er for body nor for mind. The
separation of classes has become more complete; the country may even be
divided into the picturesque counties where money is spent, and the ugly
counties where it is made. Except London and the sea-ports, the whole of
the South of England is more or less parasitic. We must add that in the
early days of the movement the workman and his children were exploited
ruthlessly. It is true that if they had not been exploited they would
not have existed; but a root of bitterness was planted which, according
to what seems to be the law in such cases, sprang up and bore its
poisonous fruit about two generations later. It is a sinister fact that
the worst trouble is now made by the youngest men. The large fortunes
which were made by the manufacturers were not, on the whole, well spent.
Their luxury was not of a refined type; literature and art were not
intelligently encouraged; and even science was most inadequately
supported. The great achievements of the nineteenth century in science
and letters, and to a less degree in art, were independent of the
industrial world, and were chiefly the work of that class which is now
sinking helplessly under the blows of predatory taxation. Capitalism
itself has degenerated; the typical millionaire is no longer the captain
of industry, but the international banker and company promoter. It is
more difficult than ever to find any rational justification for the
accumulations which are in the hands of a few persons. It is not to be
expected that the working class should be less greedy and unscrupulous
than the educated; indeed it is plain that, now that it realises its
power, it will be even more so. In some ways the national character has
stood the strain of these unnatural conditions very well. Those who
feared that the modern Englishman would make a poor soldier have had to
own that they were entirely wrong. But as long as industrialism
continues, we shall be in a state of thinly disguised civil war. There
can be no industrial peace while our urban population remains, because
the large towns are the creation of the system which their inhabitants
now want to destroy. They can and will destroy it, but only by
destroying themselves. When the suicidal war is over we shall have a
comparatively small population, living mainly in the country and
cultivating the fruits of the earth. It will be more like the England of
the eighteenth century than the England which we know. There