No more poor, starving, wretched, homeless creatures! For every man, as the day comes round, his portion of beef! The thought of having attained such ends as these is so inspiring that one can readily pardon any trifling inconveniences which the new system has brought with it. True, the portions of meat would be none the worse for being a little larger, but then our circumspect Government adopted the wise plan of not dealing out, at the commencement, more meat than had previously on an average been consumed here. Later on these things will all be different, and in process of time, when the new arrangements shall have more and more approached completion, and the period of transition is past, we shall have everything on a vaster and more magnificent scale.
But there is one thing which hinders my pinions taking the lofty flight they otherwise would, and that is the concern which my good wife shows. She is become very nervous, and her state gets worse day by day. During all the twenty-five years of our married life we have never had so many painful scenes and explanations as since the beginning of the new era. The State cookshops, too, are not a bit to her taste. The food, she says, is barracks’ rations, and a poor substitute for the wholesome fare people used to have at their own homes. She complains of the meat being done too much, of the broth being watery, and so on. She says, too, that she at once loses all appetite by knowing beforehand what she has to eat during a whole week. And yet how often she had complained to me that, with the high prices of things, she was at her wits’ end to know what to cook. Formerly she was rejoiced, when we now and then took a day’s excursion, to think she was released for that day from the bother of cooking anything. Well, this is the way with women, and they always have something to say against whatever they have not had a hand in cooking. My hope is, however, as soon as my wife shall have paid visits to the children and her father at the Benevolent Institutions, and have found them hearty and contented, that that equanimity will be restored to her which in old times never deserted her even in our severest trials.
CHAPTER XIII.
A VEXING INCIDENT.
Our Chancellor is not made so much of as he used to be. I am sorry to see this, because it is impossible to find anywhere a more capable, energetic, and active State leader, or a more thorough and consistent Socialist. But, then, it is not everybody who is as unbiased as I am. There are a great many people who don’t quite care for the new order of things, or who are somewhat disappointed in their expectations; and all these persons lay the blame on the Chancellor. This is especially the case with women since the universal removals and the introduction of the State cookshops. There is even talk of a party of re-action being formed amongst women, but I am thankful to say my wife is not of this number, and I hope to goodness that Agnes is not.
The report has been assiduously circulated against the Chancellor that he is at heart an aristocrat. It is even said that he does not clean his boots himself, that he suffers a servant to brush and clean his clothes, that he sends someone from the Treasury to fetch his meals from the State cookshop of his district, instead of going there himself. Such things would, indeed, be grave offences against the principle of equality; but it is a question, after all, whether the charges are true.
Anyhow, this dissatisfaction which has clearly been nourished by the Younkers, a party composed mainly of flighty youths for whom nothing is good enough, has just culminated in an outburst of public feeling which was manifested in a very blameworthy and ugly spirit. The unveiling of the new allegorical monument in commemoration of the great deeds of the Paris Commune of 1871, took place yesterday in the square, which was formerly Palace Square. Since then the square has been continually beset by crowds anxious to view this magnificent monument. Returning from a carriage-drive, the Chancellor had to pass the square. He had almost reached the entrance to the Treasury, when all at once, from the neighbourhood of the Arsenal, hissing, shouts, and general tumult ensued. In all probability the mounted police (which is now re-instated), had shown rather too great zeal in procuring a passage for the Chancellor’s carriage. The tumult increased in fury, and there were cries: “Down with the aristocrat; down with the proud upstart; pitch the carriage into the canal!” The crowd evidently felt greatly irritated at the now rare spectacle of a private carriage.
The Chancellor, with ill-concealed anger, nevertheless bowed courteously in all directions, and gave orders to drive on slowly. All at once, however, he was saluted by a lot of mud and dirt which emanated seemingly from a group of women, and I saw him free himself, as far as possible, from this dirt, and noticed, too, that he forbade the police to attack the women with their truncheons. Scenes such as this, and which are totally unworthy of Socialism, certainly ought not to occur. And I have been glad to hear to-day, from various quarters, that it is intended to prepare great ovations for the Chancellor.
CHAPTER XIV.
A MINISTERIAL CRISIS.
The Chancellor has tendered his resignation. All well-intentioned persons must sincerely regret this step, especially after yesterday’s event. But the Chancellor is said to be in an overwrought and nervous state. And, indeed, this can scarcely be wondered at, for he has had a hundred times more thought and work than any chancellor under the old system had. The ingratitude of the mob has deeply wounded him, and the incident of yesterday was just the last drop which has made the cup run over.
It has come out, however, that the boot cleaning question was really at the bottom of the ministerial crisis. It is now known that the Chancellor some little time back handed over to the Cabinet an elaborate memorandum, which memorandum, however, the other ministers always contrived to persistently shelve. The Chancellor insists now on attention being paid to his memorandum, and he has had it inserted in the Onward. He demands that class differences be instituted, and says that for his part he cannot possibly dispense with the services of others. The maximum eight hours’ day simply cannot and does not exist for a chancellor, nor could otherwise exist than by having three chancellors to govern in shifts of eight hours each of the twenty-four. He urges that he, as Chancellor, lost a lot of valuable time each morning over cleaning his boots, brushing his clothes, tidying up his room, fetching his breakfast, and similar offices; and that, as a consequence, matters of grave State import, which he alone was in a position to attend to, were subjected to vexing delay. He had no other choice, he says, than either to appear occasionally before the ambassadors of friendly powers minus a button or two on his coat, or to, himself, (the Chancellor, as is well known, is not married,) do such small repairs as were too pressingly urgent, or too trifling, to be sent to the great State repairing shops. He argues further that by having a servant to perform such little offices much valuable time would have been saved to the public. Then again the having to take his meals at the one appointed State cookshop was very irksome, by reason of the crowd of suppliants who daily organised a hunt after him. As for his carriage-drives, he never took them except when, from the limited time at his disposal, it was otherwise quite impossible to obtain a mouthful of fresh air.