"You see the date. I kept it as long as I thought it was coming to me. You know I labored like a lackey for five years on half pay in the bank. They really owed me every cent of the thousand, but I only pinched the interest on it for two years. That wasn't much, eh? It made me rich, though; and so I ought to forgive the bank. What do you think of me, Nelsy, as a one-time Sunday School teacher?"
"I wasn't thinking of the right or wrong of it, Bill, but of your nerve. Just imagine what would have happened if they had caught you."
Bill laughed disdainfully.
"Jail couldn't have been any worse than that office. My conscience troubled me a while—until I found that the thousand was making me more. Then I knew I could pay it back when I liked. When you come to figure it all out, isn't that exactly what the banks do with the people's deposits?"
As the train wound its way along gorges and through tunnels eastward from Vancouver, Henty and Evan were silent. Evan was thinking of what Watson had done, and said. It was a fact that banks gave three per cent. interest on deposits, which they used on speculations in Wall Street and elsewhere; those speculations netting them such high dividends that great buildings had to be erected to conceal them. And how was the customer treated who wanted to borrow a few hundred dollars in an emergency? Even though he had been a depositor for years, getting three per cent., what sort of accommodation was the bank willing to give him when he was temporarily up against it? Evan knew. He remembered too well the old excuse handed out to the customer, year after year: "We have to cut down our loans." Why did they have to? Why do they have to? Who makes them, who wants them to do it? The eternal answer is "Head Office." But who is Head Office?—the bank. The bank commands the bank to cut down its loans, just as it commands the bank to do many things detrimental to the country's good. And why not? Don't the people of Canada stand for it? Don't they give their money and sons to the banks, according to the traditions and idolatries of their fathers?
Evan's mind dwelt upon High Finance. He pondered and pondered on the thing Watson had done, and, in the light of common business morality, could find no fault with it; but in his heart he knew it was wrong. The argument he found against it was a trite one, but true: "The wrongs of others are no palliation of ours." If the banks did wrong in using depositors' money to earn dividends for the rich, that was not the clerk's business—that was the public's business.
What then was the clerk's business? It was the clerk's business to see that he received a decent salary. He did real work, oh very real! and he was entitled to a salary upon which he could both live and, at a reasonable age, support a wife. Why didn't he get it? Because the bank could, by intimidation and repression, by promising and bluffing, get him for less than a living wage. But "why" was not so much to the point as "how." How was he going to get it? How had other workers of every description obtained a bread-and-butter wage? By making themselves indispensable to their employers? Yes. And how accomplish that in banking? If any man thinks he can make himself indispensable to a bank individually, he is mistaken. But men in any trade or calling can make themselves necessary to an employer collectively by co-operating; and co-operation is the only way. Evan knew that it was the only way for bankclerks to obtain their rights. The banks would not do business with an individual because they didn't have to; it was easier to dismiss him. But their offensively arbitrary methods could not be employed where a great number of clerks were concerned. If the bankclerks of Canada were united they could talk as a body, and the banks of Canada would be compelled to listen. It did not occur to Evan for a moment that the boys would go on strike: but they would have the power to strike, and, if the banks were mad enough to resent business negotiations, they would show that they could strike.
Henty wakened out of his reverie and Evan began discussing bank union with him. They had money in their pockets and enthusiasm in their souls. They discussed the workings-out of the scheme, and youthfully pictured scenes that were brightest. Still, had they not dreamed of green fields and seen their dreams come true?
"How much are we going to spend on it, Evan?" asked Henty.
"I figure it will cost us two thousand dollars each to get the thing in motion. Then if the organization ever gets rich enough it may want to pay us back. Do you feel like affording so much?"