Lord of the World | Page 3

or two of the fall of the House of Lords. It was necessary,
I think, or the Individualists would have gone raving mad.... Well, the Necessary Trades
Bill was inevitable: people had begun to see that even so far back as the time when the
railways were municipalised. For a while there was a burst of art; because all the
Individualists who could went in for it (it was then that the Toller school was founded);
but they soon drifted back into Government employment; after all, the six-per-cent limit
for all individual enterprise was not much of a temptation; and Government paid well."

Percy shook his head.
"Yes; but I cannot understand the present state of affairs. You said just now that things
went slowly?"
"Yes," said the old man, "but you must remember the Poor Laws. That established the
Communists for ever. Certainly Braithwaite knew his business."
The younger priest looked up inquiringly.
"The abolition of the old workhouse system," said Mr. Templeton. "It is all ancient
history to you, of course; but I remember as if it was yesterday. It was that which brought
down what was still called the Monarchy and the Universities."
"Ah," said Percy. "I should like to hear you talk about that, sir."
"Presently, father.... Well, this is what Braithwaite did. By the old system all paupers
were treated alike, and resented it. By the new system there were the three grades that we
have now, and the enfranchisement of the two higher grades. Only the absolutely
worthless were assigned to the third grade, and treated more or less as criminals--of
course after careful examination. Then there was the reorganisation of the Old Age
Pensions. Well, don't you see how strong that made the Communists? The
Individualists--they were still called Tories when I was a boy--the Individualists have had
no chance since. They are no more than a worn-out drag now. The whole of the working
classes--and that meant ninety-nine of a hundred--were all against them."
Percy looked up; but the other went on.
"Then there was the Prison Reform Bill under Macpherson, and the abolition of capital
punishment; there was the final Education Act of '59, whereby dogmatic secularism was
established; the practical abolition of inheritance under the reformation of the Death
Duties---"
"I forget what the old system was," said Percy.
"Why, it seems incredible, but the old system was that all paid alike. First came the
Heirloom Act, and then the change by which inherited wealth paid three times the duty of
earned wealth, leading up to the acceptance of Karl Marx's doctrines in '89--but the
former came in '77.... Well, all these things kept England up to the level of the Continent;
she had only been just in time to join in with the final scheme of Western Free Trade.
That was the first effect, you remember, of the Socialists' victory in Germany."
"And how did we keep out of the Eastern War?" asked Percy anxiously.
"Oh! that's a long story; but, in a word, America stopped us; so we lost India and
Australia. I think that was the nearest to the downfall of the Communists since '25. But
Braithwaite got out of it very cleverly by getting us the protectorate of South Africa once
and for all. He was an old man then, too."

Mr. Templeton stopped to cough again. Father Francis sighed and shifted in his chair.
"And America?" asked Percy.
"Ah! all that is very complicated. But she knew her strength and annexed Canada the
same year. That was when we were at our weakest."
Percy stood up.
"Have you a Comparative Atlas, sir?" he asked.
The old man pointed to a shelf.
"There," he said.
* * * * *
Percy looked at the sheets a minute or two in silence, spreading them on his knees.
"It is all much simpler, certainly," he murmured, glancing first at the old complicated
colouring of the beginning of the twentieth century, and then at the three great washes of
the twenty-first.
He moved his finger along Asia. The words EASTERN EMPIRE ran across the pale
yellow, from the Ural Mountains on the left to the Behring Straits on the right, curling
round in giant letters through India, Australia, and New Zealand. He glanced at the red; it
was considerably smaller, but still important enough, considering that it covered not only
Europe proper, but all Russia up to the Ural Mountains, and Africa to the south. The
blue-labelled AMERICAN REPUBLIC swept over the whole of that continent, and
disappeared right round to the left of the Western Hemisphere in a shower of blue sparks
on the white sea.
"Yes, it's simpler," said the old man drily.
Percy shut the book and set it by his chair.
"And what next, sir? What will