FICTION.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1509, 31 January 1901, Page 7

FICTION.

THE SILENT PARLIAMENT

BY ROBERT BARR.

.'(Author of “The Mutable Many,” etc;)

..[ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.] SYNOPSIS OF INSTALMENTS I TO V.

■ j The reader is introduced to a travelting 'lecturer t Richard Stanford, -who is sitting on the steps of his van, smoking. Be is a man about twenty-five years -of age, with firm mouth and stubborn jaw. To him comes a horseman—the soil of tthe owner of the surrounding la nek—who orders him to move on, •Which- after a friendly conversation, he does. - He stops again in a quiet hamlet, and lectures to-the villagers-. A beautiful lady, , reclining in a boat oil vthe edge oj>a lake, is assailed by a rough -tramp, who, in pursuit of money, is .about to carry out his threats of violence, when Stanford is drawn to the ■spot, by the lady% cries for help, and sends the tramp off. An interesting conversation ensues, which is, however, terminated by the tramp, who, with ■great., strategy, had silently returned, 'and dealt Stanford a blow which sent him into the. water. He is rescued by some of Mrs Greenhow’s men, and carried to the Hall, where the doctor attends him. On regaining consciousness fee finds the lady of the adventure by feis side, and before lie goesj holds a disctissipir with his hostess on the! subject of his. life work. Although he hardly convinces her of the feasibility of his scheme of reformation, she is so impressed by his own genuineness that she offefrs £IOO,OOO to finance the movement. This consists, in short, of the employment of a small army of men to attack the constituencies at the next general election.. Tins dissolution comes at an early date, bringing keen disappointment to Stanfoi -. for not one of his nominees .is successful. ’

r' ;- • CHAPTER VIII. 'For the next 'two or three weeks Richard Stanford was exceedingly busy, winding up- the affairs of the office in Essex street. - If Ins candidates could not be returned to Parliament, they returned by 'themselves one by one on their bicycles ,to their headquarters off the Strand. A few of them were compelled to come back by rail, their bicycles having gone under in the heat uf the " election contest. These machines, wrecked ill the Land Nationalisation cause, Stanford replaced with wheels of -tfhe newest make. He paid off his men, ”Who had the consolation of knowing • that they had had, at least, a lively time. He then dismissed his confidential clerk and closed the office. He put i his cast-iron contracts in a hand bag, o and started at once for the constitueni'cies, determining to visit first, those nearest London, and gradually to’inspect ; every . district in the country where a v Land Restoration man had the slightest possibility of success.

c - He ‘had to throw over many of. his preconceived ideas, and lie resolved, like a - .wise man, to accept kelp from whatever quarter ic> chanced to. come. He gave up ' .the plan of electing lus Silent Parlia. i anent, as it .were, secretly, for he found o that the newspapers usually knew everyc thing he was doing as soon as he was well aware of it himself, and he saw his .. ideas were very generally held up to £. public scorn and contempt. He occupied himself in getting comi nnttees together in each .constituency, and soon learned the wisuoni. of allowing x, thpm bp; choose, their own.: candidates ' • ?\ e 'car© that such candidate his loyalty ,to his chief, , wor Stanford believed if any thing was to accomplished, it would be done by _ a compact (body under the iron rule of one man. - Nearly all his ideas had gone ,-,-by tne fpoard', hut he clung resolutely "to '(his .one, and before long he had ad- , -vanceci sd farthathe was ridiculed from end pf JEhgland to .the other, and in ail the comic papers. . Ait the Uexf general election, however, thirty c of ; hia candidates.' were’ elected, and Hbpth parties &aw';. with terror, that .he D, 'n<w held the.; r c ba.l-ahc:e pf power. in the House; he,, hpw&yeiy' fnhde no usd 'of • 'f&is apparently great opportunity. The of.both ; him how u' could make; a name for himself in : ‘ England by passing their measures, but Stanford sat silent at the head of his ''; :i S : ilent Paid iarneht, and generally they e divided their votes equally between Conservatives and Liberals.

After the short-lived Conservative Government, with its fluctuating maJoraty of from twelve to fifteen was defeared, the Liberal Party came into ; • power with almost as "weak a following. When Stanford _made up his-mind that the time was ripe to bring on another oxCeneral Election, he decided to turn -■••.the Liberal Government out. In this feait, he did not' meet with the success -r .he anticipated. The Conservatives ral--i lied to the Liberal .side, and left the Land Crabs, as the ISTationalizers were -x called, alone in the division lobby, but this was an unusual state of tilings and Ik could not continue without fusion "of the -..Liberal and Conservative parties, which wag not then , considered possible, alls though, as everyone knows, it happened p £ ; a iffw years later.

The Liberal Government was at last defeated, and a general election again came on. Here Stanford was once more disappointed, for only fifty of his party were, elected, which, although a. gain of twenty on the last Parliament, was not at all large enough to satisfy him. Experience, however, had taught him that the path of the reformer is rugged and toilsome.

Then came the first great election of 1925,. and the "result appalled Liberals and Conservatives alike. The Land Crabs had a majority of ten in the House against the united strength of all the other parties combined. It is not too much to say that* a panic overspread the country when this result became known, for, although.it had been coming for a great number of years, no one really expected it. Stanford had been so ridiculed throughout the length and breadth of England that none seemed prepared to accept the fact that he was tq jStand -at. (the head of a majority in the House of Oomindiis. All these years there had. been no., authoritative statement from Stanford’ as to what his intentions were, if he came into power. This statement was now demanded by newspapers, by'politioians i and by statesiHien everywhere, but Stanford remained as silent as the Sphinx. The ‘•■Times.” and several other of the leading -papers, both Liberal and •Conservative, managed partially to restore confidence by the proclamation that a majority of ten had always hitherto proven valueless; nothing could be carried through the House with such a small majority; but the wiser heads of the old. parties remembered that the power of the House of Lords had been crippled ten years before, -and ,'that now a bill sent up by the House of Commons, and once thrown out by the House of Lords, could again .be passed in the Commons, and would thus become law without the consent of the Peers. •

The Conservative party having a slight majority over their opponents. Lord Woiverman, the late Prime Minister, was called upon to form a Government.’ This, after a consultation with Mr Bond, the leader of the Liberal party, Lord Woiverman did, and it was rumoured that he would have the support of all parties in the House with the exception of the Land Crabs. Meanwhile, Stanford ©aid nothing, and none of Ms followers could be induced to speak. The first General Election of 192 b took place in June, and the House, in those circumstances, met late in July. The Wolverhampton. Government was at once defeated on the speech from the throne, and they immediately dissolved the House. There was great dissatisfaction throughout the country because of two General Elections taking place within such a short space of time. Of course it is easy to be wise after the event, and Lord Wolverhampton was severely censured because " lie - hadbrought the General Election on immediately instead of waiting until November or December when the country would have had time to understand the situation more fully. The fact is, that Lord Wolverhampton mistook the’ opinion of London for the -general opinion of the country, and although London, was certainly in -a panic over the new state of things it must be remembered that news filters slowly and opinions change very deliberately in 'the outside constituencies where the strength of the Land Crabs' principally lay. There is a chance that Stanford’s party would have been defeated if the election had been postponed ’ until November but the second contest followed too closely on the lieeis of the first for any great change in the representation to be expected. Perhaps the chief element that contributed to the result of the second election of i 925 was the fact that the Liberals and Conservatives did not work harmoniously together, and the chances are that they did not realise to its full extent the cast iron nature of the difficulty that fronted them. It has been conclusively shown since that each party hoped to- get a majority, and that each worked for its own hand to the exclusion of the common interest. The agreements made between the leaders at headquarters were, in many cases, not carried cut in the constituencies themselves. The free ,and independent' electors declined to accept the candidates who were sent down' to them, and all the pressure that could be brought to bear in a number-of cases was unavailing, and thus many constituencies were ’.lost which , might have been held .had Ahere : beenrr.iiyiifcy between . the parti.esi : • Ciism or -UI tv, The .iOopservatives were exceedingly bitter against-, the Liberals: because -.of the crippling of the House Lords, Which, in the present circumstances, they said, might have been the ; sole hope of -the-.country. ■ The.. press-.#e_ torted, that if the Lords had been Ipss obstructive against Radical measures’, in former days,.their power: -would? still; have been untouched. This -’constant 'dissension did not tend to the.,.'vanning of constituencies, and when the second election of 1925 was over, it was practically a question of “as" you were,” % The,.Land ’ Crabs had now the ominous number of thirteen a© their majority, and the Liberals in the House were slightly in excess of the Conservatives. . .

The Right lion. Mr Rond was : called upon to form a Government,, which he did, making it up of the strongest members of both parties, but in. the very strength, of this new Government lay its weakness, for its members could hot puli together. The Rond Government was defeated on the Address, .just as Rord Wolverhampton had been. It seemed to the Prime Minister futile to bring on

a third election during the same year, but this question the Government was stubbornly divided, and at last the Bond Cabinet resigned. For a few days the country was in a state of intense excitement. Nobody knew what would happen next. Finally Lord Wolverhampton was asked to form a Government, but after a week of unavailing effort to reconcile all parties to a coalition, he his inability to accept office. Meanwhile,. business was at a stanch still, an cl it- was evident that if something were_ not speedily done a crisis cf financial disaster would come upon the country. Both Liberal and Conservative papers now changed their tone, and loudly called for Richard' Stanford to be invited to form a Government. “Make him’ show’ his hand,” was the cry! And it came about that Richard Stanford achieved the object of his-ambition. He was Prime Minister of England. The day following his call to -office he published his full list- of ministers.- Not j a name in- it wus known to the country; ’lt* was received with a shout of derision from ope end of the land to the other;-' 'Stanford-wrote a short note to his -friend and financial backer. It was to this effect:— --■ . - “Dear Mrs Green-how, I have changed my address from Dean’s Yard to Downing street-. Yours very truly, *'• • Richard Stanford.”

To this letter he received no reply, and he said to himself— r X wonder if Mrs Greenhow regrets what she has done ?

CHAPTER IX.

The winter of 1925—28 marked the point in which the prosperity of England reached its lowest level for a century. Capitalists hoarded their gold. Land owners tried to sell and could not. Commerce was paralysed. The streets of London were filled with a howling mob of the unemployed. There was no denying the fact that this" state o-f thing arose from the unsettled condition of the political situation. Threats and curses were hurled at the head of the silent Prime Minister, and by none more than the paries he professed to be en_ deavouring to help. The denunciations launched at liim by the working men were more bitter than those flung at •him by the aristocracy. The mob expressed its detestation of him in its usual manner, by breaking- all the windows in his house in Downing street-. It seemed-to give themr satisfaction, to smash glass which' they themselves had to pay for. Parliament was summoned to meet in February, and at that time the depression was at its worst. The thing most feared ->y thinking meu was the excesses of the mob. There was now in power a man put there by the people, who believed his mission, honestly or dishonestly, to be to legislate for the people. It was feared, therefore, that the mob, treated with mistaken leniency, would’ go from one excess to another until the country would find itself in the midst of a revolution, The police had, up till the first of February, succeeded in keeping a check upon, the numerous trad© demonstrations that paraded the streets, but as hunger became more prevalent, and the ranks of the unemployed were further swollen by the constant cutting down of help in the workshops and factories, the situation became more and: more ominous. Parliament was to meet on the second Monday of February, and on the Saturday before, a mass meeting was called for in Trafalgar Square. All the shopkeepers along the route pub up their shutters, for .it was felt that the mob would not content itself by mere public speaking." On the Thursday before Labour Saturday, there appeared a proclamation of the police prohibiting the meeting. The prohibition enraged! the unemployed without frightening them, and everyone knew that a crisis, was at hand. On Saturday, in spite of the proclamation, turbulent mobs paraded the streets and gathered m the Square. Whatever opposition the police attempted to interpose was largely ineffective, but the first man who mounted the pedestal of the monument to address the crowd was at once torn down by the officers of the law in spite of all protests. Tlie same fate overtook the second and. the third, ana me fourth; then the crowd began to get angry, - and from muttering threats, commenced to put them into execution. The police were .speedily overcome, and the ! men rescued ; then there arose;, as if from the ground, 'armed men all round, the Square, and. the qavalx’y up the streets was plainly heard..kThe .Square was surrounded by soldiers before, people.knew what had happened, the red coats of the military, standing out brightly in the drizzling grey 'of .the,February clay. The mob.! was at' first awe-stricken, and a strange "silence reigned over the 1 late tumultuous throng., . 1 The silence, however, .’ was very temporary, and soon .shouts of “They dare not shoot,” rose in the! air, and the tu--mult again broke out in all its fury. Suddenly in all the streets converging to the Square appeared large bodies of policemen. TIM surrounding soldiers

made way for them, anu they poured ia among the crowd and began clubbing them right and deft.- Cries of anguish, and horror arose in every direction, mingled. with curses and shouts of defiance. The police scattered all before them m a manner that was described even by the most conservative of the press, as 1 being unnecessarily brutal, but it was certainly effective. The mob dispersed before the united bands of the police like chaff before a high vend. The Square was strewn witn wounded men groaning iff their agony, and, what told Heavily against the now Government, the ambulances came- close upon the heels of the police,, as if these casual tis had been foreseen and properly provided for. London wah appalled at this gross- display- of physical force, but London bad to admit, for this tim9 being, at least; that it wad most potent in suppressing free • speech!- (i '" The press ,of England, on the Monda-Jr morning following the - Trafalgar Square massacre, asdt was called, was .somewhai in the position or tire man who-lckfrihib ■load of turnips down the hill, the wicked Roys having pulled out thn tailboard'df his cart wben lie began to ascend. Fot once language bad failed them. ' T&e papers contqpted themselves with buying the criminal clubbing and bludgeon; ing of a body of men, who, 1 up 'to that time, had done nothing but assemble ■to protest against the existing order Of things was so un-English, and sowithout - precedent , that it was difficult to eKa*acibrise the action in language which a respectable morning paper was in tlie habit of using. On Monday hardly a shop m London was open, everyone feasing the vengeance of the multitude: About noon a small mob attempted to collect near the Parliament Buildings, but it was dispersed with a celerity that evidently took Trafalgar Square as its precedent. ; It is doubtful if any meeting of Fait liament that was ever convened was looked forward to with such feelings" of anxiety as that which assembled on the second Monday of February, 1926. The Land Crabs elected their -own Speaker m spite of the protests of the’ House’ and it was evident from this, that they were going to fight and give ncr quarter. Ihe speech from the Throne was absolute! ess colourless. • It merely said that Parliament would be expected to d 6 something for the vast numbers of the working classes in this country. The ecsePnme Minister, the Right Hon. Mb Bond, rose to his feet and said that he was glad the working classes were mdffLoned in the speech from the Throne; -tie would not say much on this occasion*, but he would ask the Government to make some explanation of what he might call the almost unexampled cruelty in vr® of those who had assembled in Trafalgar Square on Saturday last. He had looked in vain, in" English istory, for a parallel to this castigation of the people, and it was not too much to say, that for an Englishman to find such a precedent, he had to turn to those revolutions which had occurred in countries where civilisation fiau not reached a point which he would have been happy to say up to Saturday last, it had reached m England. He therefore waited with grea interest and anxiety to bear wbafc defence Verilment to in their owii

(To be Continued.)