draw
the ways and means of a worthy life from businesslike arrangements of a
"vested" character, made and provided with a view to their nourishment
and repose. Their resulting usufruct of the community's productive
efforts rests on a vested interest of a pecuniary sort, sanctioned by
the sacred rights of property; very much as the analogous German
dynastic and aristocratic usufruct rests on personal prerogative,
sanctioned by the sacred rights of authentic prescription, without
afterthought. The two, it will be noted are very much alike, in effect,
"under the skin." The great distinguishing mark being that the German
usufructuary gentlemen are, in theory at least, gentlemen-adventurers of
prowess and proud words, whose place in the world's economy it is to
glorify God and disturb the peace; whereas their British analogues are
gentlemen-investors, of blameless propriety, whose place it is more
simply to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.

All this arrangement of a usufruct with a view to the reputable
consumption of the community's superfluous production has had the
cordial support of British sentiment, perhaps fully as cordial as the
German popular subservience in the corresponding German scheme; both
being well embedded in the preconceptions of the common man. But the war
has put it all to a rude test, and has called on the British gentlemen's
executive committee to take over duties for which it was not designed.
The exigencies of this war of technological exploits have been almost
wholly, and very insistently, of a character not contemplated in the
constitution of such an executive committee of gentlemen-investors
designed to safeguard class interests and promote their pecuniary class
advantage by a blamelessly inconspicuous and indirect management of
national affairs. The methods are of the class known colloquially among
the vulgar-spoken American politicians as "pussyfooting" and
"log-rolling"; but always with such circumstance of magnitude,
authenticity and well-bred deference to precedent, as to give the
resulting routine of subreption, trover and conversion, an air not only
of benevolent consideration but of austere morality.

But the most austere courtesy and the most authentically dispassionate
division of benefits will not meet the underbred exigencies of a war
conducted on the mechanistic lines of the modern state of the industrial
arts. So the blameless, and for the purpose imbecile, executive
committee o