y power and influence, and to ill-bred wealth and riches, by
trampling others down and profiting by their poverty is--as Ruskin long
ago told us--the real and prevailing motive of our peoples, whatever
their professions of Christianity may be. Small wonder, then, if out of
such interior conditions there rise to dominance in the great world
those very classes who exhibit the same vulgarities in their most
perfect form, and that _their_ conflict with each other, as between
nation and nation, exhibit to us, in the magnified and hideous form of
war, the same sore which is all the time corrupting our internal
economy. The brutality, and atrocity of modern war is but the reflection
of the brutality and inhumanity of our commercial regime and ideals. The
slaughter of the battlefields may be more obvious, but it is less
deliberate, and it is doubtful whether it be really worse, than the
daily and yearly slaughter of the railways, the mines, and the
workshops. That being so, it is no good protesting against, and being
shocked at, an evil which is our very own creation; and to cry out
against war-lords is useless, when it is _our_ desires and ambitions
which set the war-lords in motion. Let all those who indulge and
luxuriate in ill-gotten wealth to-day (and, indeed, their name is
Legion), as well as all those who meanly and idly groan because their
wealth is taken from them, think long and deeply on these things. Truth
and simplicity of life are not mere fads; they are something more than
abstractions and private affairs, something more than social ornaments.
They are vital matters which lie at the root of national well-being.
They are things which in their adoption or in their denial search right
through the tissue of public life. To live straightforwardly by your
own labour is to be at peace with the world. To live on the labour of
others is not only to render your life false at home, but it is to
encroach on those around you, to invite resistance and hostility; and
when such a principle of life is favoured by a whole people, that people
will not only be in a state of internal strife, but will assuredly raise
up external enemies on its borders who will seek its destruction.

The working masses and the peasants, whose lives are in the great whole
honest--who support themselves (and a good many others besides) by their
own labour--_have no quarrel_; and they are the folk who to-day
--notwithstanding lies and slanders galore, and