Our Ten Weeks' Strike

Chapter I. Master And Men

We were . happy enough in our workshops. We were about forty in all ; but ten of our number were apprentices, some nearly out of their time, others in the earlier years of it. Our employer was kind-hearted, considerate, and liberal ; and, though it has nothing to do with our strike, I may give one instance out of many to show his disposition. Robert Jordan was in the same branch with myself, and we pretty generally worked together. He had been ten or twelve years in our employer's service. He was an industrious, sober, and clever workman, and earned good wages ; but for some weeks he had been out of sorts ; his health seemed failing, though he could not tell what was the matter exactly. One day, Mr. Johnson, our employer, came into our shop, and looked hard at Jordan. " You are not well, Jordan," he said.

" No, sir," said the man ; " I have not been just the thing for a good while." " No, you have not ; I have noticed it. You ought to have medical advice," said Mr. Johnson. " I don't know, sir ; I have not much faith in doctors," replied Jordan. " I reckon I shall come round after a bit." " You ought to have advice," our master said again ; " it does not do to let disease get ahead of us, if we can avoid it ; and I do not like that cough you have got, and your short breathing, and the pain in your side I have heard you complain of. You must see a doctor." Jordan hesitated. I knew what was in his mind, for he had opened it to me before. The poor fellow had a large family, and he dreaded the expense of a doctor's bill, to say nothing of being laid aside from work, which, however, was a source of great dread and anxiety to him.

I rather think that Mr. John son guessed what was in his thoughts, for he said, " I will give you a note to my doctor, and you may make your mind easy about his charges; only you must abide by what he says." " Well, Jordan, you have seen the doctor," said Mr. Johnson the next morning. " You need not tell me what he says about you, because I have seen him. He says you ought to rest." " It is very easy for him to say that," replied Jordan; "but what is the use, sir, of his telling me that ? " "And he says, also," continued our master, "that you want a change. He believes that now, taking it in time, a month at the seaside would remove those ugly symptoms you feel. Did he not tell you so ? " " He told me so, sir," said Jordan, in a short sort of way. " And you mean to take his advice, I hope."

" No, sir," said the man. " But you must, Jordan. Put on your jacket, and come with me into my office." Jordan did so ; and presently he came back again. Poor Master and Men. 7 fellow ! his eyes were full of tears, but he could not say much. All he came back for was to get his tools together and put them away. " What ! are you off, Robert ? " I asked, when I saw what he was doing. " Yes, James," said he. " And our master " I began to ask about what had passed, but my fellow-workman cut me short by saying, — " May God Almighty bless him for ever and ever, James." In about five weeks' time Jordan came back to his work, a new man as regarded health and strength. And then it came out that our master had sent him, free of expense, to the sea side, and kept on his weekly wages as well, paid regularly to Jordan's wife.

This is only one of a good many kind, generous deeds of a like sort which I might mention ; for Mr. Johnson was one of those who are always devising liberal things. To be sure, it may be Said Mr. Johnson was a prosperous man, and could very well afford to be liberal. It may also be said that he knew the value of a good hand in his business, and, as a matter of pounds, shillings, and pence, saw that it was to his own interest even to be generous. But it is not every prosperous man who has the heart to do good with his money ; neither is it every employer who looks to his own true interests in consulting the happiness and welfare of those whom he employs. The truth is, Mr. Johnson was a sincere Christian ; and he not only knew by rote, but had taken into his heart, and made the rule of his life, that golden law of Christ, " As ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise ; " and another rule like it, " Masters, give unto your servants that which is just and equal, knowing that ye also have a Master in heaven."

Chapter II

, HOW discontent began to SHOW ITSELF. As I have already said, we were a cheerful, contented set of men in our workshops, as indeed we might very well be. But it is a true saying that, — " One scabby sheep insects the flock, And poisons all the rest ; " and this is as true of men morally as of sheep naturally ; just according to the Scripture, that " one sinner destroyeth much good," and that " evil communications corrupt good manners." A new workman came into our place, and succeeded in getting employment. He was a good hand at his trade, but a bad, dissolute fellow, as was found out afterwards. I believe it was partly out of compassion that Mr. Johnson gave work to Michael Collins, for he was in a desperately poor plight, almost starving, when he first made his appearance. Being really clever, and trade being brisk, he was kept on from week to week until he became one of our regular hands, and so he continued for six months or more.

All this time he gave out that he was a single man ; but this was a falsehood, for, by-and-by, it proved that he had a wife a long way off, whom he had deserted after a great deal of ill-usage on his part. Michael Collins was a tonguey man; he had always some- Ho iv Discontent began to slwiv itself. 9 thing to talk about, and he had a way of talking which seemed to set everybody else down. For this reason, or some other, he soon got a nickname — we called him "The Lawyer." The Bible tells us that the tongue, though " a little member," is " a world of iniquity " — " a fire " — that " it divideth the whole body, and setteth on fire the course of nature, and is set on fire of hell ; " that it is " an unruly member, full of deadly poison." These are terrible sayings, and, of course, they are not spoken of every man's tongue ; but they are true of many ; and, generally, when a man's tongue runs " nineteen to the dozen," as we say, we may be pretty sure that mischief will come of it.

Mischief did come of Michael Collins' long and glib tongue, and it soon began to show itself. Nobody could tell at first how it came about ; but gradually a feeling of discontent and dissatisfaction sprang up in all our workshops. There was a good deal of low-toned, under-breath talking among the men at by-times ; and it was all about the inequality of different classes of society ; the accumulation of property by a few at the expense of the great mass of people in the country ; the grinding tyranny of masters in general, and the helpless con dition of workmen. It was constantly whispered that there was one law for the rich and another for the poor, and that a good warm revolution was needed to set things to rights. And even those who did not go so far as this said that there was a screw loose somewhere.

From grumbling about things in general, it was easy and natural to come to particulars ; for every one who grumbled could easily find or fancy some especial grievance under which he laboured. Not to speak about others, I may mention my own trouble ; for I am sorry to confess to being led away by the prevailing discontent. I have said that our trade was brisk at that time. This was partly owing to a contract our employer had in hand. Well, when this contract was finished, I took the trouble to reckon up, as near as I could, what profit Mr. Johnson had made out of it. I don't know that I did this quite fairly ; but I thought at the time that I did ; and I was discontented with the small share of that profit which came to the men — myself among them — and the large share which went into our master's pocket.

Indeed, I argued that we had no share in it at all ; for we had only our weekly wages ; so that all the extra prosit went to Mr. Johnson. Then I looked at Mr. Johnson's family and my own. One lived in a large house, with servants to wait on them, and luxuries of all kinds at their command ; while the other (which was mine) had to put up with a small cottage, common clothes and fare, and with nothing to look forward to but hard work all through life. I did not like the look of this, and I could not see why my wife and six children should be in such a different position from Mr. Johnson's wife and his six children. What was Mr. Johnson ? He did no work, with his hands at least ; and if he had been put to the trial, he could not have done more in a day than I did, and perhaps not have done it so well. The more I thought about this the more angry I was.

Chapter III. How The Storm Kept Gathering

"James, we want you at the 'Blue Boar' this evening," so Frank Latham said to me one day as we were returning from dinner. " We ? whom do you mean by ' we ? '" I wanted to know. " Oh, just a few of us. There's to be a sort of meeting." " What sort of meeting, Frank ? " Frank did not choose to enlighten me ; but I pretty well understood what he meant. I had heard whispers, at any rate, of secret deliberations which had been held at the " Blue Boar" among some of our men, and I guessed at their object. " Very well, Frank," said I ; " I will be with you." I went to the " Blue Boar " that evening. There were about ten or a dozen of us altogether, and we had a room to our selves. Of course every one present was expected to order some kind of drink, and almost all were smoking tobacco. After awhile we got to business, and Michael Collins was chosen to be chairman of our "committee of privileges."

It is not my design to tell all that passed that evening; but without going into particulars, I may say that our chair man read some letters and printed papers which had come to him from a society, somewhere or other ; and that after this he made a long speech all about workmen's rights and workmen's wrongs. Then two or three others stood up and spoke in turn, all to the same effect. If any stranger had been present he would have supposed, from all that passed, unless he had known better, that masters and men were natural enemies, the' masters being selfish, grasping oppres sors and tyrants ; and the men the most down-trodden, oppressed, and enslaved race of beings in existence. Also, that the time was come for them to let their oppressors know that they would no longer submit to such injustice.

For myself, I am ashamed to say I was carried away by the eloquence I heard, especially after I had drunk a glass of spirits and water, to which I was not accustomed, but which, to be like the rest, I had foolishly ordered. I ought to have known better ; I did know better ; I knew in my heart that our employer was a good man, and the best friend his men had ; but I would not think of this. The upshot of that meeting was that every man present signed his name to a paper, which pledged him to discontinue working for Mr. Johnson, after a day fixed upon, unless certain demands were complied with. One of these demands was for higher wages, and another for shorter hours of work. There were other requirements, which I thought very reasonable then, but which I now know to have been very unreasonable ; but I need not enter into any particulars.

Before we broke up we each of us engaged to get as many as we could of our fellow-workmen who were not present to join with us in our demands ; but all was to be done secretly, for Mr. Johnson was to know nothing of our designs till they were ripe for execution. " You have not been so foolish, James ? " said Robert Jordan, when, on the following day, I took him aside, and spoke to him about our projected strike. " Foolish ! " said I ; " it is not at all foolish ; " and I began Ho iv the Storm kept gathering. 13 to vindicate myself from his charge until I became warm, and spoke very bitterly against our employer. " Hold ! " said my fellow-workman. " Do you think I am going to stand here and hear Mr. Johnson abused in that way ? The best friend on earth I ever had — a man who saved my life, as I verily believe.

If you have got nothing better to say of our master than that, you had better shut up, for I won't hear it ; " and Jordan looked both vexed and sorry, as I have no doubt he really was. " You need not put up your back in that way, Robert," I said ; " and as to Mr. Johnson saving your life, and all that, do you think he would have cared about you if it had not been to his interest to do it ? " " You wrong him more and more by every word you say," replied my companion ; " and I will not hear any more of it, only I will tell you this — that I believe Mr. Johnson would do as much for you, or for any other of his men, as he did for me if there were occasion, and it is most ungrateful " "You will not join us, then?" I said, cutting him short, impatiently. " You are safe to say that," said Jordan ; " and if you have not quite lost your wits you will have nothing to do with the strike either."

" Oh," said I, sullenly, " I am not going to be a knobstick, if you are." " You may call me a knobstick, or a black sheep, or any thing you like," rejoined my fellow-workman ; " and if you are going against our master in this way, the less we have to say to one another the better I shall like it ; " and Robert walked away without another word. But though I was unsuccessful with him, I and my " Blue Boar " associates were successful with others, and before long the storm burst.

Chapter IV. How The Storm Burst

" And you expect me to consent to these demands ? " I remember the scene just as plainly as though it had happened only a week ago. There were about twenty of us stand ing before our employer in one of the workshops, while he was looking round on us all, more sorrowfully than angrily. I could see that, though, at the same time, I noticed how firm and unshaken he was. He had a paper in his hand which we had all signed. " Yes, sir, we do," replied Michael Collins, who was chosen to be our spokesman. " I am not sure that it becomes you to put yourself forward before all the rest of the men, Collins," said Mr. Johnson. " You have been a very little time in my employment, compared with others. But it is no matter ; I suppose Collins speaks in the name of you all ? " and he glanced from one to another of us in a way that made me feel uncomfortable.

I answered with the rest, however, that we were willing Collins should speak for us, that he had been chosen for that purpose, and that we in tended to abide by what he said. " I see," continued Mr. Johnson, " that you complain of three things especially. The first is that your wages are not high enough; the second is that you work too many hours How the Storm burst. 15 out of the twenty-four ; and the third is that I take too many apprentices. Is this fairly stated by me ? " " Yes, sir, they are the principal things," said Collins ; " but there are some others." " Well, we will deal with these first ; and, as I have no time to spare, we will have as few words as possible. But, before we go any further, I am quite to understand that if I do not yield to your dictation you all intend to turn out ?

" " Yes, sir, that is our meaning," replied Collins, looking round rather triumphantly on his fellow-workmen. " Very well, that is settled then ; and I accept the alter native," continued Mr. Johnson, calmly. " And now, to cut the matter short, I do not intend to accede to any one of your demands." When our master said this, there arose a murmuring among the men ; and we looked at one another in a confused sort of way. The truth is, none of us expected such a quick and stern decision. For, notwithstanding all our hard sayings among ourselves about the meanness and tyranny of masters, we had calculated on the kindness and generosity of our own. Besides this, we had fancied that Mr. Johnson would be fright ened by the bold front we had put on, and would yield out of consideration for his own convenience, as we knew that it would be a serious damage to him to lose so many of his work men at a stroke.

We had not taken into account that our employer could be firm as well as liberal. " I do not intend to accede to any one of your demands," he repeated ; " and I will tell you why. In the first place," he went on, " I do not choose to be intimidated. If necessary I can close my workshops ; and I will do this rather than be at the mercy of a combination like this. While I am an employer, I cannot consent that those whom I employ should impede my free action by threats." Our Ten Weeks' Strike. " We don't threaten," said Collins, surlily. " Yes, I think you do. You come to me in a body, twenty against one, and tell me that if I do not submit to your dicta tion, you will punish me by putting me to inconvenience and loss. This is threatening. But let this pass ; for, if there were no threatenings, I am sure that, in the second place, your demands are unreasonable."

" That's the main point," said our spokesman ; " now, we all think that they are reasonable," " There is not one of you," our employer went on, looking from one to another of us, " who cannot earn his thirty shil lings weekly by working only the regular number of hours " " What's thirty shillings a week ? " said one of us. " Well, thirty shillings a week is not a fortune," rejoined our master, quietly ; " but let me tell you it is more than many men of education can obtain. I am sorry to say there are scores, and, perhaps, hundreds of curates " "We don't want to hear about them," interposed Collins, impatiently. " Very well,, then, to return to what I was saying : many of you earn forty and two or three of you fifty shillings a week " " By working overtime, sir," said one of the men, " Yes, by working overtime," continued Mr. Johnson ; "which proves, I think, that your second complaint is un founded.

Your regular hours of labour are not such a strain upon your powers that you cannot add three or four hours to them daily when it is to your interest to do so." " That's all very well ; but you are not going to gammon us like that," said our spokesman, rudely. Mr. Johnson fastened his eyes sternly on Collins for a moment or two, and then he looked round upon us all. " I see," he said, " that you are none of you disposed to listen o-0od- Ho iv the Storm burst. 17 temperedly to what I intended to say. I have done, therefore, for I have no hard or threatening words to give in exchange for yours ; and if I had," he added, with a sort of sorrowful smile, " twenty tongues to one are too long odds. Besides, there are many of you, almost all of you, indeed, whose old familiar faces I am sorry to see, perhaps, for the last time, and I wish to part on friendly terms with you all."

" It is to be a turn-out, then, Mr. Johnson ? " demanded Collins. " It is, if you choose to make it so," said our employer. And a turn-out it was. Our strike began that very day and hour ; for not one of us did another stroke of work, and we only returned to our different shops to take away our tools. It was a half-sorrowful look that I cast round me as I stood for a minute at the door of the place where I had worked more than nine years ; but I was roused from my thoughts by a smart slap on my shoulder. It was Frank Latham who gave it. " Hooray for a jolly strike ! " he said. " Come along, James." " What do you think of the governor ? " said I, doubtfully ; for now it was all over I began to feel queer, somehow. " Think ? why, I think he hadn't a word to say for himself, or he would have said it," said Frank. " And I think that in a fortnight he will be glad to have us back again on our own terms ; so cheer up, old fellow." Ten Weeks' Strike.

Chapter V. First Day Of The Strike

It is a strange feeling that comes over a man, especially if it is a new experience, when he is suddenly thrown out of work, either by his own act and deed or by that of others. I hope I may never have a renewal of such experience. There was I, strong, healthy, not idly disposed naturally, with arms and hands fit for labour, and with skill to use them, and nothing to do, after nine years' constant, regular employment. It was not a comfortable reflection. To be sure, there was a sense of freedom ; but freedom without the means of enjoying it (such freedom as mine was, I mean) is not of much value. Now, I had a wife and six children depending on my daily labour ; and I felt rather qualmish about them, now that it was all over, and the thing was done and decided. Certainly, I had a few pounds in the savings bank ; but suppose the strike should continue, and I could get work nowhere else, how long would this little store last ?

And, at any rate, it would be a pitiful thing to see that melting away from day to day, even it I should not get quite to the bottom of it before I had a chance of earning more. The savings of years would be completely dissipated in a few weeks. All this, and a great deal more, passed through my mind as First Day of the Strike. 19 I walked slowly homewards on the afternoon of the strike. I am glad to say that I did go homewards, straight, though slow ; for a good many of my fellow workman went off at once to the " Blue Boar," to .spend the money in drink they would soon so sorely need. Well, I walked towards home with no very comfortable feelings. The truth is, I did not feel quite sure how my wife would take it. Strange to say, I had not thought of this before ; or, if I had thought of it, I had dismissed the reflec tion by arguing that it was my business to settle terms with my employer, not hers ; she had therefore heard nothing from me of the meetings at the " Blue Boar " (for I had attended more than one), nor of the intended turn-out.

But now it came into my mind that it did concern her. very deeply, and that she ought to have been consulted on the matter. However, the thing was done ; and it behoved me to make the best of it. I reached home, then, and found my wife ironing. "Why, James," said she, pleasantly, when I entered, "you are early to-day. And what a load of tools you have got." " Yes," said I ; " pretty well for that ; they are all my own, though ; and that's a comfort." " I did not say they were not your own, did I, James ? " said she, going on with her work ; " but what makes you come home so soon ? " " Oh," said I ; " you have not heard then, Betsy ?" " Heard, James ? why, what is there to hear ? " she wished to know, clapping her iron down on the stand, and looking at me both curiously and anxiously. "Well, don't be frightened, my girl.

I did not know but you might have heard." And then, plucking up courage, I added, " There is something up at Mr. Johnson's ; and I am not going back there again for a little while." Our Ten Weeks' Strike. 20 " Dear heart ! " exclaimed Betsy, turning pale ; " you don't mean that Mr. Johnson is broke, do you ? " " No, no ; it is not so bad as that. There has only been a bit of a shindy ; and the men have struck." " Struck, James ? " cried Betsy. " Yes, Betsy ; you know what that means, I suppose," said I, pretending to make light of it. " Yes, James, I do know what it means," replied my poor wife, with her eyes brimful of tears. " It means sorrow, and sin too, very often. It means no wages and idleness to the men ; hard slaving and hard words to their wives ; and ragged ness, hunger, and I don't know what besides to children as well as wives.

These are some things that ' a strike ' means ; for I have seen it, and felt it too, when I was a girl at home." My poor wife did not say this angrily nor passionately ; but it seemed as though the words were forced out of her against her will. " You need not take it to heart so seriously, my girl," I said. " The fact is, you don't know anything about it. You may as well hear the story before you talk about idleness, and raggedness, and starvation, and slavery, and all the rest of it. Any way, you know me well enough, Betsy, to be sure that I would rather work jny flesh off my bones than see you slaving for me, or our children either." " Did Mr. Johnson want you to go beyond working the flesh off your bones, then, James ? " my wife asked, quietly. " I did not know that he was wanting you to do even that," she added, looking at my stout, strong arms and full, healthy countenance.

" Betsy, you don't understand it at all," I said, pettishly • " and you need not look at me in that way." And then I sat down, and tried to make as light as I could of the matter while I went over the whole history of the turn-out from beginning to end. But, somehow, although it seemed to me First Day of the Strike. 21 that I made it very plain that the right was all on our side, and the wrong on that of our master, my wife could not, or would " You are early to-day." (,p. 19.) not, see it in that light ; arid the end of it was that the first day of our strike ended in our coming very near to a domestic quarrel.