When William Came | Page 9

is a clipped and
pruned-down shadow of its former self, with most of its functions in
abeyance; when the elections were held it was difficult to get decent
candidates to come forward or to get people to vote. It makes one smile
bitterly to think that a year or two ago we were seriously squabbling as
to who should have votes. And, of course, the old party divisions have
more or less crumbled away. The Liberals naturally are under the
blackest of clouds, for having steered the country to disaster, though to
do them justice it was no more their fault than the fault of any other
party. In a democracy such as ours was the Government of the day
must more or less reflect the ideas and temperament of the nation in all
vital matters, and the British nation in those days could not have been
persuaded of the urgent need for military apprenticeship or of the
deadly nature of its danger. It was willing now and then to be
half-frightened and to have half-measures, or, one might better say,
quarter-measures taken to reassure it, and the governments of the day
were willing to take them, but any political party or group of statesmen
that had said 'the danger is enormous and immediate, the sacrifices and
burdens must be enormous and immediate,' would have met with
certain defeat at the polls. Still, of course, the Liberals, as the party that
had held office for nearly a decade, incurred the odium of a people
maddened by defeat and humiliation; one Minister, who had had less
responsibility for military organisation than perhaps any of them, was
attacked and nearly killed at Newcastle, another was hiding for three
days on Exmoor, and escaped in disguise."
"And the Conservatives?"
"They are also under eclipse, but it is more or less voluntary in their

case. For generations they had taken their stand as supporters of Throne
and Constitution, and when they suddenly found the Constitution gone
and the Throne filled by an alien dynasty, their political orientation had
vanished. They are in much the same position as the Jacobites occupied
after the Hanoverian accession. Many of the leading Tory families have
emigrated to the British lands beyond the seas, others are shut up in
their country houses, retrenching their expenses, selling their acres, and
investing their money abroad. The Labour faction, again, are almost in
as bad odour as the Liberals, because of having hob-nobbed too
effusively and ostentatiously with the German democratic parties on
the eve of the war, exploiting an evangel of universal brotherhood
which did not blunt a single Teuton bayonet when the hour came. I
suppose in time party divisions will reassert themselves in some form
or other; there will be a Socialist Party, and the mercantile and
manufacturing interests will evolve a sort of bourgeoise party, and the
different religious bodies will try to get themselves represented--"
Yeovil made a movement of impatience.
"All these things that you forecast," he said, "must take time,
considerable time; is this nightmare, then, to go on for ever?"
"It is not a nightmare, unfortunately," said the doctor, "it is a reality."
"But, surely--a nation such as ours, a virile, highly-civilised nation with
an age-long tradition of mastery behind it, cannot be held under for
ever by a few thousand bayonets and machine guns. We must surely
rise up one day and drive them out."
"Dear man," said the doctor, "we might, of course, at some given
moment overpower the garrison that is maintained here, and seize the
forts, and perhaps we might be able to mine the harbours; what then? In
a fortnight or so we could be starved into unconditional submission.
Remember, all the advantages of isolated position that told in our
favour while we had the sea dominion, tell against us now that the sea
dominion is in other hands. The enemy would not need to mobilise a
single army corps or to bring a single battleship into action; a fleet of
nimble cruisers and destroyers circling round our coasts would be
sufficient to shut out our food supplies."
"Are you trying to tell me that this is a final overthrow?" said Yeovil in
a shaking voice; "are we to remain a subject race like the Poles?"
"Let us hope for a better fate," said the doctor. "Our opportunity may

come if the Master Power is ever involved in an unsuccessful naval war
with some other nation, or perhaps in some time of European crisis,
when everything hung in the balance, our latent hostility might have to
be squared by a concession of independence. That is what we have to
hope for and watch for. On the other hand, the conquerors have to
count on time and tact to weaken and finally