VADE MECUM

Question. You think it is a good thing to strike?

Answer. Yes, when there is no other remedy.

Q. Is there ever any other remedy?

A. Never. At least, so say the secretaries.

Q. Then you stand by the opinions of the officials?

A. Why, of course; because they are paid to give them.

Q. But have not the employers any interests?

A. Lots, but they are not worthy the working man's consideration.

Q. But are not their interests yours?

A. Yes, and that is the way we guard over them.

Q. But surely it is the case of cutting off the nose to spite the mouth?

A. And why not, if the mouth is too well fed.

Q. But are not arguments better than bludgeons?

A. No. And bludgeons are less effective than revolvers.

Q. But may not the use of revolvers produce the military?

A. Yes, but they can do nothing without a magistrate reading the Riot Act.

Q. But, the Riot Act read, does not the work become serious?

A. Probably. But at any rate the work is lawful, because unremunerative.

Q. But how are the wives and children of strikers to live if their husbands and fathers earn no wages?

A. On strike money.

Q. But does all the strike money go to the maintenance of the hearth and home?

A. Of course not, for a good share of it is wanted for the baccy-shop and the public-house.

Q. But if strikes continue will not trade suffer?

A. Very likely, but trade represents the masters.

Q. And if trade is driven away from the country, will it come back?

A. Most likely not, but that is a matter for the future.

Q. But is not the future of equal importance to the present?

A. Not at all, for a day's thought is quite enough for a day's work.

Q. Then a strike represents either nothing or idleness?

A. Yes, bludgeons or beer.

Q. And what is the value of reason?

A. Why, something less than smoke.

Simultaneously Punch published a cartoon (rather prematurely) in which Mars, expressing his readiness to arbitrate, appeals to Vulcan to do the same. Lord Rosebery's successful intervention as a mediator in the coal strike in December, 1893, is handsomely acknowledged in the cartoon in which he figures as the "G.O.M.'s handy boy." Lord Rosebery was still at the height of his personal popularity; it was not until 1905 that Punch described him as "unemployable." Unemployment had reached formidable dimensions, and then, as now, proved serviceable material to the political agitator. Mr. Asquith, as Home Secretary, had allowed political meetings in Trafalgar Square "so long as the proceedings were orderly," and Punch represented the disappointment of the extremists at having the ground cut from under their feet by this condition. A year later Punch depicted the Trafalgar Square of the future, with anarchy rampant in every corner, and early in 1894 the verses "The Devil's Latest Walk (after Coleridge and Southey)," fiercely attacking Socialist agitators as animated by sheer malice, are accompanied by a picture of a fiendish figure with horns and tail.

THE UNEMPLOYABLE
(Dedicated to Lord R-s-b-ry)