Short Plays

Downing Street to the War Office is by assuming this disguise; shrieking “Votes for Women”; and chaining himself to your doorscraper. They were at the corner in force. They cheered me. Bellachristina herself was there. She shook my hand and told me to say I was a vegetarian, as the diet was better in Holloway for vegetarians. Mitchener Why didn’t you telephone? Balsquith They tap the telephone. Every switchboard in London is in their hands, or in those of their young men. Mitchener Where on earth did you get the dress? I hope it’s not a French dress! Balsquith Great heavens, no. We’re not allowed even to put on our gloves with French chalk. Everything’s labelled “Made in Camberwell.” Mitchener As a Tariff Reformer, I must say “Quite right.” Balsquith has a strong controversial impulse and is evidently going to dispute this profession of faith. No matter. Don’t argue. What have you come for? Balsquith Sandstone has resigned. Mitchener Amazed. Old Red resigned! Balsquith Resigned. Mitchener But how? Why? Oh, impossible! the proclamation of martial law last Tuesday made Sandstone virtually Dictator in the metropolis, and to resign now is flat desertion. Balsquith Yes, yes, my dear Mitchener; I know all that as well as you do: I argued with him until I was black in the face, and he so red about the neck that if I had gone on he would have burst. He is furious because we have abandoned his plan. Mitchener But you accepted it unconditionally. Balsquith Yes, before we knew what it was. It was unworkable, you know. Mitchener I don’t know. Why is it unworkable? Balsquith I mean the part about drawing a cordon round Westminster at a distance of two miles, and turning all women out of it. Mitchener A masterpiece of strategy. Let me explain. The suffragettes are a very small body; but they are numerous enough to be troublesome⁠—even dangerous⁠—when they are all concentrated in one place⁠—say in Parliament Square. But by making a two-mile radius and pushing them beyond it, you scatter their attack over a circular line twelve miles long. A superb piece of tactics. Just what Wellington would have done. Balsquith But the women won’t go. Mitchener Nonsense: they must go. Balsquith They won’t. Mitchener What does Sandstone say? Balsquith He says: Shoot them down. Mitchener Of course. Balsquith You’re not serious? Mitchener I’m perfectly serious. Balsquith But you can’t shoot them down! Women, you know! Mitchener Straddling confidently. Yes you can. Strange as it may seem to you as a civilian, Balsquith, if you point a rifle at a woman and fire it, she will drop exactly as a man drops. Balsquith But suppose your own daughters⁠—Helen and Georgina⁠— Mitchener My daughters would not dream of disobeying the proclamation. As an afterthought. At least Helen wouldn’t. Balsquith But Georgina? Mitchener Georgina would if she knew she’d be shot if she didnt. That’s how the thing would work. Military methods are really the most merciful in the end. You keep sending these misguided women to Holloway and killing them slowly and inhumanely by ruining their health; and it does no good: they go on worse than ever. Shoot a few, promptly and humanely; and there will be an end at once of all resistance and of all the suffering that resistance entails. Balsquith But public opinion would never stand it. Mitchener Walking about and laying down the law. There’s no such thing as public opinion. Balsquith No such thing as public opinion!! Mitchener Absolutely no such thing. There are certain persons who entertain certain opinions. Well, shoot them down. When you have shot them down, there are no longer any persons entertaining those opinions alive, consequently there is no longer any more of the public opinion you are so much afraid of. Grasp that fact, my dear Balsquith; and you have grasped the secret of government. Public opinion is mind. Mind is inseparable from matter. Shoot down the matter and you kill the mind. Balsquith But hang it all⁠— Mitchener Intolerantly. No I won’t hang it all. It’s no use coming to me and talking about public opinion. You have put yourself into the hands of the army; and you are committed to military methods. And the basis of all military methods is that when people won’t do what they are told to do, you shoot them down. Balsquith Oh, yes; it’s all jolly fine for you and Old Red. You don’t depend on votes for your places. What do you suppose would happen at the next election? Mitchener Have no next election. Bring in a Bill at once repealing all the Reform Acts and vesting the Government in a properly trained magistracy responsible only to a Council of War. It answers perfectly in India. If anyone objects, shoot him down. Balsquith But none of the members of my party would be on the Council of War. Neither should I. Do you expect us to vote for making ourselves nobodies? Mitchener You’ll have to, sooner or later, or the Socialists will make nobodies of the lot of you by collaring every penny you possess. Do you suppose this damned democracy can be allowed to go on now that the mob is beginning to take it seriously and using its power to lay hands on property? Parliament must abolish itself. The Irish parliament voted for its own extinction. The English parliament will do the same if the same means are taken to persuade it. Balsquith That would cost a lot of money. Mitchener Not money necessarily. Bribe them with titles. Balsquith Do you think we dare? Mitchener Scornfully. Dare! Dare! What is life but daring, man? “To dare, to dare, and again to dare”⁠— Female Voice in the Street Votes for Women! Mitchener, revolver in hand, rushes to the door and locks it. Balsquith hides under the table. Votes for Women! A shot is heard. Balsquith Emerging in the greatest alarm. Good heavens, you haven’t given orders to fire on them: have you? Mitchener No; but it’s a sentinel’s duty to fire on anyone who persists in attempting to pass without giving the word. Balsquith Wiping his brow. This military business is really awful. Mitchener Be