Then there was need for a complete break. The mines were run on an old
system, an obsolete idea. The initial idea had been, to obtain as much
money from the earth as would make the owners comfortably rich, would
allow the workmen sufficient wages and good conditions, and would
increase the wealth of the country altogether. Gerald's father,
following in the second generation, having a sufficient fortune, had
thought only of the men. The mines, for him, were primarily great
fields to produce bread and plenty for all the hundreds of human beings
gathered about them. He had lived and striven with his fellow owners to
benefit the men every time. And the men had been benefited in their
fashion. There were few poor, and few needy. All was plenty, because
the mines were good and easy to work. And the miners, in those days,
finding themselves richer than they might have expected, felt glad and
triumphant. They thought themselves well-off, they congratulated
themselves on their good-fortune, they remembered how their fathers had
starved and suffered, and they felt that better times had come. They
were grateful to those others, the pioneers, the new owners, who had
opened out the pits, and let forth this stream of plenty.
But man is never satisfied, and so the miners, from gratitude to their
owners, passed on to murmuring. Their sufficiency decreased with
knowledge, they wanted more. Why should the master be so
out-of-all-proportion rich?
There was a crisis when Gerald was a boy, when the Masters' Federation
closed down the mines because the men would not accept a reduction.
This lock-out had forced home the new conditions to Thomas Crich.
Belonging to the Federation, he had been compelled by his honour to
close the pits against his men. He, the father, the Patriarch, was
forced to deny the means of life to his sons, his people. He, the rich
man who would hardly enter heaven because of his possessions, must now
turn upon the poor, upon those who were nearer Christ than himself,
those who were humble and despised and closer to perfection, those who
were manly and noble in their labours, and must say to them: 'Ye shall
neither labour nor eat bread.' It was this recognition of the state of war which really broke his
heart. He wanted his industry to be run on love. Oh, he wanted love to
be the directing power even of the mines. And now, from under the cloak
of love, the sword was cynically drawn, the sword of mechanical
necessity.
This really broke his heart. He must have the illusion and now the
illusion was destroyed. The men were not against HIM, but they were
against the masters. It was war, and willy nilly he found himself on
the wrong side, in his own conscience. Seething masses of miners met
daily, carried away by a new religious impulse. The idea flew through
them: 'All men are equal on earth,' and they would carry the idea to
its material fulfilment. After all, is it not the teaching of Christ?
And what is an idea, if not the germ of action in the material world.
'All men are equal in spirit, they are all sons of God. Whence then
this obvious DISQUALITY?' It was a religious creed pushed to its
material conclusion. Thomas Crich at least had no answer. He could but
admit, according to his sincere tenets, that the disquality was wrong.
But he could not give up his goods, which were the stuff of disquality.
So the men would fight for their rights. The last impulses of the last
religious passion left on earth, the passion for equality, inspired
them.