Homepage
Login
Profile
BookClubs
dmBox
Read Ebook: Strife: A Drama in Three Acts by Galsworthy John
Font size:
Background color:
Text color:
Add to tbrJar First Page Next Page Prev Page
Ebook has 952 lines and 23338 words, and 20 pages
WILDER. Well, I hope we're going to settle this business in time for me to catch the 6.30. I've got to take my wife to Spain to-morrow. My old father had a strike at his works in '69; just such a February as this. They wanted to shoot him.
WANKLIN. What! In the close season?
SCANTLEBURY. Not seriously?
WILDER. Ended in his shootin' one of 'em in the legs.
SCANTLEBURY. No? Which?
ANTHONY. To consider the policy of the Board in relation to the strike.
WILDER. It's this infernal three-cornered duel--the Union, the men, and ourselves.
WANKLIN. We need n't consider the Union.
WILDER. It's my experience that you've always got to, consider the Union, confound them! If the Union were going to withdraw their support from the men, as they've done, why did they ever allow them to strike at all?
EDGAR. We've had that over a dozen times.
WILDER. Well, I've never understood it! It's beyond me. They talk of the engineers' and furnace-men's demands being excessive--so they are--but that's not enough to make the Union withdraw their support. What's behind it?
UNDERWOOD. Fear of strikes at Harper's and Tinewell's.
WILDER. Afraid of other strikes--now, that's a reason! Why could n't we have been told that before?
UNDERWOOD. You were.
TENCH. You were absent from the Board that day, sir.
SCANTLEBURY. The men must have seen they had no chance when the Union gave them up. It's madness.
UNDERWOOD. It's Roberts!
WILDER. Just our luck, the men finding a fanatical firebrand like Roberts for leader.
WANKLIN. Well?
WILDER. It's a regular mess. I don't like the position we're in; I don't like it; I've said so for a long time. When Wanklin and I came down here before Christmas it looked as if the men must collapse. You thought so too, Underwood.
UNDERWOOD. Yes.
WILDER. Well, they haven't! Here we are, going from bad to worse losing our customers--shares going down!
SCANTLEBURY. M'm! M'm!
WANKLIN. What loss have we made by this strike, Tench?
TENCH. Over fifty thousand, sir!
SCANTLEBURY, You don't say!
WILDER. We shall never got it back.
TENCH. No, sir.
WILDER. Who'd have supposed the men were going to stick out like this--nobody suggested that.
SCANTLEBURY. I've never liked a fight--never shall.
ANTHONY. No surrender!
ANTHONY. No compromise!
WILDER. There we are! This strike's been going on now since October, and as far as I can see it may last another six months. Pretty mess we shall be in by then. The only comfort is, the men'll be in a worse!
EDGAR. What sort of state are they really in, Frank?
UNDERWOOD. Damnable!
WILDER. Well, who on earth would have thought they'd have held on like this without support!
UNDERWOOD. Those who know them.
WILDER. I defy any one to know them! And what about tin? Price going up daily. When we do get started we shall have to work off our contracts at the top of the market.
WANKLIN. What do you say to that, Chairman?
ANTHONY. Can't be helped!
WILDER. Shan't pay a dividend till goodness knows when!
SCANTLEBURY. We ought to think of the shareholders. Chairman, I say we ought to think of the shareholders.
SCANTLEBURY. What's that?
TENCH. The Chairman says he is thinking of you, sir.
SCANTLEBURY. Cynic!
WILDER. It's past a joke. I don't want to go without a dividend for years if the Chairman does. We can't go on playing ducks and drakes with the Company's prosperity.
EDGAR. I think we ought to consider the men.
SCANTLEBURY. We must n't think of our private feelings, young man. That'll never do.
EDGAR. I'm not thinking of our feelings. I'm thinking of the men's.
WILDER. As to that--we're men of business.
WANKLIN. That is the little trouble.
Add to tbrJar First Page Next Page Prev Page