I shall never forget a giant meeting that we held in the large hall of the Catholic Schools at Higher Broughton. My readers will realize how intense was the political excitement of the moment when I say that, although the building was designed to hold 3,000, it was more than half-full. The clapping, in those days, was still mostly done by hand, so that the volume of it hardly represented the full enthusiasm of the audience. The Chairwoman, Dame Horatia Philpotts, rose first and expressed in the usual way our gratitude that Mr. Holroyd, the leader of the Opposition party, had been prevailed upon to speak to us to-night. There was no need to remind her audience how well Mr. Holroyd had deserved of his country, or how his services had been recognized by friends and foes alike. It was unfortunate that Mr. Holroyd could not be present with us in person, but it would easily be understood that at such a moment as this the time of a public man in such a position was very valuable, and, after all, one could not be everywhere! (Actually, Mr. Holroyd was on the Riviera.) However, we should have the advantage of hearing his own words and seeing his own gestures—a benefit for which we were indebted to the unconquerable march of Science. Dame Horatia then sat down; the lights were put at low pressure, and the well-known figure of Mr. Holroyd appeared on the screen, amidst a deafening applause of the rather wooden quality our old thorybophones used to produce.

He proceeded to tell us, with his well-known clutching gesture, that while he had had many proud moments in his political career, none had been prouder than that at which he rose to address an audience so enlightened and so broad-minded as ours, in a political centre of such unique importance as this. We had met at a crisis in the history of our nation. Great issues hung in the balance, to be decided once for all, and to carry with them, in accordance with that decision, the dissolution of our Empire or its reconstruction on a nobler, a fairer, and a more permanent basis. (Here the gramophone was stopped for a few moments, and the statesman’s face was enlarged on the screen, to give us the full benefit of his expression.) There were some, there would always be some, who were ready to cry “Halt!” at the moment of victory, and to arrest the march of progress, if they could, in mid career. He hoped that those were not the feelings with which we had come into the hall to-night. For himself, he was convinced that we stood on the threshold of a newer and a fairer world. (Here a voice interrupted him with “What about McClosky?”—the bomb-thrower who was then under sentence of execution.) He naturally took no notice of the interruption.

Unfortunately, a certain section of the audience were impatient to hear his views on this particular issue, and began to sing “And shall McClosky die?” in a very loud and threatening voice. It being impossible to disconnect the cinemaphone all at once, a large part of Mr. Holroyd’s sentiments were inaudible. The tumult subsided when the lights went up, but, as it proved, only temporarily. The film was no sooner released than a dastardly crowd began to hurl a varied assortment of missiles at the figure of the venerable statesman; which, however, fortunately did no damage, as the pictures were being thrown direct on to a concrete wall: an ink-pot left a slight but disfiguring blotch somewhere in the region of Mr. Holroyd’s waistcoat. The rowdy element, however, were not satisfied with this; several of them made an attempt to rush the cinema-operator. They were thwarted in their purpose and sand-bagged by the police; but the operator seemed to have lost his nerve, and from that time onwards the film was anything but a success. Again and again it was clear that the gestures on the screen were not accurately timed to correspond to the words; again and again the attempt was made to readjust the timing, but always unsuccessfully. At last, at the end of an impassioned period, my leader was seen to refresh himself with a drink of water. But, to our surprise, the glass which he took up in the picture was an empty one, and a moment later, to the vociferous delight of the whole audience, it became painfully clear that the film had been put in wrong end on! I cannot profess that the meeting after that was a wholly serious one, or that my speech was anything but a frost by comparison. Such contretemps are the penalties which attend the pioneers of Science!

On the whole, my electioneering experiences were not very thrilling. My opponent, Sir Philip Hazelbright, made a good stand, but he was not able to stem the flood of popular feeling. The country was tired after nine years of Tory rule, and everywhere showed the intensity of its feeling in the most unmistakable way: in more than one constituency more than half the voters on the register went to the polls. It must be admitted, too, that business losses had hit Sir Philip hard, and his side were not in a position to pay the expenses of their voters as handsomely as ours. The result was a foregone conclusion; yet it was estimated that upwards of 1,000 people assembled in front of the Town Hall to hear the two large gramophones there telling each other that they had fought the contest in a fair and sportsmanlike manner.

I was recalled by serious news from home at the very instant of my triumph. Our younger son, Gervase, had contracted whooping cough severely, and was lying dangerously ill at Greylands. I should explain that in those days, before Hoscher discovered the autococcus—a discovery for which humanity will owe him a permanent debt of gratitude—it was necessary to have one’s children inoculated separately for all the leading diseases, from chicken-pox and measles to sleeping-sickness. This was usually done at the age of three, as soon as they had recovered from the tonsil and adenoid operation. Gervase’s inoculation, we now remembered, had never seemed to “take” very satisfactorily, and we bitterly regretted that we had not had it repeated. I found that Porstock had called in a chest-doctor to attend the cough, and a mind-doctor to cure the whoop; the latter, mindful of my own experiences twenty years earlier, I got rid of on the spot. He had been making the poor child sit up in bed repeating to himself, “It is very rude to hiccough in company.” We had a very anxious fortnight, and the chest-doctor, Mr. Dolman, said he thought he had never come nearer to losing a fee. But in the end our boy’s strong constitution triumphed, and a month in the Fens put him on his legs again.

I must record, in connexion with this illness, a clever saying of our elder boy, Francis. Meeting Mrs. Rowlands in the hall one day while his brother was very bad, he asked “if it would be right to pray that his brother might get well.” Mrs. Rowlands, who had her views on this as on most other points, said perhaps it would be safer to pray to God that His will might be done. The first time he met her again after Gervase’s recovery he said to her very seriously, “Now, Mrs. Rowlands, ought I to thank God for doing His will?” For once, Mrs. Rowlands had to own defeat.

CHAPTER XI
IN PARLIAMENT

See, where her court an agelong Silence keeps!

Tread softly, Strange—here a Nation sleeps.

Mainwaring: Elegy on the House of Commons.