in their cheque-books. Or
to take a hardly less odd instance, but one which has actually been
brought a little nearer to practical realization. Some time ago a body
of Welsh patriots determined to save the tongue and literature of the
Cymry from extinction by founding a new Welsh nation on the shores of
Patagonia. Nothing but Welsh was to be spoken, none but Welsh books were
to be read, and the laws of the colony were to be an amalgam of the
codes of Moses and of Howel the Good. The plan failed simply because its
originators were poor and unable to tide over the first difficulties of
the project. But conceive an ardent capitalist with a passion for
nationalities embracing such a cause, and at the cost of a few hundreds
of thousands creating perhaps a type of national life which might
directly or indirectly affect the future of the world. Such a man might
secure himself a niche in history at less cost and with less trouble
than he could obtain a large estate and a share in the commission of the
peace for a midland county.

But there is no need to restrict ourselves simply to oddities, although
oddities of this sort acquire a grandeur of their own at the touch of
wealth. The whole field of social experiment lies open to a great
capitalist. The one thing required, for instance, to render the squalor
and misery of our larger towns practically impossible would be the
actual sight of a large town without squalor or misery; and yet if
Liverpool were simply handed over to a great philanthropist with the
income of half-a-dozen Dukes of Westminster such a sight might easily be
seen. Schemes of this sort require nothing but what we may term the
poetic employment of capital for their realization. It is strange that
no financial hero makes his appearance to use his great money-club to
fell direr monsters than those which Hercules encountered, and by the
creation of a city at once great, beautiful, and healthy to realize the
conception of the Utopia and the dream of Sir Thomas More. Or take a
parallel instance from the country. Those who have watched the issues of
the co-operative system as applied to agriculture believe they see in it
the future solution of two of our greatest social difficulties--those,
we mean, which spring from the increasing hardships of the farmer's
position, and those which arise from the terrible serfage of the rural
labourer. But the experiments which have been as yet carried on are on
too small a scale eit