austible--that you can muddle about
with oil anyhow.... Optimism of knaves and imbeciles.... They don't want
to be pulled up by any sane considerations...."

For some moments he kept silence--as if in unspeakable commination.

"Here I am with some clearness of vision--my only gift; not very clever,
with a natural bad temper, and a strong sexual bias, doing what I can
to get a broader handling of the fuel question--as a common interest
for all mankind. And I find myself up against a lot of men, subtle men,
sharp men, obstinate men, prejudiced men, able to get round me, able to
get over me, able to blockade me.... Clever men--yes, and all of them
ultimately damned--oh! utterly damned--fools. Coal owners who think only
of themselves, solicitors who think backwards, politicians who think
like a game of cat's-cradle, not a gleam of generosity not a gleam."

"What particularly are you working for?" asked the doctor.

"I want to get the whole business of the world's fuel discussed and
reported upon as one affair so that some day it may be handled as one
affair in the general interest."

"The world, did you say? You meant the empire?"

"No, the world. It is all one system now. You can't work it in bits. I
want to call in foreign representatives from the beginning."

"Advisory--consultative?"

"No. With powers. These things interlock now internationally both
through labour and finance. The sooner we scrap this nonsense about an
autonomous British Empire complete in itself, contra mundum, the better
for us. A world control is fifty years overdue. Hence these disorders."

"Still--it's rather a difficult proposition, as things are."

"Oh, Lord! don't I know it's difficult!" cried Sir Richmond in the tone
of one who swears. "Don't I know that perhaps it's impossible! But it's
the only way to do it. Therefore, I say, let's try to get it done. And
everybody says, difficult, difficult, and nobody lifts a finger to try.
And the only real difficulty is that everybody for one reason or another
says that it's difficult. It's against human nature. Granted! Every
decent thing is. It's socialism. Who cares? Along this line of
comprehensive scientific control the world has to go or it will
retrogress, it will muddle and rot...."

"I agree," said Dr. Martineau.

"So I want a report to admit that distinctly. I want it to go
further than that. I want to get the beginnings, the germ, of a world
administration. I want to set up a perma