Page:The Cannery Boat.pdf/243

Rh in the seats at the extreme right reserved for the office staff. Arishima’s two satellites, the superintendent and the chief accountant.

Nagai, too, noticed it. … The miserable extinction of liberalism. … Both sides had cleaned up their camps and were in readiness.

When the bell to start had stopped, the door on the right of the shop opened quietly and the president’s fat face appeared. Escorted by three or four officials, he entered the room, a great hulking pompous figure.

“Takashimaya!” from one corner of the employees’ representatives’ seats a voice yelled out the name of a popular actor, and the sally was greeted with a stamping of feet and roars of laughter.

“Silence, please!” snapped the thick-set managing director from the central platform. Then two printed sheets were handed round to everyone. They were the proposals—at last laid bare—and the balance sheet for the first half of the current year, together with a table of statistics of the average production per man in each department.

“I now declare the meeting open.” The deep, gruff voice of the managing director seemed to carry far into the darkness outside.

The workers’ representatives hurriedly scanned the papers and their eyes rested with amazement on article nine, dealing with the number of members that were to constitute the efficiency committee—the heads and assistant heads of each shop, twenty-four; employees’ representatives, twenty-four; and then, in addition, twelve members from the office. Clearly the company had an absolute majority.