apportion and disburse the revenues so devoted to a traceless
extinguishment.

There would, in other words, be something of a "substantial middle
class," dependent on the wealthy and on their expenditure of wealth, but
presumably imbued with the Victorian middle-class illusion that they are
of some account in their own right. Under the due legal forms and
sanctions this, somewhat voluminous, middle-class population would
engage in the traffic which is their perquisite, and would continue to
believe, in some passable fashion, that they touch the substance of
things at something nearer than the second remove. They would in great
part appear to be people of "independent means," and more particularly
would they continue in the hope of so appearing and of some time making
good the appearance. Hence their fancied, and therefore their
sentimental, interest would fall out on the side of the established law
and order; and they would accordingly be an element of stability in the
commonwealth, and would throw in their weight, and their voice, to
safeguard that private property and that fabric of prices and credit
through which the "income stream" flows to the owners of preponderant
invested wealth.

Judged on the state of the situation as it runs in our time, and
allowing for the heightened efficiency of large-scale investment and
consolidated management under the prospective conditions of added
pecuniary security, it is to be expected that the middle-class
population with "independent means" should come in for a somewhat meager
livelihood, provided that they work faithfully at their business of
managing pecuniary traffic to the advantage of their pecuniary
betters,--meager, that is to say, when allowance is made for the
conventionally large expenditure on reputable appearances which is
necessarily to be included in their standard of living. It lies in the
nature of this system of large-scale investment and enterprise that the
(pecuniarily) minor agencies engaged on a footing of ostensible
independence will come in for only such a share in the aggregate gains
of the community as it is expedient for the greater business interests
to allow them as an incentive to go on with their work as purveyors of
traffic to these greater business interests.

The current, and still more this prospective, case of the
quasi-self-directing middle class may fairly be illustrated by the case
of the American farmers, of the past and present. The Ame