t,
while they submitted to their fleecing, the entire break-up of all
society would have followed. But the long series of years during which
the workmen had learned to despise their rulers, had done away with their
dependence upon them, and they were now beginning to trust (somewhat
dangerously, as events proved) in the non-legal leaders whom events had
thrust forward; and though most of these were now become mere
figure-heads, their names and reputations were useful in this crisis as a
stop-gap.

"The effect of the news, therefore, of the release of the Committee gave
the Government some breathing time: for it was received with the greatest
joy by the workers, and even the well-to-do saw in it a respite from the
mere destruction which they had begun to dread, and the fear of which
most of them attributed to the weakness of the Government. As far as the
passing hour went, perhaps they were right in this."

"How do you mean?" said I. "What could the Government have done? I
often used to think that they would be helpless in such a crisis."

Said old Hammond: "Of course I don't doubt that in the long run matters
would have come about as they did. But if the Government could have
treated their army as a real army, and used them strategically as a
general would have done, looking on the people as a mere open enemy to be
shot at and dispersed wherever they turned up, they would probably have
gained the victory at the time."

"But would the soldiers have acted against the people in this way?" said
I.

Said he: "I think from all I have heard that they would have done so if
they had met bodies of men armed however badly, and however badly they
had been organised. It seems also as if before the Trafalgar Square
massacre they might as a whole have been depended upon to fire upon an
unarmed crowd, though they were much honeycombed by Socialism. The
reason for this was that they dreaded the use by apparently unarmed men
of an explosive called dynamite, of which many loud boasts were made by
the workers on the eve of these events; although it turned out to be of
little use as a material for war in the way that was expected. Of course
the officers of the soldiery fanned this fear to the utmost, so that the
rank and file probably thought on that occasion that they were being led
into a desperate battle with men who were really armed, and whose weapon
was the more dreadful, because it was concealed. After that massacre,
h