there's more prosperity than
we've ever seen before, there are decent, hard workingmen who canna
afford to have as many bairns as they would wish, for lack of the
siller to care for them properly after they come. There are men who
mak' no more in wages than they did five years ago, when everything
cost half what it does the noo. And they're listening to those who
preach of general strikes, and overthrowing the state, and all the
other wild remedies the agitators recommend.

Now, we know, you and I, that these remedies wouldn't cure the faults
that we can see. We know that in Russia they're worse off for the way
they've heeded Lenine and Trotzky and their crew. We know that you
can't alter human nature that way, and that when customs and
institutions have grown up for thousands of years it's because most
people have found them good and useful. But here's puir Jock! What
interests him is how he's to buy shoes for Jean and Andy, and a new
dress for the wife, and milk for the wean that's been ailing ever
since she was born. He hears the bairns crying, after they're put to
bed, because they're hungry. And he counts his siller wi' the gude
wife, every pay day, and they try to see what can they do without
themselves that the bairns may be better off.

"Eh, man Jock, listen to me," says the sleek, well fed agitator. "Join
us, and you'll be able to live as well as the King himself. Your
employer's robbing you. He's buying diamonds for his wife with the
siller should be feeding your bairns."

Foolishness? Oh, aye--but it's easier for you and me to see than for
Jock, is it no?

And just suppose, noo, that a union comes and Jock gets a chance to
join it--a real, old fashioned union, not one of the new sort that's
for upsetting everything. It brings Jock and Sandy and Tom and all the
rest of the men in the works together. And there's one man, speaking
for a' of them, to talk to the employer.

"The men maun have more money, sir," he'll say, respectfully.

"I cannot pay it," says the employer.

"Then they'll go out on strike," says the union leader.

And the employer will whine and complain! But, do you mind, the shoe's
on the other foot the noo! For now, if they all quit, it hurts him. He
wouldna mind Jock quitting, sae lang as the rest stayed. But when they
all go out together it shuts doon his works, and he begins to lose
siller. And so he's likely to find that he can squeeze out a few
shillings extra for each man's pay e