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“And you are satisfied with that calculation?”

The Colonial Secretary glanced over his figures.

“Yes, I see no reason to alter it. Naturally it will mean great privation; and the working class will be difficult to keep in hand; but I see no objection to carrying on till next year when the harvest will be due. The potato crop will come in early and help us.”

Nordenholt looked at him for a moment and then laughed contemptuously. Suddenly his almost pedantic phraseology dropped away.

“Simpson, you beat the band. I never heard anything like it.”

Then his manner changed abruptly.

“Do you mean to say,” he asked roughly, “that you haven’t realised yet that there will be no next harvest? Don’t you understand that things have changed, once for all? The soil is done for. There will be no crops again until every inch of it is revivified in some way. ‘The potato crop will come in early and help us!’ I’ve consulted some men who know; and they tell me that within a year it will be impossible to raise more than a small fraction even of the worst crop we ever saw in this country.”