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 understood, why we dare not be patient any longer. As has been said, there is a new desire for social reform abroad among the people. Speaking generally, the work of the nineteenth century was to break down and clear away a system of government suited to earlier economic conditions, and to bring into existence the machinery of political democracy. The question of what product the machinery was to turn out when finished was naturally enough put aside for the time. Democratic government appeared then as an end in itself. But now Englishmen are learning—some of them with bitter disillusionment—that mere political freedom is in itself a mockery; that liberty must be used for some end; that in striving for that end—the provision of happier conditions of life for the nation—the forms of society must be gradually changed and fresh institutions brought into existence to take the place of those which are no longer suitable to our altered circumstances. We stand, in short, on the threshold of an age of reconstruction, of an organic era. Now in the course of this reconstruction, there must inevitably be great modification of the most personal and domestic concerns of men and women. Indeed the process has already begun. Does not the British housewife learn from the newspapers—often with astonished disgust—that henceforth she is to be liable for compensation should her maid stumble on the stairs and break an arm or leg? Are not demands for old age pensions apparently near to reaching their fulfilment? Are not schemes for providing work for the unemployed discussed far and