Sir George Tressady — Volume II

by Mrs. Humphry Ward

Had he any beliefs left about the Bill itself? He hardly knew. In truth it was not his reason that was leading him. It now was little more than a passionate boyish longing to wrench himself free from this odious task of hurting and defeating Marcella Maxwell. The long process of political argument was perhaps tending every day to the loosening and detaching of those easy convictions of a young Chauvinism, that had drawn him originally to Fontenoy's side. Intellectually he was all adrift. At the same time he confessed to himself, with perfect frankness, that he could and would have served Fontenoy happily enough, but for another influence—another voice.

Yet his old loyalty to Fontenoy tugged sorely at his will. And with this loyalty of course was bound up the whole question of his own personal honour and fidelity—his pledges to his constituents and his party.

Was there no rational and legitimate way out? He pondered the political situation as he walked along with great coolness and precision. When the division on the hours clause was over the main struggle on the Bill, as he had all along maintained, would be also at an end. If the Government carried the clause—and the probability still was that they would carry it by a handful of votes—the two great novelties of the Bill would have been affirmed by the House. The homework in the scheduled trades would have been driven by law into inspected workshops, and the male workers in these same trades would have been brought under the time-restrictions of the Factory Acts.

Compared to these two great reforms, or revolutions, the remaining clause—the landlords clause—touched, as he had already said to Fontenoy, questions of secondary rank, of mere machinery. Might not a man thereupon—might not he, George Tressady—review and reconsider his whole position?

He had told Fontenoy that his vote was safe; but must that pledge extend to more than the vital stuff, the main proposals of the Bill? The hours clause?—yes. But after it?

Fontenoy, no doubt, would carry on the fight to the bitter end, counting on a final and hard-wrung victory. The sanguine confidence which had possessed him about the time of the second reading was gone. He did not, Tressady knew, reckon with any certainty on turning out the Government in this coming division. The miserable majority with which they had carried the workshops clause would fall again—it would hardly be altogether effaced. That final wiping-out would come—if indeed it were attained—in the last contest of all, to which Fontenoy was already heartening and urging on his followers.

Fontenoy's position, of course, in the matter was clear. It was that of the leader and the irreconcilable.

But for the private member, who had seen cause to modify some of his opinions during the course of debate, who had voted loyally with his party up till now—might not the division on the hours clause be said to mark a new stage in the Bill—a stage which restored him his freedom?

The House would have pronounced on the main points of the Bill; the country was rallying in a remarkable and unexpected way to the Government—might it not be fairly argued that the war had been carried far enough?

He already, indeed, saw signs of that backing down of opposition which he had prophesied to Fontenoy. The key to the whole matter lay, he believed, in the hands of the Old Liberals, that remnant of a once great host, who were now charging the Conservative Government with new and damaging concessions to the Socialist tyranny. These men kept a watchful eye on the country; they had maintained all along that the country had not spoken. George had already perceived a certain weakening among them. And now, this campaign of Maxwell's, this new enthusiasm in the industrial North—no doubt they would have their effect.