“The Government is powerless. At least it chooses to be. For one must never forget that it is composed exclusively of nominees of the U. P.”
Sir Munt began to look worried. Ardent patriot and shrewd man of affairs, above all he was a man of business. The words of John Endor might sound alarmist, but the Mayor of Blackhampton knew there was a good deal behind them.
“Mr. Endor, if what you say’s correct, it’s high time some of us were up and doing.”
“I agree; but it may be too late. Hartz is now working night and day to get a ‘cinch’ on America.”
“That won’t be easy.”
“Easier perhaps than one may suppose. In the mass the Americans are just as gullible as ourselves. Hartz has been throwing dust in their eyes for years. The U. P. propaganda is always working on them as it is on us. Even now the average Briton is not alive to the menace of the whole country being run by one colossal trust. Give the American his due he has always kept that contingency in mind. Years ago he passed laws to prevent it. But the time is at hand when our friends across the water will have to look out, or Saul Hartz will be one too many for them. He has already got his foot well in. For some time now he has had a working arrangement with the Breit Combine, and if that mighty concern amalgamates with the U. P., as I’m assured it will, nothing on the face of this planet will be able to stand up against the power of antichrist.”
“Antichrist!”
“The shallow materialism of the western business brain, of which the man Saul Hartz is the prophet, is nothing less than that. Genius of a kind he has, no doubt, but he lacks the essential faculty, like others before him, of knowing when to stop. He sees World Power in front of him, and under present conditions he may be allowed to grasp it on terms easier than would have been exacted of Napoleon I and Wilhelm II.”
John Endor had many questions to answer in the course of a long interview, but in the end he was able to convince Sir Josiah Munt that the Newspaper Ring was the writing on the wall not merely for Great Britain, not merely for America, but for civilization itself. The instance from his own experience the member for Blackhampton East was able to adduce of the U. P.’s power of manipulating news, and the worth of the news when it had been manipulated, proved a clinching argument for that honest citizen.
“I must be up and doing.” That was the thought in the mind of Sir Munt as he shook hands with his visitor and ushered him to the door. So powerfully had the case against the Ring been urged by one whom the Mayor instinctively respected, that he felt already for once in his life the stern necessity of voting Yellow. Native caution prevented his letting the candidate know just what was in his mind; but as John Endor recrossed the Market Square to his committee rooms he was upheld by a feeling that he had gone some way towards getting a strong man on his side.