“He’s right, too, as far as his knowledge goes; but he’s never seen anything of mine.”
“Just so. Then, if Viellieme agrees, you would be willing to send some of your immortal works over to Paris for his inspection.”
“All of them, my boy, all of them.”
“Then we’ll look on that as settled. I’ll do my best.”
“God bless you, my dear fellow! God bless you!” cried Barney with deep emotion, crushingly wringing the hand of the wincing man, whom he now declared to be his one friend on earth. He clattered noisily down the stair like a stalwart trooper, sprang into the waiting hansom, and departed.
CHAPTER XXIX.
MARSTEN went to work with an energy and singleness of purpose which probably no organizer of labour ever felt before. Chance, or destiny, had placed him in exactly the position he had long hoped to attain. At first there was little to be done but wait until the Union had recovered from the wounds received in the late fruitless struggle; nevertheless, while he waited, he planned and gradually developed the scheme which he hoped would revolutionize the labour of the world. He saw in the future one vast republic of workers—not bounded by nationality, but spreading over the entire earth—with its foothold wherever one man toiled with his hands to enrich another. He had no delusions regarding the immediate success of his project, and did not flatter himself that his ideas would spread with anything like the rapidity of the cholera, for example; but he hoped first to place the Union on a firm footing in England, and then, with a brilliantly successful strike—conducted as a general of genius conducts a battle—to show what might be done by a thoroughly well-organized force against a rich and powerful firm like that of Monkton & Hope. He looked forward to the time when every worker in England would be a member of the Union; after that he hoped to affiliate all the workers in all English-speaking countries; finally, the benighted foreigner would be included. Then, when the whole was united like an electric installation in a city, the unfortunate capitalist who placed a finger on one point would receive the combined current of the entire system, and die without knowing what hurt him. The equipment of the workers would be so complete that strikes would become fewer and fewer, and finally cease; just as war will cease when weapons of offence reach such a state of perfection that no nation will dare to pick a quarrel with another.
This great republic of labour would be divided into various states, and these states would be again subdivided into as many sections as experience showed to be most practicable. Each section would elect its secretary, the secretaries would elect a governor of the state, the governors would elect a president of the whole organization. Every official should be paid a salary, sufficient, even in the lesser offices, to keep the incumbent and his family without the necessity of manual labour, so that each officer’s whole time could be given for the benefit of the Union.