"I see two broad courses open," replied Tirrel, without any hesitation in accepting the challenge. "Both, as you will readily say, have their disadvantages, but neither is so fatal as inaction. The first is aggressive. The Unity League has declared war on us. Very well, let it have war. I would propose to suspend the _habeas corpus_, arrest Hampden and Salt, declare the object and existence of the Unity League illegal, close its offices and confiscate its funds. There are between five and ten million pounds somewhere. Do you reflect what that would do? It would at least keep two hundred thousand out-of-work miners from actual starvation for a year. Prompt action would inevitably kill the boycott movement at home. The foreign taxes, my comrades, you would probably find to have a very marked, though perhaps undiscoverable, connection with the home movement, and when the latter was seen to be effectually dealt with, I venture to predict that the former could be compromised. If the confiscated funds were not sufficient to meet the distress, I should not hesitate to requisition for State purposes in a time of national emergency all incomes above a certain figure in a clean sweep." A medley of cries met this despotic programme throughout. Even Tirrel's friends felt that he was throwing away his reputation; and he had more enemies than friends. "You'd simply make the situation twice as involved," exclaimed Mr Vossit as the mouthpiece of the babel. "The liberty of the subject! It would mean civil war. They'd rise." "Who would rise?" demanded Tirrel. "The privileged classes." "But they _have_ risen," he declared vehemently. "This _is_ civil war. What more do you want?" It was a question on which they all had views, and for the next five minutes the room was full of suggestions, not of what they themselves wanted, but of what would be the probable action of the classes if driven to extremities. "Very well," assented Tirrel at last; "that is what they will do next as it is, for they consider that they are in extremities." "Well, comrade," said Mr Bilch broadly, "you don't seem to have put your money on a winner this event. What's your other tip?"