Shinza was in the mood that used to come to him on the eve of elections when PIP first began to contest settler seats. He made self — deprecating jokes, game rather than confident. A David rather than a Goliath. The man who had been introduced as Linus Ogoto went point by point through the resolution he was going to lead next day, that the salaries of government personnel were too high. He was a forceful man with a corrugated face and head — even the fleshy shaven scalp was quilted with lines so that the intensity of the changes in his expression were not confined to the face but ran over the whole head. He lectured Bray in fluent, heavily accented English: “You know what the estimated figure is? Forty — seven per cent of the budget. Ministers and shop — front managing directors like Joshua Ntshali—” “Careful, Ntshali’s a neighbour of James’s,” Shinza put in. “—They’re getting three to ten thousand a year. — Our unskilled workers earn between thirty pounds and seventy — two. — Wait a minute, I haven’t finished. I’ve got a few other figures. Free house, basic car allowance seventy — five pounds, special extra allowance of one shilling a mile on official trips, and any day they like, cheap petrol from the PWD pumps. Senior civil servants and officials of the corporations get very much the same privileges.”
Cyrus Goma and Nwanga were both M.P.s and had a good salary and some privileges themselves; but of course they were not cabinet ministers. It seemed taken for granted by them that they would accept cuts in their salaries; this surely would not fail to be noticed when they were lobbying among ordinary people. “I’ve got the figure for the average earnings of Congress delegates. Seventy — three per cent earn under six hundred a year, and of that seventy — three per cent nearly three quarters earn between thirty and a hundred a year. That’s all.”
“Cash earnings, of course—? Subsistence crops and so on don’t come into it, ay?” Under his levity Shinza was alert to holes into which opposition would poke its way.
“Cash earnings. What a cabinet minister gets from his garden in the land doesn’t come into the reckoning for him, either.”
Shinza nodded rapidly, satisfied.
Nwanga said to Bray, “The Dondo and Tananze crowd are going to back that up full strength. They want a freeze for all earnings above six hundred a year.”
“Well, nearly everybody in that hall earns less than six hundred. They shouldn’t feel like disagreeing.” Ogoto looked as if he were staring them all out.
“That was some detective work, Linus,” Shinza said aside. “How’d you do it?”—referring to the figures for delegates’ earnings.
“I was on it for months, man. People don’t answer letters, you know — you have to keep on at them. It’s cost me a lot in stamps.” Ogoto laughed suddenly, embarrassed, and his ears moved the hide of his scalp. Then once he had overcome the embarrassment of praise it went rather to his head; he couldn’t stop talking, with intense enjoyment, of the trouble he had gone to. He told one anecdote after another; everyone laughed except the card players and the schoolboy, burrowing down in their concentration, and the old woman.
Bray talked to Cyrus Goma about a resolution concerning peasant workers. He had noticed it was to come from the Southern Province’s regional council — Goma’s seat was in the Eastern — but Goma knew its terms precisely. “The idea is farm workers should be recognized as the personnel of an agricultural industry, and they should be organized, just like any other sector of industry. Seventy — one per cent of workers in this country are still on the land. They haven’t any proper representation, no properly laid — down conditions of employment, no minimum wage, nothing. Of course it’s a tricky thing to work outmost of them aren’t employed full time as cash wage — earners, as you know. They’re employed seasonally by white farmers; part of the time they work their own or tribal land; or they’re squatters allowed to work some of the white man’s land in exchange for a share of the crop….
“Is there good support?”
Goma gave a short laugh. “In principle. Who’ll get up and say he’s against improving the life of nearly three quarters of the working population? But people can hold back for other reasons.”
“Of course. Organize that seventy — one per cent of peasants and the trade unions increase their power out of all recognition.”
Goma shrugged. Whenever Bray approached the definition of policy behind the separate resolutions of Shinza’s faction, Goma presented a bland front. Shinza was back in discussion with Linus Ogoto and Nwanga, his cigarette waggling on his lip. “… In Guinea, I mean, don’t let’s forget the issue of Africanization didn’t arise … the French pushed off as soon as Sékou opted out of the French Community, there were no more expatriate civil servants earning fat salaries for local people to compare themselves with. They were on their own. It was easy to introduce drastic salary cuts. But you must be very careful how far it goes … if you get deteriorating wage scales and fringe benefits at the level of, say, the teachers, it’s a boomerang”—he yawned, now and then, with excitement— “you get their union campaigning for a review of salaries again—”
Shinza was disturbed at the fact that the question of Mweta taking power to appoint the Secretary — General of UTUC was placed early on the next afternoon’s agenda. A man in a grey suit with tribal nicks on his cheekbones said, “They want to get it out of the way.” Shinza ignored him, ignored Bray’s eyes. He leaned his elbow on the table, put his hand over his mouth and gave a heavy sigh through distended nostrils: “Out of the way.” Of course, he wanted to have time to make an impression on Congress, to demonstrate over several days his return to active leadership and his claim to support before the issue came up. He was half — forgotten and he must remind PIP of what he still was and could be. Then whichever way it went — if the motion were to be defeated and Mweta took to himself the right of appointing UTUC’s Secretary — General and overlooked him, or if it succeeded and UTUC’s executive retained the right to elect him — Shinza’s political stock would rise.