"Gentlemen," he said, "you know what this meeting is. It is a meeting of fifty-seven representatives of the various trades unions of the country, to elect a single representative to take the chair whenever meetings of this company shall be necessary. This gathering does not exist as a society in any shape or form and we have therefore neither rules nor usages. Mr. Dartrey and Mr. Tallente, although they are honorary members, are, I am sure, welcome guests, and whatever either of them wishes to say to us will, I am sure, be listened to. There is no business. All that we have to do is to vote, to choose our leader for the next twelve months. There are two names put forward--Saunderson and Miller. It is my business only to count the votes you may record.
Presuming that no one else wishes to speak, I shall ask Mr. Dartrey to say those few words."
Miller sat frowning and biting his nails. Dartrey moved to the farther end of the room and looked down the long line of attentive faces.
"Weavel," he said, "and you, my friends, I am not here to say a word in favour of either of the two candidates between whom you have to choose to-day. I am here just because you are valued members of the great party which before very long will be carrying upon its shoulders the burden of this country's government, to tell you of one measure which some of you know of already, which may help you to realise how important your to-day's choice will be. You know quite as much about politics as I do. You know very well that the present Government is doomed. But for an unfortunate difference of opinion between two of our supporters who are present to-day, there is not the slightest doubt that the Government would lose their vote of confidence to-morrow, and that in that case, if I still remained your chief, I should be asked to form a Democratic Government, a task which, when the time comes, it is my intention to pass on to one more skilled in Parliamentary routine. I want to explain to you that we consider the representative you elect to-day to be one of the most important personages in that Government.
We have not issued our programme yet. When we do, we are going to make the country a wonderful promise. We are going to promise that there shall be no more strikes. That sounds a large order, perhaps, but we shall keep our word and we are going to end for ever this bitter struggle between capital and labour by welding the two into one and by making the interests of one the interests of the other. Our scheme is that the person whom you elect to-day will be chairman of an inner conference of twelve. We shall ask you to elect a further three from amongst yourselves, which will give the trades unions four representatives upon this inner council. Four representative Cabinet Ministers will be chosen by ballot to add to their number. Four employers of labour, elected by the Employers' Association, will also join the council and the whole will be presided over by the person whom you elect to-day. There will be a select committee, or rather fifty-seven select committees, of each industry always at hand, and we consider that we shall frame in that manner a body of men competent to deal with the inner workings of every industry. They will decide what proportion of the earnings of each industry shall be allocated to labour and what to capital. In other words, they will fix or approve of or revise the wages of the country. They will settle every dispute and their decision will be final. The funds held by the various trades unions will form charitable funds or be returned as bonuses to the contributors. I have given you the barest outline of the scheme which has been drawn up to form a part of our programme when the time comes for us to present one. To-day you are only concerned to elect the one representative. I am here to beg, gentlemen, that you elect one whose theories, whose principles, whose antecedents and whose general attitude towards labour problems will fit him to take a very important place in the future government of the country."
There was a little murmur of applause. Miller was once more on his feet.
"I claim," he said, "that this is neither the time nor the place to spring upon us an utterly new method of dealing with Labour questions.
What you propose seems to me a subtle attack upon the trades unions themselves. They have been the guardians of the people for the last fifteen years, and even though some strikes have been necessary and although all strikes may not have been successful, yet on the whole the trades unions have done their work well. I shall not accept, in the event of my election, the programme which Mr. Dartrey has laid down, unless I am elected with a special mandate to do so."
Saunderson rose to his feet, a man of different type, blunt of speech, rugged, the typical working-man's champion except for his voice, which was of unexpected tone and quality.
"Mr. Weavel and the rest of you," he said, "I differ from Miller.
That's lucky, because you can vote now not only for the man but the principle. I have loathed strikes all my life, just because I am political economist enough to loathe waste and to hate to see production fettered,--that is, where the fruits of the production are shared fairly with Labour. I like Dartrey's scheme and I am prepared to stand by it."
Saunderson sat down. Dartrey and Tallente left the room while the business of voting went on. Dartrey had a private room of his own in the rear of the building and he and Tallente made their way there.
"Those men have a good deal to decide," Tallente reflected. "It's queer how the balance of things has changed. I don't suppose any Cabinet Council for years has had to tackle a more important problem."
"I wonder how they'll vote," Dartrey speculated. "Weavel's our man."
"You can't tell," Tallente replied. "You've given them something fresh to think about. They may even decide not to vote to-day at all. Miller has some strong supporters. He appeals tremendously to a certain class of labour--and that class exists, you know, Dartrey--which loves the excitement and the loafing of a strike, which feels somehow or other that benefits got in any other way than by force are less than they ought to have been."
There was a knock at the door. Northern put in his head. He was the Boot and Shoe representative.
"Thought I'd let you know how the thing's gone," he said. "There's an unholy row there. They've chucked Miller. Saunderson's in by five votes. I'm off back again. Miller's up speaking, tearing mad."
He nodded and disappeared. Dartrey held out his hand.
"Thank God!" he exclaimed. "Let's clear cut, Tallente. Nora must know about this at once. We'll call at the House and enter your amendment against the vote of confidence. And then--Nora. I am not sure, Tallente--the man's a subtle fellow--but I rather think we've driven the final nail into Miller's coffin."
CHAPTER XXI
The great night came and passed with fewer thrills than any one had imagined possible. Horlock himself undertook the defence of his once more bitterly assailed Government and from the first it was obvious what the end must be. He spoke with the resigned cynicism of one who knows that words are fruitless, that the die is already cast and that his little froth of words, valedictory in their tone from the first, was only a tribute to exacting convention. Tallente had never been more restrained, although his merciless logic reduced the issues upon which the vote was to be taken to the plainest and clearest elements. He remained studiously unemotional and nothing which he said indicated in any way his personal interest in the sweeping away of the Horlock regime. He was the impersonal but scathing critic, paving the way for his chief. It was Dartrey himself who overshadowed every one that night. He spoke so seldom in the House that many of the members had forgotten that he was an orator of rare quality. That night he lifted the debate from the level of ordinary politics to the idyllic realms where alone the lasting good of the world is fashioned. He pointed out what government might and should be, taking almost a Roman view of the care of the citizen, his early and late education, his shouldering of the responsibilities which belong to one of a great community. From the individual he passed to the nation, sketching in a few nervous but brilliant phrases the exact possibilities of socialistic legislation; and he wound up with a parodied epigram: Government, he declared, was philosophy teaching by failures. In the end, Miller led fourteen of his once numerous followers into the Government lobby to find himself by forty votes upon the losing side.
Horlock found Tallente once more slipping quietly away from the House and bundled him into his car. They drove off rapidly. "So it's Buckinghamshire for me," the former observed, not without jubilation.
"After all, it has been rather a tame finale. We were beaten before we opened our mouths."
"Even your new adherent," Tallente said, smiling, "could not save you."
Horlock made a grimace.
"You can have Miller and his faithful fourteen," he declared. "We don't want him. The man was a Little Englander, he has become a Little Labourite. Heaven knows where he'll end! Are you going to be Prime Minister, Tallente?"
"I don't know," was the quiet reply. "Just for the moment I am weary of it all. Day after day, fighting and scheming, speaking and writing, just to get you fellows out. And now we've got you out, well, I don't know that we are going to do any better. We've got the principles, we've got some of the men, but is the country ready for our programme!"
"If you ask me, I think the country's ready for anything in the way of a change," Horlock replied. "I am sure I am. I have been Prime Minister before, but I've never in my life had such an army of incompetents at the back of me. Take my tip, Tallente. Don't you have a Chancellor of the Exchequer who refuses to take a bit off the income tax every year."
"We shall abolish the income tax before long," Tallente declared.
"I shall invest my money in America," Horlock observed, "my savings, that is. Where shall I put you down?"
"In Chelsea, if you would," Tallente begged. "We are only just turning off the Embankment. I want to see Mrs. Dartrey."
Horlock gave an order through the tube.
"I am going down to Belgrave Square," he said, "then I am going back to Downing Street for to-night. To-morrow a dutiful journey to Buckingham Palace, Saturday a long week-end. I shall take out a season ticket to Buckinghamshire now. You're not going to nationalise the railways--or are you, Tallente; what about season tickets then?"
"Nationalisation is badly defined," Tallente replied. "The Government will certainly aim at regulating the profits of all public companies and applying a portion of them to the reduction of taxation."
"Well, good luck to you!" Horlock said heartily, as the car pulled up outside Dartrey's little house. "Here's just a word of advice from an old campaigner. You're going to tap the people's pockets, that's what you are going to do, Tallente, and I tell you this, and you'll find it's the truth--principles or no principles, your own party or any one else's--the moment you touch the pockets of any class of the community, from the aristocrat to the stone-breaker, they'll be up against you like a hurricane. Every one in the world hugs their principles, but there isn't any one who'd hold on to them if they found it was costing them money.--So long, and the best of luck to you, Tallente. We may meet in high circles before long."
Horlock drove away, a discomfited man, jubilant in his thoughts of freedom. Tallente was met by Nora in the little hall--Nora, who had kept away from the house at Stephen's earnest request.
"Stephen has done it," Tallente announced triumphantly. "He made the only speech worth listening to. Horlock crumbled to pieces. Miller only got fourteen of the ragtail end of his lot to vote with him. We won by forty votes. Horlock brought me here. He is to have a formal meeting of the party. He'll offer his resignation on Thursday."
"It's wonderful!" Nora exclaimed.
"Stephen will be sent for," Tallente went on. "That, of course, is a foregone conclusion. Nora, I wish you'd make him see that it's his duty to form a Government. There isn't any reason why he should pass it on to me. I can lead in the Commons if he wants me to, so far as the debates are concerned. We are altering the procedure, as I dare say you know. Half the government of the country will be done by committees."
"It's no use," Nora replied. "Stephen simply wouldn't do it. You must remember what you yourself said--procedure will be altered. So much of the government of the country will be done outside the House. Stephen has everything mapped out. You are going to be Prime Minister."
Tallente left early and walked homeward by the least frequented ways. A soft rain was falling, but the night was warm and a misty moon made fitful appearances. The rain fell like little drops of silver around the lampposts. There was scarcely a breath of wind and in Curzon Street the air was almost faint with the odour of spring bulbs from the window boxes. Tallente yielded to an uncontrollable impulse. He walked rather abruptly up Clarges Street, past his rooms, and paid a curious little visit, almost a pilgrimage, to the closed house in Charles Street. It seemed to him that those drawn blinds, the dead-looking windows, the smokeless chimneys typified in melancholy fashion the empty chambers in his own heart. Weeks had passed now and no word had come from Jane. He pictured her still smarting under the sting of his brutal words. Some of his phrases came back to his mind and he shivered with remorse. If only--He started. It seemed for a moment as though history were about to repeat itself. A great limousine had stolen up to the kerbstone and a woman in evening dress was leaning out.
"Mr. Tallente," she called out, "do come and speak to me, please."
Tallente approached at once. In the dim light his heart gave a little throb. He peered forward. The woman laughed musically. "I do believe that you have forgotten me," she said, "I am Alice Mountgarron--Jane's sister. I saw you there and I couldn't help stopping for a moment. Can I drop you anywhere?"
"Thank you so much," he answered. "My rooms are quite close by here in Clarges Street."
"Get in, please, and I will take you there," she ordered. "Tell the man the number. I want just one word with you."
The car started off. Lady Alice looked at her companion and shook her head.
"Mr. Tallente," she said, "I am very much a woman of the world and Jane is a very much stronger person than I am, in some things, and a great baby in others. You and she were such friends and I have an idea that there was a misunderstanding."
"There was," he groaned. "It was my fault."
"Never mind whose fault it was," she went on. "You two were made for each other. You have so much in common. Don't drift apart altogether, just because one has expected too much, or the other been content to give too little. Jane has a great soul and a great heart. She wants to give but she doesn't quite know how. And perhaps there isn't any way.
But two people whose lives seem to radiate towards each other, as yours and hers, shouldn't remain wholly apart. Take a day or two's holiday soon, even from this great work of yours, and go down to Devonshire. It would be very dangerous advice," she went on, smiling, "to a different sort of man, but I have a fancy that to you it may mean something, and I happen to know--that Jane is miserable."
The car stopped. Tallente held Lady Alice's hand as he had seldom held the hand of a woman in his life. A curious incapacity for speech checked the words even upon his lips.
"Thank you," he faltered.