The Master Craftsman

Despite the changes, suppressions, repressions, and new conditions which have been imposed upon the good old election, there is still some excitement left. We may sigh and pine for the brave days when an election lasted six weeks; when everybody marched up valiantly though clubs were shaken in his face and might be broken over his head, and gave his vote openly before all the world; when the people who had no vote contributed their share in the representation of the country by free fights, hustling and belabouring the voters; when drink flowed as freely as when Wat Tyler held the city; when everybody had to take a side, and behaved accordingly; when the chairmen brought their poles, and the sailors brought their clubs, and the butchers brought their marrow-bones and cleavers—and all for use, and not for fashionable display; when none thought shame to take a bribe; when the air was thick with showers of epigrams, libels, and scurrilous accusations; when the Father of Lies held his headquarters, for the time, in the borough; when the whole of a mans record was exposed to view, with trimmings and additions, and the most ingenious and diabolic perversions of the truth; when the public-houses were open to all electors free, and beer and gin and rum were attainable by the humblest; when every elector knew his value, and proudly appraised himself to its full extent; when the candidates stood upon the hustings courageously facing showers of dead cats, putrid rabbits, addled eggs, and cabbage-stalks—about a fortnight before an election all the cats in the country died, and all the dead rabbits became putrid, and all the eggs were addled, and all the cabbage-stalks went rotten. Thus doth Nature accommodate herself to the ways of man. Those of us who read of the good old days may pine for them; those who have not read of them will find little at the present day to remind them of former customs.

At Shadwell there were none of these things. A fight there was, but only one. None of the ancient customs were observed; only those humours of an election which still survive were with us; and these are mild.

It was an active time for those who, like me, went electioneering. The papers spoke of nothing else; certainly at our house no one talked of anything else. I suppose that something went on as usual in the yard; but no one heeded the building of boats. Everybody told everybody else that business was completely stopped. That may be. In the High Street, however, the cranes on the third-floors of the warehouses continued their activity, and the waggons full and empty rumbled along the street. They didn’t mind the General Election, and the ships went in and out of the docks without minding the General Election in the least. Also the working men went backwards and forwards. And they didn’t seem to mind the General Election in the least. Everybody said, however, that the world thought of nothing else. We made our own racket, I suppose, and thought that all the world was joining in.

And we worked—heavens! how we worked! Of course we were Robert’s servants—his slaves, even. He issued commands. At his committee he did not consult his friends; he commanded them. And, of course, everybody obeyed. He ordered me to speak for him in the less eligible districts, and when he was speaking elsewhere. Well, I, who had never before spoken, obediently went to speak. I prepared speeches: I found freedom of speech. I even arrived at some popularity. ‘We’d send you to Parliament,’ they told me, ‘if it wasn’t for your cousin.’ I harangued on Robert’s lines, as zealously as a Party man who hopes for office; I pulled the enemy’s addresses and manifestoes to pieces; I showed their abominable inconsistency; their delusive promises; their wicked self-seeking; their shameful ambitions. Oh, the wickedness and the foolishness of the other side! The world will never be righteous, mind you, or generous, or just, till the other side gives up its self-seeking and its pretences. And then I canvassed—yes! I walked through all the streets of Shadwell Borough: they are mostly streets with a full-flavoured fragrance hanging about them—the frying of fish in oil is an industry much practised; I solicited the votes of all the voters; I was received with contumely and with sarcasms, and even with open abuse, in some parts, and with a free hospitality in other parts which was almost worse than the abuse. I also manufactured some lampoons which I thought were rather effective. I sent them to Frances, who told me that I ought to be standing in my cousin’s place and doing all this work for myself. She was good enough, however, to express a hope that so strong a speaker and so vigorous a speaker as myself might get into the House, where, she added, he would very quickly find his own level.

Robert’s committee was composed almost entirely of working men. The employers and shopkeepers, and a good many of the working men, understood two things only, Liberal or Conservative. Politics must mean one thing or the other. That a candidate should be neither Liberal nor Conservative, but only himself, they could not understand.

There is no local press at Shadwell, but the London papers, when they spoke of our election prospects, ignored Robert as a mere outsider. The seat, of course, was for the Liberal candidate, or for the Conservative, one or the other. No one knew, or guessed, what Robert had done in the borough by his three months’ course of speeches and lectures. The newspapers spoke of him as merely a local man without local influence. He was called a Socialist, being an Individualist of the deepest dye, and a demagogue, being a man who sought to teach the people, but not to flatter them. It was said that he had no importance except that he would take away a few votes from this side or that. The newspapers understood nothing about it, as you shall see.

Before many days were over, I was as much absorbed in the election as Robert himself. I lived altogether at Wapping. We began work early in the morning, at seven, and we ended it at midnight. The committee sat all day long; that is to say, the only man among them who was not a working man—myself—sat all day long. We issued our candidate’s address, which was a bold appeal for election on the ground of knowledge and personal fitness. As for burning questions, we dismissed them. Abolition of the Lords? Not possible. What was the use of discussing for election purposes a question not yet within the reach of the Commons? The Disestablishment of the Church? Whether that would do any good to the people of the country or not was an open question. Meantime, was the measure even possible at the present moment? No. Then why consider it? Was there to be an Eight Hours Bill? Then there would have to be an eight hours’ pay, with reductions, otherwise the employer would be ruined. And so on. Our independent candidate would promise nothing, except the support of such measures as he himself, exercising his own judgment, might think calculated to advance the whole community. He said that he would vote for no interest; that he would not needlessly disturb existing institutions; that old things, grown up in the course of centuries, meant things befitting the mind of the people, and so far should be respected. He offered himself as a man who knew things. He reminded the electors that they had heard his addresses, and had learned his views. If they approved of him and his opinions, they would send him to Parliament, where they would find him able, at least, to set the House right on a good many matters of fact. ‘I am not,’ he said, ‘and never shall be, a Socialist. Any attempt to destroy the Individual must inevitably fail, because all work—every enterprise—every invention—every advance—is caused by the individual acting for himself at the right moment, and not by the Society, which can never act at all. But I want every way open to the man who has the ability and the courage to rise. And I would have the relations of employer and workman to rest upon some method recognised and adopted by both sides. I shall always speak, and vote, on the side of the working man, though I am an employer, until such an understanding has been arrived at. My dream of society is of such an organization as will provide order and liberty for every man to work as he can, and protect him against tyranny; which will give every man such a wage as the conditions of his trade allow; which will leave the door wide open for all who are strong enough to pass through and to climb up.’

When one contrasted this address, strong and manly—we called it—with the conventional phrases—we called them conventional—of the other candidates, it seemed marvellous—to ourselves—that anyone should vote for them at all.

Every evening the canvassers went round and brought back their sheaves of promises with them; every day it became more and more certain that we had the people with us. At the end there was no doubt possible. But the other candidates still believed in the ‘merely local’ theory, and they spoke of him with scorn as the working man’s candidate.

Every evening for four weeks Robert spoke. On Sundays he spoke at the working men’s clubs, in their own club-houses; on Mondays he spoke in such halls and big rooms as can be got in this neighbourhood. It was one evening just before the polling that the fight happened which has been mentioned above.

We were in the same music-hall to which I had brought Frances on a certain memorable occasion. Robert would still have no chairman or committee-men on the platform. He stood alone; with some of the committee I was in the stage-box. Now I observed, when we took our places, a lot of fellows whose faces were unfamiliar to me—yet by this time I knew all Shadwell; they were standing gathered together in the orchestra. They talked to each other, and nodded their heads, and stuck elbows in each other, with a good deal of earnestness, as if they designed something; they all carried sticks; and they looked inclined for mischief. Well, at election time there is still something left of the old leaven. It looked to me as if they meant to rush the platform. Robert would be alone there; if these fellows should try to rush it, how would he defend it by himself? I mentioned my suspicions—we resolved to jump down to the stage if there should be any need.

Well, our candidate came on: he was received with a storm of applause; but the men in the orchestra did not applaud: they only whispered and nudged each other. Robert began his address. The company in the orchestra continued to whisper; they did not pretend to listen. After the speaker had gone on for a few minutes the house became perfectly silent, carried away by the current of the speech flowing full and strong and clear. The voice of the man was magnetic; it would be heard; it recommended silence. Then suddenly one man blew a whistle. Instantly the men in the orchestra at either end climbed up on the platform, shouting and brandishing their sticks.

The whole house rose, crying ‘Down! down! Off! off!’ And then followed the finest display of physical strength and bravery that I have ever seen. There were at least a dozen of them, equally divided. Robert seized the chair beside him, and with this for weapon he fell upon the party on the right, and literally broke the chair to pieces over their heads. We might have leaped down and joined him, but there was no need; the battle was over as soon as it was begun; the assailants fell back one over the other; their heads were broken, their teeth were knocked out, their collar-bones were broken. Robert wielded his chair with the lightning-like dexterity of a skilful player in the olden time who wielded his quarter-staff. It seemed but a moment before the fellows of the right-hand party were down again, broken to pieces, with no more courage for the fray. Robert kicked the last of them over the footlights into the orchestra. He then turned to the second party. But they had seen enough; they were now tumbling over each other to the place whence they came in much greater haste than they had shown to mount the stage. Then Robert stood alone. A streak of blood lay on his white shirt-front: it came from his lip, which was cut, but not badly; his table was upset, his water-decanter broken, his chair lay about in fragments. And then, oh! I have never heard such a splendid tumult of applause. From every throat it came; from every man and woman present there arose such a storm and rolling, roaring, continuous thunder of applause as I have never heard before or since. Who is there among us that does not rejoice to see an act of bravery and strength? One man against a dozen, and where were all the rest? Again—again—again—will it never stop?

A hand was laid upon my shoulder. I turned quickly. It was Frances.

‘I came to hear your orator again,’ she whispered; ‘but I have seen him as well. George, it was splendid! Oh, the great, strong, brave creature! He must get in—he must!’

Then Robert, advancing to the front, held up his hand for silence, for the people, having tasted blood, wanted more fighting, and were now roaring for the disturbers of the peace to be thrown to the lions; and the ill-advised rushers, caught in a trap of their own making, were looking at each other with rueful countenance, expectant of a troublous five minutes. Imagine the Christian martyrs going to be let out into an arena full of lions, all hungry. And these poor fellows had not, it was clear, the support of faith. They had been paid to make a row and break up the meeting, and now it looked as if they had achieved martyrdom.

Silence obtained, Robert pointed to the orchestra below him. ‘I think,’ he said, ‘that before we go on, these gentlemen had better be removed. If they do not go quietly, I will go down among them myself with all that is left of the chair. In taking them out, remember that there are, perhaps, a few ribs and collar-bones broken. Please not to kick the men with the broken bones down the stairs!’

The house roared with joy; the men jumped up and poured to the front. They summoned the rushers to come out of that, or—they promised truly dreadful things as an alternative. But these misguided young men surrendered; they climbed ruefully over the pew. As each descended he was escorted between two of our fellows to the stairs, and then, one had reason to believe, he was assisted down those stairs by strange boots. The unfortunates on whose skulls and ribs the chair had been broken came last, all the conceit out of them, with hanging heads, and the exhibition of pocket-handkerchiefs. They were received with cheers derisive.

‘And now,’ said Robert, when they were gone, ‘let us go back to business.’

And I really believe, so great is the admiration of the crowd for personal bravery and a man who can fight, that this little adventure brought him as many votes as all his speeches. For once the people were presented with evidence conclusive that they really had a very strong man before them.

‘I am glad I came,’ said Frances, when the meeting was over. ‘I never saw a brave man before. Oh, what a thing it must be to be a man! And you go and throw it all away. Take me down now. My carriage is waiting by the door, I believe.’

I led her down the stairs, in the splendid dress which was always part of her, through the people, who made way for her right and left—the poor women with their pinched and shabby shawls, and the working men in their working dress.

‘You people all,’ she said, standing at the top of the staircase, ‘I have heard a splendid address to-night, and I have seen a splendid thing. If you don’t send that splendid speaker and that splendid man to the House of Commons, you deserve to be disfranchised.’

‘Don’t be frightened, lady,’ said one of the men, whom I knew to be a rank Socialist; ‘we’ll send him there fast enough, especially if you’ll come here and speak for him.’

So she got into the carriage and drove off, while the crowd shouted after her.

And this was the nearest approach to the old-fashioned humours of an election that we had to show.

When the day of polling arrived we had no carriages. Robert would not pay for any, and no one offered to lend him any. The carriages of Liberal and Conservative ran about all day long, but our voters had to walk. In the evening they came by companies, among them all the costers of the quarter with their barrows. What made the costers vote for Robert, if it was not that very noble battle on the stage?

And when the votes were counted, Robert was head of the poll by 754 votes.

So he had got the desire of his heart, and was a Member of Parliament. He had worked for it for seven years; he had even descended so far as to learn manners, which was at first a very bitter pill. He had trained his voice, and taught himself the art of oratory; he had studied economics of all kinds; he was patient, courageous, tenacious, and he was ambitious. What would he do after all this preparation?