process of mental corruption, which leads from overwhelming success in
early youth, to absolute disaster in middle-age. The only hope for the
Napoleon of Finance is to retire before his delusions overtake him.

But what is the man who retires early from business to do? Some form of
activity must fill the void. The answer to the question is to be found
in a change of occupation. To some, recreation, and the pursuit of some
art or science or study may bring satisfaction, but these will be the
exceptions. Some kind of public service will beckon to the majority. And
it is natural that this should be the case. Politics, journalism, the
management of Commissions or charitable organisations, all require much
the same kind of aptitudes and draw on the same kind of experiences
which are acquired by the successful man of affairs. The difference is
that they are not so arduous, because they are rarely a matter of life
and death to any man--and certainly can never be so to a man with an
assured income.

On the other hand, from the point of view of society, it is a great
advantage to a nation that it should have at its disposal the services
of men of this kind of capacity and experience. What public life needs
above all things is the presence in it of men who have a knowledge of
reality. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the landowning
classes supplied this kind of direction to the State as the fruit of
their leisure, and, despite some narrowness and selfishness, they
undoubtedly did their work well. But they were disappearing as a class
before the war, and the war has practically destroyed them. Nor are the
world-wide industrial, commercial, and economic problems of the
twentieth century particularly suitable to their form of intellect. The
policy of Great Britain of to-day ought to be founded on a knowledge
both of markets and production. It is here that the retired man of