"What, further, is accountable for this growth of wealth? The spread of intelligence amongst the masses of the people, the improvements in sanitation and in the general condition of the people. These have all contributed towards the efficiency of the people, _even as wealth-producing machines_. Take, for instance, such legislation as the Educational Acts and the Public Health Acts; they have cost much money, but they have made infinitely more. That is true of all legislation which improves the conditions of life for the people. An educated, well-fed, well-clothed, well-housed people _invariably leads to the growth of a numerous well-to-do class_. If _property_ were to grudge a substantial contribution towards proposals which insure the security which is one of the essential conditions of its existence or toward keeping from poverty and privation the old people whose lives of industry and toil have either created that wealth or made it productive, then _property_ would be not only shabby, but shortsighted." (Italics mine.)[49] The property interests should be far-sighted enough to support the present economic and labor reforms, not because there is any fear in Great Britain either from a revolutionary Socialist movement or from an organized political or labor union upheaval, for Mr. Lloyd George ridicules both these bogeys, but because such reforms _contribute towards the efficiency of the people, even as wealth-producing machines_--and increase the incomes of the wealthy and the well-to-do. Mr. Lloyd George continued:-- "We have, more especially during the last 60 years, in this country accumulated wealth to an extent which is almost unparalleled in the history of the world, but we have done it at _an appalling waste of human material_. We have drawn upon the robust vitality of the rural areas of Great Britain, and especially Ireland, and spent its energies recklessly in the devitalizing atmosphere of urban factories and workshops as if the supply were inexhaustible. We are now beginning to realize that we have been spending _our capital_, at a disastrous rate, and it is time we should take a real, concerted, national effort to replenish it. I put forward this proposal, not a very extravagant one, _as a beginning_." (My italics.)[50]