‘Yes,’ said Johnson, ‘Brown was allus a pushing boy.’
‘So have all of us to be nowadays. You don’t think we are to sit still, and open our mouths and shut our eyes, and see what Heaven will give us; do you?’
‘Yes, but—’
‘But what? It is in ourselves that lies the secret of success. Look at Ireland: for ages the people have come to the English Government for aid to fish, to farm, to manufacture, and what is the result? That now there are no people so badly off.’
‘Ireland, sir,’ said Johnson angrily, ‘is ruined by the injustice of England.’
‘Not quite so much as you think. Though Ireland has been shamefully treated, as much by Irishmen as Englishmen, however, I admit. But to return to the question of capital, why cannot a workman become an employer? You can run a cotton-mill if you like to co-operate and put by your savings. There is no need to ask Parliament to interfere. You want the landlords abolished. Take to farming yourselves. Land is cheap enough, and farms are to be had almost for the asking. Don’t ask Government to take the land and employ all who live in the country on it, whether they are worth their salt or not. This is a free country, and any men who have sufficient confidence in each other, and self-reliance, can become their own employers, as farmers or manufacturers, if they will join their savings for that purpose. There are no better workmen than the English, and I want to see them better off.’
‘I am glad to hear that,’ said Johnson; ‘it seemed to me that you were rather against the working man.’
‘I am against some of his ways,’ said Wentworth. ‘I am against improvident marriages. In the middle circles of society we can’t marry till we have a chance of keeping a wife. But almost directly poor lads or girls—especially in our great cities—are of age, and often before, they are married, and have families that they can’t keep, and then the taxpayer, often little better off than themselves, has to pay for their support. Is that fair?’
‘Well, it do seem rather hard.’
‘As long as that is the case wages must be low, for the supply will be in excess of the demand. Suppose you get Parliament to come to the aid of such. The result is you will have more improvident marriages. Then you tax still more heavily the middle and the upper classes, and the middle classes become paupers themselves. I see a remedy for this. We shall have the children of the working classes better educated, and then they will not think of marrying till they can live in a decent manner. They will shrink from inflicting hardships on innocent children, as they do now.’