Touch and Go | Page 7

a bit over to keep the
missis quiet, you're satisfied. I never saw such a satisfied bloomin' lot
in my life as you Barlow & Wasall's men are, really. Of course you can
growse as well as anybody, and you do growse. But you don't do

anything else. You're stuck in a sort of mud of contentment, and you
feel yourselves sinking, but you make no efforts to get out. You bleat a
bit, like sheep in a bog--but you like it, you know. You like sinking
in--you don't have to stand on your own feet then.
I'll tell you what'll happen to you chaps. I'll give you a little picture of
what you'll be like in the future. Barlow & Walsall's 'll make a number
of compounds, such as they keep niggers in in South Africa, and there
you'll be kept. And every one of you'll have a little brass collar round
his neck, with a number on it. You won't have names any more. And
you'll go from the compound to the pit, and from the pit back again to
the compound. You won't be allowed to go outside the gates, except at
week-ends. They'll let you go home to your wives on Saturday nights,
to stop over Sunday. But you'll have to be in again by half-past nine on
Sunday night; and if you're late, you'll have your next week-end
knocked off. And there you'll be-- and you'll be quite happy. They'll
give you plenty to eat, and a can of beer a day, and a bit of bacca--and
they'll provide dominoes and skittles for you to play with. And you'll be
the most contented set of men alive.--But you won't be men. You won't
even be animals. You'll go from number one to number three thousand,
a lot of numbered slaves--a new sort of slaves---
VOICE. An' wheer shall thee be, Willie?
WILLIE. Oh, I shall be outside the palings, laughing at you. I shall
have to laugh, because it'll be your own faults. You'll have nobody but
yourself to thank for it. You don't WANT to be men. You'd rather NOT
be free--much rather. You're like those people spoken of in
Shakespeare: "Oh, how eager these men are to be slaves!" I believe it's
Shakespeare--or the Bible--one or the other--it mostly is---
ANABEL WRATH (she was passing to church). It was Tiberius.
WILLIE. Eh?
ANABEL. Tiberius said it.
WILLIE. Tiberius!--Oh, did he? (Laughs.) Thanks! Well, if Tiberius

said it, there must be something in it. and he only just missed being in
the Bible anyway. He was a day late, or they'd have had him in. "Oh,
how eager these men are to be slaves!"--It's evident the Romans
deserved all they got from Tiberius--and you'll deserve all you get,
every bit of it. But don't you bother, you'll get it. You won't be at the
mercy of Tiberius, you'll be at the mercy of something a jolly sight
worse. Tiberius took the skin off a few Romans, apparently. But you'll
have the soul taken out of you--every one of you. And I'd rather lose
my skin than my soul, any day. But perhaps you wouldn't.
VOICE. What art makin' for, Willie? Tha seems to say a lot, but tha
goes round it. Tha'rt like a donkey on a gin. Tha gets ravelled.
WILLIE. Yes, that's just it. I am precisely like a donkey on a gin-- a
donkey that's trying to wind a lot of colliers up to the surface. There's
many a donkey that's brought more colliers than you up to see daylight,
by trotting round.--But do you want to know what I'm making for? I
can soon tell you that. You Barlow & Wasall's men, you haven't a soul
to call your own. Barlow & Wasall's have only to say to one of you,
Come, and he cometh, Go, and he goeth, Lie VOICE. Ay--an' what
about it? Tha's got a behind o' thy own, hasn't yer?
WILLIE. Do you stand there and ask me what about it, and haven't the
sense to alter it? Couldn't you set up a proper Government to-morrow,
if you liked? Couldn't you contrive that the pits belonged to you,
instead of you belonging to the pits, like so many old pit-ponies that
stop down till they are blind, and take to eating coal-slack for
meadow-grass, not knowing the difference? If only you'd learn to think,
I'd respect you. As you are, I can't, not if I try my hardest. All you can
think of is to ask for another shilling a day. That's as far as your
imagination carries you. And perhaps you get sevenpence ha'penny, but
pay for it with half-a-crown's worth of sweat. The masters aren't
fools--as you are. They'll give you two-thirds of what you ask