“I think you need to see some of the budgets of laborers’ expenditures,” said Horatia; “they don’t show any great extravagances. They must have food and clothes and——”
He broke in impatiently.
“That’s beside the point. A working man and his family don’t starve or freeze unless there’s something wrong with them. What we ought to do is to pay wages which represent what a man earns, and not what he demands. Otherwise it’s pauperization. We will have to stop all this catering to labor. We ought to stop being afraid of it, and then it would come down to earth.”
“Suppose labor quits.”
“It won’t, and if it did, what about it? Face it down. Why should employers all be cowards? Why are they temporizing, giving way inch by inch? Mind, I wouldn’t care if——”
Horatia was fascinated. Strength of aristocracy shot from his eyes. He was amazingly handsome and if his point of view was wrong, it was at least vigorous, thought Horatia. Mistaken, anti-social, probably—but she couldn’t think of a way to convince him. She didn’t want to seem theoretic and sentimental——
But he had calmed down. He was laughing.
“I don’t see why I should spoil our evening with all this stuff. But I feel that the world’s on an awfully wrong track. All this dominance by strikes. It’s highwayman stuff. It’s bullying. I know these social work fellows and they are a white-livered lot. And the men they try to deal with respect and understand only one thing—strength.”
“But labor doesn’t work through social workers. It’s a force by itself.” There were a few points in his illogic that Horatia could not let pass.
“It’s becoming a very ugly force—you’re right. But these social workers foment a lot of discontent. And the workers get surly and commence to bully. No man worthy of the name is ever threatened successfully, but these cowards keep making concessions and concessions——”