Knight of the East (10)

As anyone might have expected, the war of words at Downing Street soon leapt the short distance to the true jewel of the British Empire's intellect and politics: the Palace of Westminster in London.

Above the heads of the robed justices and the parliamentary guards, the Speaker rose from the highest seat in the chamber and began to read the address that contained the day's order of business.

As the Speaker's address rolled on, members of both the Liberal and Conservative benches nodded with grave, attentive faces. It was a rare and almost unnatural sight: every man in the chamber wore the look of someone prepared, for once, to bring the nation into a single mind. The usual bellowing, the wrangling, the pointed insults—none of it was present. Instead they sat in a courteous hush, settling their political and personal differences with nothing more than silence and a glance.

The subject itself was simple enough.

The question was whether Parliament would adopt, as a matter of national consensus, the report published by the Investigative Commission of the Republic of Korea on the correlation between opium cultivation in Qing China and the ranks of its addicts—and whether the Empire would formally receive that report as its own.

This was not, of course, a debate about whether the Commission's findings could be trusted. The great majority of the fiercely patriotic lords and commons already occupying those benches had grasped, quite early, that the whole affair was an exceedingly fortunate result for the Empire. They stood to lose nothing at all. If anything, it was as if they had been strolling along, idly watching the street, only to glance down and find a shilling lying in the road.

Here, at last, was the Empire's golden chance to shrug off a humiliating slander and the hostile stares of other nations.

There was, besides, even less reason to snub a civilized nation that had already signed treaties of amity with both France and the United States. The Revolutionary Government of the Republic of Korea had already addressed a courteous request to His Majesty's Foreign Office for an exchange of credentials, and was approaching, with genuine seriousness, the questions of a dispatched delegation and the reopening of an embassy.

It was a country that compared very favorably indeed with Qing China, whose officials were ordinarily arrogant, and whose work was forever snarled in the sloth and corruption peculiar to Oriental bureaucracy. The Gladstone Cabinet, for its part, wanted to use the occasion to catch its breath in the unnecessary Far Eastern rivalry with France; and once it had grasped that Manchuria and Liaodong were strategic ground lying uncomfortably close to Russia's Siberia, it even entertained plans for active cooperation in the three-power relationship.

If Korea ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠continued to prosecute its war against the Qing, and if French and American intervention grew still more timely, the gaze and the manners of British diplomats toward Korea would have no choice but to change. And so the shrewd Prime Minister Gladstone wished to invest in them now, while Korea's price was still low.

And if the royal household's deep interest and goodwill were already engaged, this was no longer a question that could be waved aside.

There remained, however, a single difficulty: the adoption of the report, and the process by which it would be received. Having laid out all the preceding flourishes, the Speaker at last came to the point.

When the Speaker's long recitation was finished, members who had applied in advance for the floor rose in turn from every corner of the House and poured out their views.

"I oppose! To adopt as a document of consequence to the executive a report that has not even been verified by our own learned societies and research institutes is a thing that cannot be permitted!"

"And yet the war in the Far East is still being fought. Even as we sit here wagging our tongues, countless innocent civilians are groaning under the oppression of opium addicts and mounted bandits."

"The selection of domestic specialist bodies and investigators is itself a serious question. We must first inquire whether the institutions that would examine those men are trustworthy—or whether they enjoy some cozy arrangement with a particular party or constituency."

"What matters most is how we shall handle compensation and petition for the unjust and grievous slander our country has borne these past five-and-thirty years…"

"If we insist on processing every last thing by the book, it may take years! And the key to the present crisis is being held on the other side of the earth!"

There remained a thicket of unnecessary and exacting procedures—consultations still owed to the Royal Society and to the distinguished specialist institutions and professors of the realm—but the real contest was whether to rush those procedures through as emergency legislation, under a temporary statute justified by the special status and circumstances of the hour.

Not a single man, however, opposed the proposition that the British Empire ought to extract its compensation. Nor did anyone oppose the proposition that Qing China must be held to account for the crime, and for the false news it had spread to obscure that crime. In other words, even the stiff-necked and tedious gentlemen of the Parliament of the United Kingdom had tacitly agreed to devour the Far Eastern investigative report—that document which might serve as the Empire's indulgence, or as its petition against infamy—and to wield it as a weapon with which to press the Qing.

The vote was settled in a moment. There was no need even to bring out the ballot boxes. The instant the Speaker called for a show of hands, members casting their votes in favour rose from their seats in a rustling wave. Here and there a few Conservatives, or the more rigid and principled among the Liberals, still grumbled about unfairness and procedure—but public sentiment in the House had long since tipped hard toward the ayes.

"Excellent!"

"This is our chance to teach those coolies some manners!"

"At last we may throw off the wretched slander that has dogged the Empire for decades!"

And so the reports compiled by the Investigative Commission of the Republic of Korea—on the circulation of opium and the condition of addicts within Qing China, and on the suppression of mounted bandits and the burning of opium dens in the districts under military administration—were formally adopted as official investigative material of the Gladstone administration.

In that warm and companionable atmosphere, the Speaker at once began to read the next address. The mood of the House plunged into the gutter almost immediately.

"Another tax hike? You damned Demon King of Taxation!"

"Gladstone the Tax Demon, resign!"

"If you swell an already bloated naval budget yet again, what becomes of the economy?"

"Silence, all of you! The Speaker has the floor!"

"You traitors! Have you forgotten how this Empire won the glory it enjoys today—"

The Cabinet, seizing upon a campaign in Indochina that had already widened into a war of considerable scale, was arguing for the formation of a new fleet—the better to display, beyond any doubt, the Empire's influence in the Far East, and to reconsider its relationships there.

"The Admiralty strongly advocates the formation of a provisional fleet of fifteen vessels in all, built around the HMS Raleigh-class escorts and the Everon-class armored ships."

At the First Lord's words, the Liberal benches in the Commons surged to their feet.

"Fifteen ships? Damn it, they've all gone mad!"

"Do you take us for a piggy bank? You think if you tell us to hand over the money we'll just trot it out?"

"Have you all forgotten there's a slump on? Do you even know what a sack of flour costs this minute?"

"It's an agricultural depression, I tell you!"

Conservative members ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠joined them, as did those whose constituencies lay in the poorer quarters and in neighborhoods packed with working people; they too cast their votes against. This increase in the estimates was excessive—far too excessive.

"A quite extravagant enlargement of the budget. I suspect the Cabinet has some other design in mind."

"I share the suspicion."

"This has the look of a capital-improvement scheme being smuggled through under the pretext of a naval increase."

However much they dressed the proposal as a matter of imperial prestige and a means of pressing the Qing, the addition and reorganization of a fleet on the scale of fifteen warships was the sort of thing one did when one meant to go to war.

"The French Far East Squadron itself barely exceeds thirty vessels, does it not?"

"Mmm. Quite so."

Anyone who remembered that France had at present deployed a Far East Squadron of thirty-three ships in all would have to concede that fifteen was an unreasonable figure. Confronted with such fierce opposition, the First Lord flushed, rose, and left the chamber. Gladstone, who had watched it all in silence, at last stood up from his seat.

"Honourable members."

The voice was full of force, and of backbone. Every eye in the House turned toward the one instrument that might yet quiet the storm—and in that man's hand was a telegram of a kind not yet familiar to British parliamentarians. When he had the attention of every member, Gladstone allowed himself a faint smile and opened his mouth with an air of complete confidence.

"I never dreamed such an opportunity would come to me. But today I may find myself obliged to utter the very same words spoken, a few months ago, by Premier Jules Ferry of the French Republic."

Question marks bloomed on every face. Jules Ferry? Why on earth would you be imitating the king frog among those frogs?

Into the midst of that bewilderment, Gladstone raised his hand.

"Gentlemen. Be so good as to look at this."

He was holding up that same small sheet of telegraph paper from a moment before, something written ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠upon it in a dense, crowded hand. Beaming, he shook it with the fervor of a man waving a bouquet, and thundered in a voice that filled the chamber.

"I too have received a telegram—from the Far East!"

"Ah—"

They all saw it. In the space of a few short seconds they grasped what it meant, and they were on the very point of crying out—when Gladstone struck first. Today's protagonist, after all, was himself.

The words were scarcely out of his mouth before the great gentlemen of the proud British Empire erupted in praise of the proper request, and the proper decision, of the Government of the Republic of Korea. Their own splendid nickname—the Mediator of Europe—had clearly traveled even to that distant Far East. Of that, they were quite certain.

On the other side of the ocean, however, there existed a country that, at the mere mention of the word tax, reached first for the shotgun hung above the bed. Its name, as we all well know, was the United States of America.

Washington—symbol of revolution and liberty upon the American continent—was in an uproar again today.

"President Cleveland must appear before Congress and explain himself! A secret agreement, at the very start of his term!"

The Three-Nation Economic Cooperation Treaty, the Security Accord for Peace in the Far East, and beyond those the Emergency Financial Support Act for Postwar Reconstruction—the Senate and the House were thoroughly enraged at an executive that kept shoving through every manner of bizarre appropriation and tax-raising bill.

The opposition members, as if they had made up their minds to it, turned arrogant faces upon the ruling party and the department secretaries in attendance, veins standing out in their necks as they roared.

"A secret agreement! This is a blatant abuse of authority!"

"We must convene a hearing, appoint investigators, and drag the executive's intentions into the light!"

"This is an outrage by the President and the majority! A tax hike in the first year of the term!"

"Cleveland the liar, resign!"

One senator, wearing an expression of exquisite discomfort, stabbed a finger toward President Cleveland, who had come to address the Congress. A senior member of the majority rose at once to rebut him.

"Now hold on. Why should the successor be held responsible for the mess the predecessor left behind? This was a measure the previous President and his administration had already finished—nothing left but the final signature!"

"Secret agreement, my foot! You were the ones who issued the executive orders and then, like a pack of cheapskates, put off the actual payment!"

In truth, the present President Cleveland had every right to feel wronged. The tax bill, the secret agreement with the newly born Republic of Korea, the emergency financial support, the Marine Corps development project—every last one of them had been the handiwork of his predecessor, Chester Arthur. All Cleveland had done was put his name to documents in which the previous occupant of the office had already completed his notifications to Congress and to the departments.

As proof, the majority leader, who had come prepared with a digest of the policies and campaign slogans Chester Arthur and the then-opposition had brandished during the last election, raised his voice.

"The Asiatic-Pacific Fleet was the policy Chester used to boast about! You all know that!"

"And when was it you crowed that the increase in that fleet's budget was your achievement? The minute our side takes power it's nothing but thuggery—thuggery, I say!"

"You damned continentalists! Wipe the spit off your lips before you start lying!"

But the opposition members, united in that thoroughly American spirit of if the other fellow does it, it's adultery; if I do it, it's romance, and understanding the golden rule of putting oneself in another's shoes strictly in reverse, pretended not to hear a word. They jeered and shouted over him.

"But you raised taxes, didn't you? You scattered a million dollars in emergency funds like water, didn't you? And now that you say you're going to win the war, you're throwing a tantrum about dispatching the Marines as well?"

"Members! Governors! The tax and the budget are not what matter! That virgin soil in Asia holds boundless potential—it will be a new gold rush! In time this will be a vital question we must share with our allied nations…"

"Are the corporations your fools? Every time you turn around it's a tax hike, and the minute you slap levies and sanctions on them in the name of monopoly it's central-government dictatorship!"

"Come on, let's take a bite of Manchuria ourselves!"

"Gentlemen, compose yourselves—compose yourselves—!"

And in the midst of that chaotic world, President Cleveland, who of late had begun to feel a profound skepticism toward democracy, let out a long and heavy sigh.