Ragged Trousered Philanthropists by Robert Tressell (fiction novels to read .txt) 📕

Grand Parade near the Kiosk. The shelter would serve as a protection

against rain, or the rays of the sun in summer. It would add

materially to the comfort of visitors and would be a notable addition

to the attractions of the town.

Councillor Didlum said it was a very good idear, and proposed that the

Surveyor be instructed to get out the plans.

Dr Weakling opposed the motion. (Laughter.) It seemed to him that

the object was to benefit, not the town, but Mr Grinder.

(Disturbance.) If this shelter were erected, it would increase the

value of the Kiosk as a refreshment bar by a hundred per cent. If Mr

Grinder wanted a shelter for his customers he should pay for it

himself. (Uproar.) He (Dr Weakling) was sorry to have to say it, but

he could not help thinking that this was a Put-up job. (Loud cries of

`Withdraw’ `Apologize’ `Cast ‘im out’ and terrific uproar.)

Weakling did not apologize or withdraw, but he said no more. Didlum’s

proposition was carried, and the `hand’ went on to the next item on

the agenda, which was a proposal by Councillor Didlum to increase the

salary of Mr Oyley Sweater, the Borough Engineer, from fifteen pounds

to seventeen pounds per week.

Councillor Didlum said that when they had a good man they ought to

appreciate him. (Applause.) Compared with other officials, the

Borough Engineer was not fairly paid. (Hear, hear.) The magistrates’

clerk received seventeen pounds a week. The Town Clerk seventeen

pounds per week. He did not wish it to be understood that he thought

those gentlemen were overpaid - far from it. (Hear, hear.) It was

not that they got too much but that the Engineer got too little. How

could they expect a man like that to exist on a paltry fifteen pounds

a week? Why, it was nothing more or less than sweating! (Hear,

hear.) He had much pleasure in moving that the Borough Engineer’s

salary be increased to seventeen pounds a week, and that his annual

holiday be extended from a fortnight to one calendar month with hard

la-he begged pardon - with full pay. (Loud cheers.)

Councillor Rushton said that he did not propose to make a long speech -

it was not necessary. He would content himself with formally

seconding Councillor Didlum’s excellent proposition. (Applause.)

Councillor Weakling, whose rising was greeted with derisive laughter,

said he must oppose the resolution. He wished it to be understood

that he was not actuated by any feeling of personal animosity towards

the Borough Engineer, but at the same time he considered it his duty

to say that in his (Dr Weakling’s) opinion, that official would be

dear at half the price they were now paying him. (Disturbance.) He

did not appear to understand his business, nearly all the work that

was done cost in the end about double what the Borough Engineer

estimated it could be done for. (Liar.) He considered him to be a

grossly incompetent person (uproar) and was of opinion that if they

were to advertise they could get dozens of better men who would be

glad to do the work for five pounds a week. He moved that Mr Oyley

Sweater be asked to resign and that they advertise for a man at five

pounds a week. (Great uproar.)

Councillor Grinder rose to a point of order. He appealed to the

Chairman to squash the amendment. (Applause.)

Councillor Didlum remarked that he supposed Councillor Grinder meant

`quash’: in that case, he would support the suggestion.

Councillor Grinder said it was about time they put a stopper on that

feller Weakling. He (Grinder) did not care whether they called it

squashing or quashing; it was all the same so long as they nipped him

in the bud. (Cheers.) The man was a disgrace to the Council; always

interfering and hindering the business.

The Mayor - Alderman Sweater - said that he did not think it

consistent with the dignity of that Council to waste any more time

over this scurrilous amendment. (Applause.) He was proud to say that

it had never even been seconded, and therefore he would put Mr

Didlum’s resolution - a proposition which he had no hesitation in

saying reflected the highest credit upon that gentleman and upon all

those who supported it. (Vociferous cheers.)

All those who were in favour signified their approval in the customary

manner, and as Weakling was the only one opposed, the resolution was

carried and the meeting proceeded to the next business.

Councillor Rushton said that several influential ratepayers and

employers of labour had complained to him about the high wages of the

Corporation workmen, some of whom were paid sevenpence-halfpenny an

hour. Sevenpence an hour was the maximum wage paid to skilled workmen

by private employers in that town, and he failed to see why the

Corporation should pay more. (Hear, hear.) It had a very bad effect

on the minds of the men in the employment of private firms, tending to

make them dissatisfied with their wages. The same state of affairs

prevailed with regard to the unskilled labourers in the Council’s

employment. Private employers could get that class of labour for

fourpence-halfpenny or fivepence an hour, and yet the corporation paid

fivepence-halfpenny and even sixpence for the same class of work.

(Shame.) It was not fair to the ratepayers. (Hear, hear.)

Considering that the men in the employment of the Corporation had

almost constant work, if there was to be a difference at all, they

should get not more, but less, than those who worked for private

firms. (Cheers.) He moved that the wages of the Corporation workmen

be reduced in all cases to the same level as those paid by private

firms.

Councillor Grinder seconded. He said it amounted to a positive

scandal. Why, in the summertime some of these men drew as much as

35/- in a single week! (Shame.) and it was quite common for unskilled

labourers - fellers who did nothing but the very hardest and most

laborious work, sich as carrying sacks of cement, or digging up the

roads to get at the drains, and sich-like easy jobs - to walk off with

25/- a week! (Sensation.) He had often noticed some of these men

swaggering about the town on Sundays, dressed like millionaires and

cigared up! They seemed quite a different class of men from those who

worked for private firms, and to look at the way some of their

children was dressed you’d think their fathers was Cabinet Minstrels!

No wonder the ratepayers complained ot the high rates. Another

grievance was that all the Corporation workmen were allowed two days’

holiday every year, in addition to the Bank Holidays, and were paid

for them! (Cries of `shame’, `Scandalous’, `Disgraceful’, etc.) No

private contractor paid his men for Bank Holidays, and why should the

Corporation do so? He had much pleasure in seconding Councillor

Rushton’s resolution.

Councillor Weakling opposed the motion. He thought that 35/- a week

was little enough for a man to keep a wife and family with (Rot), even

if all the men got it regularly, which they did not. Members should

consider what was the average amount per week throughout the whole

year, not merely the busy time, and if they did that they would find

that even the skilled men did not average more than 25/- a week, and

in many cases not so much. If this subject had not been introduced by

Councillor Rushton, he (Dr Weakling) had intended to propose that the

wages of the Corporation workmen should be increased to the standard

recognized by the Trades Unions. (Loud laughter.) It had been proved

that the notoriously short lives of the working people - whose average

span of life was about twenty years less than that of the well-to-do

classes - their increasingly inferior physique, and the high rate of

mortality amongst their children was caused by the wretched

remuneration they received for hard and tiring work, the excessive

number of hours they have to work, when employed, the bad quality of

their food, the badly constructed and insanitary homes their poverty

compels them to occupy, and the anxiety, worry, and depression of mind

they have to suffer when out of employment. (Cries of `Rot’, `Bosh’,

and loud laughter.) Councillor Didlum said, `Rot’. It was a very

good word to describe the disease that was sapping the foundations of

society and destroying the health and happiness and the very lives of

so many of their fellow countrymen and women. (Renewed merriment and

shouts of `Go and buy a red tie.’) He appealed to the members to

reject the resolution. He was very glad to say that he believed it

was true that the workmen in the employ of the Corporation were a

little better off than those in the employ of private contractors, and

if it were so, it was as it should be. They had need to be better off

than the poverty-stricken, half-starved poor wretches who worked for

private firms.

Councillor Didlum said that it was very evident that Dr Weakling had

obtained his seat on that Council by false pretences. If he had told

the ratepayers that he was a Socialist, they would never have elected

him. (Hear, hear.) Practically every Christian minister in the

country would agree with him (Didlum) when he said that the poverty of

the working classes was caused not by the `wretched remuneration they

receive as wages’, but by Drink. (Loud applause.) And he was very

sure that the testimony of the clergy of all denominations was more to

be relied upon than the opinion of a man like Dr Weakling. (Hear,

hear.)

Dr Weakling said that if some of the clergymen referred to or some of

the members of the council had to exist and toil amid the same sordid

surroundings, overcrowding and ignorance as some of the working

classes, they would probably seek to secure some share of pleasure and

forgetfulness in drink themselves! (Great uproar and shouts of

`Order’, `Withdraw’, `Apologize’.)

Councillor Grinder said that even if it was true that the haverage

lives of the working classes was twenty years shorter than those of

the better classes, he could not see what it had got to do with Dr

Weakling. (Hear, hear.) So long as the working class was contented

to die twenty years before their time, he failed to see what it had

got to do with other people. They was not runnin’ short of workers,

was they? There was still plenty of ‘em left. (Laughter.) So long

as the workin’ class was satisfied to die orf - let ‘em die orf! It

was a free country. (Applause.) The workin’ class adn’t arst Dr

Weakling to stick up for them, had they? If they wasn’t satisfied,

they would stick up for theirselves! The working men didn’t want the

likes of Dr Weakling to stick up for them, and they would let ‘im know

it when the next election came round. If he (Grinder) was a wordly

man, he would not mind betting that the workin’ men of Dr Weakling’s

ward would give him `the dirty kick out’ next November. (Applause.)

Councillor Weakling, who knew that this was probably true, made no

further protest. Rushton’s proposition was carried, and then the

Clerk announced that the next item was the resolution Mr Didlum had

given notice of at the last meeting, and the Mayor accordingly called

upon that gentleman.

Councillor Didlum, who was received with loud cheers, said that

unfortunately a certain member of that Council seemed to think he had

a right to oppose nearly everything that was brought forward.

(The majority of the members of the Band glared malignantly at

Weakling.)

He hoped that for once the