In our infancy we require a wise despotism to govern us.
Indeed, long past infancy, children and young people are the happiest under the unfailing laws of a discreet, firm authority.
I agree with Miss Hale so far as to consider our people in the condition of children, while I deny that we, the masters, have anything to do with the making or keeping them so.
I maintain that despotism is the best kind of government for them; so that in the hours in which I come in contact with them I must necessarily be an autocrat.
I will use my best discretion—from no humbug or philanthropic feeling, of which we have had rather too much in the North—to make wise laws and come to just decisions in the conduct of my business—laws and decisions which work for my own good in the first instance—for theirs in the second; but I will neither be forced to give my reasons, nor flinch from what I have once declared to be my resolution.
Let them turn out!
I shall suffer as well as they: but at the end they will find I have not bated nor altered one jot.'
Margaret had re-entered the room and was sitting at her work; but she did not speak.
Mr. Hale answered—
'I dare say I am talking in great ignorance; but from the little I know, I should say that the masses were already passing rapidly into the troublesome stage which intervenes between childhood and manhood, in the life of the multitude as well as that of the individual.
Now, the error which many parents commit in the treatment of the individual at this time is, insisting on the same unreasoning obedience as when all he had to do in the way of duty was, to obey the simple laws of
"Come when you're called" and
"Do as you're bid!"
But a wise parent humours the desire for independent action, so as to become the friend and adviser when his absolute rule shall cease.
If I get wrong in my reasoning, recollect, it is you who adopted the analogy.'
'Very lately,' said Margaret, 'I heard a story of what happened in Nuremberg only three or four years ago. A rich man there lived alone in one of the immense mansions which were formerly both dwellings and warehouses.
It was reported that he had a child, but no one knew of it for certain.
For forty years this rumour kept rising and falling—never utterly dying away.
After his death it was found to be true.
He had a son—an overgrown man with the unexercised intellect of a child, whom he had kept up in that strange way, in order to save him from temptation and error.
But, of course, when this great old child was turned loose into the world, every bad counsellor had power over him.
He did not know good from evil.
His father had made the blunder of bringing him up in ignorance and taking it for innocence; and after fourteen months of riotous living, the city authorities had to take charge of him, in order to save him from starvation.
He could not even use words effectively enough to be a successful beggar.'
'I used the comparison (suggested by Miss Hale) of the position of the master to that of a parent; so I ought not to complain of your turning the simile into a weapon against me.
But, Mr. Hale, when you were setting up a wise parent as a model for us, you said he humoured his children in their desire for independent action.
Now certainly, the time is not come for the hands to have any independent action during business hours; I hardly know what you would mean by it then.
And I say, that the masters would be trenching on the independence of their hands, in a way that I, for one, should not feel justified in doing, if we interfered too much with the life they lead out of the mills.
Because they labour ten hours a-day for us, I do not see that we have any right to impose leading-strings upon them for the rest of their time.
I value my own independence so highly that I can fancy no degradation greater than that of having another man perpetually directing and advising and lecturing me, or even planning too closely in any way about my actions.
He might be the wisest of men, or the most powerful—I should equally rebel and resent his interference I imagine this is a stronger feeling in the North of England that in the South.'
'I beg your pardon, but is not that because there has been none of the equality of friendship between the adviser and advised classes?
Because every man has had to stand in an unchristian and isolated position, apart from and jealous of his brother-man: constantly afraid of his rights being trenched upon?'
'I only state the fact.
I am sorry to say, I have an appointment at eight o'clock, and I must just take facts as I find them to-night, without trying to account for them; which, indeed, would make no difference in determining how to act as things stand—the facts must be granted.'
'But,' said Margaret in a low voice, 'it seems to me that it makes all the difference in the world—.' Her father made a sign to her to be silent, and allow Mr. Thornton to finish what he had to say.
He was already standing up and preparing to go.
'You must grant me this one point.
Given a strong feeling of independence in every Darkshire man, have I any right to obtrude my views, of the manner in which he shall act, upon another (hating it as I should do most vehemently myself), merely because he has labour to sell and I capital to buy?'
'Not in the least,' said Margaret, determined just to say this one thing; 'not in the least because of your labour and capital positions, whatever they are, but because you are a man, dealing with a set of men over whom you have, whether you reject the use of it or not, immense power, just because your lives and your welfare are so constantly and intimately interwoven.
God has made us so that we must be mutually dependent.
We may ignore our own dependence, or refuse to acknowledge that others depend upon us in more respects than the payment of weekly wages; but the thing must be, nevertheless.
Neither you nor any other master can help yourselves.
The most proudly independent man depends on those around him for their insensible influence on his character—his life.
And the most isolated of all your Darkshire Egos has dependants clinging to him on all sides; he cannot shake them off, any more than the great rock he resembles can shake off—'
'Pray don't go into similes, Margaret; you have led us off once already,' said her father, smiling, yet uneasy at the thought that they were detaining Mr. Thornton against his will, which was a mistake; for he rather liked it, as long as Margaret would talk, although what she said only irritated him.
'Just tell me, Miss Hale, are you yourself ever influenced—no, that is not a fair way of putting it;—but if you are ever conscious of being influenced by others, and not by circumstances, have those others been working directly or indirectly?
Have they been labouring to exhort, to enjoin, to act rightly for the sake of example, or have they been simple, true men, taking up their duty, and doing it unflinchingly, without a thought of how their actions were to make this man industrious, that man saving?
Why, if I were a workman, I should be twenty times more impressed by the knowledge that my master, was honest, punctual, quick, resolute in all his doings (and hands are keener spies even than valets), than by any amount of interference, however kindly meant, with my ways of going on out of work-hours.
I do not choose to think too closely on what I am myself; but, I believe, I rely on the straightforward honesty of my hands, and the open nature of their opposition, in contra-distinction to the way in which the turnout will be managed in some mills, just because they know I scorn to take a single dishonourable advantage, or do an underhand thing myself It goes farther than a whole course of lectures on