Mr. Standfast John Buchan (e book reading free txt) š
- Author: John Buchan
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I admitted I had, for I had been well coached by Blenkiron in the current history of industrial disputes.
āWell, Iām a shop steward. We represent the rank and file against office-bearers that have lost the confidence oā the workingman. But Iām no socialist, and I would have ye keep mind of that. Iām yin oā the old Border radicals, and Iām not like to change. Iām for individual liberty and equal rights and chances for all men. Iāll no more bow down before a Dagon of a Goavernment official than before the Baal of a feckless Tweedside laird. Iāve to keep my views to myselā, for thae young lads are all drucken-daft with their wee books about Cawpital and Collectivism and a wheen long senseless words I wouldna fyle my tongue with. Them and their socialism! Thereās more gumption in a page of John Stuart Mill than in all that foreign trash. But, as I say, Iāve got to keep a quiet sough, for the world is gettinā socialism now like the measles. It all comes of a defective eddication.ā
āAnd what does a Border radical say about the war?ā I asked.
He took off his spectacles and cocked his shaggy brows at me. āIāll tell ye, Mr. Brand. All that was bad in all that Iāve ever wrestled with since I cam to years oā discretionā āTories and lairds and manufacturers and publicans and the Auld Kirkā āall that was bad, I say, for there were orra bits of decency, yeāll find in the Germans full measure pressed down and running over. When the war started, I considered the subject calmly for three days, and then I said: āAndra Amos, yeāve found the enemy at last. The ones ye fought before were in a manner oā speakinā just misguided friends. Itās either you or the Kaiser this time, my man!āāā
His eyes had lost their gravity and had taken on a sombre ferocity. āAy, and Iāve not wavered. I got a word early in the business as to the way I could serve my country best. Itās not been an easy job, and thereās plenty of honest folk the day will give me a bad name. They think Iām stirrinā up the men at home and desertinā the cause oā the lads at the front. Man, Iām keepinā them straight. If I didna fight their battles on a sound economic isshue, they would take the dorts and be at the mercy of the first blagyird that preached revolution. Me and my like are safety-valves, if ye follow me. And dinna you make ony mistake, Mr. Brand. The men that are agitating for a rise in wages are not for peace. Theyāre fighting for the lads overseas as much as for themselves. Thereās not yin in a thousand that wouldna sweat himself blind to beat the Germans. The Goavernment has made mistakes, and maun be made to pay for them. If it were not so, the men would feel like a moose in a trap, for they would have no way to make their grievance felt. What for should the big man double his profits and the small man be ill set to get his ham and egg on Sabbath morninā? Thatās the meaning oā Labour unrest, as they call it, and itās a good thing, says I, for if Labour didna get its leg over the traces now and then, the spunk oā the land would be dead in it, and Hindenburg could squeeze it like a rotten aipple.ā
I asked if he spoke for the bulk of the men.
āFor ninety percent in ony ballot. I donāt say that thereās not plenty of riffraffā āthe pint-and-a-dram gentry and the soft-heads that are aye reading bits of newspapers, and muddlinā their wits with foreign whigmaleeries. But the average man on the Clyde, like the average man in ither places, hates just three things, and thatās the Germans, the profiteers, as they call them, and the Irish. But he hates the Germans first.ā
āThe Irish!ā I exclaimed in astonishment.
āAy, the Irish,ā cried the last of the old Border radicals. āGlasgowās stinkinā nowadays with two things, money and Irish. I mind the day when I followed Mr. Gladstoneās Home Rule policy, and used to threep about the noble, generous, warmhearted sister nation held in a foreign bondage. My Goad! Iām not speakinā about Ulster, which is a dour, ill-natured den, but our own folk all the same. But the men that will not do a handās turn to help the war and take the chance of our necessities to set up a bawbee rebellion are hateful to Goad and man. We treated them like pet lambs and thatās the thanks we get. Theyāre coming over here in thousands to tak the jobs of the lads that are doing their duty. I was speakinā last week to a widow woman that keeps a wee dairy down the Dalmarnock Road. She has two sons, and both in the airmy, one in the Cameronians and one a prisoner in Germany. She was telling me that she could not keep goinā any more, lacking the help of the boys, though she had worked her fingers to the bone. āSurely itās a crool job, Mr. Amos,ā she says, āthat the Goavernment should tak baith my laddies, and Iāll maybe never see them again, and let the Irish gang free and tak the bread frae our mouth. At the gasworks across the road they took on a hundred Irish last week, and every yin oā them as young and well set
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