Page:The Slippery Slope.djvu/26

 time there is a sense of uneasiness which is quite unprecedented amongst quiet and law-abiding people who busy themselves little with politics, but who subscribe most of the capital required for industrial enterprise. Consols are at a lower level than for many generations, and home securities are heavily depreciated all round. The investor stands aloof from enterprises in which British workmen are employed, because he may at any time lose his money owing to the conditions of the labour market and the growth of taxation, and prefers to invest his savings in foreign enterprises which certainly give no direct employment to the British workman, and so home industries by which our people live are in danger of being gradually atrophied. We may recall Montesquieu's definition of socialism, "aujourd'hui le pillage demain la famine."

Another feature of unrestricted public benevolence which has at all times been equally persistent and equally baneful is to be found in its use for political purposes. The Theoric Fund was used largely for the purpose of obtaining the popular suffrages. The throne, and sometimes the lives, of the Roman Emperors depended upon the munificence of their largesse. We find that even voluntary charity was similarly tainted in quite early times, that of the Roman patron towards his client being often a political expedient devoid of any sense of moral obligation. "The people," says Cicero, "have only one way of doing us a good turn and recognising our services to them, and that is to follow us in a crowd when we go to demand place and