t be my fault if I don't,
and I hope it won't be yours. What?" as a murmur broke out in the
background. "Oh, shut up, please, till I've done, then if anyone wants to
talk he shall have his chance. It might be your fault if I failed
because I'm counting on you to back me up in a legal and orderly way.
And if you don't, well, I'm knocked out for good and all. For I'm no
strike-leader, and any man who strikes can go to blazes so far as I'm
concerned. I wouldn't lift a finger to stop him going or to get him out
when there; in fact it's the best place for him. No, boys, listen! Wait
till I've done! A strike is a deadly thing. It's like a spreading poison
in this country, and the beastly root of it is just selfishness. It
will choke the very life out of the nation if it isn't stopped. It's a
weapon that no self-respecting man should smirch his hands with. I know
very well there are heaps of reforms needed, heaps of abuses to be
stopped, but you don't cure evil with evil. You're only feeding the
monster that will devour you in the end, and you're feeding him with
human sacrifice moreover. Have you ever thought of that? And another
thing! Do you ever look ahead--right ahead--beyond your own personal
wants and grievances? Do you ever ask yourselves if strikes and violence
are going to bring forth justice and equity? Do you ever work the thing
out to its proper values--see it as it really is? This continual striving
for money, for power,--this overthrowing of all established control--do
you call it a fight for liberty by any chance? I tell you, men, that
it's a struggle for the most hideous slavery that ever disfigured this
earth. This perpetual fight for self will end in self-destruction. It
always does. It's the law of creation. The thing that strikes rebounds
upon the striker. The man who deliberately injures another injures
himself tenfold more seriously. Isn't there something in the Bible about
he who takes the sword perishes with the sword? That's justice--God's
justice--and there's no getting away from that. You can overthrow every
institution that was ever made, but you will never set up in its place a
Government that will bring again the order you have destroyed. You can
pull the Empire to pieces with dissensions and conspiracies, but--once
down--you will never build it up again.

"Grievances? Yes, of course you have grievances--heaps of 'em. Who
hasn't. And you've a right to try for better conditions. But in heaven's
na