 of them attributed to
the weakness of the Government. As far as the passing hour went, perhaps they
were right in this.«
    »How do you mean?« said I. »What could the Government have done? I often
used to think that they would be helpless in such a crisis.«
    Said old Hammond: »Of course I don't doubt that in the long run matters
would have come about as they did. But if the Government could have treated
their army as a real army, and used them strategically as a general would have
done, looking on the people as a mere open enemy to be shot at and dispersed
wherever they turned up, they would probably have gained the victory at the
time.«
    »But would the soldiers have acted against the people in this way?« said I.
    Said he: »I think from all I have heard that they would have done so if they
had met bodies of men armed however badly, and however badly they had been
organised. It seems also as if before the Trafalgar Square massacre they might
as a whole have been depended upon to fire upon an unarmed crowd, though they
were much honeycombed by Socialism. The reason for this was that they dreaded
the use by apparently unarmed men of an explosive called dynamite, of which many
loud boasts were made by the workers on the eve of these events; although it
turned out to be of little use as a material for war in the way that was
expected. Of course the officers of the soldiery fanned this fear to the utmost,
so that the rank and file probably thought on that occasion that they were being
led into a desperate battle with men who were really armed, and whose weapon was
the more dreadful, because it was concealed. After that massacre, however, it
was at all times doubtful if the regular soldiers would fire upon an unarmed or
half-armed crowd.«
    Said I: »The regular soldiers? Then there were other combatants against the
people?«
    »Yes,« said he, »we shall come to that presently.«
    »Certainly,« I said, »you had better go on straight with your story. I see
that time is wearing.«
    Said Hammond: »The Government lost no time in coming to terms with the
Committee of Public Safety; for indeed they could think of nothing else than the
danger of the moment. They sent a duly accredited envoy to treat with these men,
who somehow had obtained dominion over people's minds, while the formal rulers
had no hold except over their bodies
