he need of making
dividends for railway shareholders, or for his mother working for a
halfpenny an hour in a narrow room the filth of which is transmuted
into gold for some rich man? These, too, are your brothers and
sisters, and deserve the angry eloquence of an epitaph. Here is
subject enough for indignation--not a weak and ineffectual indignation
against foreigners, but indignation knocking terribly at your own
doors.

XV

THE HEART OF MR GALSWORTHY

Mr Galsworthy has been writing to the _Times_ on "the heartlessness of
Parliament." The _Times_, always noted for its passion for humane
causes, ranges itself behind him and asserts that Englishmen have now
learned to speak of the politician "with intellectual contempt, as of
one who is making a game of realities, who fiddles a dull tune while
Rome is burning." Both Mr Galsworthy and the _Times_ are apparently
agreed that the measures which Parliament has for some time past been
discussing are matters of trivial significance and, in so far as they
take up time which might be devoted to better things, are an outrage
upon the conscience of (to use the odd phrase of the newspaper) "those
who are most interested in the spectacle of life and the future of
mankind." Mr Galsworthy, wearing his heart in his ink-pot not only
denounces the indifference of politicians to vital things, but goes on
to lay down an alternative programme--a programme of the heart, as he
might call it, in contrast to the programme of the hustings. He begins
his list of things which ought to be legislated about with the
sweating of women workers and insufficient feeding of children, and he
ends it with live instances of--in an even odder phrase than that
quoted from the _Times_--"abhorrent things done daily, daily left
undone."

Export of horses worn-out in work for Englishmen--save the
mark! Export that for a few pieces of blood-money delivers up
old and faithful servants to wretchedness.

Mutilation of horses by docking, so that they suffer, offend
the eye, and are defenceless against the attacks of flies
that would drive men, so treated, crazy.

Caging of wild things, especially wild song-birds, by those
who themselves think liberty the breath of life, the jewel
above price.

Slaughter for food of millions of creatures every year by
obsolete methods that none but the interested defend.

Importation of the plumes of ruthless