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quently withdrew their capital from one undertaking and dividedit amongst many, it was proved that the function of great richeswas slighter to-day than 50 years ago. In Oldham those limitedconcerns which were managed by directors from the operatives’class displaced the older private undertakings.
As opposed to these temperate utterances the clergyman de-fended that social idealism which demanded the elevation of thepoorest of the poor. This scene made clear to me that peculiarstage of the English labour movement, according to which theRadical wing to a great extent shows the touch of a religiousenthusiasm. As Ben Tillett, the leader of the dockers, said to me,he had to give a speech daily, but on Sundays he preached twice,and as Sidney Webb ascribes the last successful election to thoCounty Council in the first degree to the Dissenters and theirpreachers, so also here the parson took the side of that helplessand deeply submerged mass of humanity, above which the taughtand organised workers of Centralised Industry stand higher thanthe families comprising the House of Lords stand above him.
A few weeks later my studies led me into a circle of operativesof one of the most important textile centres of Germany . I methere the same friendly reception, the same willingness to supportscientific researches, also a similar social idealism. But it differedat once from that drawn above in that it did not stand in connec-tion with the traditions of ideal goodness of humanity; the opera-tives themselves as well, not the priests and women, were herethe bearers of that idealism. On the other hand, there was a lackof manly criticism of the problems on the side of reasoning andunderstanding. Why should we tread the laborious path bywhich the English operative has bettered his position, since as-suredly in a few years the great revolution must take place vdiichwill of itself bring everything wished for?
As I related this my comparison between German and English operatives to an industrial employer, he declared: German
operatives are preferable for me, since their wishes and strivingsare placed in a cuckoo’s home of clouds, which, when they think itto be near, again disappears in the distance. I could only replyto this that this weakness of German operatives also conies intoexpression in their work, and the carnivorous Englishman is, inthe utmost degree, still the cheaper worker.