He surprised me, though. For the most part these industrialists are difficult people to converse with, self-made men for whom industry is everything and who judge conversation to be the stuff of the weak. They despise bankers, on the whole, for contributing nothing to society, and for acting as parasites on their endeavours. They are either overwhelmed by the likes of Wilkinson or aggressive in showing their disdain. Stone was none of these things. He was mild-mannered, almost as though I was doing him the favour. For a long time the conversation steered around anything other than the reason for the luncheon.
“So you plan to go to Paris?” he asked eventually, as though I had let slip my desire to see the sights.
“In a week or so, if all goes well.”
“And Barings? They are not upset to let a man of such promise leave?”
“They seem more than ready to bear their loss with fortitude,” I replied, with a touch of slight bitterness. When I told Barings of my decision, they had merely nodded, and accepted the letter of resignation. Hadn’t even asked for an explanation, let alone tried to dissuade me.
“I see. You cannot blame them really. Defending the Empire is very admirable, but doing it on Barings’ time is quite another. Don’t judge them too harshly. Banking is not a business which has much use for individuality. Even Revelstoke thinks that initiative and daring should be his sole preserve. It is a great error on his part. Mind you, I believe he has an equally low opinion of me.”
“Might I ask why?”
“Oh, he regards me as an upstart,” Stone said with a faint smile, but he did not seek to convey the idea that Revelstoke was beneath contempt as a result. Rather he reported it in a manner which was entirely neutral, even as though the Chairman of Barings might have a point. “It is nothing personal, you understand. But he thinks I don’t understand money.”
“And you think you do?”
“I think I understand people, and Revelstoke takes too many risks. He has made a great deal of money out of it and so is emboldened to take even more. He believes he is infallible, and that will spell ruin, sooner or later. Hubris, you know, can destroy a banker as well as a Greek hero.”
Now, someone criticising Lord Revelstoke, acknowledged through out the world as one of the greatest bankers in history, made me feel a little uncomfortable.
“He is surely the greatest innovator in banking of the age,” I said.
“He is the greatest gambler,” Stone said sourly. “And so far he has had the greatest luck.”
I tried to change the subject.
“Ah, loyalty,” observed Stone. “Not a bad quality. But it is possible to be loyal and critical at the same time. They are two qualities I insist on, in fact. The sycophant is the greatest of all dangers in an organisation. I have never fired a man for disagreeing with me. I have dismissed several for agreeing when they knew better.”
“On that subject, what exactly would my position be?” I asked a little crossly. “Do I run the risk of being summoned back to England because I agree with you about something?”
“I will have no say in the matter at all,” he replied evenly. “You are to work for Mr. Wilkinson, not me. I merely provide the means for you to do so. As an experiment. Obviously, if Mr. Wilkinson decides the experiment is not working, or that it costs more than it is worth, then we will have to think again.”
“Why are you providing the means? It is a very great deal of money.”
“Not so very much,” he said. “And it is money I can easily spare. I thought your approach was interesting, and amateurism annoys me wherever it occurs. I almost consider it my duty to eradicate it. And if not my duty, then my hobby.”
“An expensive hobby.”
He shrugged.
“So expensive I do not quite believe you.”
“Call me a patriot, then.”
“I know little of your companies, Mr. Stone. Such things are not my area of expertise. But I remember reading that you have supplied weapons to every single enemy our army and navy might face. Are those the actions of a patriot?”
It was an insulting remark, but deliberately made. I needed to find out what I was getting myself into.
“It is not the task of my companies to make Britain more secure, it is the duty of Britain to make my companies more secure. You have the relationship the wrong way round,” he said quietly. “It is the task of a company to generate capital. That is its beginning and its end, and it is foolish and sentimental to apply morality to it, let alone patriotism.”
“Morality must apply to everything. Even the making of money.”
“A strange statement for a banker, if I may say so. And it is not so. Morality applies only to people. Not to animals and still less to machines.”
“But you are a man,” I pointed out, “you manufacture weapons of war, which you sell to all who want to buy them.”
“Not quite,” he said with a smile. “They must be able to afford them as well. But you are right. I do. But consider. If one of my torpedoes is fired, and hits its target, many people will die. A terrible thing. But is the torpedo to blame? It is but a machine, designed to travel from point A to point B and then detonate. If it does so, it is a good machine which fulfils its purpose. If not, it is a failure. Where is there any space for morality in that?
“And a company is also merely a machine, supplying the wants of others. Why not blame the governments who buy those torpedoes and order them to be used, or the people who vote for those governments?
“Should I stop building these weapons, and deny governments the chance to murder their citizens more cheaply and efficiently? Certainly not. I am obliged to make them. The laws of economics dictate that. If I do not, then a demand will go unsatisfied, or it may be that the money is spent on a less worthy machine, which would be an inefficient use of capital. If men do not have torpedoes, they will use cannon. If there are no cannon, they will use bows and arrows. If there are no arrows, they will use stones and if there are no stones, they will bite each other to death. I merely convert desire into its most efficient form and extract capital from the process.
“That is what companies are for. They are designed to multiply capital; what they make is irrelevant. Torpedoes, food, clothes, furniture. It is all the same. To that end they will do anything to survive and prosper. Can they make more money employing slave labour? If so, they must do so. Can they increase profits by selling things which kill others? They must do so again. What if they lay waste the landscape, ruin forests, uproot communities and poison the rivers? They are obliged to do all these things, if they can increase their profits.
“A company is a moral imbecile. It has no sense of right or wrong. Any restraints have to come from the outside, from laws and customs which forbid it from doing certain things of which we disapprove. But it is a restraint which reduces profits. Which is why all companies will strain forever to break the bounds of the law, to act unfettered in their pursuit of advantage. That is the only way they can survive because the more powerful will devour the weak. And because it is in the nature of capital, which is wild, longs to be free and chafes at each and every restriction imposed on it.”
“You justify selling weapons to your country’s enemies?”
“To the French, you mean?”
“Yes.”
“And the Germans and the Italians and the Austrians?” he added.
“Yes. You justify that?”
“But they are not my country’s enemies,” he said with a faint smile. “We are not at war.”
“We may well be soon.”
“True enough. But with which country, do you think?”
“Does it matter?”
“No,” he admitted. “I would sell them the weapons even if I knew that we would be at war with them in six months’ time. It is not my job to conduct foreign policy. Such sales are not illegal and anything which is not forbidden is permissible. If the Government decided to ban sales to France, then I would comply with the law. At the moment, for ex
ample, I can see a great deal of money to be made in building shipyards for the Russian Empire. But the Government does not wish Russia to have a shipbuilding industry. I would like to supply the Tsar with our new submarines, as the Russian Government would pay handsomely for them. Again, I do not.”
“There is a law against that?”
“Oh, dear no. The laws of the land are not only those on the statute book, as approved by Parliament. But I am told that my business here would suffer, and naturally I listen to such warnings. In my opinion it is a mistake. Russia will surely learn how to make battleships and submarines; all we are doing is delaying this by a few years, while also making enemies of them and denying ourselves considerable profit.”
“You are very honest.”
“Not at all. Only when there is no reason not to be.”
I considered all this, a passionate speech delivered in an utterly dispassionate, dry manner, and tried to make sense of it. When talking of capital, Stone spoke more like a romantic poet than a businessman.
“And where do I fit into this?”
“You? You will make the Government better able to take correct decisions, if you do your job well. At the same time, you will provide a better view of the future, so that I can plan more accurately.”
“Presumably you want there to be conflict.”
“Oh, no. It is a matter of complete indifference to me. I merely wish to be ready for whatever occurs.”
“And the safety of the country? The Empire?”
He shrugged. “If I had to judge, I would say that the Empire is inefficient and wasteful. It has no purpose and little justification. Undoubtedly the country would be better off without it, but I do not expect many people will ever agree with me. Its only justification is that India deposits its gold in the Bank of England, and that has allowed the gigantic increase in our trade with the world by strengthening the pound sterling.”
I found Mr. Stone an alarming man. I had anticipated working for the Government, a patriot labouring for the public good. Not for a man like John Stone. Only towards the end of our interview did I see something else in him; puzzling, and unexpected.
“Tell me,” he said as we stood to leave. “How is your father?”
“As usual, I think,” I said. I felt as guilty as I was surprised; I had not made the journey to Dorset to see my father for some while, and as I have mentioned, every time I went, there seemed less point in doing so.
“I see.”
“You know him?”
“We were acquainted, once. Before he became ill. I liked him. You look very much like him. But you do not have his personality. He was gentler than you. You should be careful.”
“Of what?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Of getting too far away from your father’s nature, perhaps.”
And he nodded at me, wished me well in a formal, impersonal fashion, and left.
CHAPTER 7
Having damned all others for their ineptitude and promised an entirely new way of collecting information, I found that I was left entirely without any assistance or instructions as a result. So, show us, seemed to be the general opinion and I discovered later that there were many—of the few who knew anything of this experiment—who wanted me to fail dismally.
Saying what you will do on paper is one thing; doing it is another, and I had not the slightest idea how to proceed. Getting myself to Paris was the first step, fairly obviously. After that I would have to make it up as I went along. My official employers were somewhat more useful to me; George Buckle, the editor of The Times, accepted my sudden irruption into his life with remarkable calm and handed me over to a junior reporter called McEwen for instruction about how to write for a newspaper, as well as practical guidance on the uses of telegraph machines for transmitting any stories I might feel like writing. The fact that The Times wasn’t required to pay me no doubt made Buckle more easygoing about my existence.
Then I left, arriving in Paris one Wednesday morning. My luggage had already gone on ahead, and I was little encumbered by baggage. So I went straight to the offices of The Times—offices being a misnomer, as they were in truth little more than a single room which contained nothing that might indicate its purpose except for bundles of old French newspapers on the floor. The door was unlocked and the room was empty, but on the desk was a little note addressed to me: would I be so kind as to join the writer, Thomas Barclay, in the nearby restaurant for lunch?
I was so kind; a waiter led me over to the right table, and I joined the man who was, theoretically, my new colleague.
Thomas Barclay was in his late forties at that stage, with a fine flowing beard that was russet coloured. He had enormous ears, an oddly pointed nose and an intellectual forehead. He frowned a lot to show high seriousness, a tendency he had acquired, I suspect, through spending too much time studying German philosophy in Jena, although the effect was to make him look more confused than thoughtful.
He was, fortunately, about as serious a journalist as I was, but had been in Paris for nearly twenty years by this stage. He had written a book review in the Spectator in the early seventies and, as he had shown a willingness to live abroad, had been offered the job as Paris correspondent of The Times on this basis alone. His reports were few and far between, and always couched in such vague language that it was often impossible to ascertain what, exactly, was the subject. For Barclay, the importance of an event varied in direct proportion to the importance of the person who had given him the information, for he was a most fearful snob, and could work himself into a lather of excitement over an invitation to a prestigious salon, or dinner at a senator’s private house. Their words he treated like finest gold dust, but he was so discreet he could rarely bring himself to report them without wrapping his information up in so many circumlocutions that their significance was totally lost. Besides, he had of late become the President of the British Chamber of Commerce in Paris, which post he took most seriously, thinking, rather oddly, that it was a position of the highest political and diplomatic importance, rather than a mere dining club for foreign traders.
He was delighted to see me, and not in the slightest perturbed either that no one had asked his opinion about my coming, or by my utter lack of experience. “Very few people in England have any interest in what goes on outside the Empire,” he said cheerfully, “as long as it does not affect them. For the most part you can write anything you wish, and for all important events a straight translation from a reputable Paris paper will do excellently well. I wouldn’t bother running around trying to get interesting stories, if I were you. No one will read them and they probably won’t even get published. The only subject worth extending yourself over is a society scandal. They always go down well as they confirm the readers’ opinions about the low morals of the French. Book reviews, if you don’t mind, I will keep for myself. Theatre only if Bernhardt is involved.”
I told him that he was welcome to keep all the book reviews. “I thought,” I said tentatively, “I might write some stories about the Bourse.”
He frowned. “If you wish, go ahead. I wouldn’t find it very interesting myself. But it takes all sorts, of course.”
“I was given a few names,” I added. “It would be rude not to call on them.”
“Good heavens, yes. Go ahead. Please don’t think I intend to direct you in any way. As long as you write one story every fortnight, more or less, everyone will be delighted with you.”
“I’ll do my best,” I said.
“I did one yesterday, in fact,” he said. “So we’re in the clear for a while. If you do the next one…”
I said I thought I could manage to write something in a fortnight, and he leaned back in his chair, beaming at me. “Splendid. That’s taken care of. Now, where are you living?”
In fact, I was in a hotel and ended up staying there for the next year; it was the cheapest option, as I did not want the expense of a household, and it was perfectly adequate. Domesticity has never been one of my great d
esires in life and certainly was not then; a comfortable bed and decent food are my sole requirements, and the Hôtel des Phares—in reality, a few rooms above a bar, with an obliging landlord whose wife was happy to do my laundry and cook some food—provided both.
I will pass over my daily life, as much of it was of little interest and consisted mainly in laying down those webs of information and making those acquaintances which journalists and other seekers of information require. How this is done is fairly obvious, and consists primarily in making oneself as personable and harmless as possible, in creating a void which others seek to fill through conversation. From such gossip come hints and clues which lead, sometimes, to other things. I made my acquaintance widely for I found the French both charming and welcoming, quite unlike their reputation. I cultivated the traders of the Bourse, the playwrights of the Latin Quarter, and the politicians and diplomats and soldiers who scattered themselves at random across the city. They all, I believe, considered me somewhat dull and without any opinions of my own; it was not my role to have any.
And in August I went to Biarritz, where the new rich of the Republic went to mingle with old names and titles and keep themselves properly distant from the People, a group they admired in principle, but did not actually want to have anything to do with on a social level. It was a glorious sight to watch, for a brief while, a testament both to the wealth of the rich, and the capacity of the French to amuse themselves. All of French society that mattered squeezed itself into a stretch of coastline bordered by the Hôtel du Palais to the north, and the Hotel Métropole to the south, these two separated by a mile or so of glorious beach, and many dozen villas of exuberant and fanciful design. The town was at the peak of its prosperity then; Queen Victoria herself had come to visit the year before, the Prince of Wales showed up every year. Princess Natalie of Romania lived in exile in a handsome villa up the road; the first Russian grand dukes were putting in an appearance. The English had colonised the entire region from Pau to the Pyrenees to the coast, apparently forgetting that Aquitaine was no longer theirs.