Page:The Conquest of Bread (1906).djvu/221

 This is not all. If you speak to the director of a well-organized factory, he will naively explain to you that it is difficult nowadays to find a skilful, vigorous, and energetic workman, who works with a will. "Should such a man present himself among the twenty or thirty who call every Monday asking us for work, he is sure to be received, even if we are reducing the number of our hands. We recognize him at the first glance, and he is always accepted, even though we have to get rid of an older and less active worker the next day." And the one who has just received notice to quit, and all those who receive it to-morrow, go to reinforce that immense reserve army of capital—workmen out of work—who are only called to the loom or the bench when there is pressure of work, or to oppose strikers. And those others, the average workers that are the refuse of the better-class factories? they join the equally formidable army of aged and indifferent workers that continually circulates between the second-class factories—those which barely cover their expenses and make their way in the world by trickery and snares laid for the buyer, and especially for the consumer in distant countries.

And if you talk to the workmen themselves, you will soon learn that the rule in such factories is—never to do entirely what you are capable of. "Shoddy pay—shoddy work!" this is the advice which the working man receives from his comrades upon entering such a factory.