'What are these widows' coals?' he asked.
'We have always allowed all widows of men who worked for the firm a
load of coals every three months.' 'They must pay cost price henceforward. The firm is not a charity
institution, as everybody seems to think.' Widows, these stock figures of sentimental humanitarianism, he felt a
dislike at the thought of them. They were almost repulsive. Why were
they not immolated on the pyre of the husband, like the sati in India?
At any rate, let them pay the cost of their coals.
In a thousand ways he cut down the expenditure, in ways so fine as to
be hardly noticeable to the men. The miners must pay for the cartage of
their coals, heavy cartage too; they must pay for their tools, for the
sharpening, for the care of lamps, for the many trifling things that
made the bill of charges against every man mount up to a shilling or so
in the week. It was not grasped very definitely by the miners, though
they were sore enough. But it saved hundreds of pounds every week for
the firm.
Gradually Gerald got hold of everything. And then began the great
reform. Expert engineers were introduced in every department. An
enormous electric plant was installed, both for lighting and for
haulage underground, and for power. The electricity was carried into
every mine. New machinery was brought from America, such as the miners
had never seen before, great iron men, as the cutting machines were
called, and unusual appliances. The working of the pits was thoroughly
changed, all the control was taken out of the hands of the miners, the
butty system was abolished. Everything was run on the most accurate and
delicate scientific method, educated and expert men were in control
everywhere, the miners were reduced to mere mechanical instruments.
They had to work hard, much harder than before, the work was terrible
and heart-breaking in its mechanicalness.
But they submitted to it all. The joy went out of their lives, the hope
seemed to perish as they became more and more mechanised. And yet they
accepted the new conditions. They even got a further satisfaction out
of them. At first they hated Gerald Crich, they swore to do something
to him, to murder him. But as time went on, they accepted everything
with some fatal satisfaction. Gerald was their high priest, he
represented the religion they really felt. His father was forgotten
already. There was a new world, a new order, strict, terrible, inhuman,
but satisfying in its very destructiveness. The men were satisfied to
belong to the great and wonderful machine, even whilst it destroyed
them. It was what they wanted. It was the highest that man had
produced, the most wonderful and superhuman. They were exalted by
belonging to this great and superhuman system which was beyond feeling
or reason, something really godlike. Their hearts died within them, but
their souls were satisfied. It was what they wanted. Otherwise Gerald
could never have done what he did. He was just ahead of them in giving
them what they wanted, this participation in a great and perfect system
that subjected life to pure mathematical principles. This was a sort of
freedom, the sort they really wanted. It was the first great step in
undoing, the first great phase of chaos, the substitution of the
mechanical principle for the organic, the destruction of the organic
purpose, the organic unity, and the subordination of every organic unit
to the great mechanical purpose. It was pure organic disintegration and
pure mechanical organisation. This is the first and finest state of
chaos.