"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. All the 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.