A CHANGE IN THE CABINET
A CHANGE
IN THE CABINET
BY
H. BELLOC
“STRIVE, STRIVE, HOWE’ER WE STRIVE
YOUTH DECLINES AT FIFTY-FIVE.”
OLD SAW
METHUEN & CO.
36 ESSEX STREET W.C.
LONDON
_First Published in 1909_
TO
MISS ALICE BEARDSLEY
A CHANGE IN THE CABINET
CHAPTER I
Sir--or to speak more correctly, the Right Honourable Sir T. Charles
Repton, Bart., M.V.O., O.M., Warden of the Court of Dowry, a man past
middle age but in the height of industry, sat at breakfast in his
house: a large house overlooking Hyde Park from the North, close to the
corner of the Edgware Road, and therefore removed by at least a hundred
yards from the graphic representation which marks the site of the old
Permanent Gallows that once stood at Tyburn.
I have said that he was Warden of the Court of Dowry, and the reader,
if she has any acquaintance with parliamentary affairs, will remember
that at the time of which I speak, the month of March, 1915, that post
commonly carried with it Cabinet rank. The experienced in political
matters will certainly induce that he was also in the House of
Commons. He sat there for Pailton, a borough which had been the last
to elect him after previous experiences in Merionethshire, Kirkby,
Bruton, Powkeley and the Wymp division of Dorset, in which last his
somewhat constrained and cold manner had perhaps led to his defeat.
It was not his first experience of office, but he had never stood so
high in the Councils of the Nation, nor had his presence in the Cabinet
ever more weighed with the young and popular Prime Minister (who was
suffering slightly from his left lung) than at this moment. For though
Charles Repton did not belong by birth to the group of families from
which the Prime Minister had sprung, he was of those who, as they
advance through life, accumulate an increasing number of clients, of
dependents and of friends who dare not trifle with such friendships.
In figure he was tall and somewhat lean; he was clean-shaven; his
brilliant white hair was well groomed; his brown eyes were singularly
piercing, and, in contrast with his head, two thick, very dark
and strongly arched eyebrows emphasized his expression. He was by
persuasion at this time of his life a Second Day Wycliffite, and had
indeed professed his connection with that body since at least his
fortieth year, before which period in his career he had permanently
resided in a suburb of Leicester, to which in turn he had removed from
Newcastle.
By profession he was, or rather had been, a solicitor, in which
calling he had ever advised those clients who had the wisdom to
accumulate wealth to leave the investment of it at his discretion,
nor were they disappointed in the regular receipt of a moderate but
secure income calculated at a reasonable rate; while to those who (for
whatever reason) lay under the necessity of borrowing, he was ever
ready to advance at a somewhat higher rate such sums as he had at his
disposal.
But this humdrum course of professional life could never satisfy
abilities of his calibre. Shortly after his entry into political life
he had undertaken the management of numerous industrial ventures,
several of which had proved singularly successful, while those which
had been less fortunate came to grief through the action of others than
himself: nay it was often shown when the winding-up order came that
such risks had attracted but little of his spare cash.
He was that morning in March, 1915, eating an egg. He had before him a
copy of the _Times_, the affairs of which newspaper were among his most
valued connections. The moments he could spare from its perusal were
given to the methodical cutting open of envelopes and the glancing at
their contents,--an exercise which it was his rule most methodically
to pursue before he permitted his secretary to deal with the answers.
Indeed some one or two of these missives he put into his pocket to be
dealt with at his private leisure.
He was alone, for his wife--Maria, Lady Repton--would commonly affect
to come down after he had left the house; and this, no matter how late
divisions might have kept him upon the previous evening, he invariably
did at the hour of half-past nine. I may add that he had no children,
but could boast no less than five horses in town and sixteen in the
country, all his own property, and used to drag in the country I know
not how many vehicles; in London three, each suitable for its own
function. Of motor cars he kept but one, but that large and in colour
a very bright sky-blue. As he had no proficiency in riding, he did not
indulge in that exercise; but he was fond of golf and was acquainted
with all the technical terms of the game.
To do him justice he was not without means, nay, he was what many would
call wealthy, and the salary of £5000 to which, amid the enthusiastic
cheers of the Legislature, the Wardenship of the Court of Dowry had
recently been raised was of no great consequence to his position.
To another, alas! in the vast and heartless city, such a salary was
shortly to mean far more,--and GEORGE MULROSS DEMAINE, upon whom I
will not for the moment linger, would have been even more benefited in
pocket than in status by the handling of it.
Careless, however, as Sir Charles Repton might be of a fringe of income
obtainable only while his own Party were in office, it was imagined
that he was not a little attached to other advantages connected with
his Wardenship. It is doubtful whether a man of this firm, reticent
and dominating character could really be attached to such accidents
of his post as the carrying of a model ship, bareheaded, in the great
procession upon Empire Day, the wearing upon state occasions of shoes
which curled up at the toe and were caught back to the ankles by small
silver chains, or the presence upon these ornaments of several tiny
bells that jingled as he walked; anachronisms of this kind can have
produced little but discomfort in one of his stern mould when, upon
the rare occasions of court functions, he was compelled to adopt the
official dress. But there was more!
The Wardenship of the Court of Dowry carried with it something regal in
that great world of affairs in which he moved, and bitter as had been
the attacks upon his colleagues in the Nationalist Cabinet,--especially
during the futile attempt to pass the Broadening of the Streets
Bill--Sir Charles had always been treated with peculiar and exceptional
respect, though he would never have used methods so underhand as to
foreclose upon any newspaper with whom he might have a political
difference or to embarrass by official action any considerable
advertiser of patent medicines whose manufacture came under the purview
of his Department.
It would be an exaggeration to say that he had raised one of the minor
Government posts to the level of the Foreign Office, but, at any rate,
it had under his reign become almost as prominent as it had been when
GHERKIN had first raised it to the rank of a principal function in the
State. It was one of the great spending departments; Repton saw to that.
Sir Charles Repton prepared to leave his house, I say, at half-past
nine; his mind was intent upon the business of the morning, which
was a Board meeting of the Van Diemens. It need not yet concern the
reader, it is enough for her to know (and the knowledge is consonant
with Repton’s character) that the Company was prepared to develop all
that North-eastern littoral of the Australian Continent for which it
had obtained a charter but which no enterprise had as yet succeeded in
bringing into line with the vast energies of the Empire.
Of the strategical advantages such a position can give, I need not
speak. Luckily they were in the hands of patriots.
The comparatively small sum of £4,000,000 which by its charter the
Company was permitted to raise would have been subscribed twenty times
over in the rush for shares seven years before, and it is common
knowledge that at a particular moment during which values must surely
have been inflated, they reached a premium of between 800 and 900 per
cent. The cool process of reflection which often follows such errors
had by this time driven them if anything too low, and the original one
pound share which had twice all but touched £9, had been for now many
months unsaleable at a nominal price of 16/3.
There exists a sound rule of public administration of this
country--inaugurated, I believe, by Mr. Gladstone--which forbids a
Cabinet Minister to hold any public directorship at the same time as
his official post, and indeed it is this rule which renders it usual
for a couple of men upon opposite sides of the House to come to an
arrangement whereby the one shall be Director while his colleague is in
office, lest important commercial affairs should be neglected through
the too rigid application of what is in principle so excellent a rule.
But there had been no necessity for this arrangement in the case of so
great an Imperial business as the Van Diemens: it touched too nearly
the major interests of the country for its connection with a Cabinet
Minister to be remarkable, and all patriotic opinion was sincerely glad
when, in the preceding January, Sir Charles Repton had consented to
acquire without direct purchase a few thousand shares and to take an
active part in raising the fortunes of the scheme.
It was recognised upon all sides that the act was one of statesman-like
self-sacrifice, and there were perhaps but two papers in London (two
evening papers of large circulation but of no high standing) which so
much as alluded to Sir Charles’ labours in this field.
Of these one, the _Moon_, catered especially for that very
considerable public which will have England mistress of the waves,
which is interested in the printed results of horse-racing, which had
formerly triumphantly carried at the polls the demand for protection,
and which was somewhat embittered by so many years of office during
which the Nationalist Party had done little more than tax the parts of
motor cars, foreign unsweetened prunes, moss litter, and such small
quantities of foreign sulphuric acid as are used in the manufacture of
beer.
The other, the _Capon_--to give it its entire name--was of a finer
stamp. All the young enthusiasts read it, and it was enormously bought
for its Notes on Gardening, its caricatures, its clever headlines, and
its short, downright little leaders not twenty lines long, printed, by
a successful innovation, in capitals throughout, and in a red ink that
showed up finely against the plain black and white of the remainder.
Both these papers had continually and violently attacked the connection
of one of our few great statesmen with the last of the vast enterprises
of Empire. The _Capon_, whose editor was a young man with very wild
eyes and hair like a weeping willow, attacked it on principle. The
_Moon_--whose proprietor was an intimate friend of Sir Charles’
own--was more practical, and attacked the connection between Repton and
the Company with good old personalities worthy of a more virile age.
Well then, at this hour of half-past nine on that March day of 1915,
Charles Repton rose from his breakfast. He touched the crumbs upon
his waistcoat so that they fell, and those upon his trousers also. He
looked severely at the footman in the hall, who quailed a little at
that glance, he rapidly put on his coat unaided, and asked briefly to
see the butler.
The butler came.
“I’m out to lunch.”
“Yes, Sir Charles.”
“Tell Parker that if one of my letters is ever left again on the table
after I have gone, I shall speak to Lady Repton.”
“Yes, Sir Charles.”
“The car is not to be used on any account.”
“No, Sir Charles.”
He turned round abruptly and went down the steps and into the street,
while one of his large footmen shut the huge door ever so gently behind
him.
He was a man of such character, who conducted his household so firmly,
that the man, though now five months in his service, dared exchange no
jest with the butler who went quietly off to his own part of the house
again. It was a singular proof of what rigid domestic government can do.
From her room Maria, Lady Repton, when she was quite sure that her
husband was gone, slunk downstairs. With a cunning that was now a
trifle threadbare, she discovered from Parker the housekeeper, from the
secretary, from the butler, by methods which she fondly believed to be
indirect, what plans her husband had formed for the day. She sighed
to learn that she might not have the car, for she had designed to go
and see her dear old friend widow, Mrs. Hulker, formerly of Newcastle,
now of Ealing, a woman of great culture and refinement and one who gave
Maria, Lady Repton, nearly all her information upon books and life. Of
course there was always the Tube and the Underground, but they greatly
wearied this elderly lady, and it was too far to drive. She sighed a
little at her husband’s order.
He, meanwhile, was out in Oxford Street, and with the rapidity that
distinguishes successful men, had decided not to take a motor-bus but
to walk. The March day was cold and clear and breezy, and he went
eastward at a happy gait. He did not need to be at his work until close
upon eleven, and even that he knew to be full early for at least one
colleague, the stupidest of all the Directors, a certain Bingham, upon
whose late rising he counted. For the intolerable tedium of arguing
against a man who invariably took the unintelligent side was one of
the few things which caused Sir Charles to betray some slight shade of
impatience.
The day pleased him, as indeed it pleased the greater part of London,
from its fineness. He walked upon the sunny side of the street, and his
smile, though restrained and somewhat sadly dignified, was the more
genial from the influence of the weather. His brain during this brief
exercise was not concerned, as those ignorant of our great men might
imagine, with affairs of State, nor even with the choice of investments
upon which he was in so short a time to determine. He was occupied
rather in planning (for his power of organisation was famous) how
exactly he should fit in his engagements for the day.
A Board meeting, especially if there is any chance of long argument
with a late riser of exceptional stupidity, may last for an indefinite
time. He gave it an hour and a half.
Then he must lunch, and that hour was earmarked for a certain foreigner
who could not wholly make up his mind whether to build a certain bridge
over a certain river for a certain government or no.
By a quarter to three he must be in the House of Commons to answer
questions, for those which fell to his share came early upon the paper,
and it was the pride of this exact and efficient man to keep no one
waiting. Before four he must see the manager of a bank; the matter
was urgent, he did not wish to write or telephone. By five he must be
back again in his room in the House of Commons to receive a deputation
of gentlemen who would arrive from his distant constituency, and who
proposed with a mixture of insistence and of fear to demand certain
commercial advantages for their town at the expense of a neighbouring
borough whose representative but rarely busied himself with the Great
Council of the Nation.
At six he must order with particular care a dinner upon which (in his
opinion) the chances of the Saltoon Development largely depended. At
seven he must dress, at eight he must dine. His guests (many of whom to
his knowledge would drink to excess) would certainly detain him till
long after ten. He must be back in the House to vote at eleven; for
some half-hour or so after eleven he must be present to attend a short
debate (or what he hoped would prove a short debate) concerning his own
Department. He would be lucky if he was in bed by twelve.
Let the reader leave him there walking in Oxford Street and turn her
attention to George Mulross Demaine, or rather, to Mount Popocatapetl.