If the 400,000 English gentlemen, 'of no occupation,' according to their own statement in the Census of 1881, are unprofitable, do away with them.Set them to work ploughing game preserves and planting potatoes.If they are profitable, continue them by all means, but let it be seen to that the average Englishman shares somewhat in the profits they produce by working at no occupation.
In short, society must be reorganized, and a capable management put at the head.That the present management is incapable, there can be no discussion.It has drained the United Kingdom of its life-blood.
It has enfeebled the stay-at-home folk till they are unable longer to struggle in the van of the competing nations.It has built up a West End and an East End as large as the Kingdom is large, in which one end is riotous and rotten, the other end sickly and underfed.
A vast empire is foundering on the hands of this incapable management.And by empire is meant the political machinery which holds together the English-speaking people of the world outside of the United States.Nor is this charged in a pessimistic spirit.Blood empire is greater than political empire, and the English of the New World and the Antipodes are strong and vigorous as ever.But the political empire under which they are nominally assembled is perishing.The political machine known as the British Empire is running down.In the hands of its management it is losing momentum every day.