ider them. Many Socialists have a way of forgetting the
social meaning of constitutional changes. They regard constitutional
reform as something that delays social reform, whereas it may be
something that enables the public, if it so desires, to speed up
social reform. That is why Home Rule, the abolition of the veto of the
House of Lords, and a dozen comparable matters, must be as eagerly
ensued by Socialists as by Radicals. The underfed child, the sweated
woman--even the maltreated animal, I imagine--will benefit as a result
of changes which, to say the least, take some of the impediments out
of the way of the social reformer. Meanwhile, let Mr Galsworthy and
those who think with him redouble their efforts on behalf of humanity,
whether towards man or beast. But let them not seek to destroy a good
thing that is being done in order to call attention to a good thing
that is not being done. Let them not try to persuade us that it is
more important for the Russian people to abolish mouse traps than to
get a constitutional monarch and sound Parliamentary institutions. I
have the sincerest respect for Mr Galsworthy's heart--for the generous
passion with which he stands up for all the lame dogs in the world. I
agree heartily with every separate cause he advocates in his letter to
the _Times_. It is only his table of values with which I quarrel, and
the destructive use he makes of it. I believe that an overwhelming
case could be made out against Parliament on the score of its
heartlessness, but Mr Galsworthy has not made it.

XVI

SPRING FASHIONS

In spite of the progress of civilisation, there are still women to
whom the returning Spring is mainly a festival of dresses. It is
pleasant to know that there is, after all, a remnant of primitive
humanity surviving. Women will before long be the only savages. Long
after the last anthropologist has departed from the last South Sea
Island in despair, when the people have all become Christians and have
no manners and customs left, the race of fashionable women will still
march its feathered regiments up and down under the sun, a puzzle and
an exasperation to the scientific inquirer. Like all really primitive
people, women will go on refusing to believe in or bow down to the
laws of Nature. Nature may tell them, for instance, of the correct
position of the human waist; but they will not listen to her; they
will insist that the human waist may be anywhere you like between th