h open-eyed interrogation
was going on. Where, they seemed to be asking, was this glut of foolish
interrogations going to end? But still the minister under examination
endeavored to answer as though the questions were reasonable.

"There would be no chance, sir, of obtaining any redress."

"Yet this is doing us infinitely more harm?"

"It is merely a development, sir, of that new thing called
'syndicalism.' It is cropping up everywhere now."

"It may be new as it likes," protested the King. "All I say is that as
it stands it is a casus belli. You say it is cropping up; all the more
reason why it should be put down! What else is government for? Take
cattle disease; you put that down, you do not allow that to be imported.
Why should you allow syndicalism to be imported either?"

The Council sought resignation of spirit in sighs and looked to its
Chief in mute appeal.

"How would your Majesty propose to prevent the importation of ideas?"
inquired the Prime Minister dryly, in a tone that tried to be patient.

"Don't tell me," said the King, "that a syndicalist subsidy to Labor of
L50,000 is only an idea. But you are quite right, Mr. Prime Minister; in
the past countries have gone to war largely over the importation of
ideas, as you call them, either religious or social; that is why they
failed. England went to war with France at the end of the eighteenth
century merely because France was importing revolutionary ideas into
England. Was she able to prevent it? No; she only got the disease in a
much more virulent form herself, and has been running tandem to it ever
since. It is no use going to war for sentimental reasons; you must do it
for business reasons, and you must do it in a business-like way."

"Merely as a matter of business, sir," said the Prime Minister, his
hopefulness now on a descending scale, "war with England would cost us
considerably more than the loss of trade occasioned by this subsidy
which you complain of."

"Not a bit of it!" retorted the King, "not if you went the right way to
work. The Chancellor was saying just now that we should have to devise
some fresh taxes. Well, put a tax on Englishmen; quite enough of them
come here to make it worth while. Every summer the place is alive with
them!"

"I am afraid, sir," said the Prime Minister, sighing wearily, "that the
most favored nation clause stands in the way of your Majesty's brilliant
suggestion."

"Not if we do it openly as an act of war,"