North and South · Chapter 15 (2/3)

“Thank you!” said Margaret, hastily, holding out her hand to take the note, for she did not wish her mother to hear that they had been making any inquiry about a doctor. She was pleased that Mr. Thornton seemed immediately to understand her feeling; he gave her the note without another word of explanation.

Mr. Hale began to talk about the strike. Mr. Thornton’s face assumed a likeness to his mother’s worst expression, which immediately repelled the watching Margaret.

“Yes; the fools will have a strike. Let them. It suits us well enough. But we gave them a chance. They think trade is flourishing as it was last year. We see the storm on the horizon and draw in our sails. But because we don’t explain our reasons, they won’t believe we’re acting reasonably. We must give them line and letter for the way we choose to spend or save our money. Henderson tried a dodge with his men, out at Ashley, and failed. He rather wanted a strike; it would have suited his book well enough. So when the men came to ask for the five percent they are claiming, he told ’em he’d think about it, and give them his answer on the pay day; knowing all the while what his answer would be, of course, but thinking he’d strengthen their conceit of their own way. However, they were too deep for him, and heard something about the bad prospects of trade. So in they came on the Friday, and drew back their claim, and now he’s obliged to go on working. But we Milton masters have today sent in our decision. We won’t advance a penny. We tell them we may have to lower wages; but can’t afford to raise. So here we stand, waiting for their next attack.”

“And what will that be?” asked Mr. Hale.

“I conjecture a simultaneous strike. You will see Milton without smoke in a few days, I imagine, Miss Hale.”

“But why,” asked she, “could you not explain what good reason you had for expecting a bad trade? I don’t know whether I use the right words, but you will understand what I mean.”

“Do you give your servants reasons for your expenditure, or your economy in the use of your own money? We, the owners of capital, have a right to choose what we will do with it.”

“A human right,” said Margaret, very low.

“I beg your pardon, I did not hear what you said.”

“I would rather not repeat it,” said she; “it related to a feeling which I do not think you would share.”

“Won’t you try me?” pleaded he; his thoughts suddenly bent upon learning what she had said. She was displeased with his pertinacity, but did not choose to affix too much importance to her words.

“I said you had a human right. I meant that there seemed no reason but religious ones, why you should not do what you like with your own.”

“I know we differ in our religious opinions; but don’t you give me credit for having some, though not the same as yours?”

He was speaking in a subdued voice, as if to her alone. She did not wish to be so exclusively addressed. She replied out in her usual tone:

“I do not think that I have any occasion to consider your special religious opinions in the affair. All I meant to say is, that there is no human law to prevent the employers from utterly wasting or throwing away all their money, if they choose; but that there are passages in the Bible which would rather imply⁠—to me at least⁠—that they neglected their duties as stewards if they did so. However, I know so little about strikes and rate of wages, and capital, and labour, that I had better not talk to a political economist like you.”

“Nay, the more reason,” said he eagerly. “I shall only be too glad to explain to you all that may seem anomalous or mysterious to a stranger; especially at a time like this, when our doings are sure to be canvassed by every scribbler who can hold a pen.”

“Thank you,” she answered, coldly. “Of course, I shall apply to my father in the first instance for any information he can give me, if I get puzzled with living here amongst this strange society.”

“You think it strange. Why?”

“I don’t know⁠—I suppose because, on the very face of it, I see two classes dependent on each other in every possible way, yet each evidently regarding the interests of the other as opposed to their own: I never lived in a place before where there were two sets of people always running each other down.”

“Who have you heard running the masters down? I don’t ask who you have heard abusing the men; for I see you persist in misunderstanding what I said the other day. But who have you heard abusing the masters?”

Margaret reddened; then smiled as she said,

“I am not fond of being catechised. I refuse to answer your question. Besides, it has nothing to do with the fact. You must take my word for it, that I have heard some people, or, it may be, only some one of the workpeople speak as though it were the interest of the employers to keep them from acquiring money⁠—that it would make them too independent if they had a sum in the savings’ bank.”

“I dare say it was that man Higgins who told you all this,” said Mrs. Hale. Mr. Thornton did not appear to hear what Margaret evidently did not wish him to know. But he caught it nevertheless.

“I heard, moreover, that it was considered to the advantage of the masters to have ignorant workmen⁠—not hedge-lawyers, as Captain Lennox used to call those men in his company who questioned and would know the reason for every order.”

This latter part of her sentence she addressed rather to her father than to Mr. Thornton. Who is Captain Lennox? asked Mr. Thornton of himself, with a strange kind of displeasure, that prevented him for the moment from replying to her! Her father took up the conversation.

“You never were fond of schools, Margaret, or you would have seen and known before this how much is being done for education in Milton.”

“No!” she said, with sudden meekness. “I know I do not care enough about schools. But the knowledge and the ignorance of which I was speaking did not relate to reading and writing⁠—the teaching or information one can give to a child. I am sure, that what was meant was ignorance of the wisdom that shall guide men and women. I hardly know what that is. But he⁠—that is my informant⁠—spoke as if the masters would like their hands to be merely tall, large children⁠—living in the present moment⁠—with a blind unreasoning kind of obedience.”

“In short, Miss Hale, it is very evident that your informant found a pretty ready listener to all the slander he chose to utter against the masters,” said Mr. Thornton, in an offended tone.

Margaret did not reply. She was displeased at the personal character Mr. Thornton affixed to what she had said.

Mr. Hale spoke next:

“I must confess that, although I have not become so intimately acquainted with any workmen as Margaret has, I am very much struck by the antagonism between the employer and the employed, on the very surface of things. I even gather this impression from what you yourself have from time to time said.”

Mr. Thornton paused awhile before he spoke. Margaret had just left the room, and he was vexed at the state of feeling between himself and her. However, the little annoyance, by making him cooler and more thoughtful, gave a greater dignity to what he said:

“My theory is, that my interests are identical with those of my workpeople, and vice-versa. Miss Hale, I know, does not like to hear men called ‘hands,’ so I won’t use that word, though it comes most readily to my lips as the technical term, whose origin, whatever it was, dates before my time. On some future day⁠—in some millennium⁠—in Utopia, this unity may be brought into practice⁠—just as I can fancy a republic the most perfect form of government.”

“We will read Plato’s Republic as soon as we have finished Homer.”

“Well, in the Platonic year, it may fall out that we are all⁠—men, women, and children⁠—fit for a republic; but give me a constitutional monarchy in our present state of morals and intelligence. In our infancy we require a wise despotism to govern us. Indeed, long past infancy, children and young people are the happiest under the unfailing laws of a discreet firm authority. I agree with Miss Hale so far as to consider our people in the condition of children, while I deny that we, the masters, have anything to do with the making or keeping them so. I maintain that despotism is the best kind of government for them; so that in the hours in which I come in contact with them I must necessarily be an autocrat. I will use my best discretion⁠—from no humbug or philanthropic feeling, of which we have had rather too much in the North⁠—to make wise laws and come to just decisions in the conduct of my business⁠—laws and decisions which work for my own good in the first instance⁠—for theirs in the second; but I will neither be forced to give my reasons, nor flinch from what I have once declared to be my resolution. Let them turn out! I shall suffer as well as they: but in the end they will find I have not bated nor altered one jot.”

Margaret had reentered the room and was sitting at her work; but she did not speak. Mr. Hale answered⁠—

“I dare say I am talking in great ignorance; but from the little I know, I should say that the masses were already passing rapidly into the troublesome stage which intervenes between childhood and manhood, in the life of the multitude as well as that of the individual. Now, the error which many parents commit in the treatment of the individual at this time is, insisting on the same unreasoning obedience as when all he had to do in the way of duty was, to obey the simple laws of ‘Come when you’re called,’ and ‘Do as you’re bid!’ But a wise parent humours the desire for independent action, so as to become the friend and adviser when his absolute rule shall cease. If I get wrong in my reasoning, recollect, it is you who adopted the analogy.”

“Very lately,” said Margaret, “I heard a story of what happened in Nuremberg only three or four years ago. A rich man there lived alone in one of the immense mansions which were formerly both dwellings and warehouses. It was reported that he had a child, but no one knew of it for certain. For forty years this rumour kept rising and falling⁠—never utterly dying away. After his death it was found to be true. He had a son⁠—an overgrown man, with the unexercised intellect of a child, whom he had kept up in that strange way, in order to save him from temptation and error. But, of course, when this great old child was turned loose in the world, every bad counsellor had power over him. He did not know good from evil. His father had made the blunder of bringing him up in ignorance and taking it for innocence; and after fourteen months of riotous living, the city authorities had to take charge of him, in order to save him from starvation. He could not even use words effectively enough to be a successful beggar.”

“I used the comparison (suggested by Miss Hale) of the position of the master to that of a parent, so I ought not to complain of your turning the simile into a weapon against me. But, Mr. Hale, when you were setting up a wise parent as a model for us, you said he humoured his children in their desire for independent action. Now certainly, the time is not come for the hands to have any independent action during business hours; I hardly know what you would mean by it then. And I say, that the masters would be trenching on the independence of their hands, in a way that I, for one, should not feel justified in doing, if we interfered too much with the life they lead out of the mills. Because they labour ten hours a-day for us, I do not see that we have any right to impose leading-strings upon them for the rest of their time. I value my own independence so highly that I can fancy no degradation greater than that of having another man perpetually directing and advising and lecturing me, or even planning too closely in any way about my actions. He might be the wisest of men or the most powerful⁠—I should equally rebel and resent his interference. I imagine this is a stronger feeling in the North of England than in the South.”

“I beg your pardon, but is not that because there has been none of the equality of friendship between the adviser and advised classes? Because every man has had to stand in an unchristian and isolated position, apart from and jealous of his brother-man: constantly afraid of his rights being trenched upon?”

“I only state the fact. I am sorry to say, I have an appointment at eight o’clock, and I must just take facts as I find them tonight, without trying to account for them; which, indeed, would make no difference in determining how to act as things stand⁠—the facts must be granted.”

“But,” said Margaret in a low voice, “it seems to me that it makes all the difference in the world⁠—.” Her father made a sign to her to be silent, and allow Mr. Thornton to finish what he had to say. He was already standing up and preparing to go.

“You must grant me this one point. Given a strong feeling of independence in every Darkshire man, have I any right to obtrude my views, of the manner in which he shall act, upon another (hating it as I should do most vehemently myself), merely because he has labour to sell and I capital to buy?”

“Not in the least,” said Margaret, determined to say just this one thing; “not in the least because of your labour and capital positions, whatever they are, but because you are a man, dealing with a set of men over whom you have, whether you reject the use of it or not, immense power, just because your lives and your welfare are so constantly and intimately interwoven. God has made us so that we must be mutually dependent. We may ignore our own dependence, or refuse to acknowledge that others depend upon us in more respects than the payment of weekly wages; but the thing must be, nevertheless. Neither you nor any other master can help yourselves. The most proudly independent man depends on those around him for their insensible influence on his character⁠—his life. And the most isolated of all your Darkshire Egos has dependants clinging to him on all sides; he cannot shake them off, any more than the great rock he resembles can shake off⁠—”

“Pray don’t go into similes, Margaret; you have led us off once already,” said her father, smiling, yet uneasy at the thought that they were detaining Mr. Thornton against his will, which was a mistake; for he rather liked it, as long as Margaret would talk, although what she said only irritated him.

“Just tell me, Miss Hale, are you yourself ever influenced⁠—no, that is not a fair way of putting it;⁠—but if you are ever conscious of being influenced by others, and not by circumstances, have those others been working directly or indirectly? Have they been labouring to exhort, to enjoin, to act rightly for the sake of example, or have they been simple, true men, taking up their duty, and doing it unflinchingly, without a thought of how their actions were to make this man industrious, that man saving? Why, if I were a workman, I should be twenty times more impressed by the knowledge that my master was honest, punctual, quick, resolute in all his doings (and hands are keener spies even than valets), than by any amount of interference, however kindly meant, with my ways of going on out of work-hours. I do not choose to think too closely on what I am myself; but, I believe, I rely on the straightforward honesty of my hands, and the open nature of their opposition, in contradistinction to the way in which the turnout will be managed in some mills, just because they know I scorn to take a single dishonourable advantage, or do an underhand thing myself. It goes farther than a whole course of lectures on ‘Honesty is the Best Policy’⁠—life diluted into words. No, no! What the master is, that will the men be, without overmuch taking thought on his part.”