"Just so," said Jack. "That seems so odd, so incomprehensible to us unless we can seize the feudal point of view. You confirm the classics on the subject. I have questioned numbers of very old men who were in their prime before the war like you, grandfather, but I have not found their opinions as definite as yours, because they have insensibly got all their edges worn off so to speak by lifelong contact with the two younger generations. Your unique experience is most interesting. Never entered your head. There you have the feudal system in a nutshell. No sense of communal life at all. I'll make a note of it--I'm compiling a treatise on the subject. You were against female suffrage, too, I remember. I've been reading up your record. You voted several times against it." "I did. I consider woman's sphere is in the home." "Just so. That was the point of view, and there is a lot to say for it considering the hash women made of power when first they got it, though not so enormous a hash as the Labour Party. You know, I suppose, we've had three Labour Governments since the great war?" "I always prophesied a Labour Government would come, and I feared it. I knew they had not sufficient education to rule. No conception of foreign policy." "Not an atom. I agree with you. Not a scrap. Thirty years ago most of our rulers hadn't an idea where India was, or why we must complete the trans-African railway in case we lost control of the Suez Canal. They actually opposed it. They nearly piloted the Ship of State on to the rocks." John frowned. "Now what I want to know is," said Jack, extending two long blue stockinged legs, and enjoying himself immensely, "why instead of opposing female suffrage you did not combine to place the franchise on an educational basis, irrespective of sex; the grant of the vote to be dependant on passing certain examinations, mainly in history and geography. Or, if you were resolved to delay as much as possible the entrance of women into politics, why didn't you give better national education. You did neither. You let loose a horde of entirely ignorant and irresponsible men and women out of your national schools. You say you foresaw that a Labour Government was inevitable, but you don't seem to have made any preparation, or taken any precaution to insure its efficiency when it did come." John was silent. "They were also hostile men and women," continued the young man. "That was the worst of it. Were you at Lille when you were fighting in France?" "No."