Archibald Cronin - The Stars Look Down

“I know most of you who are here,” he said, and his voice trembled with emotion. “Many of you worked in the Neptune pit when I worked there myself. And to-night, somehow, even if I could, I don’t feel like going into flights of oratory before you. I look on you as my friends. I want to talk to you as friends.”

Here a voice from the back called out encouragingly:

“Go on, Davey lad, wor aal lissenin’!” There were loud cheers; then silence. He went on:

“When you think of it, the life of every man and woman in this hall is tied up in some way with the pit. You’re all miners, or the wives or sons or daughters of miners; you’re all bound to the mines. And it’s on this question of the mines, surely a very vital question to you all, that I want to talk to you to-night…”

David’s voice, rising in a passion of earnestness, echoed in the steamy hall. He felt strong, suddenly, able to hold, to convince them. He began to lay his arguments before them. He took the system of private ownership, with its frequent disregard to safety, its basis of sheer profiteering whereby the shareholder in the Company came first and the miner last of all. He passed to the question of royalties, that intolerable and immoral principle, allowing enormous sums to be taken out of a district, not because of services rendered to the community but solely on account of a monopoly given hundreds of years ago. Then quickly he placed before them the alternative system. Nationalisation! A word cried in the wilderness for years. He begged them to consider what Nationalisation meant. It meant, firstly, a unification of collieries, of management, and improved methods of production which would in turn be followed by a reorganisation of the system of coal distribution to the consumers. It meant, secondly, safe working at the pits. There were hundreds of pits all over the country, antiquated and badly equipped, where under private ownership the miner had to think of keeping his job first, and of reporting dangers or improper working last. And wages? Nationalisation meant a better wage, because the lean years in the industry would be balanced by the better years; it meant at least a living wage. It meant better housing, too. The State could never allow the deplorable conditions of miners’ houses which existed at present in so many districts; it could not for its own honour. This legacy of wretched housing was the result of years of greed, selfishness and apathy. The men who worked in the pits performed a public service, a dangerous public service, they should be looked upon as public servants. They only asked for human justice, the justice that had been denied them for centuries. They asked to be the servants of the State, not the Slaves of Money…

For half an hour he held them, hypnotised to silence, hanging upon his words, his arguments. His conviction swept everything before it. He moved them with the history of their own order, iniquity heaped upon iniquity, betrayal following betrayal. He made them glow with the record of their own solidarity, their comradeship in the face of every hardship, their courage in the face of danger. “Help me,” he cried finally, with his hands outstretched in impassioned appeal. “Help me to fight for you, to win justice for you at last.” He stood, silent, almost blinded by his own emotion. Then, quite abruptly, he sat down. For a moment there was dead stillness, then the cheering began, a perfect roar of cheering. Harry Ogle jumped up and shook David by the hand. Kinch was there, Wilson, Carmichael and Heddon too.

“You held them,” Heddon had to shout above the noise. “Every bloddy one of them!”

Wicks was slapping David on the back, a mass of clamouring people swarming forward, surrounding him, wanting to shake hands, all trying to speak at once, overwhelming him. In the body of the hall the din was terrific, stamping, clapping and tinpanning. The sound of it rose echoing into the night.

Next day David polled 12,424 votes. Roscoe polled 3,691. It was a triumph, a victory unthought of, the biggest majority in Sleescale for fourteen years. As David stood bareheaded in front of the Town Hall while the tight-packed exultant crowd cheered and swayed and cheered again he felt dizzily a new elation rise in him and a new power. He had somehow stumbled through. He was there.

Roscoe shook him by the hand and the crowds cheered more thunderously. Roscoe was a good loser, he smiled through his crushing disappointment. But Ramage did not smile. Ramage was there with Bates and Murchison. Nor did Ramage shake hands. He stood with his brows drawn down, sullen and scowling, and on his face, mingled with lingering incredulity, was that look of unforgiving hostility.

David made a short glowing speech. He did not know what he said or how he said it. He thanked them, thanked them from the bottom of his heart. He would work for them, fight for them. He would serve them. A telegram was handed to him; it was from Nugent, a telegram of congratulation. It meant a lot to David, Harry Nugent’s telegram. He read it, hastily, thrust it in his breast pocket. More people congratulating him, more handshaking, more cheers. The crowd began suddenly to sing, For he’s a Jolly Good Fellow . They were singing it for him. A reporter, butting through the crowd, edging up to him. “Any message, Mr. Fenwick, just a couple of words, sir, for the Argus ?” Photographers, inside the passage a big flash. More cheering, then a swaying, a slow dispersal of the crowds. Faint cheering from different parts of the town. Peter Wilson his agent, chuckling and joking, seeing him down the steps. It was over. It was all over. And he had won!

He got to his house at last and came rather dazedly into the kitchen. He stood there pale and finely drawn, looking at his mother. Suddenly he felt tired and terrifically hungry. He said sluggishly:

“I’ve got in, mother; did you know that I’ve got in?”

“I know,” she said dryly. “And I know you’ve had no breakfast. Are you above eating a pit pot-pie?”

The inevitable reaction came with David’s introduction to the House when he felt unimportant, insignificant and friendless. He fought this down stubbornly. It was almost comic, but on that first day, his main encouragement appeared to come from the London police force. He was early and made the usual mistake of attempting to get in through the public entrance. A policeman, intercepting him, amicably indicated the whereabouts of the special private door. Through the yard David went, round the Oliver Cromwell statue, past rows of parked cars and strutting pigeons, and through the private door. Here another friendly policeman directed him to the cloak-room — a long room bristling with pegs, some of which bore bows of curious pink tape. As David divested himself of hat and coat yet another policeman affably took him in hand, explaining the geography of the House, waxing mildly historical, even elucidating the mystery of the pale pink bows.

“It goes back to when they wore swords, sir. They hung them on there afore they went into the House.”

“I’d have thought they’d be worn out by now,” David answered.

“Lord bless you, no, sir. When one gets to look shabby they takes no end of trouble to put up a new one.”

At three o’clock Nugent and Bebbington arrived. He went with them along a vast corridor filled with pale blue books — Hansards, Bills, Parliamentary Procedure — books which conveyed the vague impression of never being read. He had a confused impression of the long high chamber, lounging figures, the Speaker with the Mace before him; of a mumbled prayer, his own name called out, his own figure walking quickly towards the back benches. He had a mingled sense of humility and high purpose — the conviction that his real work had at last begun.