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CHAPTER XV
THE GREAT FIASCO

The Government allowed the 22nd day of July to pass without a sign. They were, as their supporters convincingly explained to anxious enquirers, treating the Unity League and all its works with silent contempt. They were "doing nothing" strategically, they wished it to be understood; a very different thing from "doing nothing" through apathy, indecision, or bewilderment, but very often undistinguishable the one from the other in the result.

On the 22nd day of July seventeen million "estimated chimneys" ceased to pollute the air. The League was not concerned with the exact number, and they accepted the chimney sweepers' figures. It was more to the purpose that the order was being loyally and cheerfully obeyed. The idea of fighting the Government with the Government's own chosen people, appealed to the lighter side of a not unhumorous nation.

Ever since the institution of a Socialistic press, and from even remoter times than the saplinghood of the "Reformer's Tree," Fleet Street party hacks and Hyde Park demagogues had been sharpening their wit upon the "black-coated" brigade, the contemptible bourgeoisie of "Linton Villas," "Claremonts," and "Holly Lodges," taunting them with self-complacency, political apathy, and social parasitism. The proportion of moral degradation conferred by a coat intentionally black, in comparison with one that is merely approaching that condition through the personal predilections of its owner, has never yet been defined, and the relative æsthetic values of the architectural pretensions of villadom, compared with the unswerving realism of the "Gas Works Views," "Railway Approach Cottages," and "Cement Terraces," of the back streets, may be left to the matured judgment of an unprejudiced posterity. The great middle class in all its branches had never hitherto made any reply at all. Now that it had begun to retort in its own effective way, the Government agreed that the best counterblast would be – to wait until it all blew over.

There were naturally defections from the first. A friendly spy in Mr Tubes's secret service managed to secure the information without much trouble that within seven days of the publication of the order no less than 4372 notices of resignation had been received at headquarters. He was hastening away with this evidence of the early dissolution of the League when his grinning informant called him back to whisper in his ear that during the same period there had been 17,430 new members enrolled, and that while the resignations seemed to have practically ceased the enrolments were growing in volume. In addition to these there were battalions who joined in the policy of the League through sympathy with its object without formally binding themselves as members.

In some of its aspects the success of the movement erred in excess. There were men, manufacturers, who in their faith and enthusiasm wished to close their works at once, and, regardless of their own loss, throw their workmen and their unburnt coal into the balance. It was not required; it was not even desirable then. The League's object was to disorganise commerce as little as possible beyond the immediate boundaries of the coal trade. They were not engaged in an internecine war, and every one of their own people deprived of employment was a loss. Cases of hardship there would be; they are common to both sides in every phase of stubborn and prolonged civil strife, but from the "class" point of view coal had the pre-eminent advantage that its weight and bulk gave employment to a hundred of the "masses" to every one of themselves. There were also two circumstances that discounted any sense of injustice on this head. Firstly, there was a spirit of sacrifice and heroism in the air, born of the time and the situation; and secondly, it soon became plain that the League was engaged in vast commercial undertakings and was absorbing all the men of its own party who were robbed of their occupation by the development of the war.

A firm starting business with an unencumbered capital of ten million sterling, enjoying a "private income" of five millions a year, and not troubled with the necessity of earning any dividend at all, could afford to be a generous employer.

From the first moment it was obvious that oil must take the place of coal. That was the essence of the strife. The Tocsin set to work in frantic haste to prove that it was impossible; to show that all the authorities of the past and present had agreed that no real substitute for coal existed. It was quite true, and it was quite false. It was not a world struggle. Abroad, foreign coal was being substituted for English coal. At home only half a million tons a week were in issue at the first. Afterwards, as coal stagnation fed coal stagnation, the tonnage rose steadily, but the calorific ratio of coal and oil, the basis of all comparison, simply did not exist, except on paper, for the two fuels in domestic use.

The Tocsin's second article convinced its readers that all the lamp companies in the world could not keep up with the abnormal demand for lamps, stoves, and oil-cookers, that the ridiculous proposal of the League would involve, if it were not providentially ordained that it was foredoomed to grotesque failure by the dead weight of its own fatuous ineptitude.

In practice the two single firms of Ripplestone of Birmingham, and Schuyler of Cleveland, U.S.A., at once put on the market a varied stock that filled every requirement. There was no waiting. As The Tocsin bitterly remarked, it soon became apparent that the demand had been foreseen and "treacherously provided against during the past two years."

The third Tocsin article on the situation dealt statistically with the oil trade of the world. It necessarily fell rather flat, because The Tocsin Special Commissioner entered upon the task with the joyous conviction that the world's output would not be sufficient for the demand, the world's oil ships not numerous enough to transport it. As he dipped into the figures, however, he made the humiliating discovery that the increased demand would do little more than ruffle the surface of the oil market. The Baku oil fields could supply it without inconvenience; the United States could do it by contract at a ten per cent. advance; the newly-discovered wells of Nova Scotia alone would be equal to the demand if they diverted all their produce across the Atlantic.

He threw down his pen in despair, and then picked it up again to substitute invective for statistics. Before his eyes the motor-tanks of the Anglo-Pennsylvanian Oil Company, of London and Philadelphia, and the Anglo-Caucasian Oil Company, of London and Baku, were going on their daily rounds. It was still a matter for wonder how well equipped the sudden call had found those two great controlling oil companies. It was yet to be learned that for their elaborate designations there might be substituted the simple name "Unity League."

It was submitting The Tocsin young man to rather a cruel handicap to send him to the British Museum Reading Room for a few hours with instructions to prove impossible what Salt and Hampden had been straining every nerve for two years to make inevitable.

Three articles exhausted his proof that a successful coal boycott under modern conditions was utterly impossible.

He went out into the city and the suburbs, interviewing coal merchants and coal agents with the object of drawing a harrowing picture of the gloom and depression that had fallen upon these unfortunate creatures at the hands of their own class League.

He found them all bearing up well under the prospect, but much too busy to give him more than a few minutes of their time. Every one of them had been appointed an oil agent to the League firms, and League members were ordering their oil through them, just as heretofore they had ordered coal. It was very easy, profitable work for them; they had nothing to do but to transmit the orders to the League firms and the fast business-like motor-tanks distributed the oil. But half of the coal carters were now under notice to leave, and there were indications that work was very scarce. Each motor-tank displaced twenty men and twenty horses. Already, it was said, thousands of horses had been sent out to grass from London alone.

Externally, as far as the Capital was concerned at all events, things were going on very much the same as before, when the struggle was a fortnight old. Elsewhere signs were not lacking. The Government had received disquieting reports from its agents here and there, but so far it was meeting the situation by refusing to acknowledge that it existed. A march of the Staffordshire miners had been averted by the men's leaders being privately assured that it would embarrass the Government's plans. The march had been deferred under protest; so far the organisation answered to the wheel. But the Midlands were clamorously demanding exceptional relief for the exceptional conditions. Monmouth had seen a little rioting, and in Glamorgan the bands of incendiaries called "Beaconmen," who set fire to the accumulations of coal stacked at the collieries, had already begun their work. Cardiff was feeling the effect of having a third of its export trade in coal suddenly lopped off, and Newport, Swansea, Kirkcaldy, Blyth, Hull, Sunderland, Glasgow, and the Tyne ports were all in the same position. Most of the railways had found it necessary to dispense with their entire supernumerary staff, and most of the railway workshops had been put on short time. In London alone, between four and five thousand out-of-work gas employés were drawing Government pay.

About the third week in August the Premier, Mr Tubes, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer had a long private conference. As a result Mr Strummery called an Emergency Council. It was a thin, acrimonious gathering. Some one brought the tidings that seven more companies in South London were substituting Diesel oil engines for steam. He had all the dreary developments statistically worked out on paper. Nobody wanted to hear them, but he poured them out into the unwilling ears, down to the climax that it represented two hundred and forty-seven fewer men required at the pits.

It served as a text, however, for Mr Chadwing to hang his proposal on. After a month of inaction, the Government was at length prepared to go to the length of admitting that abnormal conditions prevailed. Oil had thrown a quarter of a million of their people out of employment. Let oil keep them. He proposed to retaliate with a 50 per cent. tax on imported oil, to come into operation under Emergency Procedure on the 1st of September.

There were men present to whom the suggestion of taxing a raw article, necessary to a great proportion of the poor, was frankly odious. They were prepared to attack the proposal as a breach of faith. A few words from Mr Strummery, scarcely more than whispered, explained the necessity for the tax and the menace of the situation.

Those who had not been following events closely, paled to learn the truth.

The Treasury was living from hand to mouth, for the City had ceased to take up its Bills. Unless "something happened" before the New Year dawned, it would have to admit its inability to continue the Unemployed Grant. Already a quarter of a million men and their dependents, in addition to the normal average upon which the estimates were based, had been suddenly thrown upon the resources of the Department. If Mr Tubes's forecast proved correct, double that number would be on their hands within another month. The development of half a million starving men who had been taught to look to the Government for everything, looking and finding nothing, could be left to each individual imagination.

The Oil Tax came into operation on the 1st of September. Under the plea of becoming more "business-like," a great many of the Parliamentary safeguards had been swept away, and such procedure was easy. All grades of petroleum had already advanced a few pence the gallon under the increased demand, and the poorer users had expressed their indignation. When they found, one day, that the price had suddenly leapt to half as much again, their wrath was unbounded. It was in vain for Ministers to explain that the measure was directed against their enemies. They knew that it fell on them, and demanded in varying degrees of politeness to be told why some luxury of the pampered, leisured classes had not been chosen instead. The reason was plain to those who studied Blue Books. So highly taxed was every luxury now that the least fraction added to its burden resulted in an actually decreased revenue from that source.

But if the mere tax and increase had impressed the poor unfavourably, a circumstance soon came to light that enraged them.

In spite of the tax the members of the Unity League were still being supplied with oil at the old prices, and they were assured that they would continue to be supplied without advance, even if the tax were doubled!

The poor, ever suspicious of the doings of those of their own class when set high in authority, at once leapt to the conclusion that they were being made the victims of a double game. It was nothing to them that the Anglo-Pennsylvanian and the Anglo-Caucasian companies were now trading at a loss; it was common knowledge that their richer League neighbours had not had the price of their oil increased, and they knew all too well that they themselves had. With the lack of balanced reasoning that had formerly been one of the Government's best weapons, they at once concluded that they alone were paying the tax, and the unparalleled injustice of it sowed a crop of bitterness in their hearts.

If that was the net result at home, the foreign effect of the policy was not a whit more satisfactory. Studland, the Consul-General at Odessa, one of the most capable men in the Service, cabled a despatch full of temperate and solemn warning the moment he heard of the step. It was too late then, if, indeed, his words would have been regarded. Russia replied by promptly trebling her existing tax on imported coal, and at the same time gave Germany rebate terms that practically made it a tax on English coal. It was said that Russia had only been waiting for a favourable opportunity, and was more anxious to develop her own new coal fields in the Donetz basin than to import at all. As far as the Treasury was concerned, the oil tax yielded little more than was absorbed by the thirty thousand extra men thrown out of work by Russia's action. The Government had given a rook for a bishop.

A little time ago the Cabinet had been prepared to greet winter as a friend. Without quite possessing the ingenuousness of their amiable Comrade Bilch, they had thought cynically of the pampered aristocrats shivering in Mayfair drawing-rooms, of the comfort-loving middle classes sitting before their desolate suburban hearths, of blue-faced men setting out breakfastless for freezing offices, and of pallid women weeping as they tried to warm the hands of little children, as they put them in their icy beds.

And now? All their cynical sympathy had apparently been in vain. There were not going to be any cold breakfasts, freezing offices, or shivering women and children. Warming stoves and radiators raised the temperature of a room much quicker than a fire did, and kept it equable without any attention. Oil cookers took the place of the too often erratic kitchen range. Mrs Strummery innocently threw the Premier into a frenzy one morning by dilating on the advantages of a "Britonette" stove which she had been shown by a Tottenham Court Road ironmonger. The despised, helpless "classes" were going on very comfortably. They were going on even gaily; "Oil Scrambles" constituted a new and popular form of entertainment for long evenings; from Wimbledon came the information that "Candle Cinderellas" would have a tremendous rage during the approaching season; and in Cheapside and the Strand the penny hawkers were minting money with the novel and diverting "Coal Sack Puzzle."

But the winter was approaching, though no longer as a friend. If England should say to-morrow what Lancashire was saying that day, there were portents of stirring times in the air. Already Northumberland, Durham, and Yorkshire were muttering in their various uncouth dialects, and Lanark was subscribing to disquieting sentiments in its own barbarous tongue. Derbyshire was becoming uneasy, Staffordshire was scarcely answering to the wheel, and Nottingham was in revolt against what it considered to be the too compliant attitude of the Representation Committee. The rioting in Monmouth was only restrained from becoming serious in its proportions by the repeated assurances from Westminster that the end was in sight; and the "Beaconmen" of Glamorgan were openly boasting that before long they would "light such a candle" that the ashes would fall upon London like a Vesuvian cloud.

Still nearer home was the disturbing spectacle of the railway-men thrown out of work, the coal carters, the stablemen, the gasworkers, the canal boatmen, the general labourers, the tool-makers, the wheel-wrights, the chimney sweepers, the brushmakers. The sequence of dependence could be traced, detail by detail, through every page of the trade directory.

They had all been taught to clamour to the Government in every emergency, and this administration they regarded as peculiarly their own. It was not a case of Frankenstein's Monster getting out of hand; this Monster had created its Frankenstein, and could dissolve him if he proved obstinate. All that Frankenstein had ventured to do so far had been to reduce the Unemployed Grant to three quarters of its normal rate "in view of the unprecedented conditions of labour," and where two or more unemployed were members of one family, to make a further small deduction. The action had not been well received. "In view of the unprecedented conditions of labour" the unemployed had looked for more rather than for less. When the rate was fixed they had been given to understand that it represented the minimum on which an out-of-work man could be decently asked to live. Why, then, had their own party reduced it? Funds? Tax some luxury!

Even the Government assurance, an ingenious adaptation of truth by the light of Mr Chadwing's figures, that they "did not anticipate having to impose the reduced grant for many more weeks, but at the same time counselled economy in every working-class home," did not restore mutual good feeling. The general rejoinder was that the Government had "better not," and the reference to economy was stigmatised as gratuitously inept.

In the meantime the situation was reacting unfavourably upon Mr Strummery and the chief officers of State, not only in Parliament but even in the Cabinet itself. Consultations between the Premier and half a dozen of his most trusted Ministers were of daily occurrence. One day, towards the end of September, Mr Strummery privately intimated to all the "safe" members of the Council that it was necessary to meet to consider what further steps to take.

The meeting was a "packed" one in that the Tirrels, the Browns, and the Bilches of the party were not invited and knew nothing of it. There was no reason why Mr Strummery should not call together a section of his followers if he wished, and discuss policy with them, but at the moment it was dangerous, because the conclave was just strong enough to be able to impose its will upon Parliament, and yet individually it was composed of weak men. It was dangerous because half a dozen weak men, rendered desperate by the situation into which they were being inevitably driven, had resolved to act upon heroic lines. As Balzac had remarked, "There is nothing more horrible than the rebellion of a sheep," but the horrible consequences generally fall upon its own head in the end.

Mr Chadwing's statement informed the despondent gathering that on the existing lines it would be necessary to suspend the wholesale operation of the relief fund about the middle of December. By reducing the grant in varying degrees it would be possible to carry on for perhaps three months beyond that date, but to reach the furthest limit the individual relief would have become so insignificant that it would only result in an actual crisis being precipitated earlier than would be the case if they went on as they were doing.

That was all that the Chancellor of the Exchequer had to say. The uninitiated men looked at one another in mute enquiry. There was something in the air. What was coming?

The Premier rose to explain. He admitted that they had underrated the danger of the situation at first. Measures that might have sufficed then were useless now. Oil was the pivot of the whole question. The oil tax had not realised expectations. To raise the tax would only alienate the affections of their own people without reaching the heart of the matter. They had already taken one bite at a cherry.

He paused and looked round, an indifferent swimmer forced by giant circumstance to face his Niagara.

He proposed as a measure of national emergency to prohibit the importation of oil altogether.

There was a gasp of surprise; a moment of stupefaction. Strange things were again being done in the name of Liberty.

Mr Tubes's voice, enumerating the results and advantages of the step, recalled their wandering thoughts. There was little need for the recital; the effect of so unexpected a coup leapt to the mind at once.

The Leaguers must either burn coal or starve. The home oil deposits had long ceased to be worked. Wood under modern conditions was impracticable; peat was equally debarred, and neither could meet a sudden emergency in sufficient quantity; electricity meant coal, and was far from universal. The League movement must collapse within a week.

There were other points, all in favour of the course. Although it might slightly inconvenience many working-class homes it would not take their money as a heavier tax would, and it must convince all that the end was well in sight. It would induce the poor to use more coal, more gas, in itself a step towards that desired end. It would teach Russia a sharp lesson, and Russia's sins were the freshest in their minds.

All were convinced, and all against their will. There was something sinister in the proposal; the thought of it fell like a shadow across the room.

"It is not a course I would recommend or even assent to as a general thing," said Mr Strummery. "But we are fighting for the existence of our party, for the lives of thousands of our people. It is no exaggeration. Think of the awful misery that must sweep the country in the coming winter if the League holds out. If we do not break the wicked power of those two men, there is no picture of national calamity to be found in the past that can realise the worst."

"It is their game," said Mr Tubes bitterly. "The cowards are striking at the women and children through the men."

He ignored the fact that his party had struck the first blow, and had had the word "War!" figuratively nailed to the staff of their red banner for years. In war one usually strikes some one, and on the whole it is perhaps less reprehensible to strike women and children through men than vice versa. But it was an acceptable sentiment on the face of it, and it sounded all right at the moment.

"Moreover," added the Premier, "there will be this danger in the situation: that blinded by passions and desperate through misery, the people may fail to realise who are the real causes of their plight."

Yes, there was that possibility to be faced by thoughtful Socialistic Ministers. The people are not very subtle in their reasoning. The most pressing fact of their existence would be that the Government, which had promised to keep them from starvation in return for their votes, had had their votes and was allowing them to starve.

"I think that we must all agree to the necessity of the step," said one of the minor men, "though our feelings are all against it."

"Quite so," admitted Mr Strummery. "Let us hope that being a sharp remedy it will only need to be a short one."

Surprise was the essence of the coup, and the "business-like" procedure of Parliament permitted this when the Government was backed by a large automatic majority. The expeditious passing of the measure was a foregone conclusion, yet a few shrewd warning voices were raised against it even among the stalwarts. The regular opposition voted against it as a matter of course. The most moderate section of the Labour Party and the extreme Socialists, who both elected to sit on the opposition side of the House, refrained from voting, and a few Ministers, who were distracted between their private opinions and their party duty, were diplomatically engaged elsewhere.

The Bill first received the attention of the House on the 25th of September, the day after the Premier had called his informal meeting. It became law on the 28th, and three days later, the 1st of October, Great Britain was absolutely "closed" against the introduction of mineral burning oils on any terms.

The country received the measure with mixed feelings, but on the whole with the admission that it would be effective and with an expression of dislike. The coal mining districts hailed it with enthusiasm, and the same reception was accorded it among the affected industries, but outside these it was nowhere popular, and in certain working-class quarters it evoked the bitterest hostility. It was felt even by those who stood to gain much by the overthrow of the League that their instincts rebelled against the means; possibly the underlying feeling was distrust of the exercise of power so despotic. It was admitted that the League's action with respect to coal stood on a different plane. Any member could at once resign; it was questionable if one could not use coal and still remain a member. Certainly no coercion was used. But in the matter of oil a necessary commodity was absolutely ruled out, and, whether he wished or nor, every one must obey. By the 8th of October the retail price of petroleum of an average quality was 2s. 9d. the gallon, and the price was rising as the end of the stock came in sight.

One curious circumstance excited remark. The Unity League members were still being supplied at the original price. The League was keeping its word gallantly to the end. The Government had calculated that the two interested companies might have a reserve that would last a week. The average stock which the consumer might be supposed to have in hand would carry them on for a further five days, and the economy which they would doubtless practise might hold off the climax for five more. The 17th of October came to be confidently mentioned in Government circles as the date of the Unity League's surrender.

It might have been merely coincidence, but on the 17th of October Mr Strummery chose to entertain a few of his colleagues to dinner in the House.

In spite of the host's inevitable jug of boiling water, an air of genial humour, almost of gaiety, pervaded the board. Mr Tubes was entertainingly reminiscent; Chadwing succeeded in throwing off the weight of the Treasury; Comrade Stubb, fresh from the soil, proved to have a dry humour of his own; and Cecil Brown, who was always socially welcome, made a joke which almost surprised the Premier into a smile.

Mr Tubes was in the middle of a sentence when Cecil Brown, with his face turned towards the door, laid his hand upon the speaker's arm.

"A minute, Tubes," he said. "There is something unusual going on out there."

"Perhaps it is – " began Chadwing, and stopped. The same thought had occurred to at least three of them. Perhaps they were coming to tell them that Hampden had accepted his defeat. Whatever it might be, a dozen members who had entered the room in a confused medley were making their way towards the Premier's table. A man who seemed to concentrate their attention was in their midst; some were apparently trying to hold him back, while others urged him on. While yet some distance off he broke away from them all, and running forward, reached the table first.

It was Comrade Bilch, so dishevelled, red, and heated, that it did not occur to any one to doubt that he was drunk. For a second he stood looking at them stupidly, and then he suddenly opened his mouth and poured out so appalling a string of vile and nauseating abuse that men who were near drew aside.

"Why, in Heaven's name, don't you take him away?" exclaimed Cecil Brown, appealing to those who formed the group beyond the table.

They would have done so, but Comrade Bilch raised his hand as though to enjoin attention for a moment. A change seemed to have come over him even in that brief passage of time. He walked up to the table and leaned heavily upon it with both fists, while his breath came in throbs, and the colour played about his face like the reflection of a raging fire. When he spoke it was without a single oath; all his uncleanness had dropped away from him as though he recognised its threadbare poverty in the face of the colossal news he brought.

"Gentlemen," he said, leaning forward and breathing very hard, "you would have it, and you have got your way. You've made oil contraband, and not a drop can be landed in Great Britain now. It can't be brought, but it can be used when it is here, and the Unity League that you have done it all to starve has got two hundred million gallons safely stowed away at Hanwood! Yes, while our people will have to grope and freeze through the winter, they are quite comfortably provided for, and you, whether you leave the bar on or whether you take it off, you have made us the laughing-stock of Europe!"

An awed silence fell on the group. Not the most shadowy suspicion of such a miscarriage had ever stirred the most cautious. All their qualms had been in the direction of swallowing the unpalatable measure, not of doubting its efficacy. They seemed to be the puny antagonists of some almost superhuman power that not only brushed their most elaborate plans aside, but actually led them on to pave the way to their own undoing.