the action of public companies who control the main industries of the State? And again"

"For goodness' sake stop, Lucy!" said the Duchess good-humouredly. "I never could bear the Socratic method. Its little pistol-shot arguments give me a headache. I daresay there is something in what you say. Slavery may be

an inaccurate term to describe what I so much dislike, but in any case it involves a perpetual danger of slavery. If you tie up by contract the liberty of an individual for a term, you pave the way for restricting it without any contract for life. It is the thin end of the wedge."

"I shouldn't use that phrase, my dear," said Lord Appin solemnly. "It is the worst of our parliamentary clichés, and, besides, Hardcastle has made it comic for ever. I was privileged to hear his great speech in the Lords against the Deceased Wife's Sister's Bill. He declared that he did not object to the present measure, which was merely permissive. 'But,' said Hardcastle, 'it is the thin end of the wedge. Soon it will be compulsory, and it is my misfortune that my dear wife has left me without any taste for her family.'"

Lady Lucy, who at most times spoke little, had been so stirred by the Duchess's criticism that she had risen to her feet, and now ad

dressed the company from beside Carey on the hearthrug.

"Susan does not mean what she says. She is only repeating the arguments of her party, like a pious brigand who mumbles a paternoster before robbing a coach. Her last phrase is typical of a frame of mind which is very common and very hopeless. You are not to embark upon a scheme, however clearly you define its limits, because of its possible maleficent extension. I cannot understand the creed. If we believed in it all energy and progress would cease. We should sit like Buddha, twirling our thumbs, afraid to move a muscle lest we blundered. Not that any one seriously holds this faith. They imagine they do, because they are confused and slack, and have never taken the pains to think out what words mean. That is one class of my opponents. The others frankly detest the Empire, and hide their bias under the cloak of humanitarian tenderness. They hate colonial indentured labour, as Macaulay's Puritans hated bear-baiting, not because it does harm to the labourer, but because it does good to the colony.

"The honest souls who dread the bugbear of slavery need not concern themselves. Slavery, which means that one man is at the mercy of another's caprices, will never raise its head again.

Q

Even though it had done no ill to the slave, it was economically and morally ruinous for the master. No! what we have to do is to save men from the far more relentless tyranny of circumstance. The bondage of things, believe me, is more cruel than the bondage of men. I call a dock-labourer in Poplar, who sees no hope for himself or his children, a slave. I call men slaves who, whether they own their land or not, are living always on the brink of starvation. But I call him a free man who sells his labour under contract for a term of years that he may earn enough to make his livelihood secure. I grant you that liberty is beyond price; but, like Burke, I want to see a 'manly, moral, and regulated liberty.' How often must it be repeated that freedom is not the absence of restraints, but a willing acceptance of them, because their purpose is understood and approved."

Lady Lucy's quiet voice had risen to that pitch of fervour which betrays the natural orator. As she stopped, she looked with some little embarrassment at the Duchess, and with a sudden movement sank on the floor beside her chair and took a hand in hers.

"Please forgive me for scolding you, Susan dear! But you know you deserved it. You have still got the General Election in your ears, and somehow its odious phrases make a fury of

me.

I don't blame any one for talking nonsense at home, but one must leave it behind at Musuru."

"I am not convinced," said the Duchess. "Your principle may be right, but all your applications are wrong. And I am far from

being sure about your principle. Without being a dogmatic individualist, I protest against the idea of the State incurring such vast responsibilities as providing employers with labour and moving populations about the world. admit that the province of the State has been widened, but such an insane stretching of boundaries seems to me to court disaster."

I

"Your fears always make me nervous, Susan," said Carey, "for "for you have an uncanny instinct for being right. But I think I can persuade

"No,

He was not permitted, for the Duchess rose and held before him protesting hands. Francis, you shall not lecture me. And I promise in return to talk no more platform stuff. Besides, I am to be left alone after to-morrow with you, and you will have every chance to convert me.

Dear, dear, how solemn we all look! A Social Science Congress is out of place in a turquoise boudoir. That little Watteau shepherdess looks ready to weep with boredom. If there were such things as card-tables in this room I might think of bridge."

244

CHAPTER IX.

THE whole party, men and women, breakfasted at the same hour next morning, most of them with that look of mingled unrest and high spirits which marks the expectant traveller. All their clothes spoke of the road, though the various styles showed that that road was not the same for every one. Those who were to stay behind —the Duchess, Lord Appin, and Lord Launceston-had the bland air of ease and proprietorship which all steadfast things wear in a changing world. The clock-work régime of Musuru made bustle impossible. There was no running about of maids and valets, no ringing of bells and confused directions. Carey consulted a paper in his hand, and now and then gave an order to a noiseless servant. The vast size of the house prevented the guests from catching any unsettling intimations of departure.

"We are now," said the Duchess, to whom breakfast was a cheerful meal, "about to begin