Noo, here’s an example of what I’m thinking of.  I said, a while back, that the folk that don’t have bairns and raise them to make good citizens were traitors.  Well, so they are.  But, after a’, it’s no always their fault.  When landlords wull not let their property to the families that have weans, it’s a hard thing to think about.  And it’s that sort of thing makes folk turn into hating the way the world is organized and conducted.  No man ought to have the richt to deny a hame to a man and his wife because they’ve a bairn to care for.

And then, too, there’s many an employer bears doon upon those who work for him, because he’s strong and they’re weak.  He’ll say his business is his ain, to conduct as he sees fit.  So it is—­up to a certain point.  But he canna conduct it by his lane, can he?  He maun have help, or he would not hire men and women and pay them wages.  And when he maun have their help he makes them his partners, in a way.

Jock’ll be working for such an employer.  He’ll be needing more money, because the rent’s been raised, and the wife’s ailing.  And his employer wull say he’s sorry, maybe, but he canna afford to pay Jock more wages, because the cost of, diamonds such as his wife would be wearing has gone up, and gasolene for his motor car is more expensive, and silk shirts cost more.  Oh, aye—­I ken he’ll no be telling Jock that, but those wull be his real reasons, for a’ that!

Noo, what’s Jock to do?  He can quit—­oh, aye!  But Jock hasna the time, whiles he’s at work, to hunt him anither job.  He maun just tak’ his chances, if he quits, and be out of work for a week or twa, maybe.  And Jock canna afford that; he makes sae little that he hasna any siller worth speaking of saved up.  So when his employer says, short like:  “I cannot pay you more, Jock—­tak’ it or leave it!” there’s nothing for Jock to do.  And he grows bitter and discontented, and when some Bolshevik agitator comes along and tells Jock he’s being ill used and that the way to make himself better off is to follow the revolutionary way, Jock’s likely to believe him.

There’s a bit o’ truth, d’you see, in what the agitator tells Jock.  Jock is ill used.  He knows his employer has all and more than he needs or can use—­he knows he has to pinch and worry and do without, and see his wife and his bairns miserable, so that the employer can live on the fat of the land.  And he’s likely, is he no, to listen to the first man who comes along and tells him he has a way to cure a’ that?  Can ye blame a man for that?

The plain truth is that richt noo, when there’s more prosperity than we’ve ever seen before, there are decent, hard workingmen who canna afford to have as many bairns as they would wish, for lack of the siller to care for them properly after they come.  There are men who mak’ no more in wages than they did five years ago, when everything cost half what it does the noo.  And they’re listening to those who preach of general strikes, and overthrowing the state, and all the other wild remedies the agitators recommend.