good many of these idle-looking men. But it will be said, the Oxford and Cambridge is not the kind of club the Chancellor meant. Very well then, let us take another, which has, possibly, a larger number of peers on its members' list. I was for a good many years a member of White's; was elected soon after leaving the university, and only took my name off a year or two ago. Now White's is not what it was in Thackeray's day. It is no longer the hall-mark of the aristocrat to be able to pose in "the bow window of Bays." But it is on the whole a "young man's" club that is to say, a club to which a youth who is bene natus, bene vestitus, et moderate doctus may wish to belong. You will certainly find fewer bishops and lawyers there than at the Oxford and Cambridge, but possibly more stockbrokers and financiers. If you cannot discover any appreciable number of the "idle rich" at White's, where in the name of Radicalism are you going to look for them? Very well, then, let us buttonhole a few members and ask them what they are. "You, sir, there, with the good figure and the little rose in your buttonhole-you look idle enough at the moment as you take a chair in the window and survey the passers-by. What are you?" "I am a landlord in a Home county. I command a yeomanry brigade. I have worked like a slave at the War Office for seven years till the Esher Commission turned out the old gang. (Is the new gang any better?) I have written a book on the Near East, which for a year or two was looked on as the last word on the subject. I am a partner in a big electrical firm with offices in Queen Victoria Street." Next, please, - "You idle young fellow knocking the balls about on the billiard table, stared at by all those beautiful old prints,-what do you do for a living?" "My father makes me an allowance at present. But I'm learning land-agency work at Cirencester, so that I can look after the property for the governor in a year or two when old Smiththat's our present agent-is pensioned off." I know the boy. His father is Lord X., an impoverished land-owning peer in the North of England. Next, please. Ah, here is a likely object: a small, shinylooking lad, with a little waxed moustache,-this at least is a fit object for our Chancellor's satire. Hear him, then. "I work from nine till four in Messrs Nash's bank-dull work, banking, but lucrative. I got the job because old P., our senior, is a cousin of mine." Nepotism, but not idleness. Here is a young soldier, who caught a bullet in the arm at Vaalkrantz. Here is an unmistakable young Hebrew, but he married an Earl's daughter, and his name is a household word. He works in the firm's city office. Here comes a noisy, laughing, bear-fighting gang of boys who look like undergraduates, and are not much older. They sit down in the little hall, and talk about motor-cars and shooting. Mark that tall dark lounger-and I repeat that he one with the biggish moustache, in the middle. He is a Fellow of All Souls, got a First in Greats, passed second into the Home Civil Service, and is just going off to act as private secretary to one of our proconsuls. You would not think it to look at him now, would you? He is just the object to deceive our psalm-singing Chancellor. Sitting by him, and trying to kick his shins, is a dear good friend of mine, a secretary of legation in Morocco, home on leave: that short fair boy went out as an Imperial Yeoman to South Africa, and will one day own more land than almost anybody else in England. In the meantime he is in the House of Commons, and an ardent Radical. Oh! Mr Lloyd George, even your supporters sometimes appear in the guise of idle clubmen. The list may be prolonged ad infinitum. It is no doubt true that in any West End club there are one or two men who practically live in the club, and do nothing. The average club bore is known to us all, and I do not defend him. There may be fifty of him within a quarter-mile of Pall Mall; I doubt if there are so many. You may go into any respectable London club-I have not the vaguest idea what club Mr Lloyd George belongs to and if you take the members there assembled one by one you will find that perhaps one in twenty is idle, and one in twenty is rich, but only one in a hundred is both idle and rich. Your club is a rare bird-is nearly always a man who from his earliest youth has been cursed with a small competence. If a naturally unenterprising man finds himself possessed of a small income sufficient to pay his club subscription and provide his little comforts, he runs a grave risk of developing into that most pitiable of all objects, the elderly, unmarried, poor, idle club bore. Now, let us visit one or two English counties, and see if we can discover the idle rich, dog at heel and gun under arm. For six or seven years I lived in a Home county, some fifty miles from London; now fate has taken me to the West Country, so I can claim a knowledge of the country life which is tempered by being within a short journey of town, and also of that other country life which does not trouble itself much because London is a day's journey away. And since I have for long been a dweller in the country, let us take my own case first. It may not be particularly interesting, but it is distinctly typical. On leaving the university, I went into business, and worked at it for five years, at the end of which period I was earning £600 a year, which I did not particularly need. Also my health showed signs of breaking down. So we (regard me now as a married man with a family) shook off the dust of London from our feet, and retired to a nice house and about a thousand acres of land in Loamshire, less than two hours from town. In a few months' time I was adopted as the Liberal candidate for West Loamshire. Mr Lloyd George had not then (in 1903) made it impossible for a selfrespecting country gentleman to be a Liberal. I believed in Free - trade, disliked Chinese labour, and was quite ready to support all the older doctrines of the Radical faith, such as Disestablishment and a broader Franchise. For three years I worked like a slave, hoping to pull down a big majority, but in 1906 was beaten by a very few votes indeed. Not long after this certain family events happened, and we moved to the West. Was I idle those three years? One of the few things which Mr Lloyd George really does understand is electioneering, and he knows the kind of idleness which a Parliamentary candidate enjoys. Now let us take a look at some of my friends and neighbours in Loamshire. My nearest neighbour and my very dear friend (he is dead now) was a man who had a flourishing business in one of Loamshire's big towns by the sea. Also he owned many thousand acres of land, was a County Councillor and an authority on Education, and had twice fought the Division as a Liberal,-in 1900, and in a previous by-election. I have never known a busier man; or one who for all his strenuous days had much better pheasant shooting. It was not that the bags were enormous, but every bird was a high one, and there was a workmanlike atmosphere about the shoot that was worthy of the sincerest form of flattery. Some of my readers, if I ever have any, will know the sort of shoot I mean: where the keepers know their job, and the beaters are quick and quiet or slow and noisy at the word of command; where the birds break forward in twos and threes, instead of back in clouds; where the guns are good fellows and clean shots, and your host places you himself and sees that everyone gets his share of shooting. O, si sic omnes! Is this kindly, prosperous, busy man to be pointed at with the finger of scorn? Is it indeed true that "the country cannot afford" to suffer such men to exist? Not even if he is a Radical? Oh, Mr Chancellor, I wonder where your Party funds in West Loamshire come from now? My friend is dead, and I am gone- and Lloyd Georgism (not Liberalism) was defeated in the Division last January by over two thousand votes. It is not only immoral but positively foolish to tar all rich men with the same brush. Round about us dwelt many retired Naval and Army officers. Some of them were undoubtedly idle, but assuredly not rich; others were unpaid secretaries of various institutions, associations, clubs, and societies. In any case, whether idle now or no, it was the fault of a system which sent them packing at an age when there was still much good work left in them, and condemned them all too frequently to a life of irksome idleness on a small pension. Many of them played golf-on any good links you will always find a quantity of old soldiers,—some took a little bit of a farm, and no doubt in September might have been observed by a diligent Socialist stumbling through a field of wet roots, or looking for a runner down the hedgerow with the Chancellor's dog. A hale, well-dressed Colonel of fifty does look remarkably aristocratic very often, and even opulent, though he may be as poor as the church mouse. Also there were in Loamshire many retired business men, of varying income, but generally well-to-do. The solicitors appeared to have made the biggest pile, but the small financier and company promoter had not as a rule done so badly, and the merchant was not far behind. These gentlemen and their families made up a kind of clique in the neighbourhood, much given to five o'clock tea and lawn tennis. Some of them hunted a little, others shot, or fished, or had some hobby or amusement. I suppose if they had been Americans they would have stuck to the money-making till it had become the only thing they cared about. The average Englishman is more sensible. When he has made enough to live upon in comfort he very often retires at a comparatively early age, and enjoys himself in a quiet, sober fashion of his own. Are we to call him idle? He has worked with success, and by his success must have benefited many besides himself, and if he then says, "I will work no more, I will end my days in peace and leisure," why should he be abused for doing so? He is a much more useful member of the community than the unlovely old man who has made money his god, and in his falling years cannot endure to cease from his worship; infinitely more useful than the professional politician. Now I will ask you to come West with me and behold me, your humble servant, in the rôle of owner of several thousand acres of land, a village containing 350 people, a church, and a biggish sort of house. Me voilà! the idle man of the Chancellor's dream, typical of all my kind. Yet, one way and another, I have a good deal to do. The property has of late years not been too well looked after, and my agent (one of the two million) and I are always walking off to look at this farm or that cottage, or examining a hillside with a view to replanting, or a bog to find out if it can be drained. I would do without an agent, but I have not got the technical knowledge either of farming, architecture, or law (especially law nowadays, Mr Chancellor) which an agent must possess, and am too old to go to school again. I regard myself as the general manager of a rather complicated business, which necessitates a great deal of close attention in order to obtain satisfactory results. It does not do to leave everything in the hands of an agent, however good, any more than it pays a man who has not had the necessary training to dispense with an agent's services. The agent cannot take ultimate responsibilities, or at any rate ought not to do so: the owner cannot do full justice to his farmers if he has little or no technical knowledge. Nine country landowners out of ten recognise their responsibilities, and are as far as possible from regarding an estate as 8 pleasure ground or a mere investment. The farmers know well that they are much better off as rent - payers to a good landlord than a8 owners paying interest on a mortgaged farm. But I have no intention now of going into the land question. It does but concern me to show that a country gentleman is not an idle man. My role of Squire brings of itself much unpaid labour. I am Chairman of the Parish Council, of the Village Club Committee, of the Parish Nursing Association; am also a School Manager and impresario of the village cricket eleven. Farther afield I am a Justice of the Peace, who believes that J.P.'s should sit on the Bench as often as possible; Chairman of the Agricultural Association, which holds a remarkably flourishing show once a-year; Chairman of the local Shire Horse Society; and a subaltern officer of yeomanry. Last year I took over a district in the Government scheme of Horse Classification. Now none of these positions are of themselves extremely burdensome, but taken as a whole they imply an amount of work which must be experienced to be believed. No doubt I might do more-many country squires do a great deal more. I might, for instance, be a District or & County Councillor, and work on various Council committees. But, as murder will out, I must confess that I am fond of scribbling; and had I much more unpaid work to do, should have no time left over for my only paid work the work I do with paper and pen. No doubt in the Chancellor's eyes these country Liturgies are very petty and unimportant. Yet if they are left undone, a great deal of inconvenience of suffering, even -is caused to many innocent persons. The only alternative, if the squires went on strike in a body, would be to create an enormous army of paid officials who would do the work, no doubt, but would not do it so sympathetically or successfully. Armies of paid officials are dear to the heart of the Radical Socialist, since only by the help of bureaudom in excelsis-raised to the nth power- can their dreams become realities or mankind be dragooned into accepting measures so utterly hostile to liberty or happiness. Officials increase and multiply like weeds in the |