"Why do you allow your landed-proprietors to treat you so?" he scoffed. "Why are you so stupid? Of course if you won't utter a word of protest you don't deserve anything better."
And he explained how things were managed in his trade, at the factory. If one of the workmen was unfairly treated, or if the pay was considered too small, then they had a thorough good strike. They took care to choose the best possible time for it, when the manufacturers had the most pressing work to do. The trade-union, to which of course they all had to belong, kept blacklegs at a distance, and they went on doggedly righting until new terms had been won. Certainly the workmen did not invariably carry all their demands; but a strike seldom ended without their gaining some solid advantage. Yes, the workers had only to show the world that they were a power; that they were not going to be trampled on for ever; that they intended henceforth to have their share of the profits which they had hitherto been putting into the pockets of the rich, although earned by their own toil and sweat.
Or Weise would reckon how much was spent in one day's gun-practice. Each shot cost about fifteen marks; and the sixth battery alone had fired about a hundred and twenty shots that morning. There were six batteries in each regiment, four regiments in each army-corps, and twenty-three army-corps in the whole of Germany.
"Any-one who likes can reckon it up," said Weise. "In any case the money would be enough to give every poor devil in the whole world one happy day!"
He pulled out a sheet of paper and read from it the sum that Germany spent annually on her army. It made the men open their eyes pretty wide. An incredible sum, truly, of which they could form no clear idea at all.
Sometimes one of them would say! "But look here, old man; suppose there was war, and we had no soldiers?"
"War! war!" said Weise. "What is war, pray? Who is it that makes war? Do you want war? Do you want to have to go and stand up like those targets out there and be hit on the skull or in the belly by the shrapnel?"
The brewer thought a moment, and answered:
"No, certainly not. I wish for peace. But the French might want to fight us, or the Russians."