A Change in the Cabinet

by Hilaire Belloc

The Directors must ask the shareholders for fresh capital; a nominal million, an increase of 25 per cent. upon the value of the shares at par. That was the first point.

The second point was the object for which this levy should nominally be demanded. On that also he had made up his mind. Paton had quite unconsciously suggested to him the master idea; a little belt of untravelled and unknown country (locally known as the “Out and Out”) wherein the degraded Kawangas—so Paton had told him, and after all Paton had been there—held their orgies in Mutchi-time, alone separated Perks’ Bay from the Straits, and the long detour which all traffic must now make between the coaling station and the high road to the East, could be cut off by a line crossing that region. Paton had assured him with immense enthusiasm that such a line would give its possessor the strategic key to the gate of everything East of the Bay of Bengal, and, what was more important in Sir Charles’ eyes than Paton’s own opinion, a vast mass of gentlemen in the suburbs of London and perhaps five-sixths of the journalists in Fleet Street, were ready to rally to the idea. It had been well preached and well dinned in.

These two points were clear: they must ask for a million and they must ask it for the purpose of building a railway that would at last ensure the Empire against the nightmare of foreign rivals.

There was a third point. The shareholders would not or could not subscribe a million but that was easily turned. They should be asked for no more than 200,000,—a shilling a share—in cash down, “the remainder to be paid,” etc. etc.

Had not Sir Charles possessed an iron control of his face, the strong set smile which he wore as he entered the Board Room would have broadened at the recollection of that last detail. On the other hand had he not possessed such self-control some movement of annoyance might have escaped him to discover present at the table, among his other colleagues, the late-rising and impervious Bingham. The sight was sufficient to exasperate a man of less balance. The hour had been carefully chosen to avoid such an accident, and that accident meant perhaps another half-hour or more of close argument and of subtle effort.

For his colleague Bingham added to a native idiocy of solid texture and formidable dimensions, the experience of extensive travel; and he was in particular well acquainted with the district with regard to which the Board must that day make its decision. It was certain, therefore, that his fellow-Directors would listen to him with peculiar respect, not only on account of his stupidity which necessarily commanded a certain attention, but also on account of his intimacy with plain matters of fact: he had been upon the spot: he was the man who knew.

It was just as Repton had feared. Business that might have been done in a quarter of an hour and a decision which contained no more than the issue of pieces of paper was turned into a long practical discussion by the intolerable ponderance of Bingham, who would wait until every one had had his say, and then would bring in some dreadful little technical point about a marsh, a rainy season or a fly; he was careful to pepper his conversation with local terms a hundred times more remote than the Kawanga and Mutchi-time; in every conceivable manner he put his spoke into the wheels of business.

So considerable was the effect produced by the redoubtable Bingham at that table that, were Cæsarism a common political theory in elderly men, the whole conduct of Van Diemens would for the future have been put into his hands. Luckily for the Company its forms were not so democratic.

Charles Repton waited patiently. When he spoke his point was as simple as falling off a log: what was wanted was not a railway in itself, it was a new issue of capital. He was profoundly indifferent what label should be tied onto that issue, so long as it was a label good enough to get the original shareholders to come in. The public would never come in as things were: its pusillanimity was increased by the fact that the Company had been in existence for now eleven years and had hitherto failed to pay a dividend of any kind. After some thought he had decided, in company with one or two others upon the Board, that a railway through a certain district of the concession, locally known as “The Out and Out,” and remarkable for the fact that no white man had yet visited it, would be the best attraction he could offer. He was prepared to show by the aid of maps upon which should be marked all favourable things, that a line driven through this district would unite with the world two provinces teeming with inexhaustible wealth, of a heavenly climate, and hitherto by the mere accident of the Out and Out belt, cut off from the longing embraces of commerce. More; he could show that this single line of railway would bestow upon his beloved country so vast a strategic superiority over all other nations as would ensure her immediate success in any campaign, no matter what the quality of the troops she might employ. To this he added the attractions of touring in the tropics and the allurements of big game for those wealthy gentlemen whom he designed in the new prospectus to term Shikaris.

With the new capital subscribed and long before the line was surveyed, there was little doubt that the shares which had fallen from over £9 to the comparatively low quotation—but oh! not price—of 16/3 (at which quotation he had first consented to tender his services to the Company) would rise to certainly over £1, perhaps to nearer £2, and what was more to the point they would be readily saleable. He was prepared in that event to transfer his property in them to others, a course which he sincerely hoped his fellow-shareholders would also follow, though of course he would not take it upon himself to advise any one of them.