sequence of this the formal reports of the various departments
became a lengthy business; and the really important matters, to discuss
which the Council had been specially called, were proportionally
delayed.

Presently the word "strikes" caught his ear.

"Ah, yes, what about those strikes?" he inquired.

"They are still going on, your Majesty."

"Yes, _I_ know that! Why are they going on--that's what I want to know?
The strike you are talking about was practically over more than a month
ago; why has it begun again?"

"They have secured fresh funds, sir, and other trades have joined in."

"Is it the other trades that are finding the funds?"

"Not entirely, sir; large contributions are now coming in from abroad."

"From abroad?" interjected the King irritably, "where are they getting
funds from abroad?"

"From England, sir."

"From the Government, do you mean?"

"Of course not from the Government, sir."

"Well, explain yourself, then! Don't call it England if it isn't
England."

"I might almost say that it is England, sir, since a judicial decision
is the immediate cause of it. Labor in that country has just won a very
important action for damages arising out of a Crown prosecution. It has
now been decided that the Crown is responsible for the torts of its
civil and military agents. The unions in consequence are flush with
funds, and a portion of the Court's award, amounting to L50,000, has
been handed over to the strike fund in this country."

"And this subsidy from a foreign and a so-called friendly Power is
having the effect of prolonging our industrial conflicts, and is doing
damage to our trade?"

"Undoubtedly, sir, it has that effect."

"Well, and has nothing been said about it--to the English Government, I
mean?"

"It is not a direct act of the Government, sir."

"I don't need to be told that," said the King. "Neither was it a direct
act of the Government when a party of English undergraduates climbed to
the top of our embassy and hauled down the national flag because
Jingalese had been made a compulsory substitute for Greek at their
universities. But for that the English Government apologized, publicly
and privately, and all round. Do they apologize for this? Do they offer
to compensate us for the loss it is to our trade and the corresponding
gain to theirs? Have they been asked to apologize?"

"Certainly not, sir."

"And pray, why not?"

By this time, around the ministerial board, muc