different line. Give everyone a chance, by all means, and then make him
come up for examination, and if found fit passed on for higher things,
and if unfit, passed _out_! It is your tendency to pamper the unfit
which I deplore. You have only one idea on your Radical Socialist side
of the House, to pull down those who are in any inherited or agreeable
authority--not because they are doing their work badly, but because you
would prefer their place! The war-cry of boons for the people covers a
multitude of objects, and is the most attractive cry for the masses to
hear all over the world. The real boon for the people would be to give
them more practical sound education and ruthlessly to clear out the
unfit." Then his face lost its whimsical expression and became
interested.

"Let us imagine a Utopian state of republic. Let every male citizen who
has reached twenty-five years, say, pass his examination in the right to
live freely, regardless of class, and if he cannot do so, let him go
into the ranks of the slaves, because, turn it how you will, we must
have some beings to do the lowest offices in life. Who would willingly
clean the drains, fill the dust-carts--and, indeed, do the hundred and
one things that are simply disgusting, but which must be done?"

Mr. Hanbury-Green had not a sufficiently strong answer ready, so
remained loftily silent, while John Derringham went on:

"We obscure every issue nowadays by a sickly sentiment and this craze
for words to prove black is white in order to please the mediocrity. If
we could only look facts in the face we should see that the idea of
equality of all men is perfectly ridiculous. No ancient republic ever
worked, even the most purely democratic, like the Athenian, of the fifth
and fourth centuries B.C., without an unconsidered and unrepresented