"Precisely," Wingate assented. "You, Mr. Phipps, and Lord Dredlinton, and your fellow directors, have inaugurated and are carrying on a business, or enterprise, whichever you choose to call it, founded upon an utterly immoral and brutal basis. Your operations in the course of a few months have raised to a ridiculous price the staple food of the poorer classes, at a time when distress and suffering are already amongst them. I have spent a considerable portion of my time since I arrived in England studying this matter, and this is the conclusion at which I have arrived."
"My dear Mr. Wingate, one moment," Phipps intervened. "The magnitude of our operations in wheat has been immensely exaggerated. We are not abnormally large holders. There are a dozen firms in the market, buying."
"Those dozen firms," was the swift reply, "are agents of yours."
"That is a statement which you cannot possibly substantiate," Phipps declared irritably. "It is simply Stock Exchange gossip."
"For once, then," Wingate went on, "Stock Exchange gossip is the truth."
"My dear Mr. Wingate," Phipps expostulated, "if you will discuss this matter, I beg that you will do so as a business man and not as a sentimentalist. Yon know perfectly well that as long as the principles of barter exist, there must be a loser and a gainer."
"The ordinary principles of barter," Wingate contended, "do not apply to material from which the people's food is made. I speak to you as man to man. You have started an enterprise of which I and others declare ourselves the avowed enemies. I am here to warn you, both of you," he added, including Lord Dredlinton with a sweep of his hand, "directors of the British and Imperial Granaries, that unless you release and compel your agents to release such stocks of wheat as will bring bread down to a reasonable price, you stand in personal danger. Is that clear enough?"
"Clear enough," Dredlinton muttered, "but what the mischief does it all mean?"
"You threaten us?" Phipps asked calmly.
"I do indeed," Wingate assented. "I threaten you. I threaten you. Peter Phipps, you, Lord Dredlinton, and I threaten your absent directors. I came over here prepared for something in the nature of a financial duel. I came prepared to match my millions and my brain against yours. I find no inducement to do so. The struggle is uninspiring. My efforts would only prolong it. Quicker means must be found to deal with you."