Then as to the Clarion, it became every week a heavier burden.  The expenses of it were enormous; the returns totally inadequate.  Advertisements were falling off steadily; and whether the working cost were cut down, or whether a new and good man like Louis Craven, whose letters from the strike district were being now universally read, were put on, the result financially seemed to be precisely the same.  It was becoming even a desperate question how the weekly expenses were to be met; so that Wharton’s usual good temper now deserted him entirely as soon as he had crossed the Clarion threshold; bitterness had become the portion of the staff, and even the office boys walked in gloom.

Yet, at the same time, withdrawing from the business, was almost as difficult as carrying it on.  There were rumours in the air which had, already seriously damaged the paper as a saleable concern.  Wharton, indeed, saw no prospect whatever of selling except at ruinous loss.  Meanwhile, to bring the paper to an abrupt end would have not only precipitated a number of his financial obligations; it would have been politically, a dangerous confession of failure made at a very critical moment.  For what made the whole thing the more annoying was that the Clarion had never been so important politically, never so much read by the persons on whom Wharton’s parliamentary future depended, as it was at this moment.  The advocacy of the Damesley strike had been so far a stroke of business for Wharton as a Labour Member.

It was now the seventh week of the strike, and Wharton’s “leaders,” Craven’s letters from the seat of war, and the Clarion strike fund, which articles and letters had called into existence, were as vigorous as ever.  The struggle itself had fallen into two chapters.  In the first the metal-workers concerned, both men and women, had stood out for the old wages unconditionally and had stoutly rejected all idea of arbitration.  At the end of three or four weeks, however, when grave suffering had declared itself among an already half-starved population, the workers had consented to take part in the appointment of a board of conciliation.  This board, including the workmen’s delegates, overawed by the facts of foreign competition as they were disclosed by the masters, recommended terms which would have amounted to a victory for the employers.

The award was no sooner known in the district than the passionate indignation of the great majority of the workers knew no bounds.  Meetings were held everywhere; the men’s delegates at the board were thrown over, and Craven, who with his new wife was travelling incessantly over the whole strike area, wrote a letter to the Clarion on the award which stated the men’s case with extreme ability, was immediately backed up by Wharton in a tremendous “leader,” and was received among the strikers with tears almost of gratitude and enthusiasm.