ney by cheating a child out of a meal ... but there are plenty of
Liberals who do that. And I'm against all this legislation which makes
some public authority do things for people which they ought to be doing
for themselves. I mean, I hate the notion of the State feeding hungry
school-children because the parents cannot afford to feed them, when the
proper thing to do is to see that the parents are paid enough for their
work to enable them to feed their children themselves. I suppose I'm
sloppy ... the Fabians used to say so at Cambridge ... but I prefer the
spectacle of a family round its own table to the spectacle of a crowd of
assorted youngsters round a municipal school table! And I don't think
we're getting the most out of our people! Just think of the millions of
men and women in this country who really do not earn more than their
keep! That isn't good enough. If you can only just keep yourself going,
then you've no right to go ... except to hell as quickly as possible. My
idea is that we waste potentialities at present, not by squandering
them, but by never using them. All those poor people, for example, how
do we know that some of them, if given an opportunity, would not be
amazingly worth while! There must be a great deal of brain-power simply
chucked away or misused. I know that lots of people believe that men of
genius work their way up to their level no matter how low down they
begin, but I doubt that, and anyhow I'm not talking of geniuses ... I'm
talking of the average clever man ... there must be men of good average
quality lost in slums because none of us have taken the trouble to clear
the ground for them. And the ground has to be cleared! You can't grow
wheat on a sour soil. I often think when I see some hooligan brought
into Court that, given a real chance, he might have been a better judge
than the man who sends him to gaol. The Tory's job is to restore the
balance of things. It isn't only to maintain the level, but to raise it
and to keep on raising it.... I believe in the State of Poise, of
equitable adjustment, in which every man will be able to move easily to
his proper place.... There are so many obstacles now in the way of man
finding his place that, even if he has the strength to get over them, he
probably won't have the strength to fill it...."

"My view, perhaps, is narrower than yours, Roger," Henry said, "but I
see all these people chiefly as men and women who are shut out of
things: books