Thus it is--and other laws, such as the Irish Land Act, are open to the same process of development--that without revolution reform could be wrought. I can conceive a great change in the condition of the people, worked out in our own generation, without any revolution or break with the past. With wages at their present rate I can yet imagine the houses made strong and healthy, education and public baths made free, and the possibility of investing in land made easy. I can imagine that, without increase of their private wealth, the poor might have in libraries, music-halls, and flower gardens that on which wealth is spent. I can imagine the youth of the nation made strong by means of fresh air and the doctor’s care, the aged made restful by means of honourable pensions. I can imagine the Church as the people’s Church, its buildings the halls where they are taught by their chosen teachers, the meeting-places where they learn the secret of union and brotherly love, the houses of prayer where in the presence of the Best they lift themselves into the higher life of duty and devotion to right--all this I can imagine, because it is practicable. I cannot imagine that which must be reached by new departures and so-called Continental practices. Any scheme, whatever it may promise in the future, which involves revolution in the present is impracticable, and any flirting with it is likely to hinder the progress of reform. But now there rises the obvious objection, ‘All this will cost much money;’ ‘Free education means 1_d._ in the pound; libraries and museums mean 2_d._;’ ‘The suggested changes would absorb more than 1_s._; the ratepayers could not stand it.’ I agree; the present ratepayers could not pay heavier rates. There must be other means of raising the money. Some scheme for graduated taxing might be possible; but perhaps I may be told that such a scheme means the introduction of a new principle, and is as much outside my present scope as the scheme for nationalisation of the land. Well, there remains the wealth locked up in the endowed charities, the increase which would be brought to the revenue by a new assessment of the land-tax, and the sum which might be saved by abolishing sinecures and waste in every public office.