's a decent enough little chap, as dogs go, but I don't
let him run my larder.

"It could be done with a little good will all round," he continued, "and
nine men out of every ten would be the better off. But they won't even
let you explain. Their newspapers shout you down. It's such a damned
fine world for the few: never mind the many. My father was a farm
labourer: and all his life he never earned more than thirteen and
sixpence a week. I left when I was twelve and went into the mines. There
were six of us children; and my mother brought us up healthy and decent.
She fed us and clothed us and sent us to school; and when she died we
buried her with the money she had put by for the purpose; and never a
penny of charity had ever soiled her hands. I can see them now. Talk of
your Chancellors of the Exchequer and their problems! She worked herself
to death, of course. Well, that's all right. One doesn't mind that
where one loves. If they would only let you. She had no opposition to
contend with--no thwarting and hampering at every turn--the very people
you are working for hounded on against you. The difficulty of a man like
myself, who wants to do something, who could do something, is that for
the best part of his life he is fighting to be allowed to do it. By the
time I've lived down their lies and got my chance, my energy will be
gone."

He knocked the ashes from his pipe and relit it.

"I've no quarrel with the rich," he said. "I don't care how many rich
men there are, so long as there are no poor. Who does? I was riding on
a bus the other day, and there was a man beside me with a bandaged head.
He'd been hurt in that railway smash at Morpeth. He hadn't claimed
damages from the railway company and wasn't going to. 'Oh, it's only a
few scratches,' he said. 'They'll be hit hard enough as it is.' If he'd
been a poor devil on eighteen shillings a week it would have been
different. He was an engineer earning good wages; so he wasn't feeling
sore and bitter against half the world. Suppose you tried to run an army
with your men half starved while your officers had more than they could
eat. It's been tried and what's been the result? See that your soldiers
have their proper rations, and the General can sit down to his six-course
dinner, if he will. They are not begrudging it to him.

"A nation works on its stomach. Underfeed your rank and file, and what
sort of a fight are you going to put up again