The Great Oration The outlook for the approaching winter was - as usual - gloomy in the extreme.One of the leading daily newspapers published an article prophesying a period of severe industrial depression.`As the warehouses were glutted with the things produced by the working classes, there was no need for them to do any more work - at present;and so they would now have to go and starve until such time as their masters had sold or consumed the things already produced.' Of course, the writer of the article did not put it exactly like that, but that was what it amounted to.This article was quoted by nearly all the other papers, both Liberal and Conservative.The Tory papers -ignoring the fact that all the Protectionist countries were in exactly the same condition, published yards of misleading articles about Tariff Reform.The Liberal papers said Tariff Reform was no remedy.
Look at America and Germany - worse than here! Still, the situation was undoubtedly very serious - continued the Liberal papers - and Something would have to be done.They did not say exactly what, because, of course, they did not know; but Something would have to be done - tomorrow.They talked vaguely about Re-afforestation, and Reclaiming of Foreshores, and Sea walls: but of course there was the question of Cost! that was a difficulty.But all the same Something would have to be done.Some Experiments must be tried! Great caution was necessary in dealing with such difficult problems! We must go slow, and if in the meantime a few thousand children die of starvation, or become `rickety' or consumptive through lack of proper nutrition it is, of course, very regrettable, but after all they are only working-class children, so it doesn't matter a great deal.
Most of the writers of these Liberal and Tory papers seemed to think that all that was necessary was to find `Work' for the `working'
class! That was their conception of a civilized nation in the twentieth century! For the majority of the people to work like brutes in order to obtain a `living wage' for themselves and to create luxuries for a small minority of persons who are too lazy to work at all! And although this was all they thought was necessary, they did not know what to do in order to bring even that much to pass! Winter was returning, bringing in its train the usual crop of horrors, and the Liberal and Tory monopolists of wisdom did not know what to do!
Rushton's had so little work in that nearly all the hands expected that they would be slaughtered the next Saturday after the `Beano' and there was one man - Jim Smith he was called - who was not allowed to live even till then: he got the sack before breakfast on the Monday morning after the Beano.
This man was about forty-five years old, but very short for his age, being only a little over five feet in height.The other men used to say that Little Jim was not made right, for while his body was big enough for a six-footer, his legs were very short, and the fact that he was rather inclined to be fat added to the oddity of his appearance.
On the Monday morning after the Beano he was painting an upper room in a house where several other men were working, and it was customary for the coddy to shout `Yo! Ho!' at mealtimes, to let the hands know when it was time to leave off work.At about ten minutes to eight, Jim had squared the part of the work he had been doing - the window - so he decided not to start on the door or the skirting until after breakfast.Whilst he was waiting for the foreman to shout `Yo! Ho!'
his mind reverted to the Beano, and he began to hum the tunes of some of the songs that had been sung.He hummed the tune of `He's a jolly good fellow', and he could not get the tune out of his mind: it kept buzzing in his head.He wondered what time it was? It could not be very far off eight now, to judge by the amount of work he had done since six o'clock.He had rubbed down and stopped all the woodwork and painted the window.A jolly good two hours' work! He was only getting sixpence-halfpenny an hour and if he hadn't earned a bob he hadn't earned nothing! Anyhow, whether he had done enough for 'em or not he wasn't goin' to do no more before breakfast.
The tune of `He's a jolly good fellow' was still buzzing in his head;he thrust his hands deep down in his trouser pockets, and began to polka round the room, humming softly:
`I won't do no more before breakfast!
I won't do no more before breakfast!
I won't do no more before breakfast!
So 'ip 'ip 'ip 'ooray!
So 'ip 'ip 'ip 'ooray So 'ip 'ip 'ooray!
I won't do no more before breakfast - etc.'
`No! and you won't do but very little after breakfast, here!' shouted Hunter, suddenly entering the room.
`I've bin watchin' of you through the crack of the door for the last 'arf hour; and you've not done a dam' stroke all the time.You make out yer time sheet, and go to the office at nine o'clock and git yer money; we can't afford to pay you for playing the fool.'
Leaving the man dumbfounded and without waiting for a reply, Misery went downstairs and after kicking up a devil of a row with the foreman for the lack of discipline on the job, he instructed him that Smith was not to be permitted to resume work after breakfast.Then he rode away.He had come in so stealthily that no one had known anything of his arrival until they heard him bellowing at Smith.
The latter did not stay to take breakfast but went off at once, and when he was gone the other chaps said it served him bloody well right:
he was always singing, he ought to have more sense.You can't do as you like nowadays you know!
Easton - who was working at another job with Crass as his foreman -knew that unless some more work came in he was likely to be one of those who would have to go.As far as he could see it was only a week or two at the most before everything would be finished up.But notwithstanding the prospect of being out of work so soon he was far happier than he had been for several months past, for he imagined he had discovered the cause of Ruth's strange manner.