“Do not look, dear,” Montella advised, with solicitude. “Such sights are not for you.”
“Oh, but I must look.” She turned back again. “One cannot shirk such a grim reality. I knew that while we were living in luxury there existed thousands who had not the bare necessities of life, but I have never had the fact pressed home so forcibly before. I feel as if I had no right to wear these expensive sables—which I could so easily do without—when these poor creatures have nothing to eat. The look in their eyes condemns me. Cannot we do something to help them, Lionel? Surely there must be something terribly wrong somewhere, or else we should never see such a degrading sight as this.”
She unfastened the magnificent diamond brooch she wore beneath her jacket, and impulsively cast it into the collecting-box; her tiny gold purse with its contents followed suit. Her lover, even if he thought her proceeding rash, did not remonstrate; he too divested himself of all the gold in his possession.
“The condition of these people is not exactly the fault of the Government,” he replied thoughtfully, as they moved on towards Knightsbridge. “It is always disastrous to trade when the supply exceeds the demand. It makes labour so cheap that the men cannot ask more than a starvation wage.”
“But what is the reason?” she asked, with eagerness. “It seems almost incredible that all these hundreds should be thrown out of employment.”
“Have you not noticed the banners?” he returned. “‘Alien labour’—that is at the root of their distress. It is hateful to me to have to acknowledge it—nevertheless the fact remains that the influx of pauper Jews from the Continent has been enormous during the past few years. Athelstan Moore once introduced a Bill in Parliament for the suppression of alien immigration; but there was some flaw in it, and it was thrown out.”
“Did you vote for or against?”
“Against. You see, whatever my private opinion may be, I am tied down in this matter. I cannot vote against my own people, especially when I am told that owing to the persecution abroad they come here to try and regain their self-respect, and to develop into worthy British subjects.”
“And what is your private opinion?”
“That when they do develop into worthy British subjects, the result is satisfactory, but when they persist in being clannish and in refusing to conform to the exigencies of modern civilisation, they are a clog on the wheel of national progress. I do not consider it politic on the part of our country to continue to receive them in such great numbers. The consequence you have just seen.”