Weeping ow Pattern
Page 26
Page 27
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
A Touching Story Concerning the in An Old Country in the L lu.stry and Other Important Matters ,nowned Emperor Bu Rok Rassi L=LE is known of the Emperor Bu Rok Rassi, who ruled an ancient land many thousands of years ago. He is said to have been a very humane man, although somewhat under the sway of his ministers. One anecdote tells of the Emperor taking an evening walk. Twilight was falling, the dim lamps flickered in the narrow streets of the capital, and in the shadows the Emperor saw a man pick something out of the gutter.
" What is thy name, friend?" asked the Emperor.
"Sire, I was Bill Smith," came the answer, "but we no longer have names. Now I am No. 999572."
" From what place? "
" Smeth Wick."
"Of what calling?"
"Once, Sire, I was a Road Haulier. Now I am in the Work House. There are 47 of us, ex-Hauliers, all in the same ward. Together with a Journalist from Leeds and two Gas Fitters from Salford, we have formed a company. We take turns to come out and collect cigarette ends, which we make into smoking mixture and sell to the wealthier inmates. It is the only form of private enterprise left in the Emperor's dominions."
The Sad Story Which the Once Happy Haulier Had to Tell
" Walk with Me, friend, and tell me thy story," said the Emperor. "Why art thou in this fallen state? "
"Because nothing changes in this realm, Sire," said the Haulier. "The feudal castle has gone from the land, but the railway has taken its place. The galley has gone from the sea, but the sweating, brow-beaten gangs in the Civil Service toil on as of yore. The Transmuter of Lead into Gold has gone, but the Socialist Planner thrives in his wake. Red torture and bloody sacrifice have gone, but application forms and taxation still remain. Shackles and leg irons have also gone, but llcences and identity cards are stronger by far."
"Not so loud, friend," muttered the Emperor, glancing up at the palace windows.
"Sorry, Sire," said the sturdy man, "but it fair sticks in yer craw, don't it? Only yesterday 14 Hauliers were executed for conspiracy. They were having a reunion and reviving old memories by studying a road ntap and fixing the rate for a load of furniture from Bradford to Bootle. The police raided the cellar and a tribunal sentenced the lot to death. Once there were 1,601) ways of getting a living and a man was free to choose. Now he is directed where somebody thinks he otter be, and the surest way to get to Southampton is to tell the'Planner you have a wife and six kids in Govan. When I think of all the people I know who are having "an interview," have had an interview, or are going to have an interview, I wonder the Planners have time to run the empire at ail.– "You have been nationalized, I take it. On what grounds? " said the Emperor.
We are charged with inefficiency, Sire."
"Was that true?"
"Under heaven, Sire, all things are relative. Our vehicles, embodying a high-speed prime mover and a final shaft the speed of which varied from nothing to slow, were amongst the cleverest works of man. Even so, against the legal restrictions of the Planners our designers were handicapped. Many of them went on the hails as contortionists and india-rubber men, conjurors and escapologists. They found the life much easier. Finally, a Planner got the idea that if the back wheels revolved one way and the front wheels the other, it would even-out road wear. When the Order was published 28 leading designers committed suicide. We never got over the loss."
A24 _ "Your service, was that expeditious?"
"Sire, in all our 50 years we never had a decent road to serve on. This made our vehicles small and slow. We set up two road funds and both were burgled in broad daylight by men in silk hats and pin-stripe trousers. The police never got 'em. Giving the road user nothing for something became better politics than giving the proletariat something for nothing. Roads are used for more than haulage; they are essential to a feudal state. We paid our share, what more could we do? The whole nation reads Oxo advertisement, but nobody expects Mr. Oxo to teach the people to read."
"What of education? Did you train your men?"
"There, Sire, we were lacking. We did not produce the thinkers and fighters we needed. Never did we throw up a great national figure to speak for us. Thus we failed in .publicity, too. Besides the Planners, we had to face a powerful tong, the Railway Economists. Like the Bourbon, they would not learn, neither could they forget. They were more numerous than Dingaan's warriors and about as progressive'."
" But surely you had a place within the constitution, friend?"
How Tribunals Wrested the Power From the Democratic Legislature
"The constitution, Sire, slipped its moorings. For a thousand years men fought to separate and balance the
Legislature, the Executive and the Judiciary. Then the Planners came and desiccated the Judiciary; they gradually put bits of it back under the Executive in the form of Tribunals, until the Executive became allpowerful. The Legislature grew weaker. If 640 men debate for 60 hours per week they can talk for only six minutes apiece. It takes many a man six minutes to cough and get started." "It doesn't take my wife six minutes to get started," said the Emperor.
" Women, Sire, are different. The trouble is not to start them, but to stop them. They keep in constant practice. And they have a way with them; I know a barmaid who can put more into one wink than any Legislator could put into a thousand words."
" Well spoken, friend. You are a philosopher. But your ancestors, had you none to turn to in your misfortunes? . Ancestors go a long way, you know."
" Spiritual ancestors, Sire, we had in plenty, men of every race and time. The men who traded east when commerce was young, the men who swung their dissel-booms north when Africa was unknown, the men who drove conestogas west across the prairie to find the strongest economic federation on earth, and the men who went south with tractors and sledges on the Ross Ice Barrier when the Planners were in Pinafores—those were our ancestors. For we, too, were pioneers, children
of the greatest transport empire ever assembled under one flag. Some of us came into the industry with a Red Duster in the 'nineties; many rode into it on horses. Always it was hard work or go under. The strong lived and the weak died; it has been so since the world began. We thrived. With electric power we became the two greatest factors of the age. To peace we gave a new industrial pattern. We changed war from trench mud and stalemate to hammer blows and fast movement. All this without nationalization. In the end, however, we fell."
For a time the two men walked in silence, each with his own thoughts. Then the sturdy man began again.
" Have you ever considered, Sire, what a wonderful creature the 1939 Man was? He differed from the Stone Age Man in that he expected a lot more and usually got it. He left the maternity home in a taxi when he was born and left the church in one when he was married. His furniture came in a plain van, and if he set the house on fire a motor fire-engine came to put it out. When he was ill he rode in a motor ambulance, and when he was dead he rode in a motor hearse, His clean shirt, his bread, meat, milk, coal, newspaper, and medical attention came to his door by motor vehicles. His refuse was likewise carted away. When he stepped out, neat and trim, at 8.30 a.m. he was a monument to two institutions—his wife and the motor vehicle."
" You speak with wisdom, Haulier. Pray continue with your story, which interests me greatly."
Why the Importance of Road Transport Failed to be Grasped
"The 1939 Man expected all these things, Sire, just as he expected water to go uphill and come out at the bathroom taps. Yet he gave hardly a thought to the transport network behind it all. He was waited on hand and foot by the twin slaves Turning Torque and Drawbar Pull, two of the greatest Persuading Mediums on earth. The wheel and axle opened many possibilities to the 1939 Man, Sire. It also opened to him many doors, for it is the principle behind every door knob. Yet he
took it all for granted, and failed to realize the snares which lay so well cloaked behind the many and various conveniences afforded to him."
" Did you not tell the populace all this when your calling was nationalized?"
" We might have done more in the way of publicity, Sire. Even so, it is a mistake to depend too much upon the populace. The populace pays parsons, labour leaders, politicians, Old Moore, and Aunt Topsy's Corner to do its thinking for it. It does not like thinking. Every machine is the result of 7,000 years of human brain power, and look at yonder Tram. It is a monument to the populace. So, too, are the horns on cattle. The populace domesticated cattle to save the trouble of hunting for them, of coming backempty-handed, or, perhaps, not coming back
at all. Yet the populace left the horns on. When we carried the cattle in our vehicles the beasts sometimes injured each other with their horns. The popuiacd could breed out the horns in less than a hundred years, instead of which it gives points for good horns at every cattle show, and SQ perpetuates a nuisance. Some of the things the populace does would stagger a Railway Council. If anything could stagger ;uch a bOdy!"
"A Railway Council is staggered to begin with," muttered the Emperor.
The Populace Was Too Late to Prevent Total Nationalization "Possibly so, Sire. But in the end it comes down to the individual. Solitary giants in a sea of mediocrity made the world what it is. Inventors and writers in cellars and attics shifted the centre of gravity of civilization while the populace took its eight-hours' sleep. In our case the populace awakened too late. Nationalization of industry was the prelude to nationalization of men. They are now registered for national service at birth, numbered, trained, psycho-analysed, tested, interviewed, selected, directed, classified, tabulated, and buried. Half of 'em want a job and cannot get one. The other half have jobs they don't like and cannot get rid of. On all sides, powerful tongs are growing; the Official Commentators, for instance; everyone hears them, but nobody sees one. Regional Spokesmen, too, are like ghosts with a hammer. Then there are the • Eye-witnesses; they are everywhere, reporting, stating, describing, but nobody seems tO see one, for they are mostly nondescript individuals who cannot well be distinguished from the ordinary members of the public. In some parts of the country they are known by the title of' Snakes in the Grass.' " "It is a sad tale, Haulier," said the Emperor. "If the road to hell be paved with good intentions, it is those carried out and not those forgotten that form the major portion of the pavement. Here is a dollar. It is all I can spare in these hard times, when the upkeep of my wardrobe. necessitates the purchase of so many clothing coupons, and the entertaining of my numerous advisers forces me to buy in the Black Market."
"Thank you, Sire. I hope your business is prospering?"
" My business? I am the Emperor. I am worse off than any of you. My wife nationalized me long ago."
"Tao bad, Sire. In that case you had better have the dollar back. You need it as much as we do. Stay, though, I will retain half of it for the Journalist in our ward. He is a most worthy man and suffers much distress with his throat, which, for some reason unexplained, appears always to be dry."
" Really? Have you tried giving him water for it? I have been told that this is good for such a complaint."
"Yes, Sire, but the man does not like water. When we offer him any he glares balefully and points to his boots, which are indeed in a shocking condition due to the action of water. We are helpless before such a logician."
" Give him the whole dollar, then. The feller's got brains. Good-night."
The Emperor walked back to the palace deep in thought. Number 999572 stole away into the shadows. The dim lamps swung in the breeze and night fell upon that old country.
[It is indeed significant that no trace remains in these enlightened days of A.D. 6044, of any great empire under Bu Rok Rassi.—Et).]