Chapter 39

“Caveat Emptor (let the buyer beware)…”

I rolled that Latin phrase Lord Melbourne had deployed as a shield around inside my mouth.

It tasted bitter.

A term born in the courtrooms of ancient Rome had crossed over a millennium of time to survive right into the drawing room of 19th-century London, still being wielded as a shield for the strong.

Caveat Emptor.

Buyer, beware. It was a terribly convenient and cruel logic holding that “anyone who fails to inspect their wares thoroughly when making a purchase is a fool.”

True to Lord Melbourne’s assertion, in premodern societies when buying and selling visible horses or cattle, this principle may well have applied.

Because a buyer could look and touch directly to discover whether teeth were sturdy or limbs intact.

Yet how on earth are people supposed to know when folks are tampering with what they eat?

Whether alum took the place of flour inside harmless-looking bread, whether brain matter blended into creamy milk, whether glittering candy was sugar or arsenic.

Did that mean to figure it out, one had to go to the market carrying a microscope and a chemistry kit instead of a shopping basket?

In an era devoid of ingredient labels or origins certificates, how on earth was an ordinary consumer supposed to distinguish between roasted sheep excrement and tea leaves when even experts were fooled?

The seller peddles it knowing it is poison, but the buyer consumes it believing it is bread.
Yet the government shouldn’t intervene, and the consumers must grow smarter? Wasn’t Lord Melbourne’s remark merely another word for the apathy of telling them to survive on their own?

If a good has a defect, especially if it is a poison threatening human lives, the fact that whoever manufactured it and whoever sold it bears responsibility—was that not 21st-century common sense and the bare minimum of conscience?

Just wait and see. That noble principle of yours—I’m going to tear it up from the roots and overturn the whole lot.

Meanwhile, the conference room where key figures of the Whig Party gathered was submerged in silence.

Only the crackling of firewood from the fireplace and the sound of someone anxiously tapping a finger against the table echoed nervously.

“The situation… is not favorable.”

Breaking the heavy silence was Home Secretary Lord John Russell.

The expression “not favorable” signified catastrophe in politician’s parlance.

When a politician proclaimed things weren’t favorable, they were already confronting the worst-case scenario, and when they spoke of slight concern, the building was already ablaze.

Unable to bring himself to gaze straight at the report clutched in his hand, he opened his mouth cautiously toward Lord Melbourne.

“Not favorable, you say.”

Lord Melbourne had buried his body deep within his chair with his eyes closed, deep creases gouged between his brows.

“Ever since the articles appeared in the newspapers, the subjects have been in turmoil. Well, to be precise, they are venting fury, but…”

“Directed toward whom? Our cabinet, or the merchants?”

At Lord Melbourne’s sigh-laden query, Lord John Russell shook his head.

“At present… both. Yet for now, the hostility directed toward the visible merchants is greater. Riots are being reported across various streets where bakery windows are smashed and milk delivery carriages overturned.”

At Lord John Russell’s report, sighs erupted from here and there across the conference room.

The Whigs currently stood upon the edge of a precipice.

Not long ago in Parliament, the motion approving the Opium War was voted down, dealing a fatal blow to the cabinet’s leadership. On top of that, compounding misfortune, the charity tea party incident hosted by the Queen erupted.

Milk spiked with calf brains.

Bone-dust bread.

Arsenic-laced candy.

That day, had not the high-ranking Whig officials and aristocrats gathered in this very venue likewise ingested food bordering on poison, vomiting on the spot and rolling upon the floor?

“My stomach turns.”

An MP clapped a hand over his mouth and retched, recalling memories from a few days prior.

“Above all, thanks to this crisis, the momentum of Robert Peel and those Conservative scoundrels is soaring.”

Declared Trade Board President, Minister Poulett Thomson, with veins bulging on his neck.

“Under the pretext of this crisis, those scoundrels have brought forward something termed a food safety act. Safety act in name, is it not in reality a bill where the government deploys inspectors to control everything in the market!”

“Quite right! Daring even to pry into merchants’ ledgers—this is a grave infringement upon free trade!”

“Yet public opinion is on their side! Just look outside right now. The subjects believe they were consuming poison because our cabinet was incompetent.”

The MPs’ voices grew progressively louder.

That voices grew louder was ironically proof that their logic was weakening.

Amidst MPs frantic with mingled fear and fury, Lord Melbourne slowly lifted himself upright.

“We cannot permit such legislation to pass.”

“Wise words indeed, Mr. Prime Minister.”

Lord John Russell chimed in, yet gazed at him with a somewhat apprehensive eye.

“Yielding to the Conservative demands to enact legislation… might lead next to the Corn Laws.”

At those words, Lord Melbourne’s gaze grew razor-sharp.

The Corn Laws were taboo of taboos for the Whigs, something that must never be touched.

The Corn Laws served as a shield protecting the interests of landowner-class MPs, and should the Conservative Party succeed in passing the food safety act as desired, they would leverage that momentum to touch upon the repeal of the Corn Laws or tariff reductions—and should they fail to defend against this, the Whig Party, heavily populated by landowner MPs, might suffer severe internal injuries.

The Corn Laws are out of the question. Placing them on the discussion table right now is entirely inappropriate.

Lord Melbourne shook his head.

Yet neither can we maintain a policy of inaction…

Her Majesty the Queen, alongside numerous aristocrats, had fallen ill after partaking of the food in question.

Moreover, the charity tea party was an event hosted by the royal household. To remain passive while the prestige of the crown lay shattered in the dust?

That is tantamount to renouncing the nation.

Yet neither was accepting the new regulatory bill advocated by Robert Peel a viable option.

Small government and minimized market intervention were values synonymous with the very soul of the Whig Party, and the moment they abandoned those, the Whigs would be reduced to a mere secondary appendage of the Conservative Party.

Accept regulations and our ideology dies; reject them and public opinion dies.

Deep in contemplation for a long spell, Lord Melbourne brought his fist down upon the table; once the murmuring conference room fell silent, the eyes of the veteran politician glared around at everyone.

“Everyone is steeped in defeatism. If we tremble merely at a bill submitted by the Conservative Party, how can we possibly claim to lead this nation?”

He slowly rose from his seat, walked over to the window, and gazed down at rain-drenched London.

“Robert Peel is astute. He is framing this incident as a systemic failure. His logic is that since no laws exist, since no regulations exist, such occurrences transpired, and therefore the government must step in and control them.”

Lord Melbourne turned back around.

“Should we allow ourselves to be dragged into that framing, we lose. The moment we concede that a new law is necessary, we are essentially confessing that our laissez-faire approach up to now was flawed.”

Even a painting appears differently depending upon the frame in which it is placed.
Robert Peel placed this incident inside the frame of institutional failure.

“T-Then what must we do? The public desires to hang someone this very instant!”

“Fortunately, what the public desires is not justice.”

Lord Melbourne continued with a cynical expression.

“What they desire is a scapegoat.”

A scapegoat.

The goat driven out into the wilderness bearing the sins of the community.

While the community has committed the actual sins, it is the goat that receives punishment.

And once the goat is driven out, the community is purified.

Of course, it was not truly purified, but merely felt purified—and Lord Melbourne was acutely aware of that distinction. Furthermore, he intended to exploit that distinction.

“We merely need to alter the vector of this fury just a fraction. Not a failure of the system, but an individual deviation.”

Altering the vector of fury.

The art of politics was concealed within this single sentence.

Fury is akin to a river; unless a direction is established, it overflows in all directions, yet once a channel is dug, it flows precisely where desired. Lord Melbourne was digging a channel right now. Ensuring the river of fury flowed toward the merchants rather than the Whig Party.

“Think upon it. What is the essence of this incident? Was it merely selling food of poor hygiene?”

Power infused Lord Melbourne’s voice.

“Nay. Absolutely not. This incident approaches the level of an insult targeted directly at Her Majesty the Queen and the nobility.”

“Ah…!”

A few quick-witted MPs gasped aloud.

“Common tradesmen, blinded by coin, fed poison to the sacred monarch and the nobility. Is this not a matter of mere business ethics, but a crime bordering on treason?”

A substitution.

Replacing a systemic failure with an individual crime.

Replacing the absence of systems with moral corruption.

Should this substitution succeed, the necessity to enact laws evaporates.

Because catching the criminals suffices. Old laws in place of new laws. Superficial punishment in place of fundamental reform.

The crisis could be patched over by replacing people instead of altering structures.

“We have no need to forge new laws. Because powerful laws already reside within our grasp. Fraud, tax evasion for failing to remit taxes diligently, and lase majesty.”

When the Conservatives attack institutions, the Whigs attack morals.

When Robert Peel clamors for regulation, Melbourne simply needs to clamor for the execution of criminals.

If the former is tedious administrative discourse, the latter is immediate retribution that makes the public’s blood boil.

And the public invariably preferred hot things to tedious ones.

Immediate vengeance rather than legal enactment; the gallows rather than statutory legislation.

“Arrest all the merchants who supplied goods to this tea party, particularly the ringleaders whose guilt is manifest.”

Lord Melbourne’s directives were unhesitating.

“Do not merely let them off with a fine and release them. For should you do so, public fury will pivot straight back toward us.”

“Then what charges ought we to apply…?”

“Deception of the royal household, fraud against the nobility, and the crime of endangering public safety. Must we not pressure the judges to seek maximum sentencing by mobilizing every available legal doctrine?”

“Yet, Your Excellency… will the merchants not push back? Among them are many sponsors of our party.”

An MP asked with a voice tinged with apprehension.

“Push back?”

Lord Melbourne scoffed.

“Do you imagine they are presently in a position to push back? The citizens of London are attempting to put their shops to the torch. If anything, the government clapping them behind bars may well prove to be the path ensuring their survival.”

On the surface, it sounded akin to protecting the merchants, yet in reality, it was rendering the merchants scapegoats. Sacrifice packaged in the language of protection. Exploitation borrowing the guise of mercy. Lord Melbourne’s politics operated most efficiently behind those overlapping masks.

Naturally, sparing the merchants who contributed hefty political donations while making an example solely of the most vicious culprits—meaning those who gave scant donations or those readily discarded—would allow him to wrap up the affair at the level of excision of rotten flesh.

“And it shall serve as a pretext to shut the mouths of the Conservatives.”

Lord Melbourne added.

“Did Conservative MPs not suffer harm during this affair as well? Should we take the initiative and step forward to severely punish merchants who committed crimes bordering on treason, they cannot overtly object either. Feigning respect for their pride while quietly shelving substantive regulatory bills.”

The MPs’ expressions brightened progressively.

An escape route had begun to manifest amidst a desperate situation.

“As expected of the Prime Minister!”

“The moral hazard of the merchants was the issue, for free trade itself was never at fault.”

“Quite right. Cull a few rotten apples, and the entire crate remains fresh.”

The MPs echoed one another, heaving sighs of relief.

Demonstrating that what mattered to them was not the safety of bread, but the security of their own parliamentary seats and vested interests.

“Well then, action is best taken swiftly.”

Lord Melbourne concluded the meeting.

“Distribute press releases prominently on the front pages of tomorrow morning’s newspapers. State that the government shall never pardon the ruthless criminals who threatened Her Majesty the Queen, and that the Tower of London awaits them.”

“Understood!”

The MPs trickled out of the conference room one by one, leaving Lord Melbourne alone once more inside the room.

He rubbed eyes besieged by fatigue and settled back into his chair.

The sheet of rain outside the window continued to lash down fiercely.

When all is said and done, it is merely a temporary expedient…

Punishing the corrupt merchants and setting them up before all men to serve as a human shield.

Lord Melbourne was aware.

The directives just issued could not serve as a fundamental resolution to this crisis.

Yet as the leader guiding the Whig Party, he possessed no other recourse at present.

Had the Whigs not faced relentless challenges as a governing party ever since the defeat of the motion to wage war on Qing China?

“Checking the Conservatives is one matter, but we must minimize our own casualties.”

With that, Lord Melbourne lifted his wine glass.

The red liquid contained within the glass resembled the blood the merchants would shed.

“My apologies, but in politics, whoever survives is the victor.”

A solo mutter echoed through the empty conference room. There was no echo. The vacant conference room offered neither agreement nor dissent.