Part 20 (1/2)

And there were some strikes that had serious consequences. There were strikes that delayed the building of s.h.i.+ps, and the making of cannon and sh.e.l.l. And as a result of them men died, in France, and in Gallipoli, and in other places, who need no have died. They were laddies who'd dropped all, who'd gi'en up all that was dear to them, all comfort and safety, when the country called.

They had nae voice in the matters that were in dispute. None thought, when sic a strike was called, of hoo those laddies in the trenches wad be affected. That's what I canna forgie. That's what makes me wonder why the Anzacs, when they reach home, don't have a word to say themselves aboot the troubles that the union leaders would seem to be gaein' to bring aboot.

We're in a ficht still, even though peace has come. We're in a ficht wi' poverty, and disease, and all the other menaces that still threaten our civilization. We'll beat them, as we ha' beaten the other enemies. But we'll no beat them by quarrelling amang oorselves, any more than we'd ever have beaten the Hun if France and Britain had stopped the war, every sae often, to hae oot an argument o' their own.

We had differences with our gude friends the French, fraw time to time. Sae did the Americans, and whiles we British and our American cousins got upon ane anither's nerves. But there was never real trouble or difficulty, as the result and the winning of the war have shown.

Do you ken what it is we've a' got to think of the noo? It's production. We must produce more than we ha' ever done before. It's no a steady raise in wages that will help. Every time wages gang up a s.h.i.+lling or twa, everything else is raised in proportion. The workingman maun mak' more money; everyone understands that. But the only way he can safely get more siller is to earn more--to increase production as fast as he knows how.

It's the only way oot--and it's true o' both Britain and America. The more we mak' the more we'll sell. There's a market the noo for all we English speaking folk can produce. Germany is barred, for a while at least; France, using her best efforts and brains to get back upon her puir, bruised feet, canna gae in avily for manufactures for a while yet. We, in Britain, have only just begun to realize that the war is over. It took us a long time to understand what we were up against at the beginning, and what sort of an effort we maun mak' if we were to win the war.

And then, before we'd done, we were doing things we'd never ha dreamed it was possible for us tae do before the need was upon us. We in Britain had to do without things we'd regarded as necessities and we throve without them. For the sake of the wee bairns we went without milk for our tea and coffee, and scarce minded it. Aye, in a thousand little ways that had not seemed to us to matter at all we were deprived and harried and hounded.

Noo, what I'm thinking sae often is just this. We had a great problem to meet in the winning of the war. We solved it, though it was greater than any of those we were wont to call insoluble. Are there no problems left? There's the slum. There's the sort of poverty that afflicts a man who's willing tae work and can nicht find work enough tae do tae keep himself and his family alive and clad. There's all sorts of preventible disease. We used to shrug our shoulders and speak of such things as the act of G.o.d. But I'll no believe they're acts of G.o.d. He doesna do things in such a fas.h.i.+on. They're acts of man, and it's for man to mak' them richt and end what's wrong wi' the world he dwells in.

They used to shrug their shoulders in Russia, did those who had enough to eat and a warm, decent hoose tae live in. They'd hear of the sufferings of the puir, and they'd talk of the act of G.o.d, and how he'd ordered it that i' this world there maun always be some suffering.

And see what's come o' that there! The wrong sort of man has set to work to mak' a wrong thing richt, and he's made it worse than it ever was. But how was it he had the chance to sway the puir ignorant bodies in Russia? How was it that those who kenned a better way were not at work long agane? Ha' they anyone but themselves to blame that Trotzky and the others had the chance to persuade the Russian people tae let them ha' power for a little while'?

Oh, we'll no come to anything like that in Britain and America. I've sma' patience wi' those that talk as if the Bolsheviki would be ruling us come the morrow. We're no that sort o' folk, we Britons and Americans. We've settled our troubles our ain way these twa thousand years, and we'll e'en do sae again. But we maun recognize that there are things we maun do tae mak' the lot of the man that's underneath a happier and a better one.

He maun help, tae. He maun realize that there's a chance for him. I'm haulding mysel' as one proof of that--it's why I've told you sae muckle in this book of myself and the way that I've come frae the pit tae the success and the comfort that I ken the noo.

I had to learn, lang agane, that my business was not only mine. Maybe you'll think that I'm less concerned with others and their affairs than maist folk, and maybe that's true, tae. But I. canna forget others, gi'en I would. When I'm singing I maun have a theatre i' which to appear. And I canna fill that always by mysel'. I maun gae frae place to place, and in the weeks of the year when I'm no appearing there maun be others, else the theatre will no mak' siller enough for its owners to keep it open.

And then, let's gie a thought to just the matter of my performance.

There must be an orchestra. It maun play wi' me; it maun be able to accompany me. An orchestra, if it is no richt, can mak' my best song sound foolish and like the singing o' some one who dinna ken ane note of music frae the next. So I'm dependent on the musicians--and they on me. And then there maun be stage hands, to set the scenes. Folk wouldna like it if I sang in a theatre wi'oot scenery. There maun be those that sell tickets, and tak' them at the doors, and ushers to show the folk their seats.

And e'en before a'body comes tae the hoose to pay his siller for a ticket there's others I'm dependent upon. How do they ken I'm in the toon at a'? They've read it in the papers, maybe--and there's reporters and printers I've tae thank. Or they've seen my name and my picture on a h.o.a.rding, and I've to think o' the men who made the lithograph sheets, and the billposters who put them up. Sae here's Harry Lauder and a' the folk he maun have tae help him mak' a living and earn his bit siller! More than you'd thought' Aye, and more than I'd thought, sometimes.

There's a michty few folk i' this world who can say they're no dependant upon others in some measure. I ken o' none, myself. It's a fine thing to mind one's ain business, but if one gies the matter thought one will find, I think, that a man's business spreads oot more than maist folk reckon it does.

Here, again. In the States there's been trouble about the men that work on the railways. Can I say it's no my business? Is it no? Suppose they gae oot on strike? How am I to mak' my trips frae one toon the the next? And should I no be finding oot, if there's like that threatening to my business, where the richt lies? You will be finding it's sae, too, in your affairs; there's little can come that willna affect you, soon or late.

We maun all stand together, especially we plain men and women. It was sae that we won the war--and it is sae that we can win the peace noo that it's come again, and mak' it a peace sae gude for a' the world that it can never be broken again by war. There'd be no wars i' the world if peace were sae gude that all men were content. It's discontented men who stir up trouble in the world, and sae mak' wars possible.

We talk much, in these days, of cla.s.ses. There's a phrase it sickens me tae hear--cla.s.s consciousness. It's ane way of setting the man who works wi' his hands against him who works wi' his brain. It's no the way a man works that ought to count--it's that he works at all. Both sorts of work are needful; we canna get along without either sort.

Is no humanity a greater thing than any cla.s.s? We are all human. We maun all be born, and we maun all die in the end. That much we ken, and there's nae sae much more we can be siccar of. And I've often thought that the trouble with most of our hatreds an' our envy and malice is that folk do not know one another well enough. There's fewer quarrels among folk that speak the same tongue. Britain and America dwelt at peace for mair than a hundred years before they took the field together against a common enemy. America and Canada stand side by side--a great strong nation and a small one. There's no fort between them; there are no fichting s.h.i.+ps on the great lakes, ready to loose death and destruction.

It's easier to have a good understanding when different peoples speak the same language. But there's a hint o' the way things must be done, I'm thinking, in the future. Britain and France used tae have their quarrels. They spoke different tongues. But gradually they built up a gude understanding of one another, and where's the man in either country the noo that wadna laugh at you if you said there was danger they micht gae tae war?

It's harder, it may be, to promote a gude understanding when there's a different language for a barrier. But walls can be climbed, and there's more than the ane way of pa.s.sing them. We've had a great lesson in that respect in the war. It's the first time that ever a coalition of nations held together. Germany and Austria spoke one language. But we others, with a dozen tongues or mair to separate us, were forged into one mighty confederation by our peril and our consciousness of richt, and we beat doon that barrier of various languages, sae that it had nae existence.

And it's not only foreign peoples that speak a different tongue at times. Whiles you'll find folk of the same family, the same race, the same country, who gie the same words different meanings, and grow confused and angry for that reason. There's a way they can overcome that, and reach an understanding. It's by getting together and talking oot all that confuses and angers them. Speech is a great solvent if a man's disposed any way at all to be reasonable, and I've found, as I've gone about the world, that most men want to be reasonable.

They'll call me an optimist, maybe. I'll no be ashamed of that t.i.tle.

There was a saying I've heard in America that taught me a lot. They've a wee cake there they call a doughnut--awfu' gude eating, though no quite sae gude as Mrs. Lauder's scones. There's round hole in the middle of a doughnut, always. And the Americans have a way of saying: ”The optimist sees the doughnut; the pessimist sees the hole.” It's a wise crack, you, and it tells you a good deal, if you'll apply it.

There's another way we maun be thinking. We've spent a deal of blood and siller in these last years. We maun e'en have something to show for all we've spent. For a muckle o' the siller we've spent we've just borrowed and left for our bairns and their bairns to pay when the time comes. And we maun leave the world better for those that are coming, or they'll be saying it's but a puir bargain we've made for them, and what we bought wasna worth the price.

CHAPTER XX