ating
a strike which shall result in a trifling increase of wages."

"And a coal strike, I say," Peter Dale interrupted, "is the logical
first course. We've been threatening it for two years and it's time we
brought it off. I can answer for the miners of the north country. We
have two hundred and seventy thousand pounds laid by and the Unions are
spoiling for a fight. Another eighteen-pence would make life a
different thing for some of our pitmen. And the masters can afford it,
too. Sixteen and a half per cent is the average dividend on the largest
collieries around us."

A small man, with gimlet-like black eyes and a heavy moustache, at which
he had been tugging nervously during Peter Dale's remarks, plunged into
the discussion. His name was Abraham Weavel and he came from Sheffield.

"Coal's all very well," he declared, "but I speak for the ironfounders.
There's orders enough in Leeds and Sheffield to keep the furnaces ablaze
for two years, and the masters minting money at it. Our wages ain't to
be compared with the miners. We've twenty thousand in Sheffield that
aren't drawing twenty-five shillings a week and they're about fed up
with it. We've our Unions, too, and money to spare, and I tell you
they're beginning to ask what's the use of sending a Labour Member to
Parliament and having nothing come of it."

A grey-whiskered man, who had the look of a preacher, struck the table
before him with a sudden vigour.

"You remember who I am, Mr. Maraton? My name's Borden--Samuel
Borden--and I am from the Potteries. It's all very well for Weavel and
Dale there to talk, but there's no labour on God's earth so underpaid as
the china and glass worker. We may not have the money saved--that's
simply because it takes my people all they can do to keep from
starvation. I've figures here that'll prove what I say. I'll go so far
as this--there isn't a worse paid industry than mine in the United
Kingdom."

There was a moment's silence. Abraham Weavel leaned back in his chair
and yawned. Peter Dale made a grimace of dissent. Maraton turned to
one of the little company who as yet had scarcely opened his lips--a
thin, ascetic-looking, middle-aged man, who wore gold spectacles, and
who had an air of refinement which was certainly not shared by any of
the others.

"And you, Mr. Culvain," he enquired, "you represent no particular
industry, I believe? You were a journalist, were you not, before you
entered Parliament?"

"I was and a