of the things by force if he did not comply
with their demands. But the kind-hearted Capitalist told them not to
be insolent, and spoke to them about honesty, and said if they were not
careful he would have their faces battered in for them by the police,
or if necessary he would call out the military and have them shot down
like dogs, the same as he had done before at Featherstone and Belfast.

'Of course,' continued the kind-hearted capitalist, 'if it were not for
foreign competition I should be able to sell these things that you have
made, and then I should be able to give you Plenty of Work again: but
until I have sold them to somebody or other, or until I have used them
myself, you will have to remain idle.'

'Well, this takes the bloody biskit, don't it?' said Harlow.

'The only thing as I can see for it,' said Philpot mournfully, 'is to
'ave a unemployed procession.'

'That's the idear,' said Harlow, and the three began to march about the
room in Indian file, singing:

'We've got no work to do-oo-oo'
We've got no work to do-oo-oo!
Just because we've been workin' a dam sight too hard,
Now we've got no work to do.'

As they marched round, the crowd jeered at them and made offensive
remarks. Crass said that anyone could see that they were a lot of
lazy, drunken loafers who had never done a fair day's work in their
lives and never intended to.

'We shan't never get nothing like this, you know,' said Philpot. 'Let's
try the religious dodge.'

'All right,' agreed Harlow. 'What shall we give 'em?'

'I know!' cried Philpot after a moment's deliberation. '"Let my lower
lights be burning." That always makes 'em part up.'

The three unemployed accordingly resumed their march round the room,
singing mournfully and imitating the usual whine of street-singers:

'Trim your fee-bil lamp me brither-in,
Some poor sail-er tempest torst,
Strugglin' 'ard to save the 'arb-er,
Hin the dark-niss may be lorst,
So let try lower lights be burning,
Send 'er gleam acrost the wave,
Some poor shipwrecked, struggling seaman,
You may rescue, you may save.'

'Kind frens,' said Philpot, removing his cap and addressing the crowd,
'we're hall honest British workin' men, but we've been hout of work for
the last twenty years on account of foreign competition and
over-production. We don't come hout 'ere because we're too lazy to
work;