"I'm too much of an Englishman, for one," Graveling said, "to want to pull the country down. Now where does this universal strike come in?"
"The universal strike," Maraton explained quietly, "is the doctrine I came to England to preach. It is the doctrine I meant to preach to-night. If your coal strike and your iron strike and your railway strike were declared within the next few days, the pillars would indeed be pulled down."
"Why, I should say so!" Peter Dale declared gruffly. "Half the people in the country would be starving; there'd be no subscriptions to the Unions; the blooming Germans would be over here in no time, and we should lose our jobs."
"It wouldn't do, Mr. Maraton," Borden said briskly. "It's our job to improve the position of our constituents, but it's jolly certain we shouldn't do that by bringing ruin upon the country."
David Ross suddenly struck the table with his fist.
"You are wrong, all of you," he cried hoarsely. "You are ignorant men, thick-headed, fat, narrow fools, full of self-interest and prejudice. You want your jobs; they come first. I tell you that the man's right. Purge the country; get rid of the poison of ill-distributed capital, start again a new nation and a new morning."
"What you need, Ross, is a drink," he remarked. "I noticed you weren't doing yourself very well coming down."
David Ross rose heavily to his feet. His arm was stretched out towards Dale and it was the arm of an accuser.
"Doing myself well!" he repeated, with fierce contempt. "That's the keynote of your lives, you lazy, self-satisfied swine, who call yourselves people's men! What do you know or care about the people? how many of you have walked by day and night in the wilderness and felt your heart die away within you? How many of you have watched the people hour by hour--the broken people, the vicious people, the cripples, the white slaves of crueler days than the most barbarous countries in history have ever permitted to their children? You understand your jobs, and you do yourselves well; that's your motto and your epitaph. There's only one amongst you who's a people's man and that's him."
He pointed to Maraton and sat down. Peter Dale removed his pipe from his mouth.