"I don't suppose I shouted and screamed enough to please him," he said; "but the fact is, I do not think he is necessarily omniscient, nor that he will be Prime Minister at the age of twenty-four. However, I preached the gospel."
"Talk to me while you eat," she said. "I am getting swept into the vortex, too; this evening we talked about nothing but politics."
"I shall enjoy it. I think people believe in you, Jack."
"The point is that they should believe what I say. It doesn't matter about me."
"Indeed it does. It is you who make them believe it. Besides--well, go on."
"Well, I told them that I thought both Conservatives and Liberals were doing quite wrong in making the South African affair, except in so far as it was a test of our efficiency, the cry of the election. It has been the fashion to speak of it as a great war. It is nothing of the kind, though it is perfectly true that, owing to our own hopeless mistakes, we brought it very near to being a most disastrous war, if not a war fatal to the Empire. Young Campbell's face fell rapidly as I spoke."
"The audience were not too pleased, either; but somehow, Marie, and for the first time, I did not care a rap. You have often told me that I speak without conviction. It is quite true; I believe what I say without feeling it. But to-night I felt it, and I knew I could make them feel it. I had them in my hand, and at first I carefully rubbed them up the wrong way. I went through the disasters of December, 1899--Stormberg, Magersfontein, Colenso. I pointed out that most of these could have been saved, if we had only been decently prepared, instead of going into the war in a blind and idiotic manner, as if the fact of our being the British Empire made it impious and profane for any one to attempt to withstand or, even worse, check us. I touched every sore place that I could put my finger on. Once I thought I had gone too far, for a man shouted out: 'Turn the--well, horrid Radical out!' And having, as well as I could, pulled our policy to bits, I proceeded to pluck the army itself. I assure you there was hardly a feather left on it. Doesn't all this bore you?"
Jack got up, having finished his meal, and stood beside her.
"And then quite suddenly I assured them that the Empire was far the soundest concern in the world. Well, it may seem conceited, Marie, but it is the fact, that I had them so much in hand by then that a huge sigh of relief went round the hall. I never felt so flattered. But short of that I said everything was about as wrong as it could be. What is wanted is not amiable and excellent noblemen, who talk a great deal and are excessively polite, but people who just work, do things and not say them, pay no attention to party politics whatever--that can be done by the rank and file, all those who get into Parliament simply in order to talk--and buckle to, guided entirely by experts, and insist on having men and officers, mind you, properly trained, given proper guns to handle, and made to use their heads. We have, I believe, the best material in the world out of which to make the army we need. But it is raw, it is untrained; it is no more an army than sheep's wool is a coat. And it was their first duty, I told them, to vote for the Government which they thought would best put the House in order. This was a Conservative meeting, I reminded them, but I would sooner that every man in it voted Liberal than that he should, merely because he was accustomed to call himself a Conservative, vote Conservative, if he believed that the Liberals would be more likely to put these necessary reforms into effect. Then I came down hammer and tongs with Rule, Britannia; there should be only one party in our great, our happy and glorious island, the Party of Efficiency. Efficiency is our first need. I concluded with some amiable remarks about Campbell."