(9) The lack of protection afforded to the masses against: (_a_) usurious money lending (a penny a week per shilling is not uncommon), (_b_) pollution and demoralisation through inferior and pernicious literature, (_c_) pollution and demoralisation through alien immigration. (10) The failure to impart to the masses by means of education any thorough grasp of any branch of knowledge which might ennoble their outlook, add dignity to their characters, and lend support to their self-esteem. In addition to all this, not a single item of which deals with any evil that is not susceptible of reform, it should be borne in mind that modern western civilisation has in some way failed so miserably to mould her values [p124] so that the successful in life’s struggle should in all cases be the most virtuous, the most intelligent, and the most desirable, in the minds of tasteful people, that a certain stigma now attaches to the materially successful--particularly those who have attained material success in commerce and industry--which cannot be said to be altogether unmerited, and which the Communist and Socialist naturally exploit to the utmost in their propaganda. The greatest indictment of modern society is perhaps the frequency with which vulgarity and the meanest attainments in virtue and intellect achieve phenomenal material success; and since this is the outcome of values, and the laws governing commerce and industry, it is obvious that in this direction reforms must be effected, if the Communist and Socialist are to be deprived of the small amount of validity which appears to attach to their sweeping condemnation of society and civilisation. On the other hand, while we have seen that the original act of violence at the base of all society, must lead to suffering somewhere and somewhen, the characteristic about modern western civilisation which lends so much colour to the Socialist and Communist’s schemes, is the frequency with which this suffering seems to be borne by people who are by no means the unworthiest in the community. The values of modern society have become so vulgar and mercenary that again and again it happens that the section of the social body which the chance play of forces selects for sacrifice, is superior to the section which is [p125] spared, and which not infrequently wields the most power in the community. Thus it is not the suffering in modern society that lends support to the so-called class-war doctrines; for as we have seen suffering of some kind is inevitable where there is inequality and injustice; but it is the fact that the suffering in question often falls upon the most desirable members of the community, or at least upon those who are capable of the greatest virtue and the greatest industry, and this is the outcome purely of the vulgarity and coarseness of our values which are quite as susceptible to modification and reform as any other man-made feature of our lives.