Now this state of things may seem extremely jolly for the plutocracy from the point of view of those who are so overworked and underamused that they can imagine nothing better than a life that is one long holiday; but it has the disadvantage of making the plutocrats as helpless as babies when they are left to earn their own living. You know that there is nothing more pitiable on earth within the limits of good health than born ladies and gentlemen suddenly losing their property. But have you considered that they would be equally pitiable if their property were thrown on their own hands to make what they could of it? They would not know how to farm their lands or to work their mines and railways or to sail their ships. They would perish surrounded by what Dr Johnson called “the potentiality of growing rich beyond the dreams of avarice”. Without the hungry they would have to say “I cannot dig: to beg (even if I knew how) I am ashamed”. The hungry could do without them, and be very much the better for it; but they could not do without the hungry. Yet most of the hungry, left to themselves, would be quite as helpless as the plutocrats. Take the case of a housemaid, familiar to the intelligent lady who can afford to keep one. A woman may be a very good housemaid; but you have to provide the house for her and manage the house before she can set to work. Many excellent housemaids, when they marry, make a poor enough job of their own housekeeping. Ask them to manage a big hotel, which employs dozens of housemaids, and they will think you are laughing at them: you might as well ask the porter at the Bank of England to manage the bank. A bricklayer may be a very good bricklayer; but he cannot build a house nor even make the bricks he lays. Any laborer can lay a plank across a stream, or place a row of stepping-stones in it; but just ask him to build a bridge, whether it be the simplest sort of canal bridge or a gigantic construction like the Forth Bridge! You might as well ask your baby to make its cot and knit its jumper, or your cook to design and construct a kitchen range and water supply. This helplessness gets more and more complete as civilization advances. In villages you may still find carpenters and blacksmiths who can make things. They can even choose and buy their materials, and then sell the finished article. But in the cities on which our existence now depends you find multitudes of workers and plutocrats who cannot make anything; do not know how anything is made; and are so inept at buying and selling that without fixed-price-shops they would perish. 44 THE MIDDLE STATION IN LIFE