“I don’t think there’s a single man on either front bench—” this was said meditatively and tapping off the fingers of one hand with the forefinger of the other—“who’s personally interested, and I don’t think there’s any direct connection since Cooke died between the Cabinet and any one who is—except me. No, that’s not the way out. What you’ve got to do, ladies and gentlemen, is to throw a sprat to catch a whale.”
“A sprat,” he meditatively repeated, “to catch a whale: a great Whale full o’ blubber! ... an’ how are you going to do that?”
“Now listen”—his tone had become very earnest and he was leaning forward, bent and fixed and holding them with his fine strong eyes, “listen, there are three steps. You’ve got first of all to show the public that you believe in the future of the Company; next you’ve got to decide upon a dodge to show that: something that’ll make every one think that you the shareholders do really believe in that future. What’s the third step? Why up goes the price—real price—money offered—then you can sell. That’s my opinion,” he concluded, clapping his hands together and laying them upon the table before him: and he let it sink in.
“Now you’ll notice,” he went on, “in the prospectus you have received, some talk of a railway. We’re asking money from you to build a railway. Now why are we doing that? Please follow me carefully.”
The hundreds of heads bent forward and the intelligences they contained were prepared to follow him carefully. He was a great man.
“We have asked you to build a railway,” he pronounced, leaving a little space of time between each word, “because a railway still catches on. I don’t know why, but it does. Mines don’t. You might discover ore all over the place and they wouldn’t go: I’ve got two men of my own, engineers, experts, who’ll discover ore anywhere; they’d discover tons before three o’clock this afternoon and you might swear your dying oath to them, but the public wouldn’t believe you. As for agriculture,—Piff! And as for climate, Boo! But railways still work.”
“Very well. You raise your capital for your railway. What that railway may be imagined to do is set out in full before you and I won’t go into it. But I will ask you especially to note the passage in which it is described as giving a strategical supremacy to the Empire. You know what the Empire is. You may know, some o’ you, what strategy is. Looks as if there were a fleecy general or two among you! But that’s as may be—just note the phrase. It’s safety! That’s what it is! No odds. No blighter to run any risk of having to fight any one anywhere! Grand!”... “I think also,” he mused, “something could be done with the tourist side ... there are falls and mountains and things ... but no matter: the point is the railway.”
He drank from a glass of water on the table, turned round angrily and said: “Good lord what water! It’s bad enough to have to drink water in public for a show, but it needn’t be tepid! If the place wasn’t so public I’d spit it out again!” Then facing the audience again: “However.... About that railway. First understand clearly, ladies and gentlemen, that railway is not going to be built! There is no intention of building it. There is no intention of surveying it.”
Two or three voices rose in protest at the back of the hall. Sir Charles leaned forward and put out his hand appealingly:—
“One moment, one moment pray! Hear me out! I don’t mean that no one will build it. That’s not our funeral. I mean that we won’t. The ‘Company’ may, whatever that means. But you and I—the people who have got into this hole—we won’t. It won’t be our money. Seize that! Get a hold of that! It’s the key to the whole business.”