THE EFFECT OF THE BOMB
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 of The Scythe. He had already glanced through The Tocsin, in which he had a small proprietary interest, but he also subscribed to The 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 of The Tocsin occasionally 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 people did that—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 Tocsin did not refer to the matter at all. Mr Strummery opened The 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.
THE INDUSTRIAL WAR IN FRANCE
Prohibitive Tax on Coal
From Our Special Correspondent
Paris Wednesday 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 an ad valorem tax 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."
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 seen that before. 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, and for 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 one is burning 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 who want to 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 open Scythe. "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 through The Tocsin before 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 of this, 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.