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 local Departments of Labour and for increasing the influence of trade union control on the current activity of the Department of Labour in the centre as well as on the periphery. All the responsible workers of the Labour Commissariat must be elected at the congresses or conferences of Trade Unions. A preliminary consideration of all questions of principle affecting labour must take place at joint meetings of the Executive (or general meeting) of the trade unions and the head (or the board) of the Department of Labour before any decision can be arrived at."

These relations between the trade unions and a Department of the Soviet Government show that: (1) the state regulation of wages and the standardisation of labour is the exclusive function of the trade union, (2) in defining the conditions of labour the organs of the Soviet Government—the Commissariats of Labour—carry out in their entirety the instructions of the trade unions. In this connection one must observe the following: as the fixing of wages and the standardisation of labour is entirely the function of the trade unions, it is irrational to have another special organ to sanction its decisions; we get a parallelism in the work, and as we abolished organs created by the trade unions which were doing similar work to that done by Soviet organs so it is necessary to abolish Soviet organs which are doing work similar to that of the trade unions. The increased control and the further subordination of the Commissariat of Labour to the trade unions must lead to the practical abolition of the Commissariat of Labour, and to the transfer of its functions to the respective trade unions. After the practical abolition of this Department there must follow its formal abolition; and the trade unions will remain the sole organs responsible to the proletarian state for the organisation of labour and their decisions in this sphere will be subject to the sanction of their national central organs only. In this manner the whole work of organisation, protection and standardisation of labour is concentrated in the All-Russia Central Council of Trade Unions and its local organs. There will, therefore, be but two central national organs: one the All-Russia Central Council of Trade Unions, which concentrates its work on the organisation of labour, and the other, the Supreme Council of National Economy, which occupies itself exclusively with the organisation of production. But as labour is the fundamental factor in production, the next stage will lead to the simplification of the whole economic apparatus by the fusion of the All-Russia Central Council of Trade Unions with the Supreme Council of National Economy, and the industrial unions with the respective Chief and Central Committees for the administration of the nationalised undertakings. When this will take place is as yet not known, but this is the developing tendency, this is the iron logic of socialist economic construction.


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Russia is the only country in the world where wages for all categories of labour are regulated on a national scale and where this regulation is carried out by the trade unions. In this work the Russian trade unions had to start right from the very beginning. Previous to the February Revolution, 1917, there was no such thing as collective bargaining for the reason that there were no mass trade unions. In the large majority of cases individual workers entered into agreements with individual employers. Strikes were of a spontaneous character; neither the working class as a whole nor separate trades had any organised influence on the rate of wages. There were no labour statistics. The unions that were in existence had very little material, information was gathered chiefly by factory inspectors and the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, while the figures concerning wages, minimum standard of living, number of workers and the length of the labour day were the only information upon which one could operate, and when the revolution broke out the unions had to start literally from the very beginning, having to carry out in a very short time a task which the British, German and American trade unions carried out during a period of many decades. The first difficulty met with in the regulation of wages on a national scale was the absence of any apparatus, material, and experienced people who could raise this work to its proper level.

The second serious obstacle which prevented the regulation of wages on a national scale was the disorganisation of national economic organisations resulting from the war, the jumpy rise in the cost of articles of primary necessity, the instability of the monetary unit and the extreme scarcity of food and general scarcity of commodities. All these, in conjunction with the acuteness of the civil war, prevented the establishment of stable standards and the convulsive efforts of the working class to shake off the Russian and world counter-revolution deprived the trade unions of all possibilities of converting the regulation of wages into an actual regulation of national economy.

If in establishment of wage rates the British trade unions had to take into consideration the state of the market, the general economic position and the potentialities of the country, then so much more had this to be taken into consideration in Russia, where the workers have no one to whom to put forward their demands unless it be to themselves. The Russian trade unions do not "negotiate" with anybody, they do not demand "increase" in wages or the introduction of new forms of payment, but establish all these things themselves. All wage rates, etc., worked out by the trade unions are handed to the Wages Department of the All-Russia Central Council of Trade Unions for the purpose of establishing a uniform wage policy and there the wage rates are finally worked out, systematised and signed and then confirmed by the Commissariat of Labour. Not one institution in Soviet Russia may establish or change wage rates without or apart from the corresponding trade union. Under those circumstances the trade unions cannot but approach the

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Author:Walter Swinhart Louderback

As illustrator

 * Tongues of Flame (1924) by Peter Clark MacFarlane

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 question of wage policy from the class point of view. The State regulation of wages must not only raise badly paid categories of labour and make wages conform to the changing economic conditions of the country but in the first place, must connect the wage policy with the supply of the workers with articles of primary necessity, i.e., must strive towards the naturalisation of wages; in the second place, to fix wages according to results obtained, i.e., to introduce a strict standardisation of labour and, thirdly, to serve^ as a powerful instrument for the raising of labour productivity in the factories.

The trade unions did tremendous work in the sphere of fixing wages during the period leading up to the October Revolution; they studied and classified all categories of labour in all the branches of national industry and State administration. Every union studied the peculiar condition of its branch of trade, its degree of harmfulness, etc., created central and local wage standardisation departments, established grading of skill in labour, included in the general wages scheme not only physical workers but all the clerical elements and all categories of mental labour, worked out systems of payment for encouraging output and established definite relations of various groups and various grades of skill. But, in spite of the tremendous work which has been done, the Russian trade unions stand yet before the very beginning of the solution of these questions, for the solution of the problem of rating and standardising labour on a national scale means to organise social labour, i.e., to organise socialist production.

The immediate and most complicated problem is to do away with the money remuneration which the worker now needs for the purpose of buying articles of primary consumption for himself and his family. In view of the insufficiency of products the issue of articles in kind over and above the standard was carried out up till now as a form of encouragement for extra labour. This is why at all our congresses the question of wages is associated with the question of food. At the 3rd Congress the Material Supply Section worked simultaneously with the Wages Section and indicated a practical plan by which the unions could supply the workers with articles of primary necessity. We know very well that material supply to the workers is the best means of increasing the productivity of the factories and for that reason the trade unions, in complete agreement with the Soviet Government, give the most important place to the consideration of supplying the workers, as one of the most important factors in the economic revival of the country. It is self evident that the economic revival of the country is not an end in itself but the means to an end. That end is socialism which can only be constructed upon a firm economic foundation.

The youthfulness of the trade unions, apart from its negative sides, as we saw in the sphere, of regulating and standardising labour, has a number of positive sides clearly evident in our trade union movement, which is quite free from historical strata, conservatism, prejudices and old traditions


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 myself, who would he glad of a little help in this portion of their studies; a help which there are many well qualified to give, who would, I doubt not, be glad to give it, when they know that the desire for it exists.—.

.— During a geological excursion of the Natural Science Section of the Nottingham Literary and Philosophical Society, I found Helix cantiana, together with Helix ericetorum, on the sides of a railway cutting, in the Great Oolite Limestone, at Kingscliffe, Northamptonshire. The cutting is on the new line being made between Melton Mowbray and Kettering. I do not know whether it has been noticed in that neighbourhood before.—At Easter, 1876, I found (during a walk from North Rode, Cheshire, across the hills to Buxton) some dozen or more specimens of Limnæa truncatula, in a pond. They were, as far as I could see, it only living occupants. The sides and bottom of the pond were coated with a yellowish rusty matter, which looked like oxide of iron, I thought the fact rather remarkable. During the early part of 1877 I found just the same thing occurring in a pond by the road side, about a mile out of Mansfield on the way to Edwinstowe. But in this case, there was no rusty deposit. Again, close to Nottingham, this same mollusk occurs in a ditch, along with  (plentiful) and a small, and very rarely indeed Limnæa peregra (the spire of the latter being much elongated, and finely tapered, and the body whorl of the shell smaller than is usual.) Is it customary to find this mollusk (Limnæa truncatula) unassociated with any other species? Perhaps some of your readers could inform me. In none of the cases was it plentiful.—C. T. M., Nottingham.

.—On a hill, near Redditch, are two ponds, some 200 yards apart, the overflow of the upper of which runs into the lower. On Christmas-day, 1875,  was found in extraordinary profusion in the lower pond, where it continued in abundance during the following January, but soon after disappeared. In the upper pond, though at no time so numerous, specimens wore found as late as March. Search was made for them frequently during the remainder of the year without success. As it appeared to the writer remarkable that they should occur in such numbers in the winter, he was induced to examine both ponds on Christmas-day, 1876, and on several occasions during January and February, 1877, but not a Volvox was visible. Nor did any put in an appearance till July, when they were observed in the upper pond only, though subsequently they were sparingly met with in the lower. Incessant rain during the winter months had made the water very turbid, and possibly this state of things did not favour their development. On the 6th January, 1878, Volvox was again found in considerable numbers, though not in profusion, in the upper pond, nearly all the specimens being young. They continue to flourish, and with them occur abundance of that beautiful rotifer Conochilus volvox, which has been constant in that pond throughout the year.—S. S. R., Redditch.

London Notes by an Occasional Correspondent.—Such of us, and we were a larger audience than usual, as attended the meeting of the Linnean Society, on January 17th, had a great treat in hearing and seeing Professor Owen and Dr. Darwin, both, in consequence of feeble health and advancing years, being very rare visitors on one evening to the learned societies. The Professor's paper on a missing link (just found) between the existing Marsupials and some early forms of (new) fossil life, was of great importance, but too technical for its scope to be indicated in a paragraph. Mr. Francis Darwin, a most worthy follower in the steps of his great father, read a paper on the results of feeding , which sets at rest the question of digestion and absorption in plants. After


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No. 1.

THERE is unusual taste displayed, this winter, by the elegantes both here and in Europe. The London and Parisian fashions for the winter are characterized by spirit, elegance, and great variety. In nothing, perhaps, has more taste been displayed than in the various patterns for carriage and walking dresses, which have emanated from the shops of London and Paris, or been planned in the boudoirs of the European fashionables. The most beautiful carriage dress of the season is the one brought out by the Marchioness of Abercorn. It consists of an under dress of grey pou de soie, perfectly plain and simply elegant, over which is worn a manteau of velours Persans, the form somewhat resembling the capuchon, and falling into two long ends in the front; this is trimmed all round with fur de queues de Canada, forming the arm-holes, and trimmed round the shoulders, so as to give it the appearance of a small pelerine, fastening close down the front; a high tight chemisette is worn underneath, manchettes in lace a point d'Alençon. Bonnet of emerald green byzantine, the form of the front shallow in the centre, and very low and round at the ears; the brim ornamented with folds of green velvet, placed at distances. A long flat green ostrich feather, curled at the tips, falls gracefully low on the left side.

An elegant style of London walking dress is composed of satin gris, having a facing of velvet, cut in rounded points, edged with a ruche of satin; the body high up to the throat, where it is finished by a velvet collar, half high, shading the throat. The sleeves tight, and finished at the top with two epaulettes of velvet placed one over the other, each edged with a ruche en suite, which also surrounds the wrist. A chapeau of velvet of a pale blue, the inside having a fulling of lace, descending on each side in the form of long lappets; the crown tastefully decorated on each side with a saule plume.

There is every variety of morning, evening, and public promenade dresses. In our PLATE, besides several specimens of bonnets, hats, head-dresses, &c. we give one of the many varieties of short cloaks, as well as an evening and public promenade dress. The description of the carriage dress of the Marchioness of Abercorn, given above, will be the best guide for those wishing the choicest pattern for the former. The evening dress, figure 2-is an organdy robe', over Pomona green pou de soie; the corsage, low and tight to the shape, is covered by a canezou a revers of the same material, embroidered and trimmed with an organdy volan, edged with lace. Short tight sleeve, covered with tucks to correspond. The skirt is ornamented with three rows of tucks; they are placed two together, each edged with lace, and each row surmounted by an embroidery in feather stitch. The head-dress is an English point lace lappet, placed far back upon the head, and arranged en bonnet, with the ends floating on the neck; the trimming is composed of a bandeau of green ribbon, arranged in nauds, in which flowers are placed at the sides. Emerald green silk scarf.

The public promenade dress, figure 3, is one of much taste, and will be in demand, especially for the warm sunny days which continually vary the tempestuousness of an American writer. Too little attention is paid by our ladies to the variableness of climate, but we hope that this evil will soon be corrected. A slavish imitation of foreign fashions, without regard to their fitness to our climate, is not to be recommended. Every lady should pay attention to the weather, and dress accordingly. This public promenade dress is one that ought to be-apart from its elegance-introduced into general favor. It is composed of a robe redingote of poussière gros de Naples: corsage, a three-quarter height, tight to the shape, and trimmed in the stomacher style, with cords and tassels, forming nœuds, at a short distance from each other; the same style of trimming is continued down the sides of the skirt. Tight sleeve. Cambric fichu en cœur, embroidered and trimmed with lace. White crape chapeau, an open brim, embroidered in a wreath of colored silks round the edge, and finished with

VOL. I.- 1


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 Rh After hearing Lenin's report, the March Congress passed the following resolution:

When this law was being put into effect by the Central Executive Committee of the Soviets the Moscow wireless of March 23 reported a remark of the president, Kalinin, as follows:


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What now had changed besides the reversion to the old name for the forced requisitions? What grain had the Soviets taken before? There can only be one answer—all they could practically obtain. For many reasons it was desirable to leave the peasants enough food so that they could live until the next season and produce a new crop. More than that was not left to them because of the terrible shortage in the cities. Now that the crops are less than ever and the city shortage greater will they revert to any other division of the product? The question only needs to be asked to see what the answer must be.

An effort is to be made, however, to state in advance how much each peasant must pay. In those rare cases where this estimate is for any reason low the peasant may be able to produce a slight surplus for trading purposes. He will then be at the mercy of the Soviets, which have a monopoly of all Russia's imports and most of her home products. The peasant may be able to make some slight exchanges with village workshops, but in the first place this has always been permitted and besides, being without iron or other raw materials and without tools or machinery the village workers can produce little of value. For the rest this limited "free trade" must be with the so-called "co-operatives" which—since the law abolishing co-operatives—have become nothing but local branches of the Soviet Administration. These institutions have a monopoly of all tools and


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 Rh machinery, boots, clothing, and everything in which the British Labor Delegation found the peasants so deplorably lacking—so far as these things exist at all in the country.

From the side of the population of the small towns there will be a certain amount of "free trade" with these few lucky peasants who have a surplus above the "taxation in kind." This trade has also gone on steadily, though the Soviets have hitherto branded it as criminal "speculation" and executed many persons accordingly.

Already the so-called "co-operatives" are setting their own prices for the scythes, sickles, and other imported tools which have obtained such a high value in the country-side because of their scarcity. There is no competition, the Government has a monopoly, and can set its own prices.

To call the local governmental trading posts "co-operatives" because they consist of remnants of the organization of the co-operatives of the past is the grossest deception. At one time, and until a year or so ago, the co-operatives were the most remarkable native product of the genius of the Russian people. Not only has the Soviet Government destroyed them but it has given no indication whatever of reviving them in the shape of what the rest of the world calls "co-operatives." It will be recalled that the Soviets refused a large relief expedition by the Entente powers for the sole reason that it was proposed to put these supplies in the hands of the real co-operatives. It was—then March 20, 1920—that the Soviets dissolved that organization. How complete the work of dissolution was we may see from the


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 118 following resolution of the Commumist Party, and such resolutions invariably become the law of the land:

The pro-Bolshevist British delegate, Margaret Bondfield, in the report of the British Labor Party, admitted that every voluntary element in the co-operatives had been abolished and that all citizens had been "decreed" as members. The crime of the real co-operatives was that they believed in the exchange of commodities which the Bolshevists themselves now call "free trade" but which they formerly called "criminal speculation and profiteering." Here is a paragraph from Miss Bondfield's report:


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On Friday morning, July 9th, William and I set forward to Keswick on our road to Gallow Hill. We had a pleasant ride, though the day was showery Coleridge met us at Sara's Rock We had been told by a handsome man, an inhabitant of Wytheburn, with whom he had been talking (and who seemed, by the bye, much pleased with his companion), that C. was waiting for us. We reached Keswick against tea-time. We called at Calvert's on the Saturday evening On Monday, 12th July, we went to Eusemere. Coleridge walked with us six or seven miles. He was not well, and we had a melancholy parting after having sate together in silence by the road-side. We turned aside to explore the country near Hutton-John, and had a new and delightful walk. The valley, which is subject to the decaying mansion that stands at its head, seems to join its testimony to that of the house, to the falling away of the family greatness, and the hedges are in bad condition. The land wants draining, and is overrun with brackens; yet there is a something everywhere that tells of its former possessors. The trees are left scattered about as if intended to be like a park, and these are very interesting, standing as they do upon the sides of the steep hills that slope down to the bed of the river, a little stony-bedded stream that spreads out to a considerable breadth


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 (4) The position of civil servants

32. Unlike Ministers, civil servants are employees. They are employed by the relevant government department. They will typically have a detailed contract of employment, with a number of written policies which may or may not be contractual (depending on the department).

33. The Civil Service Code (unlike the Ministerial Code) has a statutory basis and is incorporated into the contract of employment of every civil servant. Its core values are: integrity (putting the obligations of public service above personal interest); honesty (being truthful and open); objectivity (basing advice and decisions on rigorous analysis of the evidence); and impartiality (acting solely according to the merits of the case and serving equally well governments of different political persuasions).

34. The Civil Service Code contains more detail in relation to each of these core values. One relevant, or potentially relevant, aspect of this detail relates to the core value of 'objectivity'. The Civil Service Code states that civil servants must not ignore inconvenient facts or relevant considerations when providing advice or making decisions and must not frustrate the implementation of policies once decisions are taken by declining to take, or abstaining from, action which flows from those decisions.

35. While it forms part of the contract between a civil servant and her or his employer, the Civil Service Code may also be read as an exhortation to high standards of behaviour. It concludes:

''This Code is part of the contractual relationship between you and your employer. It sets out the high standards of behaviour expected of you which follow from your position in public and national life as a civil servant. You can take pride in living up to these values.''

(5) Confidentiality

36. The Terms of Reference stated that information provided to me as part of the investigation is provided in confidence. This has been and remains a central principle of the investigation. The integrity of the process itself depended on respect for this principle. It was also essential to ensure that no-one was deterred from participating


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142 at the village of Dacre. A little above Dacre we came into the right road to Mr. Clarkson's, after having walked through woods and fields, never exactly knowing whether we were right or wrong. We learnt, however, that we had saved half-a-mile. We sate down by the river-side to rest, and saw some swallows flying about and under the bridge, and two little schoolboys were loitering among the scars seeking after their nests. We reached Mr. Clarkson's at about eight o'clock after a sauntering walk, having lingered and loitered and sate down together that we might be alone. Mr. and Mrs. C. were just come from Luff's. We spent Tuesday, the 13th of July, at Eusemere; and on Wednesday morning, the 14th, we walked to Emont Bridge, and mounted the coach between Bird's Nest and Hartshorn Tree At Greta Bridge the sun shone cheerfully, and a glorious ride we had over Gaterly Moor. Every building was bathed in golden light. The trees were more bright than earthly trees, and we saw round us miles beyond miles—Darlington spire, etc. etc. We reached Leeming Lane at about nine o'clock: supped comfortably, and enjoyed our fire.

On Thursday morning, at a little before seven, being the 15th July, we got into a post-chaise and went to Thirsk to breakfast. We were well treated, but when the landlady understood that we were going to walk off, and leave our luggage behind, she threw out some saucy words in our hearing. The day was very hot, and we rested often and long before we reached the foot of the Hambledon Hills, and while we were climbing them, still oftener We were almost overpowered with thirst, when I heard the trickling of a little stream of water. I was before William, and I stopped till he came up to me. We sate a long time by this water, and climbed the hill slowly. I was footsore; the sun shone hot; the little Scotch cattle panted and tossed fretfully about. The view was hazy, and we could see nothing from the top of the hill but an undistinct wide-spreading country, full of trees, but the buildings, towns,


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 in this process and is similarly important to ensure that others are not deterred from raising issues in the future.

37. Confidentiality was therefore required of and agreed by all participants in the investigation, both during the process and thereafter. It covers both the identities of those involved (save of course for the DPM himself) and the content of all the information provided to me.

38. It was of course necessary for me to use the information provided for the purpose of the investigation, which included putting it to others on an attributable basis for a response or comment and, ultimately, reporting to the Prime Minister. However, that did not–and should not–mean a public loss of confidentiality.

39. Every individual (other than the DPM) who contributed to the investigation did so on this basis. I made it clear to all concerned that I would need to consider carefully, in light of the evidence as a whole, whether it was necessary to identify individuals in my report. With only two exceptions, namely Sir Philip Barton and Antonia Romeo, I have concluded that it is not necessary to do so. The two individuals concerned both understood throughout their involvement in the investigation that it was more likely than not that they would be named in the report. They have been given the opportunity to comment on those sections of the report which refer to them, only for the purpose of ensuring that the loss of confidentiality is no greater than necessary.

40. In accordance with this approach to confidentiality, I have sought to avoid including in my report any fact which could lead directly or indirectly to the identification of any person (other than the two individuals mentioned and the DPM). In my sections on fact-finding, I have therefore avoided the inclusion of any details which would enable such identification. For the same reason, albeit at the risk of some loss of grammatical precision, I have used the pronouns "they" or "their" when referring to particular individuals to avoid the inclusion of a hint as to a person's identity.

41. This approach to confidentiality means that the report is not as factually detailed as it might otherwise have been; that is in my view the correct outcome. The public interest in maintaining the principle of confidentiality, in this instance and for future investigations of this nature, hugely outweighs any interest that anyone may have in the full extent of the factual detail. In reaching my findings of fact, I have of course


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 carefully considered and analysed all of the material available as a result of the investigation.

42. During the course of the investigation, there has been a certain amount of media attention. None of the material reported was provided by me or by anyone else involved in the conduct of the investigation. The reports were repeatedly inaccurate in significant respects. More importantly, they had the potential to undermine the integrity of the process, to deter people from coming forward or to affect the evidence provided by those who did. I have had to consider carefully whether and to what extent evidence provided or not provided to me was or may have been affected by such reporting. I have also addressed below the treatment of material that featured only in media reporting and was not provided to the investigation.

43. Some individuals wished to contribute to the investigation only on the basis of anonymity (or non-attributability) to others involved in the process apart from me. In such cases, I had to consider whether it was possible to take their contribution into account, bearing in mind the principle of fairness to the DPM (to enable him to understand and respond to any allegation). Communication of sufficient details of an anonymised allegation would also run the risk of identification contrary to the individual's wishes.

44. Ultimately, there was only one instance in which I decided that I could properly consider such an allegation. It was put to the DPM for a response, because there was sufficient material to enable him fairly to address it and the individual concerned accepted that it would be possible for the DPM to identify them even though their name had been withheld.

45. All of the material obtained in the course of the investigation is available to the Prime Minister, subject to the same terms as to confidentiality as it was given to me.

(5) The focus of the investigation

46. All of the Complaints are concerned with the relationship between the DPM acting in his capacity as a Minister and civil servants acting in the course of their employment. In light of paragraphs 1.1, 1.2 and 5.1 of the 2018 and 2019 Ministerial Codes, my investigation has therefore been concerned with standards of workplace behaviour.


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VI and houses were lost. We stopped to examine that curious stone, then walked along the flat common Arrived very hungry at Rivaux. Nothing to eat at the Millers, as we expected, but at an exquisitely neat farm-house we got some boiled milk and bread. This strengthened us, and I went down to look at the ruins. Thrushes were singing; cattle feeding among green-grown hillocks about the ruins. The hillocks were scattered over with grovelets of wild roses and other shrubs, and covered with wild flowers. I could have stayed in this solemn quiet spot till evening, without a thought of moving, but William was waiting for me, so in a quarter of an hour I went away. We walked upon Mr. Duncombe's terrace and looked down upon the Abbey. It stands in a larger valley among a brotherhood of valleys, of different length and breadth,—all woody, and running up into the hills in all directions. We reached Helmsly just at dusk. We had a beautiful view of the castle from the top of the hill, and slept at a very nice inn, and were well treated; floors as smooth as ice. On Friday morning, 16th July, we walked to Kirby. Met people coming to Helmsly fair. Were misdirected, and walked a mile out of our way A beautiful view above Pickering Met Mary and Sara seven miles from G. H. Sheltered from the rain; beautiful glen, spoiled by the large house; sweet church and churchyard. Arrived at Gallow Hill at seven o'clock.

Friday Evening, 16th July.— Sara, Tom, and I rode up Bedale. Wm., Mary, Sara, and I went to Scarborough, and we walked in the Abbey pasture, and to Wykeham; and on Monday, the 26th, we went off with Mary in a post-chaise. We had an interesting ride over the Wolds, though it rained all the way. Single thorn bushes were scattered about on the turf, sheep-sheds here and there, and now and then a little hut. Swelling grounds, and sometimes a single tree or a clump of trees We passed through one or two little villages, embosomed in tall trees. After we had


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 parted from Mary, there were gleams of sunshine, but with showers. We saw Beverley in a heavy rain, and yet were much pleased with the beauty of the town. Saw the minster—a pretty, clean building, but injured very much with Grecian architecture. The country between Beverley and Hull very rich, but miserably flat—brick houses, windmills, houses again—dull and endless. Hull a frightful, dirty, brickhousey, tradesmanlike, rich, vulgar place; yet the river—though the shores are so low that they can hardly be seen—looked beautiful with the evening lights upon it, and boats moving about. We walked a long time, and returned to our dull day-room but quiet evening one, to supper.

Tuesday, 20th.—Market day. Streets dirty, very rainy, did not leave Hull till four o'clock, and left Barton at about six; rained all the way almost. A beautiful village at the foot of a hill with trees. A gentleman's house converted into a lady's boarding-school We left Lincoln on Wednesday morning, 27th July, at six o'clock. It rained heavily, and we could see nothing but the antientry of some of the buildings as we passed along. The night before, however, we had seen enough to make us regret this. The minster stands at the edge of a hill overlooking an immense plain. The country very flat as we went along; the day mended. We went to see the outside of the minster while the passengers were dining at Peterborough; the west end very grand

On Thursday morning, 29th, we arrived in London. Wm. left me at the Sun After various troubles and disasters, we left London on Saturday morning at half-past five or six, the 31st of July. We mounted the Dover coach at Charing Cross. It was a beautiful morning. The city, St. Paul's, with the river, and a multitude of little boats, made a most beautiful sight as we crossed Westminster Bridge. The houses were not overhung by their cloud of smoke, and they were spread out endlessly, yet the sun shone so brightly, with such a


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 47. The civil servants in question are (or were) employed either as policy officials (concerned with the development, formulation and implementation of government policy) or in the DPM's private office (responsible for the effective administration of his work as a Minister and acting as the interface between the DPM and policy officials).

48. An employer owes a legal duty of care to its employees to ensure their safety and dignity at work. The employer of civil servants is the relevant government department (here, DExEU, FCDO and MoJ) and not the Minister. However, as the foreword to the 2018 Ministerial Code made clear, "Parliament and Whitehall … are places of work too, and exactly the same standards and norms should govern them as any other workplace". The DPM accepted that it was immaterial, for the purpose of the investigation, that he was not in law the employer of the civil servants in question.

49. In view of the content of the Complaints, the focus of the investigation was on the question of bullying ("… Harassing, bullying or other inappropriate or discriminating behaviour wherever it takes place is not consistent with the Ministerial Code and will not be tolerated"). 'Bullying' is not a legally defined term and is not a defined term for the purpose of the Ministerial Code. I explain below the approach I took to its meaning for the purpose of the investigation.

50. Harassment and discrimination are statutory concepts, defined in the Equality Act 2010. This type of unlawful behaviour is premised on the affected individual having one or more of the 'protected characteristics' (age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex and sexual orientation). The evidence obtained in the investigation did not indicate that there was any such unlawful element to the DPM's conduct.

51. The meaning of 'bullying' for the purpose of the Ministerial Code was considered by the High Court of Justice in 2021, in the context of an application by the FDA trade union for judicial review of the approach of the then Prime Minister, Mr Johnson, to a complaint about the conduct of the then Home Secretary in relation to civil servants


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 (the "FDA Case"). A number of points may usefully be taken from the judgment in the FDA Case.

52. First, in providing that harassment, bullying and discrimination was not consistent with the Ministerial Code and was not to be tolerated, the 2018 Ministerial Code was, viewed objectively, intending to set a standard of behaviour for Ministers in respect of their treatment of civil servants (amongst others).

53. Secondly, the Court accepted8 that there was a broad consensus that conduct would fall within the description of 'bullying' if it can be characterised as:

(1) Offensive, intimidating, malicious or insulting behaviour; or

(2) Abuse or misuse of power in ways that undermine, humiliate, denigrate or injure the recipient.

54. Thirdly, it was expressly stated that conduct may fall within the first limb of the definition, and so constitute bullying within the meaning of paragraph 1.2 of the Ministerial Code, whether or not the perpetrator is aware or intends that the conduct is offensive, intimidating, malicious or insulting.

55. Fourthly, in addressing the example of a decision to remove some of the responsibilities of a particular civil servant, the Court stated that this may be a legitimate management choice or it may be done with the aim (or intention) of denigrating or humiliating the person concerned. Only in the latter type of case would this type of conduct be regarded as bullying.

56. Fifthly, the Ministerial Code is different from typical workplace policies governing the behaviour of employees, which will usually include both a grievance policy and a disciplinary policy. Such policies often provide a definition of unacceptable behaviour and are structured to take account of a wide range of factors, including: the nature and seriousness of the conduct; the reasons, understanding and intentions of the alleged


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 fierce light, that there was even something like the purity of one of nature's own grand spectacles.

We rode on cheerfully, now with the Paris diligence before us, now behind. We walked up the steep hills, a beautiful prospect everywhere, till we even reached Dover. At first the rich, populous, wide-spreading, woody country about London, then the River Thames, ships sailing, chalk cliffs, trees, little villages. Afterwards Canterbury, situated on a plain, rich and woody, but the city and cathedral disappointed me. Hop grounds on each side of the road some miles from Canterbury; then we came to a common, the race ground, an elevated plain, villages among trees in the bed of a valley at our right, and, rising above this valley, green hills scattered over with wood, neat gentlemen's houses. One white house, almost hid with green trees, which we longed for, and the parson's house, as neat a place as could be, which would just have suited Coleridge. No doubt we may have found one for Tom Hutchinson and Sara, and a good farm too. We halted at a half-way house—fruit carts under the shade of trees, seats for guests, a tempting place to the weary traveller. Still, as we went along, the country was beautiful and hilly, with cottages lurking under the hills, and their little plots of hop ground like vineyards. It was a bad hop year. A woman on the top of the coach said to me, "It is a sad thing for the poor people, for the hop-gathering is the woman's harvest; there is employment about the hops for women and children."

We saw the castle of Dover, and the sea beyond, four or five miles before we reached it. We looked at it through a long vale, the castle being upon an eminence, as it seemed, at the end of this vale, which opened to the sea. The country now became less fertile, but near Dover it seemed more rich again. Many buildings


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 stand on the flat fields, sheltered with tall trees. There is one old chapel that might have been there just in the same state in which it now is when this vale was as retired, and as little known to travellers as our own Cumberland mountain wilds thirty years ago. There was also a very old building on the other side of the road, which had a strange effect among the many new ones that are springing up everywhere. It seemed odd that it could have kept itself pure in its ancientry among so many upstarts. It was near dark when we reached Dover. We were told that a packet was about to sail, so we went down to the custom-house in half-an-hour—had our luggage examined, etc. etc., and then we drank tea with the Honourable Mr. Knox and his tutor. We arrived at Calais at four o'clock on Sunday morning, the 31st of July. We stayed in the vessel till half-past seven; then William went for letters at about half-past eight or nine. We found out Annette and C. chez Madame Avril dans la Rue de la Tête d'or. We lodged opposite two ladies, in tolerably decent-sized rooms, but badly furnished The weather was very hot. We walked by the sea-shore almost every evening with Annette and Caroline, or William and I alone. I had a bad cold, and could not bathe at first, but William did. It was a pretty sight to see as we walked upon the sands when the tide was low, perhaps a hundred people bathing about a quarter of a mile distant from us. And we had delightful walks after the heat of the day was passed—seeing far off in the west the coast of England like a cloud crested with Dover castle, which was but like the summit of the cloud—the evening star and the glory of the sky, the reflections in the water were more beautiful than the sky itself, purple waves brighter than precious stones, for ever melting away upon the sands.


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 The fort, a wooden building, at the entrance of the harbour at Calais, when the evening twilight was coming on, and we could not see anything of the building but its shape, which was far more distinct than in perfect daylight, seemed to be reared upon pillars of ebony, between which pillars the sea was seen in the most beautiful colours that can be conceived. Nothing in romance was ever half so beautiful. Now came in view, as the evening star sunk down, and the colours of the west faded away, the two lights of England, lighted up by Englishmen in our country to warn vessels off rocks or sands. These we used to see from the pier, when we could see no other distant objects but the clouds, the sky, and the sea itself—all was dark behind. The town of Calais seemed deserted of the light of heaven, but there was always light, and life, and joy upon the sea. One night I shall never forget—the day had been very hot, and William and I walked alone together upon the pier. The sea was gloomy, for there was a blackness over all the sky, except when it was overspread with lightning, which often revealed to us a distant vessel near, as the waves roared and broke against the pier, and they were interfused with greenish fiery light. The more distant sea always black and gloomy. It was also beautiful, on the calm hot night, to see the little boats row out of harbour with wings of fire, and the sail boats with the fiery track which they cut as they went along, and which closed up after them with a hundred thousand sparkles, and streams of glow-worm light. Caroline was delighted.

On Sunday, the 29th of August, we left Calais at twelve o'clock in the morning, and landed at Dover at one on Monday the 30th It was very pleasant to me, when we were in the harbour at Dover, to breathe the fresh air, and to look up, and see the stars among the ropes of the vessel. The next day was very hot. We bathed, and sate upon the Dover Cliffs, and looked upon France with many a melancholy and tender


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8 and nights and had an experience which I shall never forget. I took upon myself to enact the part of a poor, unfortunate crazy girl, and felt if my duty not to shirk any of the disagreeable results that should follow. I became one of the city’s insane wards for that length of time, experienced much, and saw and heard more of the treatment accorded to this helpless class of our population, and when I had seen and heard enough, my release was promptly secured. I left the insane ward with pleasure and regret—pleasure that I was once more able to enjoy the free breath of heaven; regret that I could not have brought with me some of the unfortunate women who lived and suffered with me, and who, I am convinced, are just as sane as I was and am now myself.

But here let me say one thing: From the moment I entered the insane ward on the Island, I made no attempt to keep up the assumed role of insanity. I talked and acted just as I do in ordinary life. Yet strange to say, the more sanely I talked and acted the crazier I was thought to be by all except one physician, whose kindness and gentle ways I shall not soon forget.

to return to my work and my mission. After receiving my instructions I returned to my boarding-house, and when evening came I began to practice the role in which I was to make my debut on the morrow. What a difficult task, I thought, to appear before a crowd of people and convince them that I was insane. I had never been near insane persons before in my life, and had not the faintest idea of what their actions were like. And then to be examined by a number of learned physicians who make insanity a specialty, and who daily come in


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 {|style="background-color:#aa042a; color:white; font-weight:bold; padding:25px; margin:0 auto 0 auto"|
 * UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR
 * UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR

BUREAU OF RECLAMATION

A WATER RESOURCES TECHNICAL PUBLICATION
 * }

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6 workings, which are always so effectually hidden by white-capped nurses, as well as by bolts and bars, from the knowledge of the public. “We do not ask you to go there for the purpose of making sensational revelations. Write up things as you find them, good or bad; give praise or blame as you think best, and the truth all the time. But I am afraid of that chronic smile of yours,” said the editor. “I will smile no more,” I said, and I went away to execute my delicate and, as I found out, difficult mission.

If I did get into the asylum, which I hardly hoped to do, I had no idea that my experiences would contain aught else than a simple tale of life in an asylum. That such an institution could be mismanaged, and that cruelties could exist ’neath its roof, I did not deem possible. I always had a desire to know asylum life more thoroughly—a desire to be convinced that the most helpless of God’s creatures, the insane, were cared for kindly and properly. The many stories I had read of abuses in such institutions I had regarded as wildly exaggerated or else romances, yet there was a latent desire to know positively.

I shuddered to think how completely the insane were in the power of their keepers, and how one could weep and plead for release, and all of no avail, if the keepers were so minded. Eagerly I accepted the mission to learn the inside workings of the Blackwell Island Insane Asylum.

“How will you get me out,” I asked my editor, “after I once get in?”

“I do not know,” he replied, “but we will get you out if we have to tell who you are, and for what purpose you feigned insanity—only get in.”

I had little belief in my ability to deceive the insanity experts, and I think my editor had less.

All the preliminary preparations for my ordeal were left to be planned by myself. Only one thing was decided


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 and darkness swayed all around; soon after we heard a gentle rustling just before us, and a faint glimmering was spreading through the gloomy vault. It grew lighter and lighter, and we soon perceived rays of dazzling light shooting from the marble coffin, the lid of which began to rise higher and higher—at once the whole vault was illuminated, and a grisly human figure rose slow and awful from the coffin. The phantom, which was wrapped up in a shroud, bore a dying aspect, it trembled violently as it rose, and emitted an hollow groan, looking around with chilly horror. Now the spectre descended from the pedestal, and moved with trembling steps and haggard looks towards the circle where we were standing."

"Who dares," groaned it, in a faltering hollow accent, "who dares to disturb the rest of the dead."

"And who art thou?" replied our leader, with a threatening frowning aspect, "who


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Rh upon, namely, that I should pass under the pseudonym of Nellie Brown, the initials of which would agree with my own name and my linen, so that there would be no difficulty in keeping track of my movements and assisting me out of any difficulties or dangers I might get into. There were ways of getting into the insane ward, but I did not know them. I might adopt one of two courses. Either I could feign insanity at the house of friends, and get myself committed on the decision of two competent physicians, or I could go to my goal by way of the police courts.

On reflection I thought it wiser not to inflict myself upon my friends or to get any good-natured doctors to assist me in my purpose. Besides, to get to Blackwell’s Island my friends would have had to feign poverty, and, unfortunately for the end I had in view, my acquaintance

with the struggling poor, except my own self, was only very superficial. So I determined upon the plan which led me to the successful accomplishment of my mission. I succeeded in getting committed to the insane ward at Blackwell’s Island, where I spent ten days


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 art thou, that thou darest to disturb the stillness of this castle, and the nocturnal slumber of those that inhabit its environs?"

"The phantom shuddered back, groaning in a most lamentable accent, "Not I, not I, my cursed husband disturbs the peace around and mine."

Old man. "For what reason?"

Ghost. "I have been assassinated, and he who judges men has thrown my sins upon the murderer."

Old man. "I comprehend thee, unhappy spirit, betake thyself again to rest; by my power, which every spirit dreads, he shall disturb thee no more—be gone."

"The phantom bowed respectfully, staggered towards the pedestal, climbed up, got into the coffin, and disappeared; the lid sunk slowly down, and the light which had illu-


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 Rh

The "speculators and profiteers" then subject to the firing squad are now to be known as "free traders."

It is illuminating to examine the new decree on co-operatives which is advertised by pro-Soviet propagandists abroad (though not in Russia!) as one of the most solid proofs of Lenin's "abandonment of communism." Here is a good press summary:

''The decree makes all citizens of Russia automatically members of the co-operative system. It prescribes that there can be only one co-operative in each town, village, or factory.'' Freedom of trading for individuals is embodied in the provision permitting members to buy commodities through the co-operatives, paying in money or products, and to exchange among themselves goods received through their co-operatives. To the societies within Russia is granted the right to buy surplus agricultural products or products of national industries and to sell them to their members; to conclude contracts under Soviet law with peasants' and workers' organizations, and to arrange for furnishing agricultural machinery, threshing grain, and storing and delivering products.


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 120 The co-operative societies are also given the right to organize enterprises for production or working over raw products, and also to organize truck gardening and dairies on a large scale. To the co-operative societies are assigned the sole right to organise distribution and exchange of products throughout the country. They are to be directed by administrators elected in general conventions at which all citizens have the right to vote except those excluded from suffrage by the Soviet Constitution.

The sentences underlined when taken together show what it all amounts to. The co-operatives remain a compulsory governmental monopoly. They trade in what agricultural products the Soviets are pleased to leave to the peasant and in the products of the Soviet's nationalized industries at prices fixed by the Soviets. The "conventions" that are to govern the co-operatives are official, are conducted under Soviet "law" and supervision and, the voting being public, opposition voters will be men marked for discrimination by the SovetSoviet [sic] Government and, if too assertive, for prosecution by the lawless Extraordinary Commission. A régime which has not permitted majority control even in the Soviets will scarcely permit any but Communist control of the co-operatives.

An almost exact parallel may be noted between the Bolshevist treatment of the co-operatives and their treatment of the trade unions. (See previous chapter.)

In spite of all these undeniable facts the American pro-Bolshevist press, Red, Yellow, and "liberal," as well as the press representing reactionary capitalistic groups who hope to make a profitable deal with Lenin, have hailed the restoration of "taxation in kind" as the end


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 minated the dismal mansion of mortality died away by degrees. A flash of lightning hissed again through the vault, licking the damp walls; the hollow sound of thunder roared through the subterraneous abode of horror; the lamp began again to burn, and awful silence of the grave swayed all around."

"Now the old man took up his wallet, and his book, beckoning to us to follow him, We returned to the adjoining vault, through which we had entered that abode of awful dread; it was as lonesome as we had left it; our leader locked the ironfolding door care- fully, then he took out of his wallet a large piece of parchment, on which a number of strange characters were written, a piece of black sealing-wax, and a monstrous iron seal. Having made several crosses over those things with his ebony wand, he fixed the parchment above the lock, and sealed it hastily on the four corners."


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 Rh of Bolshevism in agricultural Russia and the restoration of capitalism. Lenin, as usual has furnished phrases for his friends—but it is to be noted that these phrases are very similar to those he employed before his supposed reforms. The following expressions in his speech at the Communist Congress in March (1921) must be interpreted in the double light of his previous speeches—above quoted—and of the relatively insignificant action actually taken as a result of all this verbiage. Lenin said:

Let us see what all this means. In spite of Lenin's statement that the peasants can no longer be deceived he is attempting to deceive them with the long tried


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HE conversation was taking place in Henry Harrington's law office—a not particularly prosperous-looking law office, with the usual sheepskin volumes rather meager upon the shelves. The room boasted one window. Against the side of this window Harrington leaned, a tall half-indolent figure in a gray serge suit which fitted loosely yet revealed the army training of the frame beneath.

The Harrington features were regularly chiseled and inclined to leanness, with a streak of humor showing in the mouth and a play of it in the keen gray eyes that looked out under bushy brows which beetled slightly; while the nose and chin both indicated force enough when the nature behind them was roused. Just now it was quite unroused. Not one of the brown hairs in the Harrington head was out of place; the long white line of the part upon the left stood neat and perfectly ordered, thus completing the contrast between a rather immaculate personal appearance and the general untidiness of desk and office.

"It's quite a show, Henry," urged Charlie Clayton.

Harrington's lip curled, half-humorously, half-cynically, and a far-away look got into his eye while his gesture seemed to dismiss the whole world and even

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 life itself from consideration. "There never was but one big show, Charlie, in the history of the whole world," he said, "and I was in that, thank God!"

"And it's ruined you, Henry!" accused Clayton. "Here you are, a young fellow with all sorts of stuff in you, mooning around, going stale on life because you think you've seen all of life there is—all the emotions, all the thrills—and that everything is now anticlimax. You make me sick, Henry; you do for a fact. Your men, they tell me, used to call you 'Hellfire' Harrington; but you're tame as a pussycat now, feeding yourself up on this all-in-the-past stuff. I tell you, old man, these three towns are full of good fights right now if you'd only wake up and hop into a few of them. Why, you could win in a walk from this assembly district, and with me from the other and Madden in the senate, we could form a little triumvirate that would take care of the three towns like an old maid taking care of her cat. Besides, it's a big show, I tell you—this state legislature; out of it come the governors, the congressmen and senators—jobs that lead to the biggest show."

"You're right, old-timer, no doubt," admitted Harrington wearily, "but I can't seem to help it. My emotions have been pumped out so they don't come back. God! it's an awful feeling to realize that at thirty everything's behind you."

Clayton laughed satirically and tried another bait.

"Well, if you won't consider the legislature, let's abandon practical things and consider esthetic ones. Let's consider woman—and the fairest of her kind!"

"I'm off of 'em!" Harrington declared.

"Billie Boland is coming home today—prettiest girl west of the Rockies!" tantalized Clayton.

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 Billie Boland? Daughter of John Boland, of course. Harrington turned his glance out the window and the name of Boland smote him every where. His eyes were peering into the busiest street of a harbor town on the west coast of the United States. The street was wide. Upon its left-hand side as Harrington gazed, were two- and three-floor store and office buildings, while upon the other was a line of wharves and docks with long warehouses squat upon them and here and there smoke-stacks and masts sticking up above, with the gleam of a tidal stream behind.

Across this stream was a line of sawmills with vast acres of log booms, broken into at intervals by areas of wharfing upon which piles of lumber or shingles gleamed yellow or glowed dull red in the sunshine.

This was the town of Edgewater that Henry Harrington looked out upon—Edgewater which called itself a city, for was it not hustling and bustling with the energies of twenty thousand souls and pregnant with the harnessed industries of a group of great corporations—the John Boland corporations?

There was the Boland Mill and Lumber Company which operated the lumber mills; there was the Boland Cedar Company, which made the shingles; there was the Boland Logging Company which operated railroads that went nosing up into the hills and snaked out the raw material of both the lumber and the shingles.

There was the Boland Fisheries Corporation that gathered salmon from the nearby waters and cod from far-off Alaska and smoked or packed them on the wharves; there was the Boland Navigation Company that carried Boland products to the distant corners of

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 the globe and operated as well the busy ferryboats upon the tidal stream; there were also the interurban trolley line and other minor tributaries and feeders to the larger corporations. There was finally the huge parent corporation called Boland General.

And last of all, dominating all, creating and energizing all, was John Boland himself, a man in the later fifties with a brow like Napoleon and recessed peering eyes, whose boast it was that where one of his corporations went in, two blades of grass began at once to grow where one had grown before. He boasted this so many times that his intimates began to speak of him humorously at first and afterwards affectionately, as "Old Two Blades."

And the people of the three towns, Edgewater, Socatullo and Wahpeetah—his towns that he had created—were proud of him also. Was he not their patron saint? Was he not first in every good work in the community—the public libraries, the hospitals, the community centers, with gymnasium and playground and athletic field attachments, all to keep the people, young and old, amused and entertained and contented and out of mischief—were they not all in a large sense monuments to his generosity and foresight? They were.

Why, not even a butcher's boy in any of the three towns could display talent in business but the Boland corporations sought him out, attached him to their enterprises and hung glittering baits before him—gave him a chance, an incentive to rise. And they were hanging glittering baits before Henry Harrington this morning. Some argus eye of Boland General had noted Henry and coveted him.

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 But Charlie Clayton, handy messenger of the Boland interests, had failed entirely to excite the cupidity of his friend. Chagrined, he sought revenge by tantalizing him with a gust of his own enthusiasm for Billie Boland, of whom Harrington, but two years resident of the community, could be presumed to know nothing.

"Billie's smart, you know," he was blurbing, "got sense—common sense, I mean—business sense. She'll inherit the old man's millions and she'll know how to handle 'em too. She handles everybody, Billie does. Grew up in Edgewater—a typical darling of the town. Off in Europe since the war closed. Democratic to the heels, Billie is. She used to be a good deal of a tomboy and if she's anything like the old Billie, with all the tricks she's learned abroad and probably with two or three counts and dukes trailing at her heels, she'll give this town the thrill of its young life from the moment she strikes it. There's a reception for her at the Country Club this afternoon. You better horn in. Everybody's welcome."

This speech drew Henry away from the window but the expression on his face was one of mild annoyance. "For one thing I especially dislike managing women," he frowned; "and for another"—he waved his hand with that same gesture of dismissal which he had employed before—"I've seen 'em all."

"Not till you've seen Billie Boland, you haven't," challenged Clayton as he rose to his feet.

Henry's answer was a shrug. "Your idea is to marry her, I suppose," he commented, casually, filling his pipe.

Clayton became suddenly serious. "I'd jump at the chance. All those good looks—all those millions!"

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 "I wish you luck, Charlie, old man," smiled Henry, offering a hearty hand.

"Thanks, Henry, you good old stiff," said Clayton, and then, laying a hand affectionately upon Harrington's shoulder as his glance swept the room, presumed to give some serious advice. "Let me tell you something, Henry, pal of mine. You ought to be more thrifty. Youth is slipping along. You're not making money enough. You're wasting pretty decent talent on a lot of rag-tag and bob-tailed cases."

"Oh, I don't know." Harrington's expression was thoughtful again. "I make enough for my wants," he defended, slipping down in his chair. "I'm lazy, you know, along with the rest. I've made the supreme physical effort of my life along with the emotional. I shall never get over being tired. I don't want to work hard. I don't want to get on. I only want to get by, Charlie, and I take only the kind of cases that—well, I couldn't tell you why I take a single darned one of them." He confessed this, looking quite surprised with himself. "I couldn't really."

Clayton, pushing and practical, gazed a moment perplexed, and then his features broke up in hearty laughter. "You win, Henry," he cried. "You're just the most truthful darned soul in the world and the most modest. That's why people like you so and they see through your modesty; they know you're a lot bigger and better man than you think you are."

Henry looked puzzled by this speech and embarrassed. "You don't mean, Charlie" he began to inquire, and then stopped as if perceiving that vanity was about to trick him into reprehensible loquacity. "How about a little game of draw tonight?" he asked.

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 "Fine," ejaculated Clayton, his face lighting with instant acquiescence.

"About eight-thirty?"

"You're on. Shows that even if you won't go to the legislature with me, at least you'll play poker with me."

"And thereby sadly deplete your campaign fund," smiled Henry.

Clayton laughed also and passed out through the anteroom where a man with a silver button in his lapel, with one trouser-leg pinned up and a crutch at his side, sat before a typewriter. Several persons were waiting in this anteroom; two were young men, one of these a cripple, the other tubercular; each wore the Loyal Legion button; each eyed wistfully the door Clayton had closed behind him. But besides these two there was a meek, worried-looking man of Scandinavian type with an expression of mild wonder in his blue eyes.

"Not a fifty-dollar fee in the lot," Charles was commenting, and then his roving eye halted, wavered and retreated before the innocent, appraising glance of a young woman.

"What a pippin!" he blurted, once outside. "Gosh! If a dream like her needs legal advice why didn't somebody hand her my card?"

Harrington, crowding more tobacco into the bowl of his pipe and refraining from touching the button that would tell Sergeant Thorpe he was ready to receive clients, was meditating what Charlie had said to him. It was true that life was running along, true that he was unthrifty; that his luck—or his disposition—did not run to making money. He did not get that kind of case somehow.

The poor, the outclassed, the financially unimportant

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 it was who had the habit of dragging their causes like foundlings to his door; and he had a habit of taking them when something about the prospective client moved his pity, or something in the issue outraged his sense of justice, rather than because of any prospect of gain.

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ARRINGTON reached out and touched the button and began to get through with his callers.

Quickly but considerately, although with that slightly bored air which characterized his manner, he dealt with each.

A certain accumulated atmosphere of misery and gloom, these clients left behind them; then all at once sweetness and light came in, dispelling the gloom as the morning sun dispels a fog. The young woman had entered. She presented quite as much beauty to Henry's gaze as she had to Charlie Clayton's, only Harrington was not so much impressed by beauty.

The young lady was not over five feet and an inch. She wore a belted suit of some tan shade, with brown silk stockings and oxfords that matched. She was unmistakably Caucasian and yet there was something about her just as unmistakably not Caucasian.

"Kanaka strain—Kanaka away up here where the Japan Current comes down," thought Henry to himself as he noted the spun jet gloss of her hair.

"Mr. Harrington?" the girl inquired in a voice that was low and rich and carried the slightest possible trace of accent.

"I am Henry Harrington," said the young lawyer, rising politely, while noticing that his visitor's expression beneath its mask of modest beauty was wistful and concerned. "Will you be seated?"

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 The young lady advanced but instead of sitting down immediately, stood with a certain something of the wild in the intentness of her scrutiny. "I am Miss Marceau," she vouchsafed; "teacher of the Indian School at Shell Point."

"Yes?" encouraged Henry. "Won't you please be seated?"

Miss Marceau decided that she would, and the big velvety black eyes rested upon the lawyer's face concernedly while she announced surprisingly: "I have come to you because you are the one man in this community who is not afraid of John Boland."

This was a compliment in an absurdity—for who that was honest would be afraid of John Boland?

"How did you guess it?" the lawyer bantered, frankly amused.

But the young woman was not amused at all. "Because I know that you are not afraid of anything," she returned with simple seriousness. "Some of the Indians who were in your company in the war are in my school now—Adam John and others, grown men struggling among the youngsters for more of the white man's knowledge—and they call you Hellfire Harrington."

Henry laughed blushingly.

"You do not look like Hellfire now," observed the young lady almost disappointedly.

"I guess I'm not, any more," chuckled Harrington. "I guess I never was," he deprecated. "Besides, let me assure you that it requires no special brand of courage not to be afraid of Mr. Boland."

The pretty little woman in the chair looked stubbornly doubtful. "Oh, I don't know," she almost

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 shivered, as if under the spell of some intuitional awe; "Mr. Boland has very great power and he mistakes his will for God's sometimes, don't you think?"

This conceit was so quaint that Henry had to smile again. This woman-girl or girl-woman—she looked eighteen but must have been twenty-four—was an odd piece certainly. She proved it now: "Someone will have to stand up against John Boland some day," she prophesied gravely, "and that someone will have to be very strong. It has seemed to me that that someone might be you."

"But why ever, Miss Marceau, should you think it might be necessary for anyone to stand up against Mr. Boland?"

"But if it ever should be necessary," his caller persisted, "as a matter of truth and justice—for someone to stand up against him . . ."

There was a charm so irresistible about the young woman's exhibition of concern, that Harrington felt compelled to humor her by entertaining this preposterous conception. "Why, it would be some fight," he smiled. "Some fight!" His lids lowered and his glance became far-away as his imagination kindled with a fighting man's love of conflict. Unconsciously he turned from Miss Marceau and gazed into the street and along the line of wharves and warehouses. Every where he looked he saw, as before, the name of Boland—Boland this and Boland that. It was written over all the town.

And the spirit of Boland went even where the name did not. It stalked along the pavements; it reigned in the lives of the people around. If any man ever did stand up to oppose John Boland in this community—one lone little man against the massed might

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 of Boland General, well, the little man would know he had been in a fight, all right.

The vernacular of Harrington's thought portrayed exactly that kind of hopeless odds which alone could have challenged the imagination of one who thought that all his great fights were behind him; and it fascinated him whimsically until his mind was side-tracked by something unusual that his eyes fell upon.

The ferryboat Salmon Queen was just discharging a load of passengers, apparently amid considerable excitement. The center of this excitement was a very shiny open automobile in a very extreme design. As this car rolled off on to the dock a crowd pressed round waving hats and handkerchiefs and hands. If Harrington had been sufficiently interested to raise the window he would have heard cries of "Billie!" "Billie!" "Hello, Billie!" "Welcome home, Billie!" with notes of affection in these greetings.

But he was not sufficiently interested. He only took account of what he saw—a John Boland automobile and in the rear seat the tall chesty figure of Mr. Boland himself with his full-fed wife beside him; and a standing, gesticulating, girlish figure in the front seat at whom everybody was waving and shouting.

The girl had a spirited bearing, he conceded at once. There was an audacious poise to her head, which was crowned by a small hat with a long rakish plume that swept down over a black circular cape of military cut, thrown back over the left shoulder to reveal a bright blue facing, thus imparting a swaggerish, blue-devil effect. As the car rolled slowly forward she steadied herself with one hand upon the wind-shield while the other waved to the enthusiastic group of welcomers.

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 "You must be seeing something very interesting," commented a demure voice from the chair beside the desk.

"Oh, I beg your pardon!" exclaimed the lawyer, conscience-stricken, instantly recalling his mind and his eye. "No; a train of thought—rather," he dissembled. "I was just thinking how odd it would seem to be fighting John Boland, and why on earth anybody should think of doing such a thing."

"The Shell Point Indians believe he is planning to rob them of their land," announced the teacher of the Government School.

"Rob them?" inquired Henry with a certain indignation. "Why, that, Miss Marceau, is absurd. Mr. Boland is the soul of business honor."

"My Indians—I call them that—have an unexplained fear of John Boland, almost traditional, it seems," expounded Miss Marceau. "They mutter vague hints that Indian rights have suffered before when John Boland wanted land. They offer no details, no specifications. They have a superstition that keeps them silent about their past wrongs—a superstition or a pride—and I have come to respect this reticence. But I have also come to respect their intuitions. They fear John Boland. They say that someone some day must stand up against him for them.

"The oldest of these tribesmen are children in many respects and they are all so pathetic in their fear," the girl ranged on, naively appealing. They are so reduced that they depend on me for advice. Yet they still hope. Disappointed so often by the white man's word and the white man's law, they find their faith once more centering in a man of that race. That man

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 is you. Your name, your character is almost worshiped for what it became to the half-dozen Indian boys from Shell Point who fought under you, and some of whom—did not come back.

"Mr. Harrington," she concluded, lifting sincere eyes to his, for somehow they were standing and fronting each other, "those helpless, fear-stricken children of the woods and water have asked me to tell you of their fears and to appeal to you to consent to be their champion if the need arises; provided, of course, that you have not been retained by the other side," she concluded anxiously.

Harrington straightened proudly, "I will never be retained by the other side," he declared with emphasis. "I'll help your Indians, of course, any time they need me."

"Oh, thank you!" breathed the ambassador of the Shell Pointers, and gazed at him with such gratitude as made the young man feel that in the appealing faith of these dark eyes there was being conferred on him something a little finer than the decoration which a three-star general had once pinned upon his breast.

He was, moreover, surprised to discover, from its impulsive pressure, that there was a warm little hand in his, almost flaming hot. He got a thrill of pleasure in the contact, and, rather astonishingly, he continued to hold this warm little hand and it continued to grasp his.

"Mr. Harrington, at the first sign of what we fear, I shall come to you," Miss Marceau was saying earnestly. "In the meantime, you will be carefully guarded. Your life has, by your promise, become of the greatest importance to a now humble, ignored peo-

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 ple who are capable of rare faithfulness and devotion. From this hour forward some one of its members will be always near you. You will not often be conscious of this watchful eye or guarding hand, but it will be near if danger threatens."

With difficulty Henry kept his lips straight. "Why, thank you!" he said courteously. "But"—he permitted himself an amused frown—"look here, now, Miss Marceau," he warned, "I don't want anybody bothering round like that about me. Just tell 'em I can take care of myself and that I'll be glad to advise 'em if anything comes up."

Miss Marceau was verbally noncommittal, yet looked demurely submissive and at the same time extremely well satisfied. "I will tell them what you say, Mr. Harrington, and it will encourage them immensely. Thank you ever and ever so much! Good-by, Mr. Harrington." And the black eyes presumed to flash him both a grateful and an understanding look.

Harrington had smoked half a cigarette upon the subject of Miss Marceau, leaving her Shell Point Indians out of consideration altogether, when he was interrupted first by Sergeant Thorpe announcing another caller, and then by the caller himself.

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UH morning, Henry," announced a huge windy person with largeness and looseness written all over him—wide flabby face, wide paunchy figure, large soft hands, large mushy legs, large hairless head, everything physical about him large except his eyes. They were small and hard, roving shiftily, peering cunningly.

"Good morning, Hornblower!" responded the young attorney, but with brusqueness and reserve. "What is it?"

"Big stuff today, Henry; big stuff!" breezed the large man, who seated himself uninvited and began to beam as if hoping thereby to warm his chilly welcome.

Julius Hornblower was an attorney well-known—too well-known—in the three towns. He was brilliant, slightly eccentric and considered crooked; yet made a great parade of honesty.

"Henry," began Hornblower, moistening his lip and assuming the attitude and the tone of spread-eagle oratory, though he remained sitting; "Henry! The cause of Justice, the cause of a grossly betrayed people sends me to you. Such a cause as has ever appealed to the chivalric instincts of my nature, as well you know. A great wrong has been perpetrated—is being perpetrated. It is a cause in which the contestants will endure scorn and ridicule and persecution; but in which ultimately justice will triumph and punish-

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 ment will be meted out if—if we can get a man of your standing in the community, rather than of mine, to lead the fight. You know, Henry"—the large and pseudo-benevolent features of Hornblower passed for a moment under shadow—"you know folks don't quite appreciate me here, Henry, simply because they don't understand me."

But for some time Harrington's face had been a study in self-control. "Hornblower," he frowned, "I have a fairly vivid imagination but I am unable to conceive of any legal cause in which I could be associated with you. Suppose you get down out of the clouds with your proposition so that I can tell you to take it to the devil as quickly as possible. I'm rather busy this morning."

Hornblower looked surprised—and deflected, but neither humiliated nor offended. He smiled a gentle reproach and inquired in a voice meant to be craftily suggestive: "Henry, what would you say if I should tell you that the title to this Edgewater townsite is faulty—that it belongs every foot of it to clients of mine who entrusted the title to me by a power of attorney? That for all practical purposes it is mine? Every damn foot of the city of Edgewater, mine!" he exulted. "What would you say if I should tell you that, Henry?"

"I should say you were a liar," answered Harrington bluntly.

But Hornblower's lip only curled and he went on to loose his big sensation—for he always had a big sensation: "And if I told you that I was going to put a plat of the townsite upon that billboard across the corner from the bank there and climb up on that lumber pile

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 "This done, he went into the middle of the cellar, assigning us our places; then he strewed sand on the ground, drew a circle with his wand, and began again to read in his book, amid horrible convulsions. Now he brandished his wand, pronouncing three times with a most tremendous voice, the same word he had made use of in the burying vault, A flash of lightning hissed through the cellar, à clap of thunder shook the subterraneous fabric, all the doors, save that which had been sealed up, were suddenly forced open, with a thundering noise, the lamp was extinguished, and a blue light reflected in a grisly manner, from the staircase against the damp wall; woful groans, lamentations, and the dismal clashing of chains, resounded through the spacious caverns. The noise seemed to come from the staircase, gentle steps were heard, a numerous troop seemed to be descending into the cellar; the lamentations and the woful groans advanced nearer, and louder resounded the clashing of chains:"


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 on the curb in front of it and offer it for sale lot by lot, block by block, to the highest bidder this very afternoon, what would you say to that?"

"I should say that you were a fool besides," snapped Henry.

Hornblower's face was suddenly immobile, save that the small eyes blinked once. "Henry, don't laugh at me," he protested. "I'm serious."

"And hang it, man, can't you see that I am?" blazed Henry, patience quite departed. "Hornblower! The man who deliberately unsettles land titles is the most conscienceless of scoundrels!"

Hornblower's flat face became flatter for a moment before the blast of Harrington's indignation; yet in a second he was countering blandly with: "Correct, Henry, correct; but the real scoundrel is the man who made 'em uncertain in the first place."

"What do you mean by that now, that utterly Hornblower-like insinuation?" demanded Harrington with tightening lips.

"It isn't what I mean, but who I mean," responded Julius with nasty emphasis.

Harrington's eyes flashed and his cheeks mantled: "Hornblower, leave my office," he commanded in the low tones of controlled anger. "Never come into it. Never speak to me again."

This was enough to prick even Hornblower's thick skin. He rose huffily and retorted: "You needn't get so blamed cocky! When did you begin to work for John Boland? Everybody else does in the community, but I thought you were one man, by God, that called his soul his own."

Harrington's hand clenched at the insult, but he

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 could not be a common brawler. Controlling himself and his voice with an effort that was obvious he urged: "Hornblower, will you please go?" And himself opened a door leading directly into the hall.

Hornblower, huge human squid, went out.

"The skunk!" remarked Harrington, quite inelegantly, and threw open the window.

Henry lunched that day with the gang at Ben's Beanery. The Beanery was a more elegant place to lunch than the name suggested and the gang was a coterie that styled itself "The Live Wire League." The talk today was all of Billie Boland, and Harrington, after listening with a bored air, thought he was leaving the whole subject behind him when he sauntered out; but to his astonishment found a sort of blurred Miss Billie Boland had come with him and seemed intent upon spending the afternoon there in his office. That was odd. It was even annoying!

At length, when a face, indistinct but beautiful, stared up at him from a page of the Pacific Reporter, Henry closed the vohmme upon it with an impatient bang, put on his hat and dropped casually down the stairs, meaning to smoke a cigar and take the air for half an hour. But as he gained the street, his attention was attracted by a voice and a crowd on the corner of that dock which was visited every thirty minutes by the Salmon Queen. This was the corner across from the bank, the corner upon which were the billboard and the lumber pile which Hornblower had pointed out. To Harrington's amused scorn the shyster was actually there now upon the lumber pile, a mountainous, gesticulating, vociferating figure. With a lath in his hand he pointed from time to time to the billboard on which

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 some sign-painter had been employed to sketch neatly and largely the plat of the town site of Edgewater.

Of course, the crowd had gathered.

"Come on up and buy a lottery ticket," the fellow was bawling. "Take a chance and win a fortune! The site of the First National Bank now—how much am I offered for the site of the First National Bank?"

The very audacity of the proposal was breath-taking. The crowd laughed as it caught the idea.

"Offer! Offer! Make me a bid! How much am I offered for the site of the First National Bank?" chanted the auctioneer and was vastly enjoying his sensation when James H. Gaylord, president of this said First National Bank, appeared, and stared in wrathful astonishment as if unable to believe his ears.

Salzberg, president of the Socialist Local, smiled craftily. He stood for one thing in the community; Gaylord epitomized quite another.

"Five dollars!" he shouted to Hornblower, with a grin and a wink.

Hornblower snapped it up. "Five dollars! Five dollars I am offered, five dollars for the site of the First National Bank of Edgewater," he chanted.

There was a fresh burst of laughter. Even some of the property owners joined in this laugh.

Eventually the bank site was knocked down to Salzberg for twenty-four dollars, with Hornblower beaming, coat off, collar loosened, happy as Mephistopheles; and Gaylord redder and more wrathful still; while Salzberg, grinning widely, clambered up to a table which was also atop the lumber pile and before which sat a clerk and notary prepared to execute and witness "Agreements to Sell" which lay in blank before them.

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 And the show continued. Hornblower sold the site of Schuler's Department Store for nineteen dollars with Schuler looking on; he sold the site of the City Hall for forty-two dollars with His Honor, Mayor Foster, staring indignantly; and he capped this audacity by selling the ground from under the fire-engine house at the very moment when the Mayor was threatening to have the hose turned on him. Besides these he sold lots here and there throughout the town, always for absurdly low prices, because the purchasers never assented to more than a lottery-ticket scale of value and because to create as many widely scattered contestants as possible seemed both to gratify Hornblower's cheerful malevolence and to fall in with his plans.

And there would be contestants! Oh, yes, and bitter ones, for human nature is a strange thing. Usually, when a spectator began to bid it was a monstrous jest, but the minute that first bid was spoken he began to take the matter seriously. Resentment by the legitimate owners against these pseudo-purchasers was natural and inevitable; accusations, altercations, personal encounters resulted.

But it took full two hours to work the farce up to tragedy. Nobody save Harrington had yet discerned that it might develop into tragedy, and to him now it seemed so completely a farce that the mere shouting of his name made him forget it. Glancing across the way he recognized Griff Morrison, Louis Spaulding and two or three irresponsible familiars of the Live Wire League. They sat in an open car which they had pulled up at the curb to look on for a time at Hornblower's show.

"Pile in, Hen," they shouted; "we're just heading out for the Country Club."

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 "There as well as anywhere," thought Henry. "I'm no good in the office," and responding in kind to the quips and jests with which his entry was greeted, he allowed himself to be hilariously hauled into the car and borne away with all its occupants save himself chattering of the home-town heiress. The silent one experienced a feeling of decided superiority; yet inevitably a certain expectancy began to get up in his own breast.

This was magnified when, on entering the club grounds, he saw the whole place animated, for the club house had overflowed its broad piazza and the air was strident with the blare of jazz.

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ENRY, deciding to look Miss Boland over before involving himself in introductions, adroitly separated from his companions and maneuvered into the loitering fringes about the dance floor. Just as an unexpected easing of the press precipitated him into the front line, the music stopped, leaving dancers in shoals upon the floor, and Charlie Clayton from the center of these spied him and made a dive in his direction.

"Come on over, old-timer; I want to introduce you," he bubbled. "Billie, allow me to present Mr. Henry Harrington, a late-comer to our town—a war-cynic, war-jaded, thousand year old man, who has scaled all the heights, sounded all the depths and has henceforth nothing left to live for."

"Nothing!" A crisp, musical voice had pounced instantly upon Charlie's phrase, and Harrington found himself gazing at very close range into the light-filled eyes and experiencing the delightful proximity of a very charming young woman. He was smiling of course. He always smiled when he met a lady; and this lady—well, he found her presence immediately stimulating and felt a natural impulse to appear at his very best, wherefore he was instantly provoked at Clayton.

"Oh, I hope, Miss Boland," he said quickly, "you will feel that friend Charlie has misrepresented me."

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