'I heard, moreover, that it was considered to the advantage of

the masters to have ignorant workmen--not hedge-lawyers, as

Captain Lennox used to call those men in his company who

questioned and would know the reason for every order.' This

latter part of her sentence she addressed rather to her father

than to Mr. Thornton. Who is Captain Lennox? asked Mr. Thornton

of himself, with a strange kind of displeasure, that prevented

him for the moment from replying to her! Her father took up the

conversation.

'You never were fond of schools, Margaret, or you would have seen

and known before this, how much is being done for education in

Milton.' 'No!' said she, with sudden meekness. 'I know I do not care

enough about schools. But the knowledge and the ignorance of

which I was speaking, did not relate to reading and writing,--the

teaching or information one can give to a child. I am sure, that

what was meant was ignorance of the wisdom that shall guide men

and women. I hardly know what that is. But he--that is, my

informant--spoke as if the masters would like their hands to be

merely tall, large children--living in the present moment--with a

blind unreasoning kind of obedience.' 'In short, Miss Hale, it is very evident that your informant

found a pretty ready listener to all the slander he chose to

utter against the masters,' said Mr. Thornton, in an offended

tone.

Margaret did not reply. She was displeased at the personal

character Mr. Thornton affixed to what she had said.

Mr. Hale spoke next: 'I must confess that, although I have not become so intimately

acquainted with any workmen as Margaret has, I am very much

struck by the antagonism between the employer and the employed,

on the very surface of things. I even gather this impression from

what you yourself have from time to time said.' Mr. Thornton paused awhile before he spoke. Margaret had just

left the room, and he was vexed at the state of feeling between

himself and her. However, the little annoyance, by making him

cooler and more thoughtful, gave a greater dignity to what he

said: 'My theory is, that my interests are identical with those of my

workpeople and vice-versa. Miss Hale, I know, does not like to

hear men called 'hands,' so I won't use that word, though it

comes most readily to my lips as the technical term, whose

origin, whatever it was, dates before my time. On some future

day--in some millennium--in Utopia, this unity may be brought

into practice--just as I can fancy a republic the most perfect

form of government.' 'We will read Plato's Republic as soon as we have finished

Homer.' 'Well, in the Platonic year, it may fall out that we are all--men

women, and children--fit for a republic: but give me a

constitutional monarchy in our present state of morals and

intelligence. In our infancy we require a wise despotism to

govern us. Indeed, long past infancy, children and young people

are the happiest under the unfailing laws of a discreet, firm

authority. I agree with Miss Hale so far as to consider our

people in the condition of children, while I deny that we, the

masters, have anything to do with the making or keeping them so.

I maintain that despotism is the best kind of government for

them; so that in the hours in which I come in contact with them I

must necessarily be an autocrat. I will use my best

discretion--from no humbug or philanthropic feeling, of which we

have had rather too much in the North--to make wise laws and come

to just decisions in the conduct of my business--laws and

decisions which work for my own good in the first instance--for

theirs in the second; but I will neither be forced to give my

reasons, nor flinch from what I have once declared to be my

resolution. Let them turn out! I shall suffer as well as they:

but at the end they will find I have not bated nor altered one

jot.' Margaret had re-entered the room and was sitting at her work; but

she did not speak. Mr. Hale answered-'I dare say I am talking in great ignorance; but from the little

I know, I should say that the masses were already passing rapidly

into the troublesome stage which intervenes between childhood and

manhood, in the life of the multitude as well as that of the

individual. Now, the error which many parents commit in the

treatment of the individual at this time is, insisting on the

same unreasoning obedience as when all he had to do in the way of

duty was, to obey the simple laws of "Come when you're called" and

"Do as you're bid!" But a wise parent humours the desire for

independent action, so as to become the friend and adviser when

his absolute rule shall cease. If I get wrong in my reasoning,

recollect, it is you who adopted the analogy.' 'Very lately,' said Margaret, 'I heard a story of what happened

in Nuremberg only three or four years ago. A rich man there lived

alone in one of the immense mansions which were formerly both

dwellings and warehouses. It was reported that he had a child,

but no one knew of it for certain. For forty years this rumour

kept rising and falling--never utterly dying away. After his

death it was found to be true. He had a son--an overgrown man

with the unexercised intellect of a child, whom he had kept up in

that strange way, in order to save him from temptation and error.

But, of course, when this great old child was turned loose into

the world, every bad counsellor had power over him. He did not

know good from evil. His father had made the blunder of bringing

him up in ignorance and taking it for innocence; and after

fourteen months of riotous living, the city authorities had to

take charge of him, in order to save him from starvation. He

could not even use words effectively enough to be a successful

beggar.' 'I used the comparison (suggested by Miss Hale) of the position

of the master to that of a parent; so I ought not to complain of

your turning the simile into a weapon against me. But, Mr. Hale,

when you were setting up a wise parent as a model for us, you

said he humoured his children in their desire for independent

action. Now certainly, the time is not come for the hands to have

any independent action during business hours; I hardly know what

you would mean by it then. And I say, that the masters would be

trenching on the independence of their hands, in a way that I,

for one, should not feel justified in doing, if we interfered too

much with the life they lead out of the mills. Because they

labour ten hours a-day for us, I do not see that we have any

right to impose leading-strings upon them for the rest of their

time. I value my own independence so highly that I can fancy no

degradation greater than that of having another man perpetually

directing and advising and lecturing me, or even planning too

closely in any way about my actions. He might be the wisest of

men, or the most powerful--I should equally rebel and resent his

interference I imagine this is a stronger feeling in the North of

England that in the South.' 'I beg your pardon, but is not that because there has been none

of the equality of friendship between the adviser and advised

classes? Because every man has had to stand in an unchristian and

isolated position, apart from and jealous of his brother-man:

constantly afraid of his rights being trenched upon?' 'I only state the fact. I am sorry to say, I have an appointment

at eight o'clock, and I must just take facts as I find them

to-night, without trying to account for them; which, indeed,

would make no difference in determining how to act as things

stand--the facts must be granted.' 'But,' said Margaret in a low voice, 'it seems to me that it

makes all the difference in the world--.' Her father made a sign

to her to be silent, and allow Mr. Thornton to finish what he had

to say. He was already standing up and preparing to go.




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