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ROAMIN' IN THE GLOAMIN' 61
of our brows could we eat bread. And, by God, we sweated right enough.
As each of my brothers reached twelve years of age they left the school and went down below. Matt was the first for whom I found a job, and then Jock, Alec, and George followed in due time. Matt was a chap like myself, as strong as a lion and a keen willing worker. He and I teamed up together by and by. And didn't we make the coal fly from the seam when we specially wanted to have a good week's pay. As I have said, those were the days — believe me, the happy days — when a miner was only proud of getting what he had worked for. Take all you can get and give as little as you feel inclined seems to be the motto of too many people all over the world today.
It's wrong! It's all wrong! It is demoralizing in every direction. It is unjust to the good, honest workman; it has a softening, deadening influence on the boy or man whose heart is the slightest bit out of its natural position. Recently, both in Britain and America, I have been preaching the gospel of ''free trade" in brawn and brains, the creed of letting a man earn as much as he wants to within reasonable limitations. In America the system has been adopted very widely. But in this country trade and industry are being hampered, and initiative and ambition stifled by "ca* canny, take everything and give as little as possible!"
Matt and I worked so hard that we came to be known as the "Coal Mawks" — the coal worms that bored away and bored away, ceaselessly and persistently. If there was a difficult or dangerous job we were "on it like a cock at a gooseberry" — always granted that the money was all right, mind you ! The two brothers put up some amazing records in coal-getting. I have myself cut from five to six tons of coal in a shift. That was at the soft coal, while at the poytshaw coal, twenty-nine or thirty inches in thickness, and