The Forsyte Saga Volume 2(179)

‘What are they up to now?’ said Michael.

‘Nothing for the moment; but it’s brewing. One sees in Lockit the futility of will-power. He’s not going to have what it’s entirely out of his power to prevent. He’d like to break Labour and make it work like a nigger from sheer necessity. Before that we shall be having civil war. Some of the Labour people, of course, are just as had – they want to break everybody. It’s a bee nuisance. If we’re all to be plunged into industrial struggles again, how are we to get on with Foggartism?’

‘I’ve been thinking about the country,’ said Michael. ‘Aren’t we beating the air, Blythe? Is it any good telling a man who’s lost a lung that what he wants is a new one?’

Mr Blythe puffed out one cheek.

‘Yes,’ he said, ‘the country had a hundred very settled years – Waterloo to the War – to get into its present state; it’s got its line of life so fixed and its habits so settled that nobody – neither editors, politicians nor business men – can think except in terms of its bloated town industrialism. The country’s got beyond the point of balance in that hundred settled years, and it’ll want fifty settled years to get back to that point again. The real trouble is that we’re not going to get fifty settled years. Some bee thing or other – war with Turkey or Russia, trouble in India, civil ructions, to say nothing of another general flare-up – may knock the bottom out of any settled plans at any time. We’ve struck a disturbed patch of history, and we know it in our bones, and live from hand to mouth, according.’

‘Well, then!’ said Michael glumly, thinking of what the Minister had said to him at Lippinghall.

Mr Blythe puffed out the other cheek.

‘No backsliding, young man! In Foggartism we have the best goods we can see before us, and we must bee well deliver them, as best we can. We’ve outgrown all the old hats.’

‘Have you seen Aubrey Greene’s cartoon?’

‘I have.’

‘Good – isn’t it? But what I really came in to tell you is that this beastly libel case of ours will be on next week.’

Mr Blythe’s ears moved.

‘I’m sorry for that. Win or lose – nothing’s worse for public life than private ructions. You’re not going to have it, are you?’

‘We can’t help it. But our defence is to be confined to an attack on the new morality.’

‘One can’t attack what isn’t,’ said Mr Blythe.

‘D’you mean to say,’ said Michael, grinning, ‘that you haven’t noticed the new morality?’

‘Certainly not. Formulate it if you can.’

‘“Don’t be stupid, don’t be dull.”’

Mr Blythe grunted. ‘The old morality used to be: “Behave like a gentleman.”’

‘Yes! But in modern thought there ain’t no sich an animal.’

‘There are fragments lying about; they reconstructed Neanderthal man from half a skull.’

‘A word that’s laughed at can’t be used, Blythe.’

‘Ah! said Mr Blythe. ‘The chief failings of your generation, young Mont, are sensitiveness to ridicule and terror of being behind the times. It’s bee weak-minded.’

Michael grinned.

‘I know it. Come down to the House. Parsham’s Electrification Bill is due. We may get some lights on Unemployment.’

Having parted from Mr Blythe in the Lobby, Michael came on his father walking down a corridor with a short bright old man in a trim grey beard.

‘Ah! Michael, we’ve been seeking you. Marquess, my hopeful son! The marquess wants to interest you in electricity.’

Michael removed his hat.

‘Will you come to the reading-room, my lord?’

This, as he knew, was Marjorie Ferrar’s grandfather, and might be useful. In a remote corner of a room lighted so that nobody could see anyone else reading, they sat down in triangular formation.

‘You know about electricity, Mr Mont?’ said the marquess.

‘No, sir, except that more of it would be desirable in this room.’

‘Everywhere, Mr Mont. I’ve read about your Foggartism; if you’ll allow me to say so, it’s quite possibly the policy of the future; but nothing will be done with it till you’ve electrified the country. I should like you to start by supporting this Bill of Parsham’s.’

And, with an engaging distinction of syllable, the old peer proceeded to darken Michael’s mind.

‘I see, sir,’ said Michael at last. ‘This Bill ought to add considerably to Unemployment.’

‘Temporarily.’