Lord of the World | Page 3

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 happen?"
The old Tory statesman smiled.
"God knows," he said. "If the Eastern Empire chooses to move, we can do nothing. I don't know why they have not moved. I suppose it is because of religious differences."
"Europe will not split?" asked the priest.
"No, no. We know our danger now. And America would certainly help us. But, all the same, God help us--or you, I should rather say--if the Empire does