new titled people up above.
One wonders what it means for the future. Is England going to develop
a new caste system which the commonalty will have to fight? There are
now six barons of the Press, and "The Times" and "Daily Mail," the
"Daily Telegraph," the "Sunday Herald," the "Express," the "News of the
World," the "Daily Chronicle," and "Pall Mall Gazette," are, as it
were, feudal castles and feudal organizations in our new England. It
is enough to start a new War of the Roses. Lord Northcliffe has much
in common with the king-maker if prime ministers are uncrowned kings.
These Press barons in their way are remarkable men, but as the gates
were opened to let them in a whole host of other people slipped
through. It is a human weakness to desire decorations. It ought to be
the function of a strong, wise Government to save us from ourselves.
In the sixteenth century Spaniards gave coloured beads to Indians in
exchange for gold. In the twentieth century something similar obtains
in England where successful gentlemen part with large sums in exchange
for tiny decorations.

Perhaps the matter is not so important as it might seem to the
theorist. Japanese students of our life make many strange deductions
from such phenomena as the extensive manufacture of new titles of
nobility. But whether they are right or wrong in their far-drawn
conclusions it must be admitted that so much honour bestowed in such
unremarkable days has made us flabby as a nation.

Indeed, we suffer by comparison with the French and the Americans who
have notably increased the dignity of simple citizenship. And yet
another contrast strikes one after a tour of Europe in 1921 and that is
that in England, despite protests about taxes, there are more people of
independent means than in any other country. The _pensionnaires_ of
the State and of industry have increased with us, whilst in many
countries they have almost disappeared. Fewer people are actually
earning their living in England than in any other country; more people
are just passengers on the economic machine. The working part of the
population carries a mass of non-workers on its back all the while.
Anyone who did well in the great war could reasonably hope to lay by
25,000 pounds which gave him an income of 1,000 pounds a year tax free.
That 1,000 pounds a year tax free has now to be earned by those who
work and given to those who work not. In Germany, in Austria, there
were also tho