“It’s not the first time that I’ve been blamed for it in this connection,” answered Pelle gravely; “but I must put up with it.”
The old man held out his hand. “I beg your pardon! It wasn’t my intention to find fault with you because you don’t act thoughtlessly. Of course we mustn’t give up the victory out of sympathy with those who fight. It was only a momentary weakness, but a weakness that might spoil everything—that I must admit! But it’s not so easy to be a passive spectator of these topsy-turvy conditions. It’s affirmed that the workmen prefer to receive a starvation allowance to doing any work; and judging by what they’ve hitherto got out of their work it’s easy to understand that it’s true. But during the month that the excavations here have been going on, at least a thousand unemployed have come every day ready to turn to; and we pay them for refraining from doing anything! They can at a pinch receive support, but at no price obtain work. It’s as insane as it’s possible to be! You feel you’d like to give the machinery a little push and set it going again.”
“It wants a good big push,” said Pelle. “They’re not trifles that are in the way.”
“They look absurdly small, at any rate. The workmen are not in want because they’re out of work, as our social economists want us to believe; but they’re out of work because they’re in want. What a putting of the cart before the horse! The procession of the unemployed is a disgrace to the community; what a waste—also from a purely mercantile point of view—while the country and the nation are neglected! If a private business were conducted on such principles, it would be doomed from the very first.”
“If the pitiable condition arose only from a wrong grasp of things, it would be easily corrected,” said Pelle; “but the people who settle the whole thing can’t at any rate be charged with a lack of mercantile perception. It would be a good thing if they had the rest in as good order! Believe me, not a sparrow falls to the ground unless it is to the advantage of the money-power; if it paid, in a mercantile sense, to have country and people in perfect order, it would take good care that they were so. But it simply can’t be done; the welfare of the many and the accumulation of property by the few are irreconcilable contradictions. I think there is a wonderful balance in humanity, so that at any time it can produce exactly enough to satisfy all its requirements; and when one claims too much, others let go. It’s on that understanding indeed that we want to remove the others and take over the management.”
“Yes, yes! I didn’t mean that I wanted to protect the existing state of affairs. Let those who make the venture take the responsibility. But I’ve been wondering whether we couldn’t find a way to gather up all this waste so that it should benefit the cooperative works?”
“How could we? We can’t afford to give occupation to the unemployed.”
“Not for wages! But both the Movement and the community have begun to support them, and what would be more natural than that one required work of them in return? Only, remember, letting it benefit them!”
“You mean that, for instance, unemployed bricklayers and carpenters should build houses for the workmen?” asked Pelle, with animation.
“Yes, as an instance. But the houses should be ensured against private speculation, in the same way as those we’re building, and always belong to the workmen. As we can’t be suspected of trying to make profits, we should be suitable people for its management, and it would help on the cooperative company. In that way the refuse of former times would fertilize the new seed.”