tic; all so cowardly and devilish and despicable. We fight by
cheatery and underselling, and adulteration and bribery, and unmanly
smirking for our bone of a livelihood; all scrambling and biting round
the platter when there is abundance for all, if we were orderly and
courteous and gentlemanly; all crushing the weaker; all struggling to
the platter-side for the privilege of wearing tall hats and of giving
good advice to the poor dogs outside. We, the well-fed, shout lordily
to the hungry and cheer them with legends to the effect that though
the poor are juggled out of earth, they may be masters in Heaven. Our
civilisation is barbarous."[38]

Where'er we go, to east or west
North or south, 'tis all the same;
Civilisation at it's best
Is savagery's newer name.
For we see on every hand
'Midst the whirr and noise of trade
The toilers, crushed and trampled, and
Into beasts of burden made.[39]

"The one reality of the nineteenth century is the scramble for wealth;
politics, literature, science, religion, art, are, apart from
money-getting, mere lifeless wraiths."[40] Government in general, and
British Government in particular, is vicious, tyrannous, and
neglectful, and deserves the utmost contempt. "National Government is
devised for other objects than the adjustment of essential, economic,
and hygienic arrangements for the redemption of human life; to use it
for such a purpose is gross tyranny and a deadly blow at the very
foundations of morality and religion! Governments exist for quite
other purposes than this--to pay a million pounds yearly to one family
and its immediate parasites, to supply power of life and death over
the people to the exploiting class and fat places to their satellites
and creatures, to squander hundreds of millions on gunpowder and
armaments, to use the whole socialised power of the nation to overawe,
exploit, rob, and ruin the so-called lower races--all these are the
proper objects of government according to our orthodox wiseacres, but
to use the same obvious instrument adequately to protect human life at
home, and that life, to quote Mr. Burns, 'the weakest, the smallest,
and the dearest to us all,' is to undermine the foundations of British
manliness and to poison the fountain of British liberty and greatness.
Such is the curious _melange_ of selfishness, hypocrisy, prejudice,
ignorance, and incoherence which passes muster for argument amongst
our anti