Page:The Cannery Boat.pdf/54

44 represents the corpse of some worker. And the piles sunk in the harbour reclamation are all the bodies of workers who died of beri-beri.

Profits were just scooped up. Then very skilfully such catch phrases as “the development of national wealth” were tacked on to these enterprises, which were thus completely justified. The capitalists were very shrewd. “For the sake of their country” the workers were starved and beaten to death.

“It’s only by the mercy of God that I ever got back alive, I can tell you. I feel grateful to Him. But if I go and get killed in this ship it’ll amount to about the same thing, anyway, won’t it?” said one fisherman, breaking into toneless laughter. But when he’d finished laughing he began to scowl fiercely and looked away.

It was the same in the mines. In learning what kind of gases might come out, or what untoward changes take place, and thus finding the best plan of procedure, the capitalists calmly sacrificed worker after worker—anyhow, they were cheaper to buy for the purpose than guinea-pigs. They used them up more casually than toilet paper. In these places too, far from cities, appalling things occurred—terrible accidents.

All the miners, like men who have been in prison a long time, had sallow complexions and listless faces. What with lack of sunlight, and coal dust and air full of obnoxious gases, and abnormal temperatures and pressures, they could notice their own bodies deteriorate. “If you were a miner for seven or eight years, then for roughly four or