Page:The council of seven.djvu/183

 he took a signet ring from the first finger of his right hand, for no apparent reason pressed it to his lips and then put it back again. "No law," he went on in the same unchanging voice, "of man's contrivance can be effective unless there lies behind the moral power to enforce it."

"I agree."

"Perhaps you do not realize that you and your friends, the members of this infamous International Newspaper Ring, are no longer to be permitted to carry out the policy for which you stand."

"What is the policy for which we stand?"

"Giantism—world-power—in other words, enslavement and spoliation of the weak."

"Arrant nonsense!"

"We shall gain nothing," said Lien Weng "by bandying words. It has taken the Society of the Friends of Peace many months to reach a conclusion in this case of yours; and it has done so only after complete investigation of all the salient facts. Understand, sir, that all its verdicts are based upon reason, and that once moved to action it pursues an undeviating, a relentless course."

Saul Hartz made a gesture of contempt. "You are an illegal body. At best you are a murder club. You stand outside the law."

"Not outside the moral law. Take the case of the teeming, helpless millions of my Chinese compatriots for whom I speak, of those millions of unlucky crea