"A great number are out. And more are going out daily."
"And what is to become of them all?"
"I cannot tell you. The question, serious though it is, never appears to occur to the men or their rulers."
"The journals say--living so much alone as I do, I have time to read many of them, and I make it my chief recreation--that the work is leaving the country," pursued Mrs. Cumberland.
"And so it is. It cannot be otherwise. Take a case of my own as an example. A contract was offered me some days ago, and I could not take it. Literally could not, Mrs. Cumberland. My men are out on strike, and likely to be out; I had no means of performing it, and therefore could only reject it. That contract, as I happen to know, has been taken by a firm in Belgium. They have undertaken it at a cheaper rate than I could possibly have done it at the best of times: for labour is cheap there. It is quite true. The work that circumstances compelled me to refuse, has gone over there to be executed, and I and my men are playing in idleness."
"But what will be the end of it?" asked Mrs. Cumberland.
"The end of it? If you speak of the country, neither you nor I can foresee the end."
"I spoke of the men. Not your men in particular, but all those that we include under the name of British workmen: the great bodies of artisans scattered in the various localities of the kingdom. What is to become of these men if the work fails?"
"I see only one of three courses for them," said Richard, lifting his hand in some agitation, for he spoke from the depth of his heart, believing the subject to be of more awful gravity than any that had stirred the community for some hundreds of years. "They must eventually emigrate--provided the means to do so can be found; or they must become burdens upon public charity; or they must lie down in the streets and starve. As I live, I can foresee no better fate for them."
"And what of the country, if it comes to this?--if the work and the workmen leave it?"