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1 " That’s the devil of things as they are now. As soon as any member of the working class shows ability as a leader, if he’s too rebellious to be collared as a foreman by the boss, the men make him an official and he steps right out of their class. Take Joan there. Now think what a power she would have been if she could have been kept in that shop where she used to work. Of course she would have got the sack and had to get another, but she’d have gone on fighting. What happens? She’s pretty (don’t blush, Joan), she’s clever, she is made an official. Then come along the Mary Mauds and the Anthony Dacres” (“and the Gerald Blains,” put in Dacre). “Quite. She is now a member of the middle class. Then she’ll get into Parliament and be quite a lady. "
― Ellen Wilkinson , Clash
2 " Individuals were all right, she said to herself, lots of them, but it was this rigid system that kept people from knowing each other. Was there another country in the world where the class barriers were so high as in England, and where it was so loudly proclaimed that none existed at all? "
3 " I know they have nice manners. They don’t care enough about the miners- at least, when they 'are not dangerous- not to be perfectly charming to anyone who cares enough to defend them. But you think of what that crowd did during the General Strike. Ask Mary Maud. We saw them with bared teeth all right when their class-privileges were in danger. It’s not people like that uncouth fool of a mine manager in Carey’s Main who are dangerous to the workers. They carry their own antidote. Decent people like that vicar’s wife will help the workers to do ’em in. But it’s these kindly wealthy people who play the devil with people like you, Joan. They are so reasonable and they can be so kind. It seems a shame to fight them, and after a while you’d find yourself not wanting to put things so strongly- it might hurt your new friends’ feelings. "
4 " Oh, what can’t you men talk about love! You seem to think that any one of you is worth giving up all that a woman has lived for. "
