ep
pure. There was not enough of the old sentimentality, the old faith in
righteousness, left among men. Any organisation that became big enough
to influence the polls became complex enough to be undermined, broken
up, or bought outright by capable rich men. Socialistic and Popular,
Reactionary and Purity Parties were all at last mere Stock Exchange
counters, selling their principles to pay for their electioneering. And
the great concern of the rich was naturally to keep property intact, the
board clear for the game of trade. Just as the feudal concern had
been to keep the board clear for hunting and war. The whole world was
exploited, a battle field of businesses; and financial convulsions, the
scourge of currency manipulation, tariff wars, made more human misery
during the twentieth century--because the wretchedness was dreary life
instead of speedy death--than had war, pestilence and famine, in the
darkest hours of earlier history.

His own part in the development of this time he now knew clearly enough.
Through the successive phases in the development of this mechanical
civilisation, aiding and presently directing its development, there had
grown a new power, the Council, the board of his trustees. At first it
had been a mere chance union of the millions of Isbister and Warming, a
mere property holding company, the creation of two childless testators'
whims, but the collective talent of its first constitution had speedily
guided it to a vast influence, until by title deed, loan and share,
under a hundred disguises and pseudonyms it had ramified through the
fabric of the American and English States.

Wielding an enormous influence and patronage, the Council had early
assumed a political aspect; and in its development it had continually
used its wealth to tip the beam of political decisions and its political
advantages to grasp yet more and more wealth. At last the party
organisations of two hemispheres were in its hands; it became an inner
council of political control. Its last struggle was with the tacit
alliance of the great Jewish families. But these families were linked
only by a feeble sentiment, at any time inheritance might fling a huge
fragment of their resources to a minor, a woman or a fool, marriages and
legacies alienated hundreds of thousands at one blow. The Council had no
such breach in its continuity. Steadily, steadfastly it grew.

The original Council was not simply twelve men of exceptional abili