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The veranda, in addition to serving as the general sitting-room to the family, acts as a servants' hall. Here at the side not used by the employers, the servants, when not otherwise engaged, sit on their mats, mend their clothes, talk and sleep; and it is wonderful how much sleep a Hindoo can get through in the twenty-four hours.
Wherever he works, he is noted for the ascendency which he maintains over the other peons. They are entirely subject to his will; they do nothing without his advice; he is worth, say his employers, a dozen overseers. Ah, he is yet to rule on a larger scale!
He left the Ministry of Munitions in Whitehall, took a train down to South Wales, had a straight talk with the employers, another straight talk with the men, and in one day settled affairs and got the men to continue their work.
And for the most part it is going to be only in the more superficial, inefficient, thoughtless industry that men, either employers or employed, will be inclined to leave their daily work, run out wildly and drag in a House of Commons to help them to do right.
Testimony gathered from all sources by the Consumers' League, women's clubs, and women's labor organizations has proved beyond doubt that good working conditions, reasonable hours of work, and living wages vastly increase the efficiency of the workers, and thus increase the profits of the employers. The New York Telephone Company does not set itself up to be a benevolent institution.
If, again, they sound a note of alarm at the outrageous insolence of the labourers who presumed to demand a large increase of wage, and would not work at the old scale of pay, there is no pretence that the employers could not afford to accede to the increased demand; the "grand meschief du poeple" consisted in this, that the tillers of the soil should have dreamt of asserting themselves in any way whatever.
The first Sunday that I spent at Devonport I went to the dockyard church the church appointed for officials and men employed by the Government. The seats were appointed in the order of rank, employments, and rate of pay. The rows of seats were all marked with the class of employers that were expected to sit in them. Labourers were near the door.
I have lived a great deal at the North long enough to see acts of oppression and injustice there, which, were any one so inclined, might be wrought into a "living dramatic reality." I knew a wealthy family. All the labor of the house was performed by a "poor relation," a young and delicate girl. I have known servants struck by their employers.
The hundred thousand households of the poor parted with their last possessions in order to continue the struggle; they meant to force a decision that should affect their whole future. The employers tried to hinder the great National Federation by calling the attention of the authorities to an ancient statute concerning mendicancy; but that merely aroused merriment.
"I know the paper isn't mixed up in it at all," he said, "but he's my employer and he pays me. Well, I like to be loyal to my employers, and if I'm loyal to this man I can't go about telling everybody that he's a dirty cad. As I particularly want to." Then there is the case of Bolus the author. He is only an honorary member, for he has not as yet had the opportunity of refusing money or work.
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