"
It fills me with horrible amusement to observe the way in which the
earnest Socialist industriously lays the foundation of all aristocracy,
expatiating blandly upon the evident unfitness of the poor to rule.
It is like listening to somebody at an evening party apologising
for entering without evening dress, and explaining that he had
recently been intoxicated, had a personal habit of taking off
his clothes in the street, and had, moreover, only just changed
from prison uniform. At any moment, one feels, the host might say
that really, if it was as bad as that, he need not come in at all.
So it is when the ordinary Socialist, with a beaming face,
proves that the poor, after their smashing experiences, cannot be
really trustworthy. At any moment the rich may say, "Very well,
then, we won't trust them," and bang the door in his face.
On the basis of Mr. Blatchford's view of heredity and environment,
the case for the aristocracy is quite overwhelming. If clean homes
and clean air make clean souls, why not give the power (for the
present at any rate) to those who undoubtedly have the clean air?
If better conditions will make the poor more fit to govern themselves,
why should not better conditions already make the rich more fit
to govern them? On the ordinary environment argument the matter is
fairly manifest.
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