Dick laid aside his banjo and came to the front of the platform.  There was absolute confidence in his bearing, a vital strength that imparted a mastery that yet was largely compounded of comradeship.

He began to speak without effort—­as a man speaks to his friends.

“I have something to say to you chaps,” he said, “and I hope you will hear me out fairly, even though it may not be the sort of thing you like to listen to.  I think you know that I care a good deal about your welfare, and I am doing my level best to secure a decent future for you.  I haven’t accomplished very much at present, but I’m sticking to it, and I believe I shall win out some day.  It won’t be my fault if I don’t, and I hope it won’t be yours.  What?” as a murmur broke out in the background.  “Oh, shut up, please, till I’ve done, then if anyone wants to talk he shall have his chance.  It might be your fault if I failed because I’m counting on you to back me up in a legal and orderly way.  And if you don’t, well, I’m knocked out for good and all.  For I’m no strike-leader, and any man who strikes can go to blazes so far as I’m concerned.  I wouldn’t lift a finger to stop him going or to get him out when there; in fact it’s the best place for him.  No, boys, listen!  Wait till I’ve done!  A strike is a deadly thing.  It’s like a spreading poison in this country, and the beastly root of it is just selfishness.  It will choke the very life out of the nation if it isn’t stopped.  It’s a weapon that no self-respecting man should smirch his hands with.  I know very well there are heaps of reforms needed, heaps of abuses to be stopped, but you don’t cure evil with evil.  You’re only feeding the monster that will devour you in the end, and you’re feeding him with human sacrifice moreover.  Have you ever thought of that?  And another thing!  Do you ever look ahead—­right ahead—­beyond your own personal wants and grievances?  Do you ever ask yourselves if strikes and violence are going to bring forth justice and equity?  Do you ever work the thing out to its proper values—­see it as it really is?  This continual striving for money, for power,—­this overthrowing of all established control—­do you call it a fight for liberty by any chance?  I tell you, men, that it’s a struggle for the most hideous slavery that ever disfigured this earth.  This perpetual fight for self will end in self-destruction.  It always does.  It’s the law of creation.  The thing that strikes rebounds upon the striker.  The man who deliberately injures another injures himself tenfold more seriously.  Isn’t there something in the Bible about he who takes the sword perishes with the sword?  That’s justice—­God’s justice—­and there’s no getting away from that.  You can overthrow every institution that was ever made, but you will never set up in its place a Government that will bring again the order you have destroyed.  You can pull the Empire to pieces with dissensions and conspiracies, but—­once down—­you will never build it up again.