The unemployed looked blankly at each other, but the rest of the crowd only laughed; and then the three unemployed began to abuse the kind-hearted Capitalist, demanding that he should give them some of the necessaries of life that he had piled up in his warehouses, or to be allowed to work and produce some more for their own needs; and even threatened to take some of the things by force if he did not comply with their demands. But the kind-hearted Capitalist told them not to be insolent, and spoke to them about honesty, and said if they were not careful he would have their faces battered in for them by the police, or if necessary he would call out the military and have them shot down like dogs, the same as he had done before at Featherstone and Belfast.
“Of course,” continued the kind-hearted capitalist, “if it were not for foreign competition I should be able to sell these things that you have made, and then I should be able to give you Plenty of Work again: but until I have sold them to somebody or other, or until I have used them myself, you will have to remain idle.”
“Well, this takes the bloody biskit, don’t it?” said Harlow.
“The only thing as I can see for it,” said Philpot mournfully, “is to ’ave a unemployed procession.”
“That’s the idear,” said Harlow, and the three began to march about the room in Indian file, singing:
“We’ve got no work to do-oo-oo”
We’ve got no work to do-oo-oo!
Just because we’ve been workin’ a dam sight too hard,
Now we’ve got no work to do.”
As they marched round, the crowd jeered at them and made offensive remarks. Crass said that anyone could see that they were a lot of lazy, drunken loafers who had never done a fair day’s work in their lives and never intended to.
“We shan’t never get nothing like this, you know,” said Philpot. “Let’s try the religious dodge.”
“All right,” agreed Harlow. “What shall we give ’em?”
“I know!” cried Philpot after a moment’s deliberation. “‘Let my lower lights be burning.’ That always makes ’em part up.”