Three articles exhausted his proof that a successful coal boycott under modern conditions was utterly impossible.
He went out into the city and the suburbs, interviewing coal merchants and coal agents with the object of drawing a harrowing picture of the gloom and depression that had fallen upon these unfortunate creatures at the hands of their own class League.
He found them all bearing up well under the prospect, but much too busy to give him more than a few minutes of their time. Every one of them had been appointed an oil agent to the League firms, and League members were ordering their oil through them, just as heretofore they had ordered coal. It was very easy, profitable work for them; they had nothing to do but to transmit the orders to the League firms and the fast business-like motor-tanks distributed the oil. But half of the coal carters were now under notice to leave, and there were indications that work was very scarce. Each motor-tank displaced twenty men and twenty horses. Already, it was said, thousands of horses had been sent out to grass from London alone.
Externally, as far as the Capital was concerned at all events, things were going on very much the same as before, when the struggle was a fortnight old. Elsewhere signs were not lacking. The Government had received disquieting reports from its agents here and there, but so far it was meeting the situation by refusing to acknowledge that it existed. A march of the Staffordshire miners had been averted by the men's leaders being privately assured that it would embarrass the Government's plans. The march had been deferred under protest; so far the organisation answered to the wheel. But the Midlands were clamorously demanding exceptional relief for the exceptional conditions. Monmouth had seen a little rioting, and in Glamorgan the bands of incendiaries called "Beaconmen," who set fire to the accumulations of coal stacked at the collieries, had already begun their work. Cardiff was feeling the effect of having a third of its export trade in coal suddenly lopped off, and Newport, Swansea, Kirkcaldy, Blyth, Hull, Sunderland, Glasgow, and the Tyne ports were all in the same position. Most of the railways had found it necessary to dispense with their entire supernumerary staff, and most of the railway workshops had been put on short time. In London alone, between four and five thousand out-of-work gas employés were drawing Government pay.
About the third week in August the Premier, Mr Tubes, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer had a long private conference. As a result Mr Strummery called an Emergency Council. It was a thin, acrimonious gathering. Some one brought the tidings that seven more companies in South London were substituting Diesel oil engines for steam. He had all the dreary developments statistically worked out on paper. Nobody wanted to hear them, but he poured them out into the unwilling ears, down to the climax that it represented two hundred and forty-seven fewer men required at the pits.
It served as a text, however, for Mr Chadwing to hang his proposal on. After a month of inaction, the Government was at length prepared to go to the length of admitting that abnormal conditions prevailed. Oil had thrown a quarter of a million of their people out of employment. Let oil keep them. He proposed to retaliate with a 50 per cent. tax on imported oil, to come into operation under Emergency Procedure on the 1st of September.
There were men present to whom the suggestion of taxing a raw article, necessary to a great proportion of the poor, was frankly odious. They were prepared to attack the proposal as a breach of faith. A few words from Mr Strummery, scarcely more than whispered, explained the necessity for the tax and the menace of the situation.
Those who had not been following events closely, paled to learn the truth.
The Treasury was living from hand to mouth, for the City had ceased to take up its Bills. Unless "something happened" before the New Year dawned, it would have to admit its inability to continue the Unemployed Grant. Already a quarter of a million men and their dependents, in addition to the normal average upon which the estimates were based, had been suddenly thrown upon the resources of the Department. If Mr Tubes's forecast proved correct, double that number would be on their hands within another month. The development of half a million starving men who had been taught to look to the Government for everything, looking and finding nothing, could be left to each individual imagination.
The Oil Tax came into operation on the 1st of September. Under the plea of becoming more "business-like," a great many of the Parliamentary safeguards had been swept away, and such procedure was easy. All grades of petroleum had already advanced a few pence the gallon under the increased demand, and the poorer users had expressed their indignation. When they found, one day, that the price had suddenly leapt to half as much again, their wrath was unbounded. It was in vain for Ministers to explain that the measure was directed against their enemies. They knew that it fell on them, and demanded in varying degrees of politeness to be told why some luxury of the pampered, leisured classes had not been chosen instead. The reason was plain to those who studied Blue Books. So highly taxed was every luxury now that the least fraction added to its burden resulted in an actually decreased revenue from that source.