252 The Ideal State 



he would hail the advent of some friendly comet to 

 sweep it all away into nothingness. Huxley was a 

 great man, and as honest as the day, but he 

 was no Socialist, no idealist, as we understand the 

 word, yet even he, through the evidence of observed 

 phenomena, was forced to come to this conclusion. 

 That being so, la misere being of such awful horror as 

 to call forth this cry from one not professing a belief in 

 the dogma of the Christian religion, although doubtless 

 influenced by its altruism, it behoves all who profess 

 to follow the teachings of the New Testament — and 

 what is religion if it is not conduct — to endeavour to 

 bring about by every possible means the annihilation 

 of the system which produces such widespread misery 

 and vice and crime among the masses of the people. 

 Matthew Arnold asks in one of his books — What is 

 religion ? And the answer is supplied — " Religion is 

 conduct, and conduct is three-fourths of life." If then 

 we profess the teachings of Jesus as the guide of our life, 

 and go to church Sunday after Sunday to hear again 

 these wondrous messages of love and self-sacrifice, and 

 yet in daily conduct traverse every one of these, what 

 are we ? " Woe unto ye, hypocrites and Pharisees. Ye 

 honour Me with your lips, but your hearts are far from 

 Me." If then we are imbued with the altruism of 

 Christian ethics, one of the first reforms which Parlia- 

 ment ought to be asked to effect is the prevention by 

 law of the payment by any company to its shareholders 

 of high percentages procurable only by sweated pro- 

 cesses for the reason given above, that la misere was 

 the result of the striving on the part of our managing 

 directors to pay big dividends. If this were enacted, 

 and a wage sufficient for all wants secured to every 

 householder, and a limitation of the hours of labour so 

 that no such thing as overwork would be possible, then 

 the sweating system would automatically cease. It 



