_The Sound of a Trumpet_
When the campaign started the Puto-Congo Consolidation Company was
paying its shareholders from 20 to 30 per cent, independent of bonuses
which dropped to them like manna every alternate year; and its shares
stood in the market at 200 per cent above par. It had held its own
against a six months’ exposure of its methods, not only without a drop
in the quotations, but with a slight rise when official cold water had
been thrown on the report of the egregious Mr. Morment, whose unfair
and superficial investigation had caused all the trouble.
But when Mr. Trimblerigg took the matter in hand, hiring halls in all
the big towns for monster meetings, and thumping the Free Evangelical
war-drum, within a month the shares came tumbling, and the Government
had begun to hedge by promising a commission of inquiry--not, as had
almost been previously suggested, into the character of Mr. Morment,
but into the conduct of the Company.
Even though the world is said to be wicked, it often pays and pays
well to be on the side of the angels. For trade and commerce, and
politics are largely run on a sort of agreed pretence that man, though
now a little lower than the angels, is not much lower, or only in his
bad moments, or only because he doesn’t always have time to look into
things. The side on which the angels are, may for a time be violently
disputed by guilty interests: but give it a clear view-halloo and a
sight of its quarry on the run, and you have the great-hearted public
up and after it, quite oblivious to its own record in matters closely
similar.
So now: the strewings of the feathers of angels’ wings across the
landscape made Mr. Trimblerigg’s lightning campaign look like a
paper-chase from the heavenly or bird’s-eye view; and tens and hundreds
of thousands of virtuous shareholders, in companies of whose ways and
doings they did not in the least know or very much care, attended his
meetings to denounce the shareholders of a Chartered Company which was
paying 20 and 30 per cent upon methods that were now being exposed.
I have said before, and I say again, that Mr. Trimblerigg was a man
of absolute sincerity to the convictions of the moment; so also were
his audiences, all people of sincerity; but it was a sincerity which,
rising to the surface like cream, when it has been skimmed off leaves a
poor thin material behind it. But it was national material after all;
and how, as somebody once asked, can one indict a great nation? Its
greatness is the refuting answer.
And so it was, when those cheering crowds hung upon Mr. Trimblerigg’s
eloquence, and when, being so much carried away by it, he hung upon it
himself--there was not one, speaker or listener, who, while sincerely
denouncing the cruelties which had wrung 20 and 30 per cent profits
from the blood and bones of indentured black labour, ever thought of
denouncing the system which enabled any who had capital to invest, to
make money out of ventures and industries as to the workings of which
they knew nothing. It was not the system which was being denounced, but
individuals who had been oiling the wheels of the system by methods of
civilization pushed to logical extremes. And so, when you strike an
average, Mr. Trimblerigg was just as innocent and just as sincere as
the bulk of his fellow-countrymen.
The only difference was that nobody else enjoyed his innocence and
sincerity as much as he did, or thought so highly of it. For now, being
so gloriously upon the side of the angels, it was with the voice of an
angel--and a powerful one--that Mr. Trimblerigg spoke. And the angels
and the herd-instinct having got hold of him together, he did wonders:
not only did he surprise me, he surprised himself.
One day he had before him and behind him, around him and above him,
an audience of ten thousand breathless listeners--breathless not for
any difficulty, his fine voice being easily heard, but for the mere
joy of him. He was making visible to all, the forests and swamps and
malarious rivers to which he had never penetrated save with the eye of
vision and pity and compassion; and also the things that were being
done there for shareholders in a country calling itself Christian. He
gave chapter and verse: before him had come a speaker, fresh from the
district itself, with terrible lantern-slides, some showing life, many
more showing death. As a prelude to his peroration he demanded the last
of the slides, one that had been specially reserved for the occasion.
It appeared and a great gasp went through the audience; they sat so
silent for his concluding words, so motionless that actually not a pin
dropped. And after he had ended, for some seconds the silence lasted,
so deep was the emotion of his hearers. When he sat down he felt that
he had made the speech of his life.
His auditors apparently thought so too, having recovered they stood up
for five minutes to applaud, while Mr. Trimblerigg, feeling a little
faint but very happy, sat and drank water.
When silence was restored for the announcement of the next speaker--a
rather reluctant Archbishop had been captured for the occasion--a cold
staccato voice came from the back of the hall:
‘Is not the gentleman who has just spoken himself a shareholder in the
Puto-Congo Consolidation Company?’
A buzz of horrified consternation went sibilating from stalls to
gallery: the whole movement tottered to its base. Mr. Trimblerigg was
on his feet.
‘It’s a lie,’ he said; and to show that was the end of it, sat down
again.
The audience took a free breath and applauded.
Once more came the voice:
‘Does the speaker deny that he draws any profit from investment in the
forced labour of these unhappy natives?’ And again Mr. Trimblerigg was
on his feet.
‘Not one pound, not one penny, not one farthing. I would die rather.’
The applause at this was terrific. All heads turned towards the
interruption: lost in the dense crowd gathered at the back of the hall
it remained merely a voice.
There was a pause, the voice said: ‘I am quite satisfied. I was
misinformed.’
A sharp burst of laughter rang through the hall; and everybody was
happy again. Mr. Trimblerigg received another ovation; and when he rose
to reply to the vote of thanks the noise was deafening.
But though he replied beautifully and in moving terms, he was not at
ease. During the speech of the Archbishop he had sat thinking:
‘What shares remotely resembling the Puto-Congo Consolidated do I
possess? Whatever can the man have got hold of?’
Suddenly the words, ‘Native Industries Ltd.’ flashed into his mind.
Those shares paid him about fifty pounds a year, on an investment of
two hundred; and every year the directors sent him a reassuring report
of the well-being and prosperity of the natives in whose interests it
was run. But what had these to do with the Puto-Congo Consolidation
Company? He was not good at geography; beyond the fact that they both
hailed from the same continent he was aware of no possible connection.
All the same, as soon as the meeting was over he sped home in
trepidation, and after a short search through a fat bundle of small but
varied investments he found the share certificate he was in search of.
The sight of it froze him, as it had been the eye of Davidina fixed in
judgment: terror and desolation opened under him as a gulf into which
he descended alive. For though in the original certificate the name
of the Puto-Congo Consolidation Company was nowhere mentioned, the
certificate bore endorsement of a later date (he remembered faintly
sending it, at request, for that purpose) from which it appeared that
Native Industries had become affiliated--consolidated was perhaps the
awful and correct word--with certain other companies operating in the
same district, the Ray River Rubber Company being one of them: and
‘Ray River Rubber’ with its beautiful rolling sound had now acquired a
horrible familiarity to his ears; only that very night he had himself
rolled it upon his oratorical tongue, enjoying the rich flavour of it.
And though the name of the Puto-Congo Consolidated did not even now
appear, his certificate bore nevertheless that notorious official
stamp which he and the Free Churches had so fiercely held up to
scorn--a large adhesive label of embossed paper, blood red, bearing as
its emblem a white man and a black holding hands, and over them the
punning motto ‘Nihil alienum puto’--I hold nothing foreign.
How devoutly he wished that for him the motto could have been true. But
that he did hold this damnable and damning share in that commercial
atrocity which he had been denouncing, there was no longer room for
doubt. And how, in Heaven’s name, or the name of anything equally
incredible, how was he to explain it away?
That was the question which, for the next hour or two, he continued
putting to me with great fervour and insistency. I listened, but I
said nothing; for though I was much interested, I did not intend to
intervene. That is not my method. And so, while I paid due attention
to what he actually said, I let the nimbler speed of his brain for one
moment escape me; and was taken suddenly by surprise when I saw him
jump up from his knees and start into definite action.
During the next forty-eight hours the meteoric speed of his career, his
swift adjustment of means to ends, his varied and almost instantaneous
decisions, and above all the driving force of the moral arguments which
he addressed to those larger shareholders of Native Industries Limited
whom in so brief a time he succeeded in running to earth, all this gave
me a conception of his abilities to which, I confess, that till then I
had hardly done justice. Nor do I think the average reader could follow
through all its ramifications that inspired _sauve qui peut_, which, in
such short space of time, carried moral devastation to so many Free
Evangelical back-parlours--fortresses for all the virtues.
Suffice it that Mr. Trimblerigg, having obtained a complete list of
the shareholders in Native Industries Limited, discovered for truth
what his sanguine mind had envisaged as a blessed possibility--that
nearly half of the Company’s shares were actually in the hands of Free
Church ministers and of other prominent and privileged members of their
congregations, and that all unknown to itself the Free Evangelical
Body--that great instrument for the establishment of God’s Kingdom on
earth--had got one of its feet well planted in that very stronghold of
the Devil against which it was directing its assault--an awkward, or an
advantageous position according to the use made of it.
Mr. Trimblerigg, whose apprehension and anguish had been so great that
in the first ten hours after his discovery he could eat no breakfast,
had during the next ten, with travel, telegram, and telephone, done
such an enormous amount of work and to such good purpose, that before
the day was out he had begun almost to enjoy himself.
In that brief space of time he had captured not only the council of
the Free Church Congress, and three of its ex-Presidents, but the
President-elect and five of its most shining lights in the financial
world as well--men who had always maintained publicly that they held
their wealth as a sacred trust from the Powers above for the service of
humanity.
Now he showed them their chance. While the shares of the affiliated
companies in Puto-Congo Consolidated lay battered on the market,
opportunity for good Samaritans presented itself on a large scale.
For the preaching missionary, who also travelled for Native Industries
Limited, had done his agency thoroughly and well, and Mr. Trimblerigg’s
saving hopes were abundantly realized. Here they all were, almost
without knowing it--some not knowing it at all; others knowing it but
lying low, trusting that affiliation carried with it no responsibility
for the administrative acts of Puto-Congo Consolidated, and finding
much virtue in the difference of a name--here they all were in the
same box, and the lid of it suddenly opened like graves for the day of
judgment.
Yes, they were all in it; but, so Mr. Trimblerigg assured them, with
this important difference. They were there of set purpose and intent
like himself: had gone into it, for strategical reasons, with the sword
of the spirit, to prepare the way of the Lord and bring deliverance to
the oppressed. They heard from Mr. Trimblerigg how he had invested his
little all for that purpose alone, watching and waiting, with never
a penny of profit, biding his time for the great day of deliverance.
(He had, in fact, that very day, sold out all his other investments in
order to secure a yet larger holding for the confirmation of his case.)
They also, he had not a doubt, had invested for a like purpose--or if
not, were eager and willing to do so now that the time had come for
that purpose to be declared.
For here was the case; the Free Evangelical Church could now at a push
in a falling market obtain a shareholders’ majority in one of the most
important and prosperous companies which had come together under the
ægis of the Puto-Congo Consolidated: had, therefore, power to call and
control a special meeting of the shareholders for the reform--root,
branch, lock, stock and barrel--of the whole abominable system to which
it had become linked.
Free Church Presidents, Evangelical financiers, shining lights in the
Temperance movement, and others with reputations above suspicion,
listened, sat up, and were amazed; only too thankful in that dark
hour to have good motives so generously imputed to them and their way
of salvation made plain. Very few attempted to remain irresponsible,
incredulous, or indifferent; when they did, Mr. Trimblerigg launched
his attack, and their opposition wilted and crumbled. Nor did he mince
the inspired word which came to him: his brisk little figure sparkled
with flashes of divine fire, even as the wireless apparatus sparkles
with the message which descends to it from the outer air; and there to
hand was the circular appeal which within twenty-four hours would have
received the signatures of over a hundred Free Church ministers and
elders calling for an emergency meeting of the shareholders. At that
meeting the Puto-Congo atrocities would be denounced, and the present
Directors of the Company called on to resign and make room for others.
Native Industries Limited, by reason of its secured monopolies, held
the key to the position. Though small, it could impose its terms;
close its depots and landing-stages to proved abuse of contract by the
affiliated companies, and if it became a question of law, dare the
rest to come on; for now it would have the entire country behind it,
even, if need be, the power of Parliament. Let them blow their blast
loud and long enough, and the whole huge financial fabric of Puto-Congo
Consolidated which had sought to absorb them into identity with its
own guilty prosperity, would have to cleanse itself or go.
And as these reverend elders listened, and bent their heads for the
whitewash provided by Mr. Trimblerigg, there was the offered vision
before them of the great Free Church body, too long couchant in moneyed
ease, rising upon its hind legs at last, and uttering no meek lowing of
kine, but the combined roar and scream of the Lion and the Eagle--and
over them in feathers of silver and gold, the covering wings of the
Dove; and there was the Visionary himself wanting to know, here and
now, whether their voice would swell the chorus or only be raised in
futile opposition. That question received but one answer.
So, like fire through stubble, did Mr. Trimblerigg burn his way into
the consciences and fears of the Native Industries shareholders; and
by the time the sun had set upon the second day of his labours he knew
that he had won.
The next day a letter from the ‘Voice’--or from its informant--appeared
in the press challenging once more Mr. Trimblerigg’s publicly uttered
denial of having lot or share in the nefarious activities of Puto-Congo
Consolidated. The letter made no assertion, but presented a series of
neat interrogations--yes or no; and ended with the smooth reposeful
sneer of one certain of his facts.
Mr. Trimblerigg’s reply gave that dirty platter the clean lick it
required inside and out. In the Puto-Congo Consolidated he held no
shares at all: in the affiliated ‘Native Industries Limited’ he did
hold some, and since the meeting in question had succeeded in getting
hold of a few more.
His purpose, which together with others, he had been obliged hitherto
to conceal, lest the Puto-Congo Executive should get wind of it and
take steps to prevent, he could now declare. He did so resoundingly.
The same paper which contained his letter, contained notice of the
special meeting convened by its Free Church shareholders to purge the
Native Industries Limited of complicity in the Puto-Congo atrocities,
and to terminate all contracts forthwith. For himself Mr. Trimblerigg
had only to add that never, in the years of waiting for the power which
had now come to him, had he applied to his own use one penny of the
dividends he had received from Native Industries; all had been saved up
for a further investment when the moment should appear opportune. And
with that--facts speaking louder than words--his defence was complete.
A month later he held the special meeting of the Native Industries
shareholders in the hollow of his hand, and in a speech which the press
reported verbatim lashed the administration of the Chartered Company
of Puto-Congo Consolidated with a tongue like the whip of an inspired
slave-driver. Powerless in the face of numbers the opposition fell away
in panic; the conscience of the Free Churches asserted itself, all the
Directors resigned, and Mr. Trimblerigg and nine others, with clean
records like his own, were elected to their place. Two members of the
new Board proposed Mr. Trimblerigg to be chairman; and he was elected
without a dissentient voice.
Native Industries Limited was to be run henceforth on Christian lines,
and set an example to the world by earning for itself on those lines
larger profits than ever before. Mr. Trimblerigg was a consistently
sanguine soul; believing the shareholding system to be a device
well-pleasing to God, he believed it could be done. And so that night
he went home to his house justified, in beams of glory all of his own
making, very tired, but more satisfied with himself than he could ever
remember to have been before.