Matthew. If you weren't an ignorant Frenchman you'd suffer for those words. I'm not a favourite. It isn't me. It's my work. There's never been a yard of faulty cloth made on my loom. It's good. It's the honest work of a man that takes a pride in making it good, not like your rotten machine-made muck that's turned out at the factory. That's why Mr. Barlow sends me yarn to weave. He gets his special price for the cloth I weave and he knows it pays to let me weave it. That's not making a favourite of me. It's business. Joe (_quietly_). It's making an exception of you, Matthew. You're working all the hours God sends, but you're drawing good money every week and you're living in comfort with your missus and your daughter both at home. My girls are in the factory and the wages of the lot of us don't keep the cold and hunger from our door. Matthew. What else do you expect but distress when you've let them get machines to do the work of men? It's Arkwright's spinning frames and Watt's steam engines that take the bread from your mouths. It isn't Barlow's, nor Heppenstall's, nor Whitworth's over the hill, nor Mottershead's, nor any of the manufacturers. It's steel and iron that have got you down, and more fools you for letting them. Henri. You talk like one of us already. Matthew. Aye? Only I'm not one of you. Joe. Is it our fault? We can't all weave like you. We're not all master craftsmen with looms of our own and no debts hanging round our necks. The machines are there. We can't get beyond it. Henri. We can break the machines. Matthew (_sharply_). No violence. Violence never did anybody good. Henri. We did no good in France until we took the Bastille. Matthew. And did that do any good? You're here, in exile, because your countrymen forgot the Bastille and welcomed Louis Bourbon back. Joe (_soberly_). I'm against violence myself till all else fails. That what we want of you, Matt. Help us to escape violence. Matt. What help? Joe. Will you go to London? Matt. London? Joe. Yes. (_Very earnestly._) They don't know there. They cannot know or else they wouldn't let things go on and let poor weavers starve. Eight shillings have I taken from the factory this week. Eight shillings and the loaf at thirteenpence! We want to tell the Government we're starving while the masters stink of brass. Wages must go higher or taxes lower. They must do something. Matthew. Why should I go? I'm not a factory hand. Henri. That's why they'll listen to a word from you. We'll go too, some of us, but there's little use in that because we're known to be reformers. There are Government spies in every Democratic Club. You can hardly trust your nearest friend. The spies are everywhere. Matthew. How do you make out they don't know about us, then? Joe. They can't. Even Parliament men aren't fiends from Hell. Matthew. It's no good going to London. Think of the March of the Blanketeers.