"If it is not trenching on the forbidden ground, I should like to ask for an assurance on one point," said a member with a dash of acrimony. The secretary had finished his task, and then for perhaps ten seconds they had sat in silence, speculating half unconsciously upon the future, as each dimly saw it, that lay beyond the momentous step they were about to take. "I refer to the question of coal export. It is, of course, a more important outlet than the domestic home consumption. Is the League in a position to guarantee that the taxation will be rescinded without delay?"
"I think it would be a very unwarrantable presumption for us to assume that any one outside the governments of the countries interested possesses that influence, and that it would be a very undesirable, a very undiplomatic, proceeding to hint at the possibility of any such concession in the document I have before me," replied Sir John suavely. "Beyond that, I would add that it will be manifestly to the interest of the next government to restore the bulk of foreign trade to a normal level; and that should the League party find itself in office, it will certainly make representations through the usual channels."
"Quite like old times," said Mr Soans dryly. "I suppose that we shall have to be content with that. Let us hope that it will prove a true saying that those who hide can find."
He picked up a pen as he finished speaking, signed the paper that had been passed to him first by reason of his position at the table, and thrust it vehemently from him to his neighbour. Mr Chadwing held up his pen to the light to make sure that it contained no obstruction on so important an occasion, signed his name with clerkly precision, and then carefully wiped his pen on the lining of his coat. Cecil Brown looked down with the faint smile that covered his saddest moments as he added the slender strokes of his signature, and Tirrel dashed off the ink-laden characters of his with tightened lips and a sombre frown. Consciously or unconsciously every man betrayed some touch of character in that act. Mr Vossit made a wry grimace as he passed the paper on; and Mr Guppling, with an eye on a possible line in Fame's calendar, snapped his traitorous pen in two and cast the pieces dramatically to the ground.
When the last signature had been written, some of the members stood up to take their leave at once, but Hampden and Tirrel made a simultaneous motion to detain them. The master of the house gave way to his guest.
"I am not up to cry over spilled milk," said Tirrel with his customary bluntness. "What is done, is done. We shall carry out the terms, Sir John Hampden, and you and your party will be in office in a week. But you are not merely taking over the administration of a constitution: you are taking over a defeated country. I ask you, as the head of your party and the future Premier, to do one thing, and I ask it entirely on my own initiative, and without the suggestion or even the knowledge of my friends or colleagues. Let your first act be to publish a general amnesty. It does not touch me.... But there have been things on both sides. You may perhaps know my views; I would have crushed your League by strong means when it was possible if I had had my way. None the less, there is not the most shadowy charge that could hang over me to-day, and for that reason it is permissible for me to put in this petition. The nation is shattered, torn, helpless. Do not look too closely into the past ... pacify."
"The question has not arisen between my associates and myself, but I do not imagine that we should hold conflicting views, and I may say that for my part I enter cordially into the spirit of the suggestion," replied Hampden frankly. "Anything irregular that could come within the meaning of political action in its widest sense I should be favourable towards making the object of a general pardon.... While we are together, I will go a step further, and on this point I have the expressed agreement of my friends. You, sir, have assumed without any reserve that our party will be returned to office. I accept that assumption. You have also compared our work to the pacification of a conquered nation. That also may be largely admitted. We shall be less a political party returned to power by the even chances of a keenly-fought election, and checked by an alert opposition, than a social autocracy imposing our wishes—as we believe for the public good—on the country. For twenty years, as I forecast the future, there will be no effective opposition. Yet a great deal of our work will have reference to the class whom the opposition would represent, the class upon whose wise and statesmanlike pacification the tranquillity, and largely the prosperity, of the country, will depend."
Some few began to catch the drift of Hampden's meaning, and those who did all glanced instinctively towards Cecil Brown.
"You have used, and I have accepted, the comparison of a conquered nation," continued Sir John. "When a country has been forcibly occupied the work of pacification is one of the first taken in hand by a prudent conqueror. There is usually a Board or Committee of Conciliation, and in that body are to be found some of the foremost of those who resisted invasion while resistance seemed availing.... It would be analogous to that, in my opinion, if a supporter of the present Government was offered and accepted a position in the next. There would be no suggestion—there would be no possibility—of his being in accord with the Cabinet in its general policy. He would be there as an expert to render service to both parties in the work of healing the scars of conflict. If the proposal appears to be exceptional and the position untenable at first sight, it is only because the prosaic parliamentary machinery of normal times has by a miracle been preserved into times that are abnormal."
There was an infection of low laughter, amused, sardonic, some good-natured and a little ill-natured, and a few cries of "Cecil Brown!" in a subdued key.