The rich man’s so-called charity therefore must be to a large extent mechanical and conventional. He gives because others with the same means give, and the charity touts know how a list headed by Lord A. with a substantial sum will produce equally or perhaps even more substantial sums from Lord B., Sir. C. D., Alderman E., and Mr. F. The extraction of money from the rich is a business in itself, requiring considerable skill, and the rich are fleeced far more than they realise. In practical America they take the trouble to teach people professionally how to write what they call “letters of appeal.” When we hear of subscriptions to charities being stopped it may serve to remind us that it is most inexpedient that institutions such as hospitals should be at the mercy of the casual caprice of rich men. Nothing could eventually be more desirable than that every one of them should cut off their charitable contributions. It might entail a severe temporary shock to the funds of charitable institutions, as over seven millions a year is being spent in London alone on charities, but at the same time many ill-managed and misdirected endeavours would disappear, and the State would come to realise all the sooner its responsibilities in respect to the maintenance of really necessary institutions for the relief of suffering and the nursing of the sick, in the same way as it is beginning to recognise its duties towards poverty, old age, and unemployment. There are other enterprises which the State should undertake that are often delayed in their institution owing to the plea that the private munificence of rich men can be depended upon. It is certainly better that the funds should be expended thus than in sheer self-indulgence, but it is evident that the money would be far better spent and the object on which it is spent better served if the source were not controlled by the whims and fancies of a single individual. In regard to the more private and personal aspects of the generosity attributed to riches: “Surely,” a critic will say, “if the rich man is benevolent and kindly disposed he can in a hundred thoughtful ways help his poorer friends by presents, by attention and timely help, by opening the doors of his houses, lending his conveyances, and showing many other attentions which his money allows him to do, thereby becoming justly popular and a source of great good.”