Nobody's ManOppenheim, E. Phillips (Edward Phillips)
General
Nobody's Man
Oppenheim, E. Phillips (Edward Phillips)
Detective and mystery stories
you elect to-day. There will be a select committee, or rather
fifty-seven select committees, of each industry always at hand, and we
consider that we shall frame in that manner a body of men competent to
deal with the inner workings of every industry. They will decide what
proportion of the earnings of each industry shall be allocated to labour
and what to capital. In other words, they will fix or approve of or
revise the wages of the country. They will settle every dispute and
their decision will be final. The funds held by the various trades
unions will form charitable funds or be returned as bonuses to the
contributors. I have given you the barest outline of the scheme which
has been drawn up to form a part of our programme when the time comes
for us to present one. To-day you are only concerned to elect the one
representative. I am here to beg, gentlemen, that you elect one whose
theories, whose principles, whose antecedents and whose general attitude
towards labour problems will fit him to take a very important place in
the future government of the country."
There was a little murmur of applause. Miller was once more on his
feet.
"I claim," he said, "that this is neither the time nor the place to
spring upon us an utterly new method of dealing with Labour questions.
What you propose seems to me a subtle attack upon the trades unions
themselves. They have been the guardians of the people for the last
fifteen years, and even though some strikes have been necessary and
although all strikes may not have been successful, yet on the whole the
trades unions have done their work well. I shall not accept, in the
event of my election, the programme which Mr. Dartrey has laid down,
unless I am elected with a special mandate to do so."
Saunderson rose to his feet, a man of different type, blunt of speech,
rugged, the typical working-man's champion except for his voice, which
was of unexpected tone and quality.
"Mr. Weavel and the rest of you," he said, "I differ from Miller.
That's lucky, because you can vote now not only for the man but the
principle. I have loathed strikes all my life, just because I am
political economist enough to loathe waste and to hate to see production
fettered,--that is, where the fruits of the production are shared fairly
with Labour. I like Dartrey's scheme and I am prepared to stand by it."
Saunderson sat down. Dartrey and Tallente left the room while the
business of voting went on. Dartrey had a private room of his own in
the rear of the building and he and Tallente made their way there.
"Those men have a good deal to decide," Tallente reflected. "It's queer
how the balance of things has changed. I don't suppose any Cabinet
Council for years has had to tackle a more important problem."
"I wonder how they'll vote," Dartrey speculated. "Weavel's our man."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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