Part 64 (1/2)
Presently the word ”strikes” caught his ear.
”Ah, yes, what about those strikes?” he inquired.
”They are still going on, your Majesty.”
”Yes, _I_ know that! Why are they going on--that's what I want to know?
The strike you are talking about was practically over more than a month ago; why has it begun again?”
”They have secured fresh funds, sir, and other trades have joined in.”
”Is it the other trades that are finding the funds?”
”Not entirely, sir; large contributions are now coming in from abroad.”
”From abroad?” interjected the King irritably, ”where are they getting funds from abroad?”
”From England, sir.”
”From the Government, do you mean?”
”Of course not from the Government, sir.”
”Well, explain yourself, then! Don't call it England if it isn't England.”
”I might almost say that it is England, sir, since a judicial decision is the immediate cause of it. Labor in that country has just won a very important action for damages arising out of a Crown prosecution. It has now been decided that the Crown is responsible for the torts of its civil and military agents. The unions in consequence are flush with funds, and a portion of the Court's award, amounting to 50,000, has been handed over to the strike fund in this country.”
”And this subsidy from a foreign and a so-called friendly Power is having the effect of prolonging our industrial conflicts, and is doing damage to our trade?”
”Undoubtedly, sir, it has that effect.”
”Well, and has nothing been said about it--to the English Government, I mean?”
”It is not a direct act of the Government, sir.”
”I don't need to be told that,” said the King. ”Neither was it a direct act of the Government when a party of English undergraduates climbed to the top of our emba.s.sy and hauled down the national flag because Jingalese had been made a compulsory subst.i.tute for Greek at their universities. But for that the English Government apologized, publicly and privately, and all round. Do they apologize for this? Do they offer to compensate us for the loss it is to our trade and the corresponding gain to theirs? Have they been asked to apologize?”
”Certainly not, sir.”
”And pray, why not?”
By this time, around the ministerial board, much open-eyed interrogation was going on. Where, they seemed to be asking, was this glut of foolish interrogations going to end? But still the minister under examination endeavored to answer as though the questions were reasonable.
”There would be no chance, sir, of obtaining any redress.”
”Yet this is doing us infinitely more harm?”
”It is merely a development, sir, of that new thing called 'syndicalism.' It is cropping up everywhere now.”
”It may be new as it likes,” protested the King. ”All I say is that as it stands it is a casus belli. You say it is cropping up; all the more reason why it should be put down! What else is government for? Take cattle disease; you put that down, you do not allow that to be imported.
Why should you allow syndicalism to be imported either?”