Mr. Clutterbuck's Election

by Hilaire Belloc

I will not here go into the vexed question of the language used on either side, nor enter into Mr. Harman's somewhat lame excuses that he was provoked by a certain expression of his employee's which cast a most unjust reflection upon his, Mr. Harman's, pride of birth and personal morals. Mr. Harman's hasty action was surely indefensible upon any provocation, and its natural consequence was that the remainder of those who worked at Podger's Wharf were called out by their Union, while the United Riverside Workers and Sons of Southwark threatened a sympathetic cessation of labour to extend from the eastern side of Hammersmith Bridge to the western edge of the steps at the bottom of Edgar Street in Limehouse.

I need hardly say that under these circumstances the compulsory clauses of the Conciliation Act of 1909 were at once acted upon by the popular and wealthy President of the Board of Trade, and the decision of the courts, the machinery of which in such actions is extraordinarily rapid, was given within three days entirely in favour of the Union; indeed, no other decision could possibly have been arrived at, and public opinion thoroughly justified the coercion very properly applied to the tyrannical master; papers as different as the Spectator and the Winning Post were at one upon the matter, and their widely separate reading publics heartily agreed.

So far the incident, though it had attained certain dimensions, did not threaten any very grave results. But it so happened that a section of the workers involved, namely, the Paint Removers and Tar and Marine Composition Appliers had taken advantage of the disturbance to demand the abolition of piecework upon all hulks and upon all vessels in active use between the Garboard Strake and the North Atlantic Winter Loading Line. The courts, in their haste to settle the main issue, had perhaps too lightly overlooked this contention, and the result was some considerable disappointment among the Paint Removers and Tar and Marine Composition Appliers throughout the Port of London. The Union, as it was bound to do by statute, accepted the decision of the court; unfortunately a gentleman of the name of Fishmonger, in company with his brother-in-law, Henry Bebb (hereinforth and henceforward known as "Another"), both expert Tar Smoothers, felt so strongly upon the matter that they refused to return to work. A warrant was made out for their arrest, and though their Union was somewhat half-hearted in the matter, the P.D.Q. and several other societies desired to fight it, and under the powers afforded by the same statute they lodged an appeal—for, as is now well known, there are certain cases in which a workman cannot be compelled to accept employment even after the Court of Conciliation has delivered its judgment.

The appeal was heard before Justices Hunnybubble, Compton and Welsh. Sir John Compton was averse to create a precedent of such lamentable consequence; the Act was new, it was, so to speak, upon its trial, and though he would have been the first to admit that he was there not to make the law but to administer it, he could not but recognise the function of an English judge in the commonwealth, and he was for finding some issue by which Mr. Fishmonger and Mr. Bebb might escape the too drastic consequences of a somewhat hastily drafted measure.

We are not a logical people: we refuse to be bound by the formal syllogisms so popular with the lower races of Europe and especially among the dying Latin nations. There is no doubt that Mr. Justice Compton reflected, in the attitude he adopted, the permanent common sense of the nation. Unfortunately, Mr. Justice Hunnybubble, in spite of the sterling Saxon name he bore, was too much of the lawyer and the pedant to concur. In his long and disastrous decision he introduced a hundred empty abstractions and metaphysical whimsies: that "contract was mutual," for instance, or that "the obligation was binding upon either party." He even descended to talking of "equality," declared the law as much the defender of the rich man as of the poor, and would not admit, in theory, that contrast between Employer and Employed, which is so glaring in practice to every eye. He insisted that if the master was constrained to take a workman back, so was that workman bound to return; he so strained the petty details of the Act itself as to interpret the words "all parties" in clause IV. to include the employees as well as the employers, and applied the phrase "shall abide by the award under pain, &c.," to hungry artisan as severely as to paunchy capitalist.

In spite of Sir John Compton's dissent, Mr. Justice Hunnybubble took with him his colleague, Welch. The decision of the lower court was therefore upheld, and Mr. Fishmonger and Mr. Bebb, who had found better paid employment in the Halls during the Long Vacation, and who refused to re-enter the yard, were, to the shame of our institutions, cast into Holloway Jail as first class misdemeanants. They were deprived of the use of tobacco and the daily newspapers; and even their cuisine was regulated by official order.

While the case was still sub judice the respect invariably shown to the courts forbade any open comment, but when, some ten days after Mr. Clutterbuck's interview with the executive of Mickleton, the deplorable miscarriage of justice had actually taken place, and when the populace had been afforded the spectacle of these two unfortunate men driven in a common cab to their dungeon, the storm burst.

The general emotion did not at first find its way into the public Press: the proprietors of our daily and weekly journals have too strong a regard for the Bench to permit themselves any immediate criticism of a judicial decision, and the relations into which they are nightly brought with our judges as host or guest in many a hospitable house, adds to their natural reserve; but in spite of this absence of printed comment, the matter became first the chief, and at last the only subject of talk among the artisans of the metropolis, from them it spread, as all such movements must, to the unskilled labourers, and from these to the general population of London. Within a fortnight the police were aware of the extraordinary extent of the ferment, and the Home Secretary went so far as to curtail a pleasant visit at the country seat of the Baron de Czernwitz, in order to hurry up to town and consult with his brother-in-law, the Lord Chief Justice, and his wife's uncle, the Chief Commissioner. His decision was to do nothing: but meanwhile two public meetings had been held, one in Moore's Circus, another an open-air one, on Peckham Rye, and feeling had risen so high that two newspapers actually admitted short reports of the proceedings at each of these gatherings.

Early in November, while matters were in this very critical state, the sitting member for Mickleton whose financial entanglement could no longer be concealed, fled to Ostend and was rash enough to take his life in the front room of the Villa des Charmettes, thereby leaving a vacancy in the representation of his borough.

Mr. Clutterbuck's easy prospect of nursing Mickleton, of carefully and continuously supporting its worthier activities, and of extending a judicious hospitality to its many inhabitants, was suddenly shattered: he must prepare for instant action. It was with a mixture of fixed concern and unpleasant excitement that, under the direction of Charlie Fitzgerald, his plans were made.