“Look here, brother Beaumont, I should have thought by this time you’d learned which side your bread’s buttered on, and who spreads the butter. You know I’m a Liberal, as good a Liberal as you are yourself, if it comes to that; you know when there’s a fight to be fought my cheque’s always been ready, and not a little cheque at that; and you’re vastly mistaken if you think you’ve got a monopoly of zeal for the working-class. But what the deuce, man alive, do you want poking your finger into this pie for? Why, in the name of common sense, can’t you leave us and our men to fight this battle out between us?”
“Do you think it’s a fair fight, brother Tomlinson?”
“Fair. Why not?”
“Well, I’ll tell you why not, if my opinion’s worth anything. On your side you’ve got all the money, all the staying power, and all, or nearly all, the educated skill to put your case plausibly before the public. Now, what have these poor devils of weavers got? A few pounds of reserve in the Co-op. and the Savings Bank, a few sticks of furniture, and hands for which they can find no work to do, and so unused to wielding the pen to state their own claim that, with the best case in the world, if they had it, you’d have no difficulty in making it appear the worst. They’ve been to me, I admit it, everyone by this time knows they have. I’ve tried in every way I could to get at the merits of the dispute, and, to tell you frankly, I don’t believe, for a single minute, this is a question of wages at all!”
“Oh, indeed, and what is it?”
“I believe, in my heart of hearts, it’s neither more nor less than a deliberate attempt to smash and pulverise the Weavers’ Union. That, neither more nor less; and I think it’s a criminal shame that men like yourself, who call themselves Liberals and the friends of Labour, should be engaged in what is at bottom simply a conspiracy against Labour’s most precious and hard-won right—the right of combination.”
“Oh, stow that talk! it’s good enough for electioneering and the Town Hall platform. This is business, solid business, and business hasn’t room for bunkum. How would you like Albert Clough coming swaggering and hectoring into your office, and telling you you didn’t pay your clerks a proper wage?”
“I shouldn’t like anybody coming swaggering and hectoring into my office. I shouldn’t like Albert Clough and, perhaps you won’t mind my saying, I shouldn’t like Albert Cough’s employer.”
Mr. Tomlinson waived away the suggestion impatiently and continued:—
“Not merely saying you didn’t pay enough wage, demanding, when you told him you paid as much as you could see your way to pay, demanding in a truculent voice to see your ledgers and overhaul your pass-book, and wanting to know why you kept a carriage if you couldn’t afford better wages. D—n the man, he’ll be wanting to know what I have for dinner next, and what my wife gives for her bonnets and her gloves.”