Mitchener.  But you accepted it unconditionally.

Balsquith.  Yes, before we knew what it was.  It was unworkable, you know.

Mitchener.  I dont know.  Why is it unworkable?

Balsquith.  I mean the part about drawing a cordon round Westminster at a distance of two miles; and turning all women out of it.

Mitchener.  A masterpiece of strategy.  Let me explain.  The Suffragets are a very small body; but they are numerous enough to be troublesome—­even dangerous—­when they are all concentrated in one place—­say in Parliament Square.  But by making a two-mile radius and pushing them beyond it, you scatter their attack over a circular line twelve miles long.  A superb piece of tactics.  Just what Wellington would have done.

Balsquith.  But the women wont go.

Mitchener.  Nonsense:  they must go.

Balsquith.  They wont.

Mitchener.  What does Sandstone say?

Balsquith.  He says:  Shoot them down.

Mitchener.  Of course.

Balsquith.  Youre not serious?

Mitchener.  Im perfectly serious.

Balsquith.  But you cant shoot them down!  Women, you know!

Mitchener (straddling confidently).  Yes you can.  Strange as it may seem to you as a civilian, Balsquith, if you point a rifle at a woman and fire it, she will drop exactly as a man drops.

Balsquith.  But suppose your own daughters—­Helen and Georgina.

Mitchener.  My daughters would not dream of disobeying the proclamation. (As an after thought.) At least Helen wouldnt.

Balsquith.  But Georgina?

Mitchener.  Georgina would if she knew shed be shot if she didnt.  Thats how the thing would work.  Military methods are really the most merciful in the end.  You keep sending these misguided women to Holloway and killing them slowly and inhumanely by ruining their health; and it does no good:  they go on worse than ever.  Shoot a few, promptly and humanely; and there will be an end at once of all resistance and of all the suffering that resistance entails.

Balsquith.  But public opinion would never stand it.

Mitchener (walking about and laying down the law).  Theres no such thing as public opinion.

Balsquith.  No such thing as public opinion!!

Mitchener.  Absolutely no such thing as public opinion.  There are certain persons who entertain certain opinions.  Well, shoot them down.  When you have shot them down, there are no longer any persons entertaining those opinions alive:  consequently there is no longer any more of the public opinion you are so much afraid of.  Grasp that fact, my dear Balsquith; and you have grasped the secret of government.  Public opinion is mind.  Mind is inseparable from matter.  Shoot down the matter and you kill the mind.