The house of Industry : a new estate of the realm

END OF HISTORIC MANDATE 9

nervous and troubled about it. To equip the convoy would be an expensive undertaking. ‘““ Fear not,’’ said a City magnate, significantly, “the spaniel will bring back a duck in its mouth.’’ In a generation or two, the duck had miraculously turned into an elephant stuffed with gold. Never before had the Peerage collected such pickings from a single enterprise. Compared with this, the ‘“squeeze’’ of the Chinese Mandarins was crude and amateurish.

Meantime, the House of Commons was engaged in various legislative measures, which the Peers would accept, revise or reject as their fancy seized them.