Babel : Or the Necessity of Violence: an Arcane History of the Oxford Translators' Revolution (9780063021440)

Griffin, when lecturing, bore a peculiar resemblance to Professor Lovell. Both made very sharp gestures with their hands, as if punctuating their lengthy diatribes with hand movements instead of full stops, and both spoke in a very precise, syncopated manner. They also shared a fondness for Socratic questioning. ‘Jump forward two hundred years, and what do you have?’

Robin sighed, but played along. ‘All the silver, and all the power, flows from the New World to Europe.’

‘Right,’ said Griffin. ‘Silver accrues where it’s already in use. The Spanish held the lead for a long time, while the Dutch, British, and French were nipping at their heels. Jump ahead another century, and Spain’s a shadow of what it once was; the Napoleonic wars have eroded France’s power, and now glorious Britannia is on top. Largest silver reserves in Europe. Best translation institute in the world by far. The best navy on the seas, cemented after Trafalgar, meaning this island is well on its way to ruling the world, isn’t it? But something funny’s been happening over the last century. Something that’s been giving Parliament and all the British trading companies quite a headache. Can you guess what it is?’

‘Don’t tell me we’re running out of silver.’

Griffin grinned. ‘They’re running out of silver. Can you guess where it’s all flowing now?’

This Robin knew the answer to, only because he’d heard Professor Lovell and his friends complaining about it for years during those sitting room nights in Hampstead. ‘China.’

‘China. This country is gorging itself on imports from the Orient. They can’t get enough of China’s porcelain, lacquered cabinets, and silks. And tea. Heavens. Do you know how much tea gets exported from China to England every year? At least thirty million pounds’ worth. The British love tea so much that Parliament used to insist that the East India Company always keep a year’s worth of supply in stock in case of shortages. We spend millions and millions on tea from China every year, and we pay for it in silver.

‘But China has no reciprocal appetite for British goods. When the Qianlong Emperor received a display of British manufactured items from Lord Macartney, do you know what his response was? Strange and costly objects do not interest me. The Chinese don’t need anything we’re selling; they can produce everything they want on their own. So silver keeps flowing to China, and there’s nothing the British can do about it because they can’t alter supply and demand. One day it won’t matter how much translation talent we have, because the silver reserves will simply not exist to put it to use. The British Empire will crumble as a consequence of its own greed. Meanwhile, silver will accrue in new centres of power – places that have heretofore had their resources stolen and exploited. They’ll have the raw materials. All they’ll need then are silver-workers, and the talent will go where the work is; it always does. So it’s all as simple as running out the Empire. The cycles of history will do the rest, and you’ve only got to help us speed it along.’

‘But that’s . . . ’ Robin trailed off, struggling to find the words to phrase his objection. ‘That’s so abstract, so simple, it can’t possibly – I mean, certainly you can’t predict history like this with such broad strokes—’

‘There’s quite a lot you can predict.’ Griffin shot Robin a sideways look. ‘But that’s the problem with a Babel education, isn’t it? They teach you languages and translation, but never history, never science, never international politics. They don’t tell you about the armies that back dialects.’

‘But what does it all look like?’ Robin persisted. ‘What you’re describing, I mean – how is this going to come about? A global war? A slow economic decline until the world looks entirely different?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Griffin. ‘No one knows precisely what the future looks like. Whether the levers of power move to China, or to the Americas, or whether Britain’s going to fight tooth and nail to hold on to its place – that’s impossible to foretell.’

‘Then how do you know that what you’re doing has any effect?’

‘I can’t predict how every encounter will shake out,’ Griffin clarified. ‘But I do know this. The wealth of Britain depends on coercive extraction. And as Britain grows, only two options remain: either her mechanisms of coercion become vastly more brutal, or she collapses. The former’s more likely. But it might bring about the latter.’

‘It’s such an uneven fight, though,’ Robin said helplessly. ‘You on one side, the whole of the Empire on the other.’