it is your
duty to at once investigate the economic and political reasons for such
a state of things, and alter them. By going about and collecting money
for these people you commit what is little short of a crime. You must
know the demoralizing effect of charity. No man who has ever received a
dole is ever again an independent person. Besides that, you are
diverting the public mind from the real point of issue, which is not
that so many thousand people are hungry, but that a flaw exists in the
administration of the laws of the country so grave that a certain number
of thousands of people who have a God-sent right to productive labour
haven't got it. Do you follow me?"

"Perfectly," Brooks answered. "You did not talk like this to Mr.
Wensome."

"I admit it. He was an ignorant man in whom I felt no interest
whatever, and I did not take the trouble. Besides, I will frankly admit
that I am in no sense of the word a sentimentalist. The distresses of
other people do not interest me particularly. I have been poor myself,
and I never asked for, nor was offered, any sort of help. Consequently
I feel very little responsibility concerning these unfortunate people,
whose cause you have espoused."

"May I revert to your first argument?" Brooks said. "If you saw a man
drowning then, instead of trying to save him you would subscribe towards
a fund to teach people to swim?"

"That is ingenious," Lord Arranmore replied, smiling grimly, "but it
doesn't interest me. If I saw a man drowning I shouldn't think of
interfering unless the loss of that man brought inconvenience or loss to
myself. If it did I should endeavour to save him--not unless. As for
the fund you speak of, I should not think of subscribing to it. It
would not interest me to know that other people were provided with a
safeguard against drowning. I should probably spend the money in
perfecting myself in the art of swimming. Don't you see that no man who
has ever received help from another is exactly in the same position
again? As an individual he is a weaker creature. That is where I
disagree with nearly every existing form of charity. They are wrong in
principle. They are a debauchment."

"Your views, Lord Arranmore," Brooks said, "are excellent for a model
world. For practical purposes I think they are a little pedantic. You
are quite right in your idea that charity is a great danger. I can
assure you that we are trying to realize that in Medchester. We ask for
mo