Germinal - Emile Zola [129]
Now Étienne did interrupt:
‘You’re mistaken, sir. Not one collier in Montsou has joined yet. But if they’re pushed any further, every man in every pit will join. It all depends on the Company.’
From then on the battle lay between M. Hennebeau and Étienne, as though the other miners were no longer present.
‘The Company provides for these men, you’re wrong to threaten it. This year alone it has spent three hundred thousand francs building villages for the miners, and it gets a return of less than two per cent on that. Not to mention the pensions it pays out, and the free coal, and the medicines it distributes. You seem an intelligent enough young man, and in just a few months you’ve become one of our most skilful workers. Wouldn’t you do better to tell people things that are true rather than ruining your future by mixing with the wrong sort? Yes, I do mean Rasseneur. We had to part company, he and us, if we were going to save our pits from all that socialist rot…You’re always round at his place, and I’m sure he gave you the idea of setting up this provident fund, which incidentally we would be happy to tolerate if it were only for savings, except that we think it’s a weapon to be used against us, an emergency fund to pay for the costs of war. And while we’re on the subject, I may as well tell you that the Company intends to exercise control over that fund.’
Étienne let him go on, gazing steadily at him with a nervous quivering of the lips. The last sentence made him smile, and he replied simply:
‘So I take it, sir, that you are laying down a new condition, since up till now there has been no demand to exercise control…Our wish, I regret to say, is that the Company should take less of a part in our lives, not more, and that instead of playing the role of bountiful provider, it should simply do what’s fair and pay us what is our due – meaning pay us the money we make but which it takes a share of. Is it right every time there’s a crisis to let workers die of starvation so you don’t have to cut the shareholders’ dividend?…You can say what you will, sir, but the new system is a disguised pay-cut, and that’s what sickens us, because if the Company needs to make economies, it is very wrong of it to do so exclusively on the backs of the workers.’
‘Ah, now we come to it!’ cried M. Hennebeau. ‘I was wondering when you’d start accusing us of starving the people and living off the sweat of their toil! How can you talk such rubbish, when you must know perfectly well the enormous risks entailed in investing capital in industry, and particularly in an industry like mining? A fully-equipped pit costs today in the region of one and a half to two million francs, and then there’s all the hard work before you begin to see even a modest return on such a huge investment! Almost half the mining companies in France have gone bankrupt…Anyway, it’s stupid accusing the successful ones of being cruel. While their workers are feeling the pain, so are they. Do you not think that the Company has got just as much to lose in the present crisis as you have? It can’t decide the level of pay all on its own, it has to compete or go under. So blame the facts, not the Company…But you don’t want to listen, do you? You don’t want to understand!’
‘Oh yes, we do,’ Étienne replied. ‘We understand perfectly well that there can be no improvement for us as long as things continue the way they are, and that’s exactly why sooner or later the workers will make sure things happen differently.’
This statement, so temperately couched, was made almost in a whisper, but with such tremulous menace and conviction that there was a long silence. A wave of embarrassment and apprehension disturbed the quiet repose of the drawing-room.