struggle when pitted against well-armoured and warmly protected species,
who have wings and trunks and spires and scales and horns and shaggy
hair. If Man cannot live without these luxuries, you had better abolish
Man." At this point, as a rule, the crowd is convinced; it heaves up all
its clubs and axes, and abolishes him. At least, one of him.

Before we begin discussing our various new plans for the people's
welfare, let us make a kind of agreement that we will argue in a
straightforward way, and not in a tail-foremost way. The typical modern
movements may be right; but let them be defended because they are right,
not because they are typical modern movements. Let us begin with the
actual woman or man in the street, who is cold; like mankind before the
finding of fire. Do not let us begin with the end of the last red-hot
discussion—like the end of a red hot poker. Imperialism may be
right. But if it is right, it is right because England has some divine
authority like Israel, or some human authority like Rome; not because we
have saddled ourselves with South Africa, and don't know how to get rid
of it. Socialism may be true. But if it is true, it is true because the
tribe or the city can really declare all land to be common land, not
because Harrod's Stores exist and the commonwealth must copy them.
Female suffrage may be just. But if it is just, it is just because women
are women, not because women are sweated workers and white slaves and
all sorts of things that they ought never to have been. Let not the
Imperialist accept a colony because it is there, nor the Suffragist
seize a vote because it is lying about, nor the Socialist buy up an
industry merely because it is for sale.

Let us ask ourselves first what we really do want, not what recent legal
decisions have told us to want, or recent logical philosophies proved
that we must want, or recent social prophecies predicted that we shall
some day want. If there must be a British Empire, let it be British, and
not, in mere panic, American or Prussian. If there ought to be female
suffrage, let it be female, and not a mere imitation as coarse as
the male blackguard or as dull as the male clerk. If there is to be
Socialism, let it be social; that is, as different as possible from all
the big commercial departments of to-day. The really good journeyman
tailor does not cut his coat according to his cloth; he asks for more
cloth. The really practical statesman does n