Page:The Cannery Boat.pdf/246

236 “Dry up, your old bald head!”

“A lot of claptrap!”

“Come on outside!”

He stood there bewildered. “Mr. Chairman!” “Mr. Chairman!” The workers started their favourite trick for obstructing a speaker. They succeeded in shutting him up completely.

One man with a closely-cropped, bullet-shaped head stood up. He was Kondo, a representative of No. 1 printing shop.

“The managing director has shoved the responsibility for the company’s recent setbacks on to us workers, but is the unit price for printing and type­ founding the same as 1923?”

Very neatly he had forced the director into the defensive.

“No, since then it has fallen almost 30 per cent.”

Kondo was on to him at once. “Then the company’s business depression can’t have anything to do with our efficiency, can it?”

“But your wages have not been cut at all. To put the matter plainly, will you increase your efficiency until it balances your wages, or will you have your wages cut?”

The workers’ representatives opened their eyes. … The old devil, he’s getting worse and worse.

“Cut our wages? But the price of necessities hasn’t gone down at all,” shouted Kondo, red in the face.

“That is hardly the company’s fault,” came the complacent answer. It was admittedly a neat thrust. … But now the crowd was getting obstreperous.