There was&grunt of dis- structing the progress of a approval from M the last name was "Yon felly!" darkly. "Aha! he Wilkie as diminutive locomotive hauling mentioned. a string of trucks, on to safer observed ground. Mphm!" "Well, we'll hope for the Then he relapsed into silence. best," said Mr Winch piously. such safe utter- It was upon that these Ances as "It would be something if he was to come late, even. Give rest before he can get his oar reputation for profound wisdom me twenty minutes with the "Is that all?" said Winch. in, and I'll undertake to make "Because if it is, I'll undertake them outvote him." to learn that lot right enough! Kirkley, of course, is just an empty-headed aristocrat: he offices, and five minutes later don't count. Then that Crisp they were admitted to the -he's too cautious to do any- presence of the Board. They thing. We can talk Thompson did not know that they had round all right: done it half a been immediately preceded by dozen times meself. Aymer an orange-coloured envelope, never knows his own mind which was eagerly torn open two minutes together, and by Lord Kirkley, the deputyMoses is a coward. But is chairman. that all? Ain't the big going to be there? He's the lad that counts in that crowd." "He was away in London yesterday," said Entwistle junior. "But you never know By this time the deputation had arrived the man lordship, with a sigh of heartfelt "Good egg!" observed his relief. "Juggernaut's coming." tion was audible. A gentle murmur of satisfacEvidently the Board felt the need of a "Wallowing in the vice and little stiffening. We may as luxury of the metropolis!" well describe them. chanted Mr Brash suddenly, as if from some internal missal, "The master absent, squandering his tainted millions, while we stay here and starve! If a Member o' Parlia I was ment more accustomed to exercising The Marquis of Kirkley was a kindly despotism over rustics who lived contentedly on fourteen shillings a-week than to splitting hairs with unbending whose views on the relations mechanics earning four pounds, between master and man were dictated by a cast-iron bureaueracy, and who regarded not the elastic laws of Give and Take. "Talk sense," said Amos Entwistle curtly. "He may be back for all we know. Anyway, they're certain to bring him up if they can, because they know they can't do without him. Mind that tank-engine, father." He impelled his aged parent, who, oblivious to delirious whistling, was resolutely ob breezy, kind-hearted patrician He was a handsome, Trades Unions a damned inof thirty-four, and considered terfering nuisance. James Crisp was a solicitor, and represented the Dean and Chapter of Kilchester, beneath the very foundation of whose mighty cathedral ran a very profitable little seam of coal, which was chiefly responsible for making the bishopric of the diocese one of the richest ecclesiastical plums in England. He was a shrewd man of business, probably the best qualified of those present to take the lead in the present instance. Consequently he remained studiously in the background. He regarded Trades Unions as inevitable, but by no means invulnerable. Sir Nigel Thompson had inherited great possessions, including a colliery, from his father. There was no vice in him, but he loved coal about as much as a schoolboy loves irregular verbs, and his only passions in life were old furniture and chemical research. He attended under compulsion, having torn himself from his comfortable house in London at the bidding of his manager, in whose hands he was reported (not altogether unjustly) to be as wax. He was full of theoretical enthusiasm for Trades Unions, which he identified in some mysterious way with the liberty of the individual; but wished mildly that people could contrive to settle their affairs without dragging him north. Altogether a pleasant but entirely useless member of the Board. Mr Alfred Aymer was the owner of Cherry Hill Colliery. He was middle-aged, timorous, and precipitate. Left to himself, he would probably have been a kind and fair-dealing employer. But it was his misfortune to be so constituted that his opinions on any subject were invariably those of the last man with whom he had discussed it. Consequently his line of action in the affairs of life was something in the nature of an alternating electric current. After an interview with his manager he would issue a decree of unparalleled ferocity: after five minutes with a deputation of employés he would rescind all previous resolutions and promise a perfectly fabulous bonus next pay-day. In his present company he was adamantine Capitalist, and regarded Trades Unions as the most pernicious of institutions. an Last of all came Mr Montague, whose surname at an earlier and less distinguished period in his history had probably rhymed with "noses." He came from London, where he earned a livelihood by acquiring the controlling interest in various commercial ventures, and making these pay cent per cent. He had recently become proprietor of Marbledown Colliery, and it was said that he was making a better thing out of it than his employés. He regarded Trades Unions as an impertinent infringement of the right of the upper classes to keep the lower classes in their proper place. From which the intelligent reader will have no difficulty in deciding to which class Mr Montague considered that he himself belonged. The deputation was introduced with the usual formalities. two instatement of employés at Its object was to effect the re man and a hewer, ho had a resigned air of finality. The case was clear: these poor fel The chairman conferred Marbledown Collery, an engine- lows must be reinstated. been summarily dismissed from briefly with Mr Crisp. their positions for endeavourin a society whose relations gentlemen like to say anycordial, to heighten dissension between master and man. ing, had never been of the most "Would any other of you thing?" he inquired. The question was communicated to Mr Entwistle senior, Mr Tom Winch's version of who stepped forward and de the case, delivered with great livered himself of a courtly but wealth of detail and a good deal rambling discourse, consisting of unnecessary shouting, was chiefly of reminiscences of some different. The men, it appeared, thing portentous but unintelwere models of what engine- ligible which had happened men and hewers should be. forty years ago, and even to Their sole offence consisted in the most irrelevant mind prehaving incurred the dislike of sented no sort of bearing upon the mine-manager, Mr Dodd the case whatsoever. -whether through their own After this Lord Kirkley resturdy independence as true- plied. His remarks were not born Englishmen (applause convincing, for he was hampfrom Mr Brash), or the natu- ered in dealing with the quesral jealousy of an incompetent tion by complete inability to official towards two able and understand where the men's increasingly prominent sub- grievance came in, and said so. ordinates, it was not for Mr The owners, he explained, tried Winch to say. Proceeding, the to do the fair thing, and most orator warmed to his work, and mentioned that one man was as good as another. Indeed, but for the merest accident of fortune, Lord Kirkley himself might be delving for coal in the bowels of the earth, what time Messrs Conlin and Murton, the dismissed employés, sate in the House of Lords smoking cigars and drinking champagne. But of them did considerably more. Sick funds, pensions, benevolent schemes, and all that sort of thing, didn't they know? He quite admitted that an employer of labour had grave responsibilities and duties laid upon him, and he for one had always tried to live up to them. hang it! surely an employer had the right to get rid of a couple of fellows who went red revolution in all the publiccon- about preaching anarchy and houses in the district-what? He did not mind ordinary grousing. It did everybody good to blow off steam periodically: he did it himself. But there was grousing and grous After this singularly convincing peroration Mr Winch fell back into line with his companions, amid the sotto voce commendations of Messrs Brash and Killick. Mr Aymer, who had been taking notes on a sheet of paper, tore it up with ing: and when it came to the sort of game that Messrs Conlin and Murton were playing, it was his lordship's opinion that a ne plus ultra of thickness had been attained. The chairman concluded a somewhat colloquial address amid a deathly silence, and the deputation and the board glared uncomfortably at one another. An impasse had been reached, it was clear. "It's all very well, gentlemen," broke in Killick suddenly, "for you aristocrats--" Lord Kirkley, who was not without a certain sense of proportion, glanced involuntarily at Mr Montague and then at Mr Killick. Did this omniseient and self-opinionated son of toil really see no moral difference between a Peer of the realm, with centuries of cleanbred ancestry behind him, and a man who wore diamond rings and elastic-sided boots? Mr Montague looked up, and regarded Mr Killick with something akin to affection. There was a sudden rumble underneath the windows, accompanied by the hoot of a motor-horn. The drama having run itself to a deadlock, the deus had duly arrived-in his machina. CHAPTER THREE.-THE WHEELS OF JUGGERNAUT. There was a dead silence, unbroken until Juggernaut entered the room. 66 Good-morning, gentlemen," he said briskly."I am glad to see that the deputation has only just arrived." Progress was reported by Mr Crisp. "I wonder if I might trouble the deputation again," said the chairman. "Not you, Mr Winch, thank you!" as that Demosthenes cleared his throat He turned to the clerk who in a threatening manner. had shown him in. "In In the first place, you don't represent the men in any sense. fact, considering that you are engaged in no employment in this district, I think it would have been much wiser on the part of those responsible for this deputation to have left you out altogether. You are not even a properly accredited Trades Union official.” "Gentlemen of the Board," began Mr Winch portentously, "I appeal "Don't trouble, really, Mr Winch," broke in Juggernaut with inflexible cheerfulness. "You see I know exactly what ! you are going to heard it so say. I have often places where you to in other have been Mr Aymer tore up a sheet of paper upon which he had commenced operations on the ar kind enough come forward rival of the chairman. and champion the of-the oppressed cause-of millions of "Would any other gentleman like to say anything?" this country. That's right, inquired Juggernaut. isn't it?" A muffled sound proceeded "Mr Brash? Mr Wilkie?" was plainly that of chorus. from the interior of Mr Wilkie had nothing to say. Their forte -his first contribution to the debate-and the chairman pro"I wonder if Mr Entwistle am going to accede to Mr junior would kindly state the Entwistle's perfectly just re ceeded. facts." "Very well," said Juggernaut. "In the first place, I quest that a definite reason Amos Entwistle, rising from should be given for the dishis seat, re-stated the case of missal of these men. I agree the two men. They were com- with him that it is a foolish petent and industrious work- thing to stifle legitimate critimen, he maintained, and so cism. Unfortunately, I don't long as they gave satisfaction agree with him that the critiin their situations their private cisms of Messrs Conlin and lives and leisure occupations Murton are legitimate. I have were entirely their own con- been making inquiries into the cern. Possibly their views on antecedents of these two. Murthe relations of Labour and ton is a paid agitator. He is Capital were extreme, but the not a local man. He came speaker begged respectfully to here less than a year ago, and point out that there were ex- has been making deliberate tremists on both sides; and mischief ever since. He has since many employers might money to spend: he backs his and did regard the men they arguments paid as dirt beneath their feet, shouldn't be surprised if he it seemed only natural that a drew his salary from the orsection of the men should regard their employers as bullies services, Mr Winch." ganisation which retains your Mr Entwistle with beer. I and tyrants. followed up Mr Winch's small eyes began this undoubted to protrude. He did not relish home-thrust with a request for this line of argument. In deala categorical list of the offences ing with Boards and other repalleged against the two men, resentatives of bloated Capital and solemnly but respectfully he preferred to keep to the warned the Board against risk- high moral and sentimental ing a serious upheaval by plane-the sufferings of the endeavouring to stifle legiti- downtrodden sons of Labour, mate criticism of its actions. the equality of all men in the With apologies for plain-speak- sight of God, and so on. Muning he resumed his seat, and dane personalities, coupled with VOL. CXC.-NO. MCXLIX. B |