But the reason why the claims and proposals of the Socialist and Communist succeed in displaying a certain modicum of plausibility is not because, on examination, they impel the inquirer to agreement; for, as we have seen, the more thoroughly they are investigated, the more impossible does it become to accept them; it is rather because in modern European society certain unnecessarily gross evils which are truly the creation of man and which seem to lend a colourable warrant to the revolutionist’s position, are too glaring to be overlooked. We have seen that where there is violence [p122] some one or some group must ultimately be victimised or sacrificed. This does not necessarily involve death or annihilation, it may simply amount to failure, failure to hold their own. Now it is the first duty of rulers, as we have seen, to watch vigilantly that the violence is not of man’s making, for that can be helped, but only of life’s making, for that cannot be helped. The second duty of rulers, however, most certainly is to assuage as far as possible the asperities resulting from the violence that is life’s making. Charles I. was an ideal monarch in this respect; not only did he suppress fraud, profiteering, and the exploitation of the poorer classes, all means by which violence of man’s making breaks loose in society; but he also sheltered those whom natural disaster had overtaken.[23] Now the gross evils of modern European society which lend a colourable warrant to the otherwise absurd proposals of the Communist and Socialist, are the multifarious deeds of violence of man’s making, that have been allowed to break loose on the community. Among those deeds of violence we may mention: (1) Sweating. (2) The act of inviting the proletariat to engage in unhealthy occupations, frequently resulting in permanent ill-health or premature death. (3) Profiteering and the turning of any form of temporary distress to advantage. (4) Speculating in the first necessaries of life. (5) Unwise and wasteful disposal of property after death: as for instance for the support of cranky and faddist societies, of useless and non-productive people in unnecessary affluence; the endowment of institutions that have a degenerating effect on the general standard of health of the nation. (6) Class cleavage and snobbery. (7) The encouragement by the legislature of the growth of large urban centres, and the ill-health and general unwholesomeness of the poorer quarters of such centres. (8) The purveying of inferior food to the masses, and of food that is not strictly life-supporting, such as vegetable margarine, dried fruit and vegetables, adulterated beer, tinned foods of all kinds (except possibly tinned tomatoes), dirty milk and adulterated bread.