_identical_, instead of being as far apart as the poles, which appears to be your present impression. Neither can exist without the other. So far you have imbibed only half of that truth. You reiterate with distressing frequency, Mr Winch, the fact that Capital cannot exist without Labour. Perfectly true. Now try to absorb into your system the fact--equally important to a hair's-breadth--that Labour cannot exist without Capital. Each depends upon the other for existence, and what we have to do is to balance and balance and balance, employing a sense of proportion, proportion, _proportion_!" Juggernaut's fist descended with a crash upon the table, and for a minute he was silent--free-wheeling, so to speak, over the pulverised remains of Mr Winch. Presently he continued, with one of his rare smiles-- "A Frenchman once said that an Englishman begins by making a speech and ends by preaching a sermon. I am afraid I have justified the gibe, but it's a good thing to thrash these matters out. I don't deny that the average employer is in the habit of giving his _employés_ their bare pound of flesh in the way of wages and no more. But I think the _employé_ has himself to blame for that. If you invoke the assistance of the law against your neighbour, that neighbour will give you precisely as much as the law compels him to give. Well, that is what organised Labour has done. It has its Trades Union, its Workmen's Compensation and Employers' Liability, and so on; and lately it has gouged out of a myopic Government a scheme of Old Age Pensions, to be eligible for which a man must on no account have exercised any kind of thrift throughout his working life. If he has, he is disqualified. All this legislation enables you to get the half-nelson on your employer. Under the circumstances you can hardly expect him to throw in benevolence as well. You can't have your cake and eat it. The old personal relations between master and man are dead--dead as Queen Anne--and with them has died the master's sense of moral responsibility for the welfare of those dependent on him." "Time, too! Degradation! Feudal system!" observed the ever-ready Mr Killick. "Well, perhaps; but the Feudal System had its points, Mr Killick. It fostered one or two homely and healthy virtues like benevolence and loyalty and pride of race; and I don't think a man-at-arms ever lost his self-respect or felt degraded because he lived in time of peace under the protection of the Lord of the Manor whom he followed in time of war. Yes, I for one rather regret the passing of the old order. Listen, and I will tell you a story. Forty years ago Cherry Hill Pit was flooded--flooded for nearly three months during a bitter hard winter. Sir Nigel Thompson's father, the late baronet----"