Spiritual Evolution of Society 169 



power." Now it is no doubt true that the Universities, 

 the Established Church, the barristers and financiers 

 who rule our political life, are all on the side of property 

 and the maintenance of present-day materialism, 

 which has caused and is causing " la miser e," against 

 which " Labour " has quite rightly rebelled. He must 

 know that the present condition of the masses is un- 

 paralleled, and that nearly one-third earn less than the 

 minimum required to keep them in the necessary 

 amount of comfort. He declares himself a Socialist ; 

 the designation is strange, since talk of this kind is a 

 contradiction to such an appellation; he "breathes 

 the word of promise to the ear, and breaks it to 

 our hope ! " The present state is one of " national 

 humiliation," and is much more to be ashamed of than 

 the fear of foreign conquest. If he is a Socialist, should 

 he not greet the present unrest with a cheer, and 

 join in the demand for higher wages and a universal 

 minimum wage for all workers, so that no household in 

 the land could be said to be in poverty, for improved 

 conditions of life all round, and equality of opportunity 

 universally ? Mr. Wells, we fear, has no appreciation 

 of the lesson of history, or of the evolutionary process 

 at present operating in the " genus homo sapiens." 

 Had he understood, he would have realised that the 

 present unrest is only a phase of the gradual change 

 which is being accomplished in the organisation of 

 society and must result in " equality of opportunity " of 

 happiness for every member of the State. He con- 

 tinues : " It is to the independent people of some 

 leisure and resource in the community that one has at 

 last to. appeal for such large efforts and understanding 

 as our present situation demands." This is indeed a 

 lame conclusion ; people of leisure under present-day 

 conditions are of necessity people of great possessions, 

 whose interests are entirely those of the present time 



