Page:Adams - Essays in Modernity.djvu/73

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DEMOCRACY: A DIALOGUE
61

were all admirably worked up on the usual sensational lines, and I realised like a flash that I was, indeed, as my friend the interviewer assured me, the "man of the moment!" "What will he do with it?—An East End Socialist Leader succeeds to the mastery of 15,000 workmen!—The Fortunes of the Daniels!"—and so on. It was very funny. Then the interviewer set on to me: Were the stories of the "abuses" in the Daniel mills true? I believed so. I was going to see.—What should I do? I could not tell. I was going to see.—Had I no definite plan? I had not. I was going to see. And nothing else did he get from me.'

Hastings nodded, his brows slightly contracted.

'Well?' he said.

'Of one thing I was resolved. I would do nothing off-hand or in haste. I went myself straight away to Morven, where the trouble had come to a head, and interviewed the manager at length. Then I interviewed a deputation of the men. Then I tried to interview some of the workmen and workwomen separately. The state of excitement in the mill—indeed, in all our mills—was (I saw at once) intense. I think the workpeople had a vague idea that there was about to be a scramble for the Daniel millions, and that they all had a right to be in it. In three days I was facing at first a suspicious and then a savage