LAND AND WATER 
September 18, 1915. 
himself in a well. The son whom sh« had borne wa« not 
her husband's, oi.k the squire's, and Mrs. Dudeney carries 
on tlie story till the son is grown up, and in his life the 
tragedy is repeated. Nancy, grown old, lives to be reviled 
by him, to see her son's wife reproducing the same misery 
t7hich she had suffered. 
It is out of the character of this woman, Nancy Wiston, 
that Mrs. Dudeuey creates the central interest of her story. 
Nancy had demanded excitement, " a constantly racing 
pulse." She had to pay for that excessive demand upon life. 
"She was so alluring sitting there; she was so queenly 
. . . until she spoke." That is the sort of touch which 
Mrs. Pudeuey cannot resist. " For the common people did 
not come well through the test of mirth." She was strong, 
defiant, self-willed, capable of heroic passion, capable of com- 
plete disillusion. She loved the home among the bare Downs, 
and the sharp autumn winds. The best chapter in the book 
is that which describes Iidw Wiston and Nancy came to this 
home of theirs. They thought of the old cottages in which 
they had been born; but here, in this fine farmhouse, 
"Nancy drew in her breath; she stared with delight at 
gaudy rcses on the papered wall, at a neat grate which had 
be°n fitted, filling in the open fireplace." But Wiston 
drowned himself in the well ; and Nancy's mother sniffed 
round. '' These old women who were past love, they were 
Isrrible — in their knowledge, their intuition, their total lack 
of pity." 
The story itself has in it something of the terribleness 
and the pitilcssness of those grim old women. Its humour is 
sardonic; its pathos is bitter. But it is life, clearly enough, 
though it is the seamy side of it, unrelieved. The charact«rs 
1 e vividly alive. The horror is sordidly true. The outlook 
•s endless and sinister. The man, at the last, goes out. — the 
second Morris. "Them women," he says, " must settle 
things for theirselves." 
' A Defence of AristocMcy : A Text Book for Tories.' 
M. Ludovici. (Constable.) lOs. 6d. net. 
By Anthony 
Though Mr. Ludovici calls his book a "text book for 
Tories," we do not think that the majority of those who call 
themselves Traies to-day will welcome him with open arras. 
They may agree with him in his hatred of trade and indus- 
trialism, and even join in his tirade against Puritanism. 
They may think it odious that peers of ancient lineage should 
marry actresses, and they may agree that an aristocracy 
should have duties no less than privileges. But they can 
hardly feel flattered by his wholesale condemnation of the 
aristocrats of to-day, or willingly accept the burden of train- 
ing, sacrifice, mental culture, benevolence, and omniscience 
which he imposes upon them. 
Most of us who have given any thought to the matter will 
readily agree that for years past there has been " something 
""?*■.'*" " "' ^^^^ ^^^^ °^ England — and of Europe — and of 
civilisation. We agree that it is a rare thing for fineness of 
heart and brain to find a place among the practical rulers of 
the nation. We know that the industrial revolution was 
allowed to sweep over this country, and to produce a scramble 
for wealth, the building of ugly towns, the creation of a 
squalid and poverty-stricken class of labourers; and that 
there were none among our rulers who had the foresight and 
the will to divert history. We may agree with him, then, in 
desiring that the world were otherwise, and we need not 
dwell upon his judgment that the " garden " of England 
(but vfien was England a garden?) was transformed into " a 
home of canting, snivelling, egotistical, greedy, and un- 
scrupulous plutocrats, standing for a foundation of half- 
besotted slaves." 
The aristocrat whom Mr. Ludovici desires is not exactly 
the aristocrat of Nietzsche (though the author has written 
books on Nietzsche). He is to be a modified superman very 
near, perhaps, to Plato's "philosopher-king," a man with 
go d in his composition, nurtured by his peers, the true bene- 
volent despot. This, indeed, is precisely the sort of man 
we ourselves have desired to see in authority, but we have 
never seen a whole race of him, whole generations of him pro- 
duced and reproduced in history, not even in that ill 
governed Empire which the author holds up for an example 
the E.npire of China. Mr. Ludovici 's aristocrat is the artist 
par cxcelhnce, the " man of tast«," the " man who knows " 
the superior man " (Confucius), whose virtue it is to set a 
good tone " in a nation. 
A\ hen Plato was laying the foundations of his ideal 
republic, he was wont to a..k two questions: "Is it desir- 
able? and "Is It possible?" Mr. Ludovici fails to show 
that such a caste of men can be perpetuated in a governing 
class. We may safely challenge him to produce one iiiflance 
in history to show that a dominant aristocracy does not either 
degenerate into oligarchy or lose its dominance. And, if pos- 
sible, i- it also desirable? We adnjit that we were moved by 
his remark that there arc some fine persons for wliora most of 
us would willingly perform any services, even the most menial. 
But — and not* that he aims at nothing less than the ideal — 
he forgets that wisdom and benevolence are not substitutes for 
experience. Members of a ruling caste could not have such 
experience of the needs of men in other circles of life as those 
nien have themselves. But we agree with him that they may 
know what tiie nation needs better than the demagogue knows 
it. Mr. Ludovici's book, thougli it is very opinionative, 
arbitrary, and unequal, is enriched by evidences of wide 
reading, and is stimulating, vivid, and clever. 
INCOME TAX AND NATIONAL SERVICE 
To the Editor of Land and Water. 
Sir, — Will you allow me to make a slight correction in 
my letter as appearing in your impression of September 11 ? 
By what I think must have been the omission of a line, 
I am made to speak of National Service as being unnecessary, 
&o. It was the proposed RegiHcr for National Ser\'ice of 
which I was speaking. 
In a line below the short paragraph referred to the word 
contra should be contrary. — I am, Sir, yours obediently, 
Cambridge. E. C. Clark. 
Sir, — I have read with great interest the letter of Mr. 
E. C. Clark on Income Tax and National Service. While agree- 
ing with him that it is theoretically just that only those should 
vote who make a direct, conscious, and personal contribution 
to the country's interest, I think it is impossible in practice to 
be so logical. Life is not so simple as our reformers would wish 
us to believe. 
Mr. Clark suggests that those having £100 a year and 
upwards should make their personal contribution through 
Income Tax and those having less by personal service to the 
State. Such a proposal would, in the first place, put the 
stigma of poverty on personal service, and it would also widen 
the gulf which already exists between the wage-earners and 
the rest of the community by establishing a legal distinction 
between them. In this aspect Mr. Clark's proposal is in its 
essence Prussian — a development of the class distinctions set 
up by our Prussian Insurance Act — and therefore to be 
avoided as an evil thing. It is odd that even while we are 
fighting Prussianism our reformers should be so continually 
seeking to introduce its worst features over here. 
Mr. Clark says he will not stop to inquire " who are the 
poor," but it is surely essential to any scheme of reform to 
know this. The poor, in our industrialised England, com- 
pose the majority of the people, and, although many of them 
are enfrancised, they cannot, strictly speaking, be considered 
citizens in the full sense of the word, since, owing to the inse- 
curity of their condition and their general poverty, they must 
receive State aid in the shape of money doles if their lives are 
to be human. 
From these people, in part supported by the State through 
free education, free meals, old-age pensions, and so on, it 
would be absurd to extrkct either a money tax — although Mr. 
Harold Cox is busily advocating such a proposal — or a State 
contribution of labour, since all their earnings and the whole 
of their labour are not yet sufficient to provide the means of 
life. We have created an enormous system of expensive 
officials to administer subsidies to the poor, and it would be 
ridiculous to create another set of officials for the purpose of 
recovering the money from them again. The fallacy of Mr. 
Clark's theory really lies in the fact that he does not see that 
a labour contribution is, in effect, a money contribution, and 
that if it is unjust to impose a money tax on the poor, it is 
equally unjust to demand the sacrifice of their time. Have not 
our American friends taught us that time is money ? Finally, 
even if it were possible to impose a graduated State contribu- 
tion in the shape of an income or labour tax calculated to 
satisfy the most pedantic theorist, it would not be possible 
during the war to repeal all indirect taxation. But, unless 
this were done, and we could make an entirely fresh start with 
Mr. Clark's clear-cut system, we should be merely asking the 
poor to submit to the burden of a theoretically just direct tax 
in addition to the theoretically unjust indirect taxes which 
they already pay. 
Why deceive ourselves with mere words ? 
The Ladies' Athenaeum Club, Margaret Douglas. 
32, Dover Street, W. 
Printed by the VicioaiA Hous, Printing Co., Ltd., Tudot Street, Whitefriars, London, E.Q. 
