hase by small
men of small parcels of land or businesses or houses should be freed
from legal charges while these should be made heavier for those who
purchased on a large scale thus encouraging small property and
checking huge accumulation. He pointed out how vast sums could be
found for such subsidies out of the money spent today on an education
which the poor detested for their children and which most of the
wealthy admitted to be an abject failure. Most of those, he noted,
who oppose Distributism do so on the ground that the proposals are
unpractical or revolutionary, which generally means that they have
not examined the proposals. His own were certainly practical and
would by many be called reactionary. But he admitted one
doubt--besides the overwhelming difficulty of turning the current of
modern Socialism--the doubt whether Englishmen from long disuse had
not lost the appetite for property.

Chesterton's own line of approach to the double problem was also
twofold. In a volume of Essays published near the end of the war and
called _The Utopia of Usurers_ he remarked: "That anarchic future
which the more timid Tories professed to fear has already fallen upon
us. We are ruled by ignorant people."

The old aristocracy of England, in his view, had made many mistakes
but certain things they had understood very well. The modern
governing class "cannot face a fact, or follow an argument, or feel
a tradition; but least of all can they, upon any persuasion read
through a plain impartial book, English or foreign, that is not
specially written to soothe their panic or to please their pride."
There had been reality in the claim of the old aristocracy to
understand matters not known to the people. They had read history;
they were familiar with other languages and other lands. They had a
great tradition of foreign diplomacy. Even the study of philosophy
and theology, today confined to a handful of experts, was not alien
to them. On all this had rested what right they had to govern. But
today "They rule them by the smiling terror of an ancient secret.
They smile and smile but they have forgotten the secret."

On the other hand the ordinary workman had the advantage over his
probably millionaire master by the necessity of knowing something. He
must be able to use his tools, he must know "enough arithmetic to
know when prices have risen." The hard business of living taught him
something. Give him a chance of more through prope