“Thank you, Dr Pryce. At least I may say that this kindly and prolific soil has, in the case of the orange trees as in our own case, welcomed the stranger. The natives are friendly—except in some cases which I can explain—and though their natural laziness makes it difficult to find useful and trustworthy servants, we have managed to get along so far by a temperate firmness on our part. For such hostility as exists I regret to say that certain members of this club have only themselves to thank, and I may add in confidence that Mr Mast is one of the worst offenders. This—er—philandering with the wives and daughters of natives is a thing that must definitely be stopped or there will be awful trouble.”
Sir John paused for another sip, and surveyed his companions. Dr Soames Pryce looked straight down his nose; Mr Bassett toyed innocently with a pen-holder.
“Well, gentlemen, to make a long story short, insignificant little Faloo precisely suits me. Personally, I ask nothing better than that I may live the rest of my life here, enjoying—if you find some worthier President—”
“No, no,” said the other two men.
“Well, enjoying at least my membership of the Exiles’ Club. Now I do not want to break a tacit understanding by referring to the past history of any of us. Some may have made mistakes, or yielded to some unfortunate impulse; some—my own is a case in point—may be the victims of conspiracy on the one part and misunderstanding on another. But in any case, if ever we had to leave Faloo, where could we go? I know of no place from which we should not promptly be sent back to our native land, to be tried by some clumsy tribunal that on half the facts of the case judges a man’s isolated acts apart from his motives and his general character and his mode of life.”
“Hear, hear,” said Mr Bassett.
“Now comes my point. Our safety lies in the obscurity and insignificance of Faloo. Make it of importance—get it talked about—and we are lost. Now Smith’s great idea is to boom Faloo, to extend his own trade indefinitely, and he even has dreams of finally getting its independence formally acknowledged. This last he will probably never do, because the island would be annexed, but if he did, part of the price of independence would be an extradition treaty. He has been described as enterprising, and the description is true. He even now has a plan for blasting the reef and throwing open the harbour for his own trading ships. He speaks often of the loss and the danger occasioned by loading and unloading by canoes a vessel lying outside the reef. Well, there is only room for a canoe or a small boat to get through the reef now, and there will never be any more room, so long as we have the whip-hand of Mr Smith. His interests and ours are diametrically opposed. How can we admit such a man to terms of perfect equality as would be implied by membership of this club? Why should he ask it except as a means to push his schemes with injudicious members, lured by the prospect of a money advantage? What would it profit us, gentlemen, if we gained all the money in the world and lost—er—this quiet retreat from the malicious people who are anxious to interfere with us? Believe me, he has no love for the white man. If he permits the French Mission it is because the French Mission is a regular and lucrative customer and the priests help to educate him. He is genial and hospitable; but we also are regular and lucrative customers and much more than that. He has been of service to us; two or three times he has sent off, with almost needless brutality, low-class English and Americans, without a five-pound note to call their own, who have attempted to establish themselves here. He serves us, because we do not want that type. But he serves himself too, for they are no use to him either. I have known Smith longer than any white man on this island, and I know that extension of trade and the making of money is his first aim. He’d like a regular trading fleet instead of the ramshackle tramps he owns at present. When I came here he lived in a leaf-thatched shanty and had hardly anything. See how far he has got on already; he means to go twenty times as far as that. And when he’s got the money he’s on to something else—he doesn’t talk about it, and I don’t know much about it, but I do know that it will be something with King Smith in it and ourselves outside. Now at present we’ve got the whip-hand of that gentleman, and we’ve got to keep it. We’ve got the whip-hand, because the money on which his business is run is our money and under our own control. I have put seven hundred golden sovereigns into it, Dr Pryce has two hundred, Mr Bassett two hundred, and other members have smaller sums, making fifteen hundred in all. From the very beginning I took the line that (in the absence of ordinary legal safeguards) the borrower must trust the lender and the lender must trust nobody. We see such books as he keeps; we practically control the bank. We know what he’s doing. We can say ‘go on’ and we can say ‘stop.’ Smith controls the natives? He does. He can enforce the ‘taboo’? He can. And what on earth does it matter so long as we control Smith? It’s money that talks. And that reminds me that I’ve been doing a lot of talking myself, though I’ve still got one more point to raise. You don’t mind?”
“I want to hear everything you’ve got against Smith; it’ll help me to show the other side,” said Mr Bassett.
“My own mind is still open,” said Dr Soames Pryce. “Let me hear you both by all means. At present it doesn’t seem to me to matter a curse whether we elect him or not. But might I suggest an interlude?”