Unclouded Summer by Alec Waugh Read Free Book Online Page A

these successivedramas were men and women whom they were encountering in the ordinary conduct of their existence. He had discussed public events as they were reported in the papers not as they were actually lived over lunch tables, in committee rooms and week-end house parties.
    â€˜I saw Poincaré as I came through Park,” Sir Henry said. “It was the day the franc touched 240. He said an interesting thing. ‘This is our equivalent to your general strike,’ he said. ‘You are a country that depends on the maintenance of your social structure. We are a country that depends on the maintenance of our domestic economics. If the franc were to collapse the basis of our family life would follow it. Exactly as your way of life would have been destroyed if a section of the community had been able to dictate to the majority. We’ve both got the same issue at the same time in a different way. Baldwin broke the strike, it’s up to me to save the franc.’” Sir Henry paused, then turned to Francis. “I don’t think you in your country have had any equivalent for those two situations.”
    Francis had been too interested in what was being said to interject any opinions of his own, but he was flattered at having his opinion asked.
    â€œWe had a small slump just after the war,” he said. “But then I think every country had, it was a question of readjustment; war shortages had been made good and we were overproducing. Now that we’ve got our supply adjusted to our demand, everything seems to be moving smoothly. After all,” he hesitated, he did not want to boast, “the war didn’t affect us in the way that it affected Europe; we weren’t involved in it to the same extent. We were naturally able to get into our stride more quickly afterwards.”
    He looked towards Lord Ambrose as he spoke. Lord Ambrose nodded.
    â€œI know you were, but I’m not at all certain that you won’t find in the long run that the war hasn’t had every bit as dynamic an effect on you as it has on us and France. The war converted you in a very short time from being one of the creditor nations of the world into being the creditor nation of the world. It gave you a position of unchallenged supremacy fifty years earlier than you would ordinarily have earned it.”
    â€œDoes that matter much?”
    â€œIt’s always dangerous when power comes to anyone before he’s completely ready for it.”
    â€œDo you think we’re going to misuse it then?”
    It was not said contentiously, but Sir Henry clearly considered it prudent to intervene. He amplified Francis’ previous question. “You’d surely say, wouldn’t you, that at the moment the barometer stands set fair for the world in general; the franc stabilized, the general strike settled, the Germans meeting us amicably at conferences.”
    But again Ambrose shook his head. “I don’t like victories that are too complete. They leave resentment on the other side. The British Trade Unionists were humiliated, so was Germany. It’s dangerous to leave a heritage of rancor.”
    That was a point which Francis was in a position to confirm. He had been in Berlin during the general strike. Most of the young painters whom he had seen there had been advanced left-wing. They had gloated over the news from England. This was what Trotsky had prophesied. The start of the world revolution. When, however, the news of the strike’s failure had come through, their disappointment had been occasioned less by the immediate failure of Trotsky’s prophecy than by the spectacle of the continued supremacy of a detested rival.
    Sir Henry nodded When Francis told him that. “We’ve handled the Germans the wrong way. We should either have crushed them utterly as the French wanted or we should have treated them as friends at once, bolstering up their pride by telling them that they had not