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There have been strikes not only in the big cotton mills and jute mills and other large manufacturing industries, but also amongst postmen, and amongst railwaymen on State as well as on private-owned lines, amongst tram-car drivers and conductors, and even amongst city scavengers. Lightning strikes without any notice are of growing frequency.
These were the railwaymen, who went about in a business-like way, pushing railway vans, counting packages, carrying papers, checking lists, and giving information politely and willingly. The rest were soldiers, lost, bewildered in the midst of this entanglement of lines which seemed inextricable.
However, he stopped out of curiosity, and read that men were needed to go to France skilled men of all sorts. There was a long list of the trades, everything you could think of carpenters, plumbers, electricians, lumbermen, stevedores, railwaymen, laundrymen, cooks, warehousemen so on for several columns.
Out of a population of eight millions, seven millions are under the heel of the invader. Railwaymen are starving, for railways have ceased to work. Office clerks are starving, for banks and offices are closed. Public officials are starving, for no salaries can be paid.... Journalists and printers are starving, for newspapers and books have ceased to appear.
They form evangelistic societies; they take a special interest in navvies, road menders, pedlars, railwaymen and others cut off from regular church connection; they open lodging-houses and temperance restaurants; and thus they endeavour to rescue the fallen, to fight the drink evil, and to care for the bodies and souls of beggars and tramps, of unemployed workmen, and of starving and ragged children.
Pol through Chocques and Lillers to Steenbecque is stamped on the memory by its more than many halts, the occasional glare of mines and munition factories which, in anticipation of another break-through, seemed to be working at tensest pressure to evacuate coal and manufactured stores from capture by the enemy; by the loud booming of artillery, to which the train seemed to draw specially near at Chocques and Isbergues; and the final sudden grinding of the brakes at Steenbecque, distracted railwaymen, and the small hut in which Bennett and the Brigade Staff were exhibiting a mixture of excitement, impatience and a sort of reckless familiarity with this apparent repetition of the Somme retreat.
I leaned against a lamppost, my mind gravel-rashed, and waited for something that could be understood. The Germans would do. We heard the enemy was close, and that the railway officials would get us away if they could. The morning became no warmer, there was no coffee, and our tobacco pouches were empty. But at least we were favoured with the chance of watching the French railwaymen at work.
It had apparently taken the staff most of the day to see what was going on, but the facts were none the less correct; for the railwaymen in their enthusiasm had failed to notice anything but their general direction, which was, of course, perfectly accurate; the fact that they had indeed advanced beyond our lines had utterly escaped them!
Soon a numerous membership succeeded to the few who on Scottish railways had previously joined the Institution, and we had much satisfaction in finding that we were able to dispense substantial aid to many old and needy railwaymen and to their widows and orphans. Mr. Wainwright remained Chairman of the Branch till his death, and I continued Secretary until I left Scotland.
But have we not said and repeated over and over again, that as long as there are capitalists, these abuses of power will be perpetuated? It is precisely the State, the would-be benefactor, that has given to the companies that monopoly and those rights upon us which they possess to-day. Has it not created concessions, guarantees? Has it not sent its soldiers against railwaymen on strike?
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