WILLIAM LE QUEUX: 15 Dystopian Novels & Espionage Thrillers (Illustrated Edition). William Le Queux
News office in Mealhouse Lane, the latest telegrams from London and Manchester were posted, being read by a great crowd, which entirely blocked the thoroughfare. The Evening News, with characteristic smartness, was being published hourly, and copies were sold as fast as the great presses could print them, while a special meeting of the Town Council was summoned and met at twelve o’clock to discuss what steps should be taken in case the mills really did close and the great populace were thrown on the town in anger and idleness.
The cotton trade was already feeling the effect of the sudden crisis, for by noon startling reports were reaching Bolton from Manchester of unprecedented scenes on ’Change and of the utter collapse of business.
Most mill-owners were already in Manchester. All who were near enough at once took train — from Southport, Blackpool, Morecambe, and other places — and went on ’Change to learn what was intended. Meanwhile, through the whole of Monday authentic reports of the enemy’s movements in Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex, and East Yorkshire were being printed by the Evening News, each edition increasing the panic in that level-headed, hard-working Lancashire town.
Across at smoky Wigan similar alarm and unrest reigned. On that Monday morning, bright and sunny, everyone re-started work, hoping for the best. Pearson and Knowles’ and the Pemberton Collieries were running full time; Ryland’s mills and Ekersley’s spinning mills were also full up with work, for there was an era of as great a prosperity in Wigan as in Bolton, Rochdale, Oldham, and other Lancashire towns. Never for the past ten years had the cotton and iron industries been so prosperous; yet in one single day — nay, in a few brief hours — the blow had fallen, and trade had become paralysed.
Spy mania was rife everywhere. In Oldham an innocent German, agent of a well-known firm in Chemnitz, while walking along Manchester Street about one o’clock, was detected as a foreigner and compelled to seek protection inside a shop. From Chadderton to Lees, from Royton to Hollinwood, the crisis was on everyone’s lips. Here again was the crucial question: Would the mills close?
Meanwhile, across at Liverpool, the wildest scenes were also taking place on ’Change. News over the wires from London became hourly more alarming, and this, combined with the rumour that German warships were cruising off the Mersey estuary, created a perfect panic in the city. The port was already closed, for the mouth of the river had been blocked by mines; yet the report quickly got abroad that the Germans would send in merchant ships to explode them and enter the Mersey after thus clearing away the deadly obstacles.
Liverpool knew too well the ridiculously weak state of her defences, which had so long been a reproach to the authorities, and if the German ships that had done such damage at Penarth, Cardiff, and Barry were now cruising north, as reported, it seemed quite within the bounds of probability that a demonstration would really be made before Liverpool.
Outside and within the great Exchange the excitement was at fever heat. The Bank Charter was suspended, and the banks had closed with one accord. Upon the “flags” the cotton-brokers were shouting excitedly, and many a ruined man knew that that would be his last appearance there. Every moment over the telephones came news from Manchester, each record more disastrous than the last. Hot, perspiring men who had lived, and lived well, by speculation in cotton for years, surged around the great pediment adorned by its allegorical group of sculpture, and saw each moment their fortunes falling away like ice in the sunshine.
Thus trade in Lancashire — cotton, wool, iron, and corn — was, in the course of one single morning, utterly paralysed, all awaiting the decision of Manchester.
Thousands were already face to face with financial disaster, even in those first moments of the alarm.
The hours passed slowly. What was Manchester doing? Her decision was now awaited with bated breath throughout the whole of Lancashire and Yorkshire.
In Manchester, the Courier, the Daily Mail, and the several other journals kept publishing edition after edition, not only through the day, but also through the night. Presses were running unceasingly, and hour after hour were printed accounts of the calm and orderly way in which the enemy were completing their unopposed landing at Goole, Grimsby, Yarmouth, Lowestoft, King’s Lynn, and on the Blackwater.
Some British destroyers had interfered with the German plans at the latter place, and two German warships had been sunk, the Courier reported. But full details were not yet forthcoming.
There had been a good deal of skirmishing in the neighbourhood of Maldon, and again near Harleston, on the Suffolk border. The town of Grimsby had been half destroyed by fire, and the damage at Hull had been enormous. From a timber-yard there the wind had, it seemed, carried the flames across to the Alexandra Dock, where some stores had ignited and a quantity of valuable shipping in the dock had been destroyed at their moorings. The Paragon station and hotel had also been burned — probably by people of Hull themselves, in order to drive the German commander from his headquarters.
From Newcastle, Gateshead, and Tynemouth came harrowing details of bombardment, and the frightful result of those awful petrol bombs. Fire and destruction had been spread broadcast everywhere.
On the Manchester Exchange on Tuesday there was no longer any reason to doubt the accuracy of Sunday’s report, and the feeling on ’Change became “panicky.” It seemed as though the whole of the ten thousand members had made up their minds to be present. The main entrance in Cross Street was blocked for the greater part of the afternoon, and late comers dodged round to the two entrances in Market Street, and the third in Bank Street, in the hope of squeezing through into the vibrating mass of humanity that filled the floors, the corridors, and the telephone, reading, and writing rooms. The attendants found they had an impossible task set them to make their way to the many lanterns around the vast hall, there to affix the latest messages, recording astounding fluctuations of prices, and now and again some news of the invasion. The master and secretary in the end told the attendants to give up the struggle, and he made his way with difficulty to the topmost balcony, where, above the murmurings of the crowd below, he read the latest bulletins of commercial and general intelligence as they arrived.
But there were no efforts made to do business; and had any of the members felt so inclined, the crush and stress were so great that any attempt to book orders would have ended in failure. In the swaying of the crowd hats were lost and trampled under foot; men whose appearance on ’Change had always been immaculate were to be seen with torn collars and disarranged neckwear. Never before had such a scene been witnessed. Lancashire men had often heard of such a state of things having occurred in the “pit” of the New York Exchange, when wild speculation in cotton was indulged in, but they prided themselves that they were never guilty of such conduct. No matter how the market jumped, they invariably kept their heads, and waited until it assumed its normal condition, and became settled. It had often been said that nothing short of an earthquake would unnerve the Manchester commercial man; those who were responsible for the statement had evidently not turned a thought to a German invasion. That had done it completely.
In the cafés and the hotels, where the master-spinners and the manufacturers had been wont to forgather after high ’Change, there were the usual gatherings, but there was little or no discussion on business matters, except this: there was a common agreement that it would, in present circumstances, be inadvisable to keep the mills running. Work must be, and it was, completely suspended. The shippers, who had the manufacturers under contract to supply certain quantities of goods for transportation to their markets in India, China, and the Colonies, trembled at the very contemplation of the financial losses they would inevitably sustain by the non-delivery of the bales of cloth to their customers abroad; but, on the other hand, they also paid heed to the great danger of the vessels in which the goods were placed falling into the hands of the enemy when at sea. The whole question was full of grim perplexities, and even the most impatient among the shippers and the merchants had to admit that a policy of do-nothing seemed the safest course of procedure.
The chaotic scenes on ’Change in the afternoon were reproduced in the streets in the evening, and the Lord Mayor, towards eight o’clock, fearful of rioting, sent special messengers to the headquarters of three Volunteer corps for assistance in regulating street traffic. The officers in command immediately responded to the call.