But since collectively they could not have mustered one-third of Lady Ardingly's brains, it was no wonder that none of them could suggest an answer.
But as he handed Blanche into her carriage, Arthur summed up the situation.
"The fact is that it takes four or five of us to understand one-half of what she says," he remarked.
[CHAPTER XIV]
The General Election had been definitely fixed to begin in the second week in July, and consequently soon after Ascot politicians of all sorts and shades of opinion were sedulously flying about the country, busy recounting to the wondering provinces how grossly their opponents had misrepresented their aims and tactics, and proving in an array of terms which beggared the dictionary, that the country could only be saved by the united voice of the people declaring that they would record a firm and combined vote. South Africa was, of course, the chosen battlefield of both parties; here each was determined to fight the matter out (this was the only matter on which they were agreed), and the speed with which the opposing armies mobilized out there was as remarkable as their manœuvres when arrived. Some charged through the country already peopled in their minds with the families of reservists, and dotted with happy homesteads, over which waved the fair golden corn, while on the hills of the Witwatersrand the great mills poured out their millions, and those who had been in arms were already spending happy Sunday evenings with their brother Boers, singing hymns to the accompaniment of the vrow's harmonium, and zealously marrying her buxom daughters. Gold paved the streets of Johannesburg, and the curbstones thereof were diamonds, and Paul Kruger and Mr. Leyds fell on their bended knees and, with tears of gratitude in their grateful eyes, blessed the names of Mr. Rhodes and the Colonial Secretary. The Union Jack waved on all the winds of heaven, and every Englishman in that happy land beat his rifle into a pea-shooter for his infant children—half Boer, half British—and ate his roast beef under his fig-tree.
But oddly enough exactly the same data furnished the Opposition with a picture by no means identical. These gentlemen went mournfully through the land, which was, it appeared, a desert. Cemeteries and ruined homesteads were the only features that they, for their part, could discern in that desolate landscape, and the cemeteries, they sadly declared, marked, not only the graves of the young British soldier, martyred to gorge the capitalist with gold, but were, to the thoughtful eye, none else than the place where the British Empire died and was buried. Along the ridge of the Witwatersrand rose the grass-grown engines of the mines; the rusty fly-wheels hung cableless in that miasmic air, tainted with rotting corpses. No sound was heard, no sign of life was visible; only from time to time there came from the bowels of the earth the sobbing of those who had once been gorged capitalists. The country was drained of its resources, sir—emptied of its inhabitants. That garden of the Lord was barren and desolate. Who, they asked, with rising passion, had done this? The late Government. Why had they done this? Because they were under the thumb of the capitalists. They had piles and masses of documentary evidence to prove every word they said. And awe fell on the assemblies.
After this first plain statement of the case delivered in duet by the leader of the Government and the leader of the Opposition, there followed what may be described as a fugual chorus. Everybody else, that is to say, joined in and shouted the same thing over and over again at the top of his voice. There were two conductors, no other than the executants of the opening duet, who, standing back to back, beat away at the chorus for all they were worth, and in the more delirious moments turned round and hit savagely at each other with their batons. The audience comprised nearly all the inhabitants of the round world, and this remarkable chorus lasted day and night without intermission for three weeks. Then they all sang "Britons never, never, never will be slaves," but with totally different expression, and meaning utterly different things, so that the effect of unanimity, which otherwise would no doubt have been extremely striking, was spoiled, and rude things were said in the French journals. That, it is true, for a moment produced a defensive alliance among themselves, and they roared out across the Channel. "How about Dreyfus?" But almost immediately the more ardent spirits—sober politicians they called themselves—began again, and mixed with the renewed chorus-singing were bonfires and other things, and most prominent people were burned in effigy and appeared not to mind it.
Then, when every one was exhausted and out of breath, they put on their coats again, and sat down for a while to see what the result had been. Europe generally was smiling, and went on much as usual; but in England itself it appeared that certain groups of people were not listening to the beautiful music at all, but puzzling and frowning over some papers of statistics. Also it was observed that some men, who ought to have been singing as hard as anybody, were not singing at all, but talking quietly to those portions of the audience who were willing to listen. Of these, two were immediately concerned with this story, and these were Lord Alston and Jim Spencer. And, although they belonged to opposite parties, they were both saying precisely the same thing.