ing his chair back, he surveyed the title critically.

'Yes,' he said aloud, squaring his shoulders resolutely, 'I have
generalised long enough. Without malice, but without restraint, I will
trace the contribution of Britain towards the world's debacle.'

With gathering rapidity and intensity he covered page after page with
finely worded paragraphs. He summoned the facts of history, and
churning them with his conceptions of humanity's duty to humanity,
poured out a flood of ideas, from which he chose the best. Infatuated
by the richness of the stream, he created such a powerful sequence of
facts that the British began to loom up as a reactionary tribe fighting
a rearguard action throughout the ages against the advancing hosts of
enlightenment. The Island of Britain, the 'Old Country,' as its people
called it, began to shape in his eyes like a hundred-taloned monster
sprawling over the whole earth. This was the nation which had forced
opium on China, ruled India by tyranny, blustered and bullied America
into rebellion, conquered South Africa at the behest of business
interests. . . . Those and endless others were the counts against
Britain in the open court of history.

And if those had been her crimes in the international sphere, what
better record could she show in the management of human affairs at
home? She had clung to the feudal idea of class distinction, only
surrendering a few outposts reluctantly to the imperious onslaught of
time; she had maintained a system of public schools which produced
first-class snobs and third-rate scholars; she had ignored the rights
of women until in very desperation they had resorted to the crudities
of violence in order to achieve some outlet for the pent-up uselessness
and directionlessness of their sex; she had tolerated vile living
conditions for the poor, and had forced men and women to work under
conditions which were degrading and an insult to their Maker. . . .
One by one these dragons reared their heads and fell to the gleaming
Excalibur of the author.

Selwyn made one vital error--he mistook facts for truth. He forgot
that a sequence of facts, each one absolutely accurate in itself, may,
when pieced together, create a fabric of falsehood.

There were many contributing influences to Austin Selwyn's denunciation
of Britain that morning. Although he had ordered sentiment and
prejudice to leave his mind unclogged, these two passions cannot be
dismissed by mere wil