Collected works of j s f.., p.698
Collected Works of J S Fletcher, page 698
“Hermie!” he whispered. “I — I’m going to have a cut in! It’s time!”
Then, before she could reply, Bright sprang to his feet, laying his hands on the front of the gallery and turning an eager glance on the chairman.
“Mr. Chairman!” he began. “I—”
A dead silence had fallen on the hall as Bright rose. There was not a person present, man or woman, who did not know him, save the man from London. Every eye was turned on him, wonderingly: whispers broke out. Suddenly a man jumped to his feet in the body of the hall and lifted a hand towards the platform.
“I object to a millionaire capitalist’s son speaking in an Independent Labour Party hall!” he exclaimed. “Let him go where he belongs! He’s not wanted here! I object!”
The chairman, a bluff, hearty-looking working man, who sat twiddling his thumbs in the seat of authority, rose to his feet.
“Tha can object as hard and as often as tha likes, mi lad!” he said good-humouredly. “It’ll hev no effect. This is a free and open meeting, and we’ll gi’ t’ Duke o’ Northumberland or Pierpont Morgan, or t’ Pope o’ Rome or anybody ‘at likes to spout, a reight hearin’. Sit thisen down!” Then he turned and nodded cheerfully at Bright. “Go on!” he said.
“I shall not detain you long,” continued Bright, leaning over the front of the gallery, and taking a comprehensive view of his audience, “and if the gentleman who has just objected to hearing me doesn’t like to suffer me for five minutes, there are, I believe, several exits to this building, and I don’t suppose that anybody will prevent him from going out of one of them. I have got up with the idea of making a useful contribution to this debate. I believe I have a right to speak. I can safely declare, as a thoroughly truthful man, that there is nobody, neither man nor woman, in this place, who is in more absolute and thorough sympathy with the hopes and aspirations of labour than I am, or who would do more than I would, cheerfully, to further the just cause of labour. I take no credit to myself for this — it just happens that I have felt like that ever since I can remember anything, and that the feeling grows stronger as I grow older. All my most cherished ideas and notions for the good of the world and the human race are bound up with the establishment and triumph of democratic government — that’s just mere fact; it’s the truth. Well, I have listened, dutifully, and with absorbed interest, to the principal speaker of the evening. As a student of economy myself, there is very little, there is practically nothing, in what he has said in which I am not in the fullest agreement with him. And as he has already said pretty nearly everything that I myself would have said on the same subject, I need not supplement his remarks with any of mine: his theories are my theories — have been for a long time. But — and this is the reason why I ask your indulgence for a few minutes — I have been wondering, while I sat here, how these theories can be applied to what is, after all, practical politics. For when all is said and done, no theories are of any value unless they can be reduced to practice — unless they can be made a thing of everyday life. Now, in my opinion, everything that the workers of this country, or of any country which is on a footing with this as far as political power is concerned, wish to get, they can get for themselves. How? Through the exercise of the privileges — a bad word, but you all know what I mean — which have been increasing and heightening in their hands ever since 1832. Before that year, how many workers possessed a vote! Since that year successive Acts of Parliament have given the vote to tens, nay, hundreds of thousands of us — I hope we shall, in our own time, see the vote in the hands of every adult man and woman in this country. Now think for a moment what the power of the vote is. It makes possible, nay, certain, the securing, by purely constitutional means, of any reform which the people desire. Get a majority of your own representatives in the House of Commons — a substantial, really workable majority, and you can effect what changes you please. You can sweep individual ownership of the means of production clear away — a good riddance, — and substitute nationalisation. That is only one thing; just one thing — there is no limit to what you can do through the ballot-box. But now I have a crow to pull with you — and by the word you I mean the World of Labour. You won’t make use of the vote in your own interests! You won’t vote for your own interests! You won’t support labour candidates when they come before you. You are like a man who has a splendid weapon put into his hands wherewith to fight an enemy, and who does anything but use it. Is there any man in this place who can contradict that plain statement of fact? If there is, he is a bold fellow, and as ignorant as he is bold. Let us consider a few figures and statistics: let us take a few towns in our own neighbourhood — almost entirely a working-class neighbourhood — at the last General Election. At Moorford there are 21,000 electors on the roll; the vast majority are working men. The Liberal candidate polled in round figures 5,000 votes; the Conservative 4,000; the Labour man got barely 2,000. That’s bad, but what is worse, out of 21,000 folk who possessed a very valuable thing, no less than 10,000 refused to make use of it. Then take the example of Warthwaite, where there are 19,000 voters. There 8,000 electors wouldn’t take the trouble to walk round a corner to put their papers in a box, and out of the 11,000 who did, 7,000 voted Liberal, 3,000 Tory, and only 1,000 Labour. Let us look at home. Nobody doubts that Haverthwaite is a working man’s town — well, we have 26,000 voters on our register, and at the last election 6,000 votes were given to the Liberal, 5,000 to the Conservative, under 4,000 to the Labour man. And it’s not only like that in Parliamentary elections — the same thing obtains in local elections. You won’t elect your own men to the Town Council, nor to the Guardians: when we had School Boards you never made any effort to capture them. Can anybody here deny these plain facts? Nobody! And I say that if you want to become practical politicians, if you want to reduce theories to practice, if you want to see abuses swept away and reforms established, if, in short, you want to see the cause of Labour achieve that triumph towards which pioneers and reformers have been looking, and for which they have been labouring, for a good hundred years, there are certain things you’ve got to do. You must agree amongst yourselves. You must unite. You must educate. You must permeate. And above everything you must drive into the mind of every worker that in his vote he possesses a weapon as deadly for his purpose as a machine gun is in the hands of a trained soldier, an axe that will cut through the trunk of the stoutest tree. Capture the constituencies! That’s the advice of a man who believes in being sternly practical and matter-of-fact — and if you don’t consider it good, then all I have to say is that I’m sorry I’ve troubled you with it.”
Bright wound up his remarks with a satirical smile and dropped back into his seat with an almost careless gesture; a gesture which seemed to suggest that he had made his hearers a valuable present and would think little of them if they did not value its worth. But his quick eye had seen that all through his speech he was gaining the unqualified assent and commendation of the man from London and of the chairman and the local lights of Labour who were gathered about him, and he was not surprised when the platform led the applause that greeted his last words. He had hit the right nail on the head, then? — and he turned to Hermie with a half-shy laugh of satisfaction. But Hermie was looking into the body of the hall, and her lips suddenly parted in a whispered warning.
“Grew!” she said. “Simon Grew! Look out, Bright! — he’ll go for you.”
A man had risen in the midst of the packed audience on the floor, and stood, patiently waiting until the applause and buzz of talk which had ensued on the conclusion of Bright’s speech had died away into silence. He was a little, reddish-haired, sandy-bearded, light-eyed man, with the furtive, shifty look of a ferret and the half-sneering, half-malignant air of one who nourishes a perpetual grievance against things in general. Everybody in the hall knew him as the paid secretary of a small trades-union, and as one who passed his time in wholesale quarrelling, fault-finding, and interference. And as he turned to the platform and opened his lips, a voice came out of the shadows beneath the gallery.
“Good lad, Simon! Let ’em hear thi tongue! Gi’ ’em some oil o’ vitriol, owd lad!”
There was a burst of laughter at this truculent counsel, and Grew himself smiled as he raised his voice.
“You’re all easily carried away,” he began, letting a scornful and cynical glance sweep the place from gallery to floor before it rested with open defiance and dislike on the chairman and those round him. “It always was the failing of democracy to lick the toes of every upstart demagogue that had a ready tongue and knew how to use it! You’re all saying ‘Hear — hear!’ to Mr. Bright Marrashaw for telling us a few things that have been said so often by men like myself, this twenty years and more, that they’ve become platitudes. If I’ve said once, with pen as well as with tongue, what he’s just said, I’ve said and written it a thousand times — there’s naught new in a word he’s spouted. What call has he — a millionaire capitalist’s son! — to come here and read us a lesson. I think Mr. Bright Marrashaw ‘ud ha’ been far better and more fittingly employed if instead o’ coming here to tell us how to do our business, he’d stopped at home yonder at Marrashaw Royd, among t’ thousand-guinea pictures and five-hundred pound carpets, and preached to his own father! There isn’t a man or woman in this place ‘at doesn’t know how t’ Marrashaw money’s been made — by grinding and robbing, and sweating and exploiting — and who isn’t well aware, having heard their fathers and mothers and their grandmothers and grandfathers talk, ‘at of all t’ bad old lot i’ t’ bad old Factory times, t’ Marrashaws were t’ very worst i’ this part of industrial England! What were Marrashaw’s Mill like, and how did t’ Marrashaw o’ that day treat his workpeople before Factory Reform came in? This here Bright Marrashaw’s grandfather was t’ hardest taskmaster at ever—”
Bright’s face flushed with indignation, and despite Hermie’s whispered entreaty, and her hand on his arm, he sprang to his feet.
“Am I responsible for what my grandfather did?” he demanded hotly. “Do you mean to imply that I’d have countenanced what went on before the coming of Factory Reform?”
Grew included Bright in a comprehensive sneer that took in everybody present.
“I know you’re a Marrashaw,” he retorted quietly. “And I reckon you’ll be no better than your breed! You come of a bad, grasping stock ‘at’s made its brass out o’ our flesh and blood, and for all your fine words — all talk for t’ sake o’ talking! — you’ll do as they’ve always done when t’ mill comes into your hands — you’ll do as your grandfather did, and as your father’s done. And I say it’s naught but a waste o’ time and an insult to our intelligence ‘at a young feller like you should get up here, and have t’ cheek and impudence—”
Grew suddenly stopped. The chairman, himself a well-known labour leader and an old trades-unionist, had risen to his feet with an authoritative gesture of his hand.
“That’ll do, mi lad!” he said with decision. “We’ve heard enough o’ thy tongue for this time. This is a free and open meeting, and any man or woman here’s welcome to have his or her say, but we’m going to stop at personalities. Sit tha down, Grew! — I’m i’ power here! Now then,” he went on, looking round his audience with a good-humoured smile. “I agree i’ every word ‘at young Mr. Marrashaw said! It wanted saying! No matter if its been said a thousand times, and written ten thousand times, it wanted saying again — there’s some platitudes ‘at you can’t repeat too often. If some of us talked less and did more about practical politics, we shouldn’t allus be at t’ bottom o’ t’ poll. Go home, all t’ lot o’ you, and think about what you’ve heard, and next time there’s a candidate o’ your own before you, just take t’ trouble to walk as far as t’ polling booth, and give him your vote. What’s t’ use o’ concealing t’ plain truth? There’s more nor three-fourths o’ t’ working men i’ this country at’ll never go to t’ polling booth at all if a public-house chances to stand between it and them! There’s Gospel fact for you. I tell you again, I agree heartily wi’ every word ‘at t’ young feller’s said — Marrashaw or no Marrashaw! — and I hope he’ll say it again, and yet again, and then happen some o’ you thick-headed ‘uns ‘ll come to realise ‘at you’re responsible citizens. For my part, I’m much obliged to Mr. Bright Marrashaw for getting on his legs and opening his mouth.”
“Hear, hear!” said the man from London with hearty approval. “Hear, hear!”
The meeting broke up, and Bright and Hermie slipped away down the gallery staircase. At its foot they met the chairman and the man from London. Both smiled, and the man from London held out his hand and gripped Bright’s.
“You said the right thing, and said it well!” he exclaimed. “You put a whole book into a paragraph!”
The chairman nodded approval and laid his hand on Bright’s shoulder.
“Mr. Bright!” he said, earnestly. “You must join us — join our party! We want such as you. You’ll stiffen us! Come in!”
“Is it necessary?” answered Bright with a laugh. “A man can believe and do things without joining a party.”
“No!” declared the chairman. “You must come in! Come! — and we’ll run you for Parliament, next time there’s a chance.”
“That’s it!” exclaimed the man from London, approvingly. “Excellent! The very thing!”
But Bright laughed again, and steered Hermie through the crowd.
“Oh, we’ll see about it — time enough yet!” he answered. “Things are only just beginning, you know.”
Outside he and Hermie walked quickly away — other men spoke to Bright, and would have detained him, but he made more laughing excuses and hurried off.
“I don’t know whatever made me do that!” he exclaimed suddenly when he and Hermie, after a period of silence, were half-way towards her father’s house. “But — it just seemed as if I’d got to.”
“You spoke well,” said Hermie, thoughtfully. “I think you’d make a success in the House of Commons, Bright. But—”
She paused, as if doubtful of what she had been about to say, and they walked on some little distance in silence.
“But — what?” asked Bright, at last.
“I was going to say that these people would never believe in you, nor follow you, unless you were one of themselves,” she answered in a low voice. “They earn their own livings, you know.”
“Am I not going to earn mine — from to-morrow?” asked Bright.
Hermie sighed deeply.
“All the same, even then, you’re your father’s son,” she said. Then she laughed, a little nervously, but not without a touch of malice. “Whatever would your father say if he heard of — to-night? You! — in a Labour meeting — aiding and abetting!”
“He’ll hear,” answered Bright with a grim laugh. “Ellerthwaite was there. When they lunch at the club to-morrow he’ll tell my father of every word I said!”
IX
CHARLESWORTH MARRASHAW HEARD all about his son’s performance long before he turned in at the club next day. The thing had not been done in a corner. The man from London enjoyed a considerable amount of reputation and fame, not only as a labour leader but as a writer on political economy, and the Editor of the Haverthwaite Guardian, also conscious that the Independent Labour Party was a growing force in the town and district, had sent one of his best reporters to the meeting, with instructions to do it justice. That reporter had a flair for news, and an excellent idea of what would particularly appeal to local appetite, and when young Mr. Bright Marrashaw got on his legs, his heart leapt within him. He took a full note of Bright’s speech, and of the subsequent proceedings and remarks, and when the Guardian came out next morning its readers found that while the man from London’s academic discourse was carefully edited down to a full abstract, all that Bright had said, and all that Simon Grew had said, and all that the Chairman had said was given in the exact words in which they had said it. And over the top of the columns in which this report appeared, ran three striking headlines in bold black type.
EVENTFUL EVENING AT THE LABOUR HALL.
LEADING CAPITALIST’S SON CONDEMNS CAPITALISM.
MR. BRIGHT MARRASHAW LAYS THE LAW DOWN TO LABOUR.
Charlesworth found the Guardian, damp from the press, lying with other papers and his private letters, on his breakfast table next morning. He was alone in the room: Bright, whom he had not seen since the disturbing conversation of two nights before, had departed to his beloved Technical College; Trissie had not yet appeared. Now Charlesworth’s first action, every morning, as he stood on the thick velvet-pile hearthrug, his back to the fire, waiting the arrival of the hot dishes, was to open the Guardian and skim its contents: he had a naturally parochial instinct, and was much more interested in local gossip, of however small importance, than in the news of the greater world which lay outside the parish boundary. The first thing that caught his eye was his son’s name; the next a word or two that forced the blood to his face and a hasty expletive to his lips. He read the whole thing through, then, and had just finished it when Bella brought in the eggs and soles, the kidneys and bacon of which Charlesworth had been thinking with appreciation and appetite: he was a mighty trencherman at breakfast time and very particular about a full provision for his wants. Somehow, as the girl set various matters on the table and others in their chafing-dishes before the fire, Charlesworth felt as if bitterness had descended upon his palate: if he had voiced his sentiments in homely language he would have exclaimed that he had already got a bellyful. Instead, he threw the Guardian towards his daughter, who just then came into the room.
