"What I have done, I have done as a servant of the Order of St Martin," he replied. "What I am about to do," he added, "I shall do as Sir John Hampden."
And leaving Mr Tubes standing on the doorstep in vast surprise, the electric carriage turned its head-lights to the south again.
What Sir John Hampden was "about to do" he had decided in the course of the outward journey.
There was nothing in his actions, past or prospective, that struck him as illogical. He would have said, indeed, that they were the only possible outcome of the circumstance.
For the last four hours, as the nameless emissary of the Order to whose discipline he bound himself, he had merged every other feeling in his duty to the dying man and in the fulfilment of a death-bed charge.
That was over; now, as the President of the Unity
League, he was on his way to try by every means in his power to minimise the effect of what he had done; to anticipate and counteract the value of the warning he had so scrupulously conveyed.
It was a fantastic predicament. He had sat for perhaps half an hour with the unsealed envelope in his pocket, and no eye had been upon him. He had declared passionately, year after year, that class and class were now at war, that the time for courteous retaliation was long since past, that social martial law had been proclaimed. Yet as he drove back to Trafalgar Chambers he would have given a considerable sum of money—the League being not ill provided, say fifty thousand pounds—to know the extent of those notes.
When he reached the offices it was almost half-past twelve. Salt would be flying northward as fast as steam could take him, and for the next two hours at least, cut off from the possibility of any communication. The burden of decision lay on Hampden alone.
He had already made it. Within an hour he would have pledged the League to a line of policy from which there was no retreat. Before another day had passed the Government could recall the little band of secret service agents and consign their reports to the wastepaper basket. Every one would know everything. Everything? He smiled until the remembrance of that cheap frayed envelope in Mr Tubes's possession drove the smile away.
Next to his own office stood the instrument room. Here, behind double doors that deadened every sound, were ranged the telephones, the tape machines, the Fessenden-d'Arco installation, and that most modern development of wireless telegraphy which had come just in time to save the over-burdened postal system from chronic congestion, the telescribe.
Hampden had not appeared to move hurriedly, but it was just seventeen seconds after he had sent his brougham roving eastward that he stood before the telephone.
"1432 St Paul's, please."
There was a sound as of rushing water and crackling underwood. Then the wire seemed to clear itself like a swimmer rising from the sea, and a quiet, far-away voice was whispering in his ear: "Yes, I'm Lidiat."
"I am at Trafalgar Chambers," said Hampden, after giving his name. "I want you to dropanythingyou are on and come here. If my motor is not waiting for you at the corner of Chancery Lane, you will meet it along the Strand."
At the other end of the wire, Lidiat—the man who possessed the sixth code typewriter—looked rather blankly at his pipe, at the little silver carriage clock ticking on the mantelpiece, at the fluted white-ware coffee set, and at his crowded desk. Then, concluding that if the President of the Unity League sent a message of that kind after midnight and immediately rang off again he must have a good reason for it, he locked up his room as it stood, took up a few articles promiscuously from the rack in the hall, and walked out under the antique archway into Fleet Street.
In the meantime the Exchange was being urged to make another attempt to get on with "2743 Vincent," this time with success.
"Mr Salt is not 'ere, I repeat, sir," an indignant voice was protesting. "He is out of town."
"Yes, yes, Dobson, I know," replied "St James's." "I am Sir John Hampden. What train did your master go by?"
"Beg pardon, sir," apologised "Vincent." "Didn't recognise your voice at first, Sir John. The wires here is 'issing 'orrible to-night. He went by the 10 o'clock from the Great Central, and told me to meet the 10.40 Midland to-morrow morning."
"He did actually go by the 10 train?"
"I 'anded him the despatch case through the carriage window not five minutes before the whistle went. He was sitting with his——"
"Thank you, Dobson. That's all I wanted to know. Sorry if you had to get up. Good night," and Sir John cut off a volume of amiable verbosity as he heard the bell of his Launceston ring in the street below.
"Fellow watching your place," said Lidiat, jerking his head in the direction of a doorway nearly opposite, as Hampden admitted him. Had he himself been the object of the watcher's attention it would have been less remarkable, for had not the time and the place been London after midnight, Lidiat's appearance must have been pronounced bizarre. Reasonable enough on all other points he had a fixed conviction that it was impossible for him to work after twelve o'clock at night unless he wore a red silk skull cap, flannels, and yellow Moorish slippers. Into this æsthetic costume he had changed half an hour before Hampden rang him up, and in it, with the addition of a very short overcoat and a silk hat that displayed an inch of red beneath the brim, he now stepped from the brougham, a large, bovine-looking man, perfectly bald, and still clinging to his pipe.
Hampden laughed contemptuously as he glanced across the street.
"They have put on half a dozen private enquiry men lately," he explained. "They are used to divorce, and their sole idea of the case seems to be summed up in the one stock phrase, 'watching the house.' Possibly they expect to see us through the windows, making bombs. Why don't they watch Paris instead? Egyptian Three Per Cents. have gone up 75 francs in the last fortnight, all from there, and for no obvious reason."
Lidiat nodded weightily. "We stopped too much comment," he said. "Lift off?"
"There are only two short flights," apologised Hampden. "Yes; I saw that even the financial papers dismissed it as a 'Pied Piper rise.' Here we are."
They had not lingered as they talked, although the journalist ranked physical haste and bodily exertion—as typified by flights of stairs—among the forbidden things of life.
Hampden had brought him to the instrument room. In view of what he was asking of Lidiat, some explanation was necessary, but he put it into the narrowest possible form. It was framed not on persuasiveness but necessity.
"Salt is away, something has happened, and we have to move a week before we had calculated."
Lidiat nodded. He accepted the necessity as proved; explanation would have taken time. His training and occupation made him chary of encouraging two words when one would do, between midnight and the hour when the newspapers are "closed up" and the rotaries begin to move.
"I should like," continued Hampden, "in to-day's issue of every morning paper a leader, two six-inch items of news, one home one foreign, and a single column six-inch advertisement set in the middle of a full white page."
Lidiat had taken off his hat and overcoat and placed them neatly on a chair. It occurred to him as a fair omen that Providence had dealt kindly with him in not giving him any opportunity of changing his clothes. He now took out his watch and hung it on a projecting stud of the telephone box.
"Yes, and the minimum?" He did not think, as a lesser man with equal knowledge of Fleet Street might have done, that Hampden had gone mad. He knew that conventionally such a programme was impossible, but he had known of impossible things being done, and in any case he understood by the emphasis that this was what Hampden would have done under freer circumstances.
"That is what I leave to you. The paragraphs and comment at some length I shall look for. The provinces are out of the question, I suppose? The eight leading London dailiesmustbe dealt with."
"You give mecarte blanche, of course—financially?"
"Absolutely, absolutely. Guarantee everything to them. Let them arrange for special trains at all the termini. Let them take over all the garages, motor companies, and cab yards in London as going concerns for twelve hours. They will all be in it exceptThe TocsinandThe Masses. We can deal with the distributing houses later. You see the three points? It is the patriotic thing to do at any cost; they can have anything they like to make up time; and it is absolutely essential."
"Yes," said Lidiat; "and the matter?"
Hampden had already taken a pencilled sheet of paper from his pocket. He had written it on his way up to Kilburn. He now handed it to the journalist.
"Between four and five o'clock that will be telescribed over the entire system," he explained. "Those who are not on the call will see it in the papers or hear from others. Every one will know before to-night."
He watched Lidiat sharply as he read the statement. Apart from the two principals, he was the first man in England to receive the confidence, and Sir John had a curiosity, not wholly idle, to see how it would strike him. But Lidiat was not, to use an obsolete phrase, "the man in the street." He absorbed the essence of the manifesto with a trained, practical grasp, and then held out his hand for the other paper, while his large, glabrous face remained merely vacant in its expression.
The next paper was a foreign telegram in cipher, and as Lidiat read the decoded version that was pinned to it, the baronet saw, or fancied that he saw, the flicker of a keener light come into his eyes and such a transient wave across his face, as might, in a man of impulse, indicate enthusiasm or appreciation.
"Are there to be any more of these—presently?" was all he said.
"I think that I might authorise you to say that there will be others to publish, as the moment seems most propitious."
"Very good. I will use the instruments now."
"There is one more point," said Hampden, writing a few short lines on a slip of paper, "that it might be desirable to make public now."
Lidiat took the paper. This was what he read:
"You are at liberty to state definitely that the membership of the Unity League now exceeds five million persons."
"You are at liberty to state definitely that the membership of the Unity League now exceeds five million persons."
There was a plentiful crop of grey hairs sown between Charing Cross and Ludgate Hill in the early hours of that summer morning. With his mouth to the telephone, Lidiat stirred up the purlieus of Fleet Street and the Strand until office after office, composing room after composing room, and foundry after foundry, all along the line, began to drone and hum resentfully, like an outraged apiary in the dead of night. When he once took up the wire he never put it down again until he had swept the "London Dailies: Morning" section of Sell and Mitchell from beginning to end. Those who wished to retort and temporise after he had done with them, had to fall back upon the telescribe—which involved the disadvantage to Fleet Street of having to write and coldly transmit the indignant messages that it would fain pour hot and blistering into its tormentor's ear. For two hours and a half by the watch beneath his eye he harrowed up all the most cherished journalistic traditions of the land, and from a small, box-like room a mile away, he controlled the reins of the Fourth Estate of an Empire—a large, fat, perspiring man of persuasive authority, and conscious of unlimited capital at his back.
By the end of that time chaos had given place to order.The Scythehad shown an amenable disposition with a readiness suggesting that it possibly knew more than it had told in the past.The Ensignwas won over by persuasion and the condition of the Navy, andThe Mailed Fistwas clubbed and bullied and cajoled with big names until it was dazed. For seven minutes Lidiat poured patriotism into the ear ofThe Beacon'seditor, and gold into the coffers ofThe Beacon'smanager, and then turned aside to win overThe Daily News-Letterby telling it whatThe Daily Chroniclerwas doing, and theChroniclerby reporting theNews-Letter'sacquiescence.The Morning Post Cardremained obdurate for half an hour, and only capitulated after driving down and having an interview with Hampden.The Great Daily—well, for more than a yearThe Great Dailyhad been the property and organ of the League, only no one had suspected it. The littleIllustrated Hour, beset by the difficulty of half-tone blocks, and frantic at the thought of having to recast its plates and engage in the mysteries of "making ready" again after half its edition had been run off, was the last to submit. So long was it in making up its mind, that at last Lidiat sarcastically proposed an inset, and, taking the suggestion in all good faith, theIllustrated Hourstartled its sober patrons by bearing on its outside page a gummed leaflet containing a leaderette and two news paragraphs.
So the list spun out. Lidiat did not touch the provinces, but sixteen London dailies, including some sporting and financial organs, marked the thoroughness of his work. At half-past three he finally hung up the receiver; and taking the brougham, rode like another Wellington over the field of his still palpitating Waterloo. His appearance, bovine and imperturbable despite the shameful incongruity of his garb when revealed in the tremulous and romantic dawn of a day and of an epoch, and further set off by the unimpeachable correctness of the equipage from which he alighted, was a thing that rankled in the minds of lingering compositors and commissionaires until their dying days.
A few minutes after his departure Hampden returned to the telephone and desired to make the curious connection "1 Telescribe."
"Who is there?" he asked, when "1 Telescribe" responded.
The man at the other end explained that he was a clerk on the main platform of "1 Telescribe"—name of Firkin, if the fact was of Metropolitan interest.
"Is Mr Woodbarrow there yet?"
It appeared, with increased respect, that Mr Woodbarrow was in his own office and could be informed of the gentleman's name.
"Please tell him that Sir John Hampden wishes to speak with him."
In two minutes another voice filtered through the wire, a voice which Hampden recognised.
"What are you running with now, Mr Woodbarrow?" he asked, when brief courtesies had been exchanged.
Mr Woodbarrow made an enquiry, and was able to report that a 5 H.P. Tangye was supplying all the power they needed at that hour. Nothing was coming through, he explained, except a few press messages from America, a little business from Australia, and some early morning news from China.
"I should be obliged if you would put on the two Westinghouses as soon as you can, and then let me know when you can clear the trunk lines for a minute. Within the next hour I want to send an 'open board' message."
There was no response to this matter-of-fact request for an appreciable five seconds, but if ever silence through a telephone receiver conveyed an impression of blank amazement at the other end, it was achieved at that moment.
"Do I rightly understand, Sir John," enquired Mr Woodbarrow at the end of those five seconds, "that you wish to repeat a message over the entire system?"
"That is quite correct."
"It will constitute a record."
"An interesting occasion, then."
"Have you calculated the fees, Sir John?"
"No, I have not had the time. You will let me know when the power is up?"
Mr Woodbarrow, only just beginning to realise fully the magnitude of the occasion and tingling with anticipation, promised to act with all possible speed, and going to his own room Sir John took up an agate pen and proceeded to write with special ink on prepared paper this encyclical despatch.
A library of books had been written on the subject of the telescribe within two years of its advent, but a general description may be outlined untechnically in a page or two. It was, for the moment, the last word of wireless telegraphy. It was efficient, it was speedy, it was cheap, and it transmitted in facsimile. It had passed the stage of being wondered at and had reached that of being used. It was universal. It was universal, that is, not in the sense that tongues are universally in heads, for instance, but, to search for a parallel, as universal as letter-boxes are now on doors, book-cases in houses, or cuffs around men's wrists. There were, in point of number, about three millions on the index book.
It was speedy because there was no call required, no intervention of a connecting office to wait for. That was purely automatic. Above the telescribe box in one's hall, study, or sitting-room, was a wooden panel studded with eight rows of small brass knobs, sixteen knobs in each row. These could be depressed or raised after the manner of an electric light stud, and a similar effect was produced: a connection was thereby made.
All the country—England and Wales—was mapped out into sixteen primary divisions, oblong districts of equal size. The top row of brass knobs corresponded with these divisions, and by pulling down any knob the operator was automatically put into communication with that part of the system, through the medium of the huge central station that reared its trellised form, like an Eiffel Tower, above the hill at Harrow, and the subsidiary stations which stood each in the middle of its division.
The second stage was reached by subdividing each primary division into sixteen oblong districts, and with these the second row of knobs corresponded. Six more times the subdividing process was repeated, and each subdivision had its corresponding row. The final division represented plots of ground so small that no house or cottage could escape location.
Pulling down the corresponding studs on the eight rows instantly and automatically established the connection. The written communication could then be transmitted, and in the twinkling of an eye it was traced on a sheet of paper in the receiving box. There was no probability of the spaces all being occupied with telescribes for some years to come. A calculation will show that there was provision for a good many thousand million boxes, but only three million were fixed and attuned at this period.
That, briefly, was the essential of the telescribe system. It was invaluable for most purposes, but not for all. Though speedier than the letter, it lacked its privacy when it reached its destination, and it also, in the eyes of many, lacked the sentimental touch, as from hand to hand, which a letter may convey. It carried no enclosures, of course, and, owing to the difficulties of ink and paper, printed matter could not be telescribed at all. It cost twice as much as a letter, but as this was spread in the proportion of three-quarters to the sender and one quarter to the receiver the additional cost was scarcely felt by either. Thus it came about that although the telescribe had diminished the volume of telegrams by ninety per cent., and had made it possible still to cope with a volume of ordinary postal correspondences which up to that time had threatened to swamp the department, it had actually superseded nothing.
At four o'clock Mr Woodbarrow called up Sir John and reported that the two great engines were running smoothly, and that for three minutes the entire system would be closed against any message except his. In other words, while the "in" circuit was open to three million boxes, the "out" circuit was closed against all except one. It was not an absolutely necessary precaution, for overlapping telescripts "stored latent" until the way was clear, but it was not an occasion on which to hesitate about taking every safeguard.
The momentous order was already written. Hampden opened the lid of a small flat box supported on the telescribe shelf by four vulcanite feet, put the paper carefully in, and closed the lid again. He had pulled down the eight rows of metal studs in anticipation of Woodbarrow's message, and there was only one more thing to do. A practical, unemotional man, and not unused, in an earlier decade, to controlling matters of national importance with energy and decision, he now stood with his hand above the fatal switch, not in any real doubt about his action, but with a kind of fascinated time-languor. A minute had already passed. To pull down the tiny lever and release it would not occupy a second. At what period of those three minutes should he do it? How longdarehe leave it? He caught himself wondering whether on the last second—and with an angry exclamation at the folly he pressed the lever home.
There was no convulsion of nature; a little bell a foot away gave a single stroke, and that was all the indication that the President of the Unity League had passed the Rubicon and unmasked his battery.
This was what he had written and scattered broadcast over the land:
"The time has now arrived when it is necessary for the League to take united action in order to safeguard the interests of its members."In directing a course which may entail some inconvenience, but can hardly, with ordinary foresight, result in real hardship, your President reminds you of the oft-repeated warning that such a demand would inevitably be made upon your sincerity. The opportunity is now at hand for proving that as a class our resource and endurance are not less than those of our opponents."On or before the 22nd July, members of the League will cease until further notice to purchase or to use coal in the form of (a) Burning Coal (except such as may be already on their premises), (b) Coke (with the exception as before), (c) Gas, (d) Coal-produced electricity."The rule applies to all private houses, offices, clubs, schools, and similar establishments; to all hotels, restaurants, boarding-houses and lodging-houses, with the exception (for the time) of necessary kitchen fires, which will be made the subject of a special communication, to all greenhouses and conservatories not used for the purposes of trade; and to all shops, workshops, and similar buildings where oil or other fuel or illuminant not produced or derived from coal can be safely substituted."Members of the League who have no coal in stock, and who do not possess facilities for introducing a substitute immediately, are at liberty to procure sufficient to last for a week. With this exception members are required to cancel all orders at present placed for coal. The League will take all responsibility and will defend all actions for breach of contract."Members of the League are earnestly requested to co-operate in this line of action both as regards the letter and the spirit of the rule."Members are emphatically assured that every possible development of the campaign has been fully considered during the past two years, and it is advanced with absolute confidence that nothing unforeseen can happen to mar its successful conclusion."Nothing but the loyal co-operation of members is required to ensure the triumph of those Principles of Government which the League has always advocated, and a complete attainment of the object for which the League came into existence."John Hampden,President."Trafalgar Chambers,"London, 15thJuly1918."
"The time has now arrived when it is necessary for the League to take united action in order to safeguard the interests of its members.
"In directing a course which may entail some inconvenience, but can hardly, with ordinary foresight, result in real hardship, your President reminds you of the oft-repeated warning that such a demand would inevitably be made upon your sincerity. The opportunity is now at hand for proving that as a class our resource and endurance are not less than those of our opponents.
"On or before the 22nd July, members of the League will cease until further notice to purchase or to use coal in the form of (a) Burning Coal (except such as may be already on their premises), (b) Coke (with the exception as before), (c) Gas, (d) Coal-produced electricity.
"The rule applies to all private houses, offices, clubs, schools, and similar establishments; to all hotels, restaurants, boarding-houses and lodging-houses, with the exception (for the time) of necessary kitchen fires, which will be made the subject of a special communication, to all greenhouses and conservatories not used for the purposes of trade; and to all shops, workshops, and similar buildings where oil or other fuel or illuminant not produced or derived from coal can be safely substituted.
"Members of the League who have no coal in stock, and who do not possess facilities for introducing a substitute immediately, are at liberty to procure sufficient to last for a week. With this exception members are required to cancel all orders at present placed for coal. The League will take all responsibility and will defend all actions for breach of contract.
"Members of the League are earnestly requested to co-operate in this line of action both as regards the letter and the spirit of the rule.
"Members are emphatically assured that every possible development of the campaign has been fully considered during the past two years, and it is advanced with absolute confidence that nothing unforeseen can happen to mar its successful conclusion.
"Nothing but the loyal co-operation of members is required to ensure the triumph of those Principles of Government which the League has always advocated, and a complete attainment of the object for which the League came into existence.
"John Hampden,President.
"Trafalgar Chambers,
"London, 15thJuly1918."
In the past the world had seen very many strikes on the part of workers, not selfishly conceived in their essence, but bringing a great deal of poverty and misery in their train, and declared solely for the purpose of benefiting the strikers through the necessity of others. In the more recent past the world had seen employers combine and declare a few strikes (the word will serve a triple purpose) for just the same end and accompanied by precisely similar results. It was now the turn of the consumers to learn the strike lesson, the most powerful class of all, but the most heterogeneous to weld together. The object was the same but pursued under greater stress; the weapons would be similar but more destructive; the track of desolation would be there but wider, and the end——On that morning of the 15th of July the end lay beyond a very dim and distant shock of dust and turmoil that the eye of none could pierce.
Mr Strummery having finished his breakfast with the exception of a second glass of hot water, which constituted the amiable man's only beverage, took up his copy ofThe Scythe. He had already glanced throughThe Tocsin, in which he had a small proprietary interest, but he also subscribed toThe Scythe, partly because it brought to his door a library which he found useful when he had to assume an intimate knowledge of a subject at a day's notice, partly because the crudely blatant note ofThe Tocsinoccasionally failed to strike a sympathetic cord.
He had found that morning in his telescribe receiver the Trafalgar Chambers manifesto which had been flashed to friend and foe alike. He had read it with a frown; it savoured of impertinence that it should be sent to him. He finished it with a laugh, half-contemptuous, half-annoyed. He saw that it was a stupid move unless the League had abandoned all hope of forming the League-Labour alliance; in any case, it was a blow that stung but could not wound. All the chances were that nothing would come of it;but, if a million people did give up burning coal for say a month, if a million peopledidthat—well, it would be very inconvenient to themselves, but there would certainly be a good many tens of thousand pounds less wages paid out in districts that seemed to be far from satisfactory even as it was.
The Tocsindid not refer to the matter at all. Mr Strummery openedThe Scythe, and was rather surprised to see, beneath five lines of heavy heading on the leader page, a full account of Sir John Hampden's sudden move. Instinctively his eye turned to the leader columns. As he had half expected there was a leader on the subject, not very long but wholly benedictory. In rather less measured phrases than the premier organ usually adopted and with other signs of haste, readers were urged to enter whole-heartedly into this development of bloodless civil war of which the impending Personal Property Act had been the first unmasked blow. He glanced on, not troubling about the views advanced until a casual statement drew a smothered exclamation from his lips. "An argument which will be used in a practical form by the five million adult members now on the books of the League—" ran the carelessly-dropped information. "It is a lie—a deliberately misleading lie," muttered the Premier angrily; but it was the truth. He read on. The article concluded: "In this connection the strong action taken by M. Gavard, as indicated in the telegrams from Paris which we print elsewhere, may be purely a coincidence, but it is curiously akin to those 'mathematical coincidences' that fall into their places in a well-planned campaign."
Mr Strummery had no difficulty in finding the telegrams alluded to. Rushed through in frantic haste, the type had stood a hair's breadth higher than it should, and in the resulting blackness the words of the headlines leapt to meet his eye.
From Our Special CorrespondentParisWednesday Night."It is authoritatively stated that the industrial crisis which has been existing in the north, and to some extent in the Lyonnais districts, for the past six months is on the eve of a settlement. Yesterday M. Gavard returned from S. Etienne, and after seeing several of his colleagues and some leading members of the Chamber of Commerce, left at once for Lens. Early this morning he was met at the Maison du Peuple by deputations from the Syndicate of Miners, the 'Broutchouteux,' the Association of Mine Owners, the Valenciennes iron masters, and representatives of some other industries."The proceedings were conducted in private, but it is understood in well-informed circles here that in accordance with the plenary powers conferred on him by the Chambers in view of the critical situation, M. Gavard proposed to raise the small existing tax on imported coal to anad valoremtax of 55 p.c. The mine owners on their side will guarantee a minimum wage of 8f. 15c., and commence working at once, reinstating all men within a week of the imposing of the tax. The amalgamated industries acquiesce to a general immediate advance of 1f. 75c.per ton (metric) in the price of coal, and will start running as soon as the first portion of their orders can be filled."Troops are still being massed in the affected districts, but after last Thursday's pitched battle a tone of sullen apathy is generally preserved. There was, however, severe rioting at Anzin this morning, and about 200 casualties are reported."
From Our Special Correspondent
ParisWednesday Night.
"It is authoritatively stated that the industrial crisis which has been existing in the north, and to some extent in the Lyonnais districts, for the past six months is on the eve of a settlement. Yesterday M. Gavard returned from S. Etienne, and after seeing several of his colleagues and some leading members of the Chamber of Commerce, left at once for Lens. Early this morning he was met at the Maison du Peuple by deputations from the Syndicate of Miners, the 'Broutchouteux,' the Association of Mine Owners, the Valenciennes iron masters, and representatives of some other industries.
"The proceedings were conducted in private, but it is understood in well-informed circles here that in accordance with the plenary powers conferred on him by the Chambers in view of the critical situation, M. Gavard proposed to raise the small existing tax on imported coal to anad valoremtax of 55 p.c. The mine owners on their side will guarantee a minimum wage of 8f. 15c., and commence working at once, reinstating all men within a week of the imposing of the tax. The amalgamated industries acquiesce to a general immediate advance of 1f. 75c.per ton (metric) in the price of coal, and will start running as soon as the first portion of their orders can be filled.
"Troops are still being massed in the affected districts, but after last Thursday's pitched battle a tone of sullen apathy is generally preserved. There was, however, severe rioting at Anzin this morning, and about 200 casualties are reported."
Paris.Later."The terms of settlement contained in my earlier message are confirmed. They will remain in operation for a year. The tax will come into force almost immediately, three days' grace being allowed for vessels actually in French ports to unload. In view of your Government's subsidy to English coal exportation and its disastrous effects on French mining, and, subsequently, on other industries, the imposition of the tax will be received with approval in most quarters."
Paris.Later.
"The terms of settlement contained in my earlier message are confirmed. They will remain in operation for a year. The tax will come into force almost immediately, three days' grace being allowed for vessels actually in French ports to unload. In view of your Government's subsidy to English coal exportation and its disastrous effects on French mining, and, subsequently, on other industries, the imposition of the tax will be received with approval in most quarters."
As the Prime Minister reached the end of the paragraph he heard a vehicle stop at his door, followed by an attack on bell and knocker that caused Mrs Strummery no little indignation. It was Mr Tubes arriving, after indulging in the unusual luxury of a cab, and the next minute he was shown into his chief's presence. Both men unconsciously frowned somewhat as they met, but the ex-collier was infinitely the more disturbed of the two.
"You got my 'script?" he asked, as they shook hands.
"No; did you write?" replied Mr Strummery. "To tell the truth, this meddling piece of imbecility on Hampden's part, and his gross impertinence in sending it to me, put everything else out of my head for the moment. You have seen it?"
"You wouldn't need to ask that if you'd passed a newspaper shop," said Mr Tubes grimly. "The newsbills are full of nothing else. 'COAL WAR PROCLAIMED,' 'HAMPDEN'S REPLY TO THE P.P. TAX,' 'UNITY LEAGUE MANIFESTO,' and a dozen more. I had private word of it last night, but too late to do anything. That's why I asked half a dozen of them—Vossit, Guppling, Chadwing, and one or two more—to meet me here at half-past nine. Happen a few others will drop in now."
"Well, don't let them see that you think the world is coming to an end," said the Premier caustically. "Nothing may come of it yet."
"That's all very well, Strummery," said Mr Tubes, with rising anger. "All very well for you; you don't come from a Durham division. I shall have it from both sides. Twenty thousand howling constituents and six hundred raving members."
"Let them rave. They know better than press it too far. As for the miners, if they have to lose by it we can easily make grants to put them right." A sudden thought struck him; he burst out laughing. "Well, Tubes," he exclaimed boisterously, "I can excuse myself, but I should have thought that a man who came from a Durham constituency would have seenthatbefore. Hampden must either be mad, or else he knows that his precious League won't stand very much. Don't you see? We are in the middle of summer now, andfor the next three months people will be burning hardly any coal at all!"
The Home Secretary jumped up and began to pace the room in seething impatience, before he could trust himself to speak.
"Don't talk like that before the House with fifty practical men in it, for God's sake, Strummery," he exclaimed passionately. "Hampden couldn't well have contrived a more diabolical moment. Do you know what the conditions are? Well, listen. No oneisburning any coal, and so it will be no hardship for them to do without. But every one is on the point of filling his cellar at summer prices to last all through the winter. And Hampden's five million——"
"I don't believe that," interposed the Premier hastily.
"Well, I do—now," retorted his colleague bitterly. "His five million are the five million biggest users of domestic coal in the country. They use more than all the rest put together. And they all fill their cellars in the summer or autumn."
"Then?" suggested Mr Strummery.
"Then they won't now," replied Mr Tubes. "That's all. The next ten weeks are the busiest in the year, from the deepest working to the suburban coal-shoot. Go and take a look round if you want to see. Every waggon, every coal-yard, every railway siding, every pit-bank is chock-full, ready. Only the cellars are empty. If the cellars are going to remain empty, what happens?" He threw out his left hand passionately, with a vigorous gesture. It suggested laden coal carts, crowded yards, over-burdened railways, all flung a stage back on to the already congested pit-heads, and banking up coal like the waters of the divided Red Sea into a scene of indescribable confusion.
The Prime Minister sat thinking moodily, while his visitor paced the room and bit his lips with unpleasant vehemence. In the blades of morning sun, as he crossed and recrossed the room, one saw that Mr Tubes, neither tall nor stout but large, loosely boned, loosely dressed and loosely groomed, had light blue eyes, strong yellow teeth which came prominently into view as he talked, and a spotted sallow complexion, which conveyed the unfortunate, and unjust, impression of being dirty.
"We shall have to do something to carry them on till the winter, that's all," declared Mr Strummery at length. "There's no doubt that the Leaguers will have to use coal then."
"It's no good thinking that we can settle it off-hand with a few thousand pounds of strike pay, Strummery," said the Home Secretary impatiently, "because we can't. You have to know the conditions to see how that is. If there's a strike, the article has to be supplied from somewhere else at more money, and every one except those whowantto strike keep on very much as before. But here, by God, they have us all along the line! Anything from fifty to a hundred thousand miners less required at one end, and anything from five to ten thousand coal carters at the other. And between? And dependent on each lot all through?" His ever-ready arm emphasised the situation by a comprehensive sweep. "You've heard say that coal is the life-blood of the country, happen?" he added. "Well, we're the heart."
"What do you suggest, then?"
"It's all a matter of money. If it can be done we must make up the difference; buy it, pay for it, and store it. There are the dockyards, the barracks, and we could open depôts here and in all the big towns. In that way we could spread it over as long a period as we liked. Then there's export. I think that has touched its limit for the time, but we might find it cheaper in the end to stimulate it more."
"Yes; but what about this French business? Are you allowing for that in your estimate?"
"What French business?"
"The French tax," said the Premier impatiently, pointing to the openScythe. "You've seen about it, haven't you?"
He had not. He snatched up the paper, muttering as he read the first few lines that he had glanced throughThe Tocsinbefore he came out, and that had been all. His voice became inaudible as he read on. When he had finished he was very pale. He flung the paper down and walked to the window, and stood there looking out without a word. The declaration of the coal war had filled him with smouldering rage; the Paris telegram had effectually chilled it. Before, he had felt anger; now he felt something that, expressed in words, was undistinguishable from fear.
The men whom he had asked to meet him there were beginning to arrive. They had already heard Vossit and Chadwing pass upstairs talking. There was a step in the hall outside that could only belong to Tirrel. He had not been summoned, but, as Mr Tubes had anticipated, a few others were beginning to drop in. Guppling and two men whom he had met on the doorstep came in as Mr Tubes was finishing the Paris news.
"It's not much good talking about it now," he said, turning from the window, "but if I had known ofthis, or even that the other would be out, I should have come here myself without bringing all these chaps down too. Not but what they'd have come, though. But when I wrote to them I'd just got the information, you understand, and it was thought that Hampden wouldn't be doing anything for a week at least."
"He was too clever for you again?" said Strummery vindictively, as he rose to go upstairs.
"So it seems," admitted Mr Tubes indifferently.
In the salon, where a month before they had drafted the outline of the Personal Property Bill, under the impression that government was a parlour game and Society a heap of spelicans, eight or nine men were already assembled. One or two sat apart, with ugly looks upon their faces. Mr Vossit was dividing his time between gazing up to the ceiling and making notes in a memorandum book as the points occurred to him. Sir Causter Kerr, Baronet of the United Kingdom, and Chevalier of the Order of the Golden Eagle, who in return for a thousand pounds a year permitted himself to be called First Lord of the Admiralty in a Socialist Government, was standing before a steel engraving with the title in German, "Defeat of the British at Majuba Hill, 27th February 1881," but, judging from the slight sardonic grin on his thin features, he was thinking of something else. Sir Causter Kerr had assuredly not been invited to the meeting. The rest of the company stood together in one group, where they talked and laughed and looked towards the door from time to time, in expectation of their host's arrival.
The talk and laughter dropped to a whisper and a smile as Mr Strummery entered and Mr Tubes followed, and with short greetings passed to their places at the table. The Prime Minister was popular, or he would not have held that position, but Mr Tubes was not. He was Home Secretary by virtue of the voice of the coal interest, so much the largest labour organisation in the country that if its wishes were ignored it could, like another body of miners in the past, very effectively demand to "know the reason why."
"Well, Jim, owd lad," said Cecil Brown hilariously, taking advantage of the fact that formal proceedings had not yet commenced, "hast geete howd o' onny more cipher pappers, schuzheou?" Cecil Brown, it may be explained, held that he had the privilege of saying offensive things to his friends without being considered offensive, and as no one ever thought of calling him anything else but "Cecil Brown," he was probably right. Of the Colonial Office, he was in some elation at the moment that his usually despised Department was quite out of this imbroglio.
"Ah, that was a very red, red herring, I'm more than thinking now," said Mr Guppling reflectively.
"Certainly a salt fish, eh, Tirrel?" said Cecil Brown.
Mr Strummery rapped sharply on the table with his knuckles, to indicate that the proceedings had better begin. A hard-working, conscientious man, he entirely missed the lighter side of life. He sometimes laughed, but in conversation his face never lit up with the ready, spontaneous smile; not because he was sad, but because he failed to see, not only the utility of a jest, but its point also. That conversational sauce which among friends who understand one another frequently takes the outer form of personal abuse, was to him merely flagrant insult.
Mr Tubes leaned across and spoke to his chief; and looking down the table the Premier allowed his gaze to rest enquiringly on Sir Causter Kerr.
A man whohadbeen invited jumped up. "I called on Comrade Kerr on my way here and took the liberty of asking him to come, because I thought that we might like to know something of the condition of the navy," he explained.
"For what purpose?" enquired Mr Strummery smoothly.
"Because," he replied, flaring up suddenly with anger, "because I regard this damned French tax, without a word of notice to us or our representative, as nothing more or less than acasus belli."
The proceedings had begun.
"Case of tinned rabbits!" contemptuously retorted a Mr Bilch, sitting opposite. "What d'yer think you're going to do if it is? Why, my infant, the French fleet would knock you and yourbelliinto a packingcasusin about ten minutes if you tried it on. You'll have to stomach thatcasus belli, and as many more as they care to send you."
Mr Bilch was a new man, and was spoken of as a great acquisition to his party, though confessedly uncertain in his views and frequently illogical in his ground. His strength lay in the "happy turns" with which his speech was redolent, and his splendid invulnerability to argument, reason, or fact. He had formerly been a rag-sorter, and would doubtless have remained inarticulate and unknown had he not one day smoothed out a sheet ofThe Tocsinfrom the bin before him as he ate his dinner. A fully reported speech was therein described as perhaps the greatest oratorical masterpiece ever delivered outside Hyde Park. Mr Bilch read the speech, and modestly fancied that he could do as well himself. From that moment he never looked back, and although he was still a plain member he had forced his way by sheer merit into the circle of the Council Chamber.
"It is against our principles to consider that contingency," interposed the Premier; "and in any case it is premature to talk of war when the courts of arbitration——"
"That's right enough," interrupted the man who had first spoken of war, "and when it was a matter of fighting to grab someone else's land to fatten up a gang of Stock Exchange Hebrews, I was with you through thick and thin, but this is different. The very livelihood of our people is aimed at. I've nothing to say against the Hague in theory, but when you remember that we've never had a single decision given in our favour it's too important to risk to that. But why France should have done this, in this way and just at this moment, is beyond me."
Yet it was not difficult to imagine. When many English manufactories were closed down altogether, or removed abroad because the conditions at home were too exacting for them, less coal was required in England. Less coal meant fewer colliers employed, and this touched the Government most keenly. The same amount of coalmustbe dug, especially as the operation of the Eight Hours Act had largely increased the number of those dependent on the mines; therefore more must be exported. The coal tax had long since gone; a substantial bounty was now offered on every ton shipped out of the country. It made a brave show. Never were such piping times known from Kirkcaldy to Cardiff. English coal could be shot down in Rouen, Nantes, or Bordeaux, even in Lille and Limoges, at a price that defied home competition. Prices fell; French colliery proprietors reduced wages; French miners came out on strike—a general strike—and for the time being French collieries ceased to have any practical existence. But France was requiring a million tons of coal a week, and having done the mischief, England could only, at the moment, let her have a quarter of a million a week, while German and Belgian coal had been knocked out of the competition and diverted elsewhere. The great industries had to cease working; chaos, civil war and anarchy began to reign....
"Why France should have done this is beyond me."
There was another reason, deeper. It was a commonplace that England had been cordially hated in turn by every nation in and out of Europe, but with all that there was no responsible nation in or out of Europe that dare contemplate a weak, a dying, England. France looked at the map of Europe, and the thought of the German Eagle flying over Dover Castle and German navies patrolling the seas from Land's End to The Skawe haunted her dreams. Russia wanted nothing in the world so much as another Thirty Years' Peace. Spain had more to lose than to gain; Italy had much to lose and nothing at all to gain. All the little independent states and nations remembered the Treaties of Vienna and Berlin, and trembled at the thought of what might happen now. Germany alone might have had visions, but Germany had a nightmare too, and when the man who ruled her councils with a strong if tortuous policy saw wave after wave of the infectious triumph of Socialism reach his own shores, he recognised that England's weakness was more hostile to his ambitions than England's strength.
No one wanted two Turkeys in Europe.
"I don't see why we shouldn't make a naval demonstration, at all events," some one suggested hopefully. "That used to be enough, and the French Government must have plenty to look after at home."
"Naval demonstration be boiled!" exclaimed Mr Bilch forcibly. "Send your little Willie to Hamley's for a tin steamer, and let him push it off Ramsgate sands if you want a naval demonstration, comrade. But don't show the Union Jack inside the three-mile limit on the other side of the Channel, or you'll have something so hot drop on your hands that you won't be able to lick it off fast enough."
"I fail to see that," said Mr Vossit. "Heaven forbid that I should raise my voice in favour of bloodshed, but if it were necessary for self-preservation our navy is at least equal to that of any other power."
"Is it?" retorted Mr Bilch, with so heavily-laden an expression of contemptuous derision on his face that it seemed as though he might be able to take it off, like a mask, and hang it on some one else. "Is it? Oh, it is, is it? Well, ask that man there. Ask him, is all I say. Simply askhim." His contorted face was thrust half-way across the table towards Mr Vossit, while his rigid arm with extended forefinger was understood to indicate Sir Causter Kerr.
"As the subject has been raised, perhaps the First Lord of the Admiralty will reassure us on that point," said the Premier.
"Dear, dear, no," replied Causter Kerr blandly. "We couldn't carry it through, Premier. You must not think of going to extremes."
There was a moody silence in which men looked angrily at Kerr and at one another.
"Are we to understand that the navy isnotequal to that of any other power?" demanded Mr Vossit.
"On paper, yes, comrade," replied Kerr, with a pitying little smile, "but on deep water, where battles are usually fought, no. It is a curious paradox that in order to be equal to any other single power England must be really very much stronger. I should also explain that from motives of economy no battleships have been launched or laid down during the last three years, and only four cruisers of questionable armament. Then as regards gunnery. From motives of economy actual practice is never carried out now, but the championship, dating from last year, lies at present with the armoured cruiserRadium:—stationary regulation target, 1-1/2 miles distant, speed 4 knots, quarter charges, 3 hits out of 27 shots. As regards effective range——"
"Tell them this," struck in Mr Bilch, "they'll understand it better. Tell them that theIntrepidycould sail round and round the Channel Fleet and bloody well throw her shells over the moon and down on to their decks without ever once coming into range. Tell them that."
"The picture so graphically drawn by Comrade Bilch is substantially correct," corroborated Sir Causter Kerr. "TheIntrépide, together with three other battleships of her class, has an effective range of between four and five thousand yards more than that of any English ship.... But you have been told all this so often, comrades, that I fear it cannot interest you." Sir Causter was having his revenge for two years of subservience at a thousand pounds a year.
"Then perhaps you will tell us, as First Lord of the Admiralty—the job you are paid for doing—what you imagine the navy is kept up for?" demanded a comrade with fierce resentment.
"As far as I have been encouraged to believe, in that capacity," replied Kerr with easy insolence, "I imagine that its duties consist nowadays in patrolling the lobster-pots, and in amusing the visitors on the various seaside promenades by turning the searchlights on."
"We won't ask you to remain any longer," said the Premier.
Sir Causter Kerr rose leisurely. "Good morning, comrades," he remarked punctiliously, and going home wrote out his resignation, "from motives of patriotism," and sent a copy of the letter to all the papers.
A man who had been standing by the door listening to the conversation now came forward with a copy of an early special edition of thePall Mall Gazettein his hand.
"You needn't sweat yourselves about being equal to a single power or not," he remarked with an unpleasant laugh. "Look at the 'fudge' there." And he threw the paper on the table, as though he washed his hands of it and many other things.
Mr Bilch secured it, and turning to the space which is left blank for the inclusion of news received up to the very moment of going to press, he read aloud the single item it contained.
Berlin,Thursday Morning."The action which France is reported to have taken had for some time been anticipated here. On all sides there is the opinion, amounting to conviction, that Germany must at once call into operation the power lying dormant in the Penalising Tariff and impose a tax on imported coal. It is agreed that otherwise, in her frantic endeavours to restore the balance of her export trade, England would flood this country with cheap coal and precipitate a state of things similar to that from which France is just emerging."Emphasis is laid on the fact that such a measure will be self-protective and in no way aggressive. It is not anticipated that the tax will exceed 2 mks. 50 pf., or at the most 3 mks. per ton."
Berlin,Thursday Morning.
"The action which France is reported to have taken had for some time been anticipated here. On all sides there is the opinion, amounting to conviction, that Germany must at once call into operation the power lying dormant in the Penalising Tariff and impose a tax on imported coal. It is agreed that otherwise, in her frantic endeavours to restore the balance of her export trade, England would flood this country with cheap coal and precipitate a state of things similar to that from which France is just emerging.
"Emphasis is laid on the fact that such a measure will be self-protective and in no way aggressive. It is not anticipated that the tax will exceed 2 mks. 50 pf., or at the most 3 mks. per ton."
"Export value, eight and elevenpence," murmured a late arrival, one of the fifty practical men in the House. "Yes, I imagine that two marks fifty will just about knock the bottom out."
"Is there nothing we can offer them in exchange?" demanded some one. "Nothing we can hit them back with?"
Cecil Brown, who was suspected of heterodoxy on this one point, crystallised the tariff question into three words.
"Nothing but tears," he replied.
"If there's one thing that fairly makes me hot it's the way we always have to wait for some one else to tell us what's going on," said the comrade who had brought in thePall Mall Gazette, looking across at the Foreign Office Under-Secretary resentfully. "A fellow in Holborn here pokes the paper under my nose and asks me what we're going to do about it, and there I don't even know what is being done at us. What I want to know is, what our ambassadors and Foreign Office think they're there for. It's always the same, and then there'll be the questions in Parliament, and we know nothing. Makes us look like a set of kiddin' amateurs."
The fact had been noticed. Former governments had not infrequently earned the title in one or two departments. Later governments had qualified for it in every department. The reason lay on the surface; the members of those parliaments and the men who sent them were themselves bunglers and amateurs in their daily work and life. Except in the stereotyped product of machinery, accuracy was scarcely known. The man who had built a house in England at that period, the man who had had a rabbit-hutch built to order, the man who had stipulated for one article to be madeexactlylike a copy, the man who had been so unfortunate as to require "the plumbers in," the man who had to do with labour in any shape or form, the man who had been "faithfully" promised delivery or completion by a certain stated time, the woman who shopped, the person who merely existed with open eyes, could all testify out of experiences, some heartrending, some annoying, some simply amusing, that precision and reliability scarcely existed among the lower grades of industry and commerce. It was a period of transition. The worker had cast off the love, the delicacy, the intelligence of the craftsman, and he had not yet attained to the unvarying skill of the automaton. In another century one man would only be able to fix throttle valve connections on to hot-water pipes, but his fixing of throttle valves would be a thing to dream about, while the initial letter A's of his brother, whose whole life would be devoted to engraving initial letter A's on brass dog-collar plates, would be as near unswerving perfection as mundane initials ever could be.
"Makes us look like a set of tinkerin' amateurs."
"One inference is plain enough," said Mr Guppling, smoothing over the suggestion. "These three things weren't going to happen all together of their own accord. There's a deep game somewhere, and seeing what's at stake our powers ought to be wide enough for us to put our hands on them and stop it."
There was a murmur of approval. Having been taken by surprise, the idea of peremptorily "stopping it" was a peculiarly attractive one.
But there were malcontents who were not to be appeased so easily, and a Comrade Pennefarthing, who had arrived in the meantime, raised an old cry in a new form.
"I won't exactly say that we've been betrayed," he declared, glancing at the group of orthodox Ministers who sat together, "but game or no game I will say that we've been damned badly served with information."
Comrade Tirrel stood up. He had not yet spoken at all, and he was accorded instant silence, for men were beginning to look to him. "It is now nearly eleven o'clock," he said in his quick, incisive tone, "and some of us have been here for upwards of an hour. We met to consider a situation. That situation still remains. May I ask that the Home Secretary, who is doubly qualified for the task, should tell us the extent of the danger and its probable effect?"
If Mr Tubes possessed a double qualification he also laboured under a corresponding disability. As the representative of a mining constituency, a practical expert, and a leading member of a Government which existed by the goodwill of the workers—largely of the miners—it would be scarcely to his interest to minimise the gathering cloud. As the Minister for the Home Department, the blacker he made the picture the greater the volume of obloquy he drew upon his head for not having foreseen the danger; the more relief he asked for, the fiercer the opposition he would encounter from hostile sections and from the perturbed heads of a depleted Treasury.
"We are still very much in the dark as to what has really happened, is happening, and will happen," he remarked tamely. "An appreciable drop in the demand for coal, whether for home or export, will certainly have a disturbing effect on the conditions of labour in many departments. But the difficulties of estimating the effects are so great——"
There were murmurs. Whatever might be the failings of Socialistic oratory, flatness and excess of moderation did not lie among them.
"Figures," suggested Tirrel pointedly.
"Perhaps Comrade Tirrel will take the job in hand instead of me," said Tubes bitterly, but without any show of anger. "Doubtless he'd get a better hearing."
"No," replied Tirrel gravely, "the moment is too critical for recrimination. If the Home Secretary lays the position frankly before us, he will have no cause to complain of an unsympathetic hearing, nor, as far as I can speak, of a whole-hearted support in taking means to safeguard it."
It occurred to Mr Tubes then, for the first time in his life—and it was almost like a shock to feel it—that the man who had always seemed to throw himself into sharp antagonism to himself might be actuated by higher motives than personal jealousy after all. He continued his speech.
"If we accept the figure of five millions as a correct return of the Unity League membership, and if we assume that they will all obey the boycott, then we are face to face with the fact that on the basis of a four ton per person average, twenty million tons of coal must be written off the home consumption."
"But the four tons per head average includes the entire industrial consumption of the country," objected Mr Vossit.
"That is so," admitted Mr Tubes, "but it also includes a great many people whose use of coal is practicallynil. An alternative basis is to assume that two millions of the members are house-holders. Then taking ten tons a year as their average household consumption—and admitting that all the wealthiest men in the country are included the average is not too high—we arrive at just the same result.
"The exports, on the other hand, do not depend on estimate: we have the actual returns. France takes fifteen million tons in round numbers. For the purpose of facing the worst, we may therefore assume that the work of digging and handling thirty-five million tons will be suddenly cut off."
"Germany," some one reminded him.
"Germany is wholly conjectural at present. I have no objection to taking it into account as well, if it is thought desirable, but I would point out that we are being influenced by the merest rumour."
"No," objected Tirrel, but without any enmity, "I think that we must regard Germany as lost. We are just beginning to touch the outskirts of a vast organisation which has been quietly perfecting its plan of operation for years. I do not regard a German tax as settled because of this one rumour, but I do regard it as settled because at this precise moment the rumour has been allowed to appear."
"Germany ten millions," accepted Mr Tubes. "Total decrease, forty-five million tons."
"Don't you be too sure of that, comrade," warned Mr Bilch. "Why, it's not twelve o'clock yet by a long way. There'll be half a dozen editions out before the 'Three o'clock winners.'" Mr Bilch evidently regarded his shaft that each fresh edition might contain a new country imposing a tax humorously, but several comrades looked towards the Home Secretary enquiringly.
"The other large importers are Italy, Russia, Sweden, Egypt, Spain and Denmark," said Mr Tubes, who could have talked coal statistics for hours if necessary. "All these, with the possible exception of Russia,mustimport. It is unlikely that the estimate I have given will be exceeded from that cause."
"And the result?"
"Above and below, about a million men are now employed in raising 236,000,000 tons. It is simple arithmetic.... In less than a month about two hundred thousand more men will be out of work."
Mr Chadwing, Chancellor of the Exchequer, moved uneasily in his chair.
"That is the full extent?" enquired Cecil Brown.
"No," admitted the Home Secretary. "That is the inevitable direct result. Forty-five million tons less will be carried by rail, or cart, or ship, or all three. A fair sprinkling of railway-men, carters, dockers, stokers, sailors, and other fellows will be dropped off too. There will be fewer railway trucks built this next year, less doing in the fire-grate trade, several thousand horses not wanted, a slight falling off in road-mending work. There is not a trade in England, from steeple-building to hop-picking, that will not be a little worse off because of those 45,000,000 tons. Then the two hundred thousand out-of-work miners will burn less coal at home, the ships and the engines will burn less, and the workshops and the smithies will burn less, and the whole process will be repeated again and again, for coal is like a snowball in its cumulative effects, and it cannot stand still."
If Mr Tubes had come to compromise, he had remained to publish broadcast.
Perhaps no one quite understood the danger yet, for the mind, used to everyday effects, does not readily grasp the extent of a calamity, and six hours before there had not been a cloud even the size of a man's hand on their horizon. The Premier thought it was impolitic on his colleague's part; the Treasury officials looked on it as a move to force their hands; the Foreign Under-Secretary was suspicious that Mr Tubes was leading away by some mysterious by-path from the unpreparedness of his own Department to Foreign Office remissness. They all continued to look silently at the Home Secretary as he continued to stand.
"The indirect effects will involve about two million people to some extent," he summed up.
"That, at least, is the worst?" said Cecil Brown with an encouraging smile, for Mr Tubes remained standing.
The Prime Minister made an impatient movement; the Treasury heads looked at one another and said with their eyes, "He is really overdoing it"; the Foreign Office man scowled unconsciously, and Cecil Brown continued to smile consciously.
"The worst is this: that a great many pits are working to-day at a bare profit, partly in the hope of better things, partly because we stimulate the trade. The crisis we are approaching will hang over the coal fields like a blight, and one crippled industry will bring down another.Allthe poorer mines will close down. You need only look back to '93 to see that. Neither I nor any one else can give you a forecast of what that will involve, but you may be sure of this: that although '93 with its 17,000,000 tons of a decrease half-ruined the English coal fields for a decade, '93 was a shrimp to what this is going to be."
"Then let us stimulate the trade more, until the crisis is over," suggested Cecil Brown.
Mr Tubes gave a short, dry laugh. "I commend that course to Comrade Chadwing," he said, as he sat down.
The Chancellor of the Exchequer was busy with his papers.
"Let me dispel any idea of that kind at once," he remarked, without looking up. "The moment is not only an unfortunate one—it is an utterly impossible one for making any extra disbursement however desirable."
"Well," said Mr Bilch, looking round on the moody assembly paternally, "it seems that the situation is like this here, mates: The navy is no messin' good at all, same as I told you; the army's a bit worse; Treasury empty, yes; the Home Office don't know what's going on at home, and the Foreign Office possesses just the same amount of valuable information as to what is happening abroad. Lively, ain't it? Well, it's lucky that Bilch is still Bilch."
No one rose to his mordant humour. Even Cecil Brown had forgotten how to smile.
"If our comrade has any suggestion to make——" said the Premier discouragingly.
"Yes, sir," replied Mr Bilch. "I have the wisdom of the serpent to rub into your necks if you'll only listen. We haven't any navy, so we can't fight if we wanted to; we haven't any money, so we can't pay out. Tubes here doesn't know what's going to happen at home, and Jevons doesn't rightly know what has happened abroad. What is to be done? I'll tell you. Wait. Wait and see. Wait, and let them all simmer down again. Why," he cried boisterously, looking round on them in good-humoured, friendly contempt, "to see your happy, smiling faces one would think that the canary had died or the lodger gone off without paying his rent. For why? Because a bloke in a frock-coat and a top hat gets on to a wooden horse and blows a tin trumpet, and the export trade in a single article of commerce is temporarily disarranged—perhaps!"
Mr Strummery nodded half absent-mindedly; the Treasury men smiled together; Mr Chadwing murmured "Very true"; and nearly every one looked relieved. Comrade Bilch was certainly a rough member, but the man had a shrewd common-sense, and they began to feel that they had been hasty in their dismal forebodings.
"Haven't we been threatened with this and that before?" demanded Mr Bilch dogmatically. "Of course we have, and what came of it? Nothing. Haven't there been strikes and lock-outs, some big some little, every year? According to Comrade Tubes, this is going to be the champion. That remains to be seen. What I say is, don't play into their hands in a panic. Wait and see what's required. That don't commit us to anything."
"It may be too late then," said Mr Tubes, but he said "may" now and not "will."
"There may be no need to do anything then," replied Mr Bilch. "And remember this: that the minute you begin to shout 'Crisis!' you make one. All round us; all at us. My rag-bags! what a run on the old bank there would be! But if you go on just as usual, taking no notice of no one? Why, before long there will come a wet day or a cold night, and Johnny Hampden's aunt will say to Johnny Hampden's grandmamma: 'My dear, I feel positively starved. Don't you think that we might have alittlefire without Johnny knowing?' And the old lady will say: 'Well, do you know, my pet, I was just going to say the same thing myself. Suppose you run out and buy a sack of coal?' And before you can say 'coughdrop' every blessed aunt and mother and first cousin of the Unicorn League will be getting in her little stock of coal."
It was what every one wished to believe, and therefore they were easily persuadable. It was a national characteristic. The country had never entered into a war during the past fifty years without being assured by every authority, from the Commander-in-Chief down to the suburban barber, that as soon as the enemy got a little tap on the head they would be making for home, howling for peace as they went. All these men had known strikes; many had been involved in them: some had controlled their organisation. They had seen the men of their own class loyally and patiently facing poverty and hardship for the sake of a principle, and enduring day after day and week after week, and, if necessary, month after month; they had seen the women of their own class preaching courage and practising heroism by the side of their men while their bodies were racked by cold and hunger and their hearts were crushed by the misery around; they had seen even the children of their class learning an unnatural fortitude. They accepted it as a commonplace of life, an asset on which they could rely.But they did not believe that any other class could do it.It did not occur to them to consider whether the officers of an army are usually behind the rank and file in valour, sacrifice, or endurance.
Doubtless there were among them some who were not deceived, but they wilfully subordinated their clearer judgment to the policy of the moment.
Tirrel was the one exception.
"There can be no more fatal mistake of the dangerous position into which we have been manœuvred than to assume that we shall be easily delivered from it by the weakness of our opponents before we have the least indication that weakness exists," he declared, as soon as Mr Bilch had finished, speaking vigorously, but without any of the assertiveness and personal feeling that had gained him many enemies in the past. "I agree with every word that Comrade Tubes has spoken. We all do; we allmustadmit it or be blind. What on earth, then, have we to hope for in a policy of drift, of sitting tight and doing nothing in the hope of things coming round of their own accord? It is madness, my comrades, sheer madness, I tell you, and a month hence it will be suicide."
He dropped his voice and swept the circle of faces with a significant glance.
"It is through such madness on the part of others that we are here to-day."
Mr Chadwing smiled the thin smile of expediency.
"It is one thing for a comrade with no official responsibility to say that a certain course does not satisfy him," he said; "it may be quite another thing for those who have to consider ways and means to do anything different. Perhaps Comrade Tirrel will kindly enlighten us as to what in our position he would do?"
"I see two broad courses open," replied Tirrel, without any hesitation in accepting the challenge. "Both, as you will readily say, have their disadvantages, but neither is so fatal as inaction. The first is aggressive. The Unity League has declared war on us. Very well, let it have war. I would propose to suspend thehabeas corpus, arrest Hampden and Salt, declare the object and existence of the Unity League illegal, close its offices and confiscate its funds. There are between five and ten million pounds somewhere. Do you reflect what that would do? It would at least keep two hundred thousand out-of-work miners from actual starvation for a year. Prompt action would inevitably kill the boycott movement at home. The foreign taxes, my comrades, you would probably find to have a very marked, though perhaps undiscoverable, connection with the home movement, and when the latter was seen to be effectually dealt with, I venture to predict that the former could be compromised. If the confiscated funds were not sufficient to meet the distress, I should not hesitate to requisition for State purposes in a time of national emergency all incomes above a certain figure in a clean sweep."
A medley of cries met this despotic programme throughout. Even Tirrel's friends felt that he was throwing away his reputation; and he had more enemies than friends.
"You'd simply make the situation twice as involved," exclaimed Mr Vossit as the mouthpiece of the babel. "The liberty of the subject! It would mean civil war. They'd rise."
"Who would rise?" demanded Tirrel.
"The privileged classes."
"But theyhaverisen," he declared vehemently. "Thisiscivil war. What more do you want?"
It was a question on which they all had views, and for the next five minutes the room was full of suggestions, not of what they themselves wanted, but of what would be the probable action of the classes if driven to extremities.
"Very well," assented Tirrel at last; "that is what they will do next as it is, for they consider that they are in extremities."
"Well, comrade," said Mr Bilch broadly, "you don't seem to have put your money on a winner this event. What's your other tip?"
"Failing that, the other reasonable course is conciliation. I would suggest approaching Hampden and Salt to find out whether they are open to consider a compromise. The details would naturally require careful handling, but if both sides were willing to come to an understanding, a basis could be found. As things are, I should consider it a gain to drop the Personal Property Tax, the Minimum Wage Bill, to guarantee the inviolability of capital against further taxation while we are in office, and to make generous concessions for the fuller representation of the monied classes in Parliament, in return for the abandonment of a coal war, the dispersal in some agreed way of the League reserves, the reduction of the subscription to a nominal sum, and a frank undertaking that the League would not adopt a hostile policy while the agreement remained in force."