Excerpt from Parliament and Reconstruction: A Plea and a Plan Since the following pages were written we have seen Glasgow and Belfast held by armed forces, as though they were bridge-heads on the Rhine. The affairs of London have been more dislocated than by any series of the air-raids. North and South, East and West, there are ominous mutterings and rumblings. "A reaction from the strain of the War," one sapient public adviser assures us is the cause. Another, equally intelligent, tells us "it is all the work of a comparatively few paid agitators." One has to believe that the readers of the daily press accept such explanations - and one has to believe this, and sad and disheartened, wonder how the scales can be removed from eyes so blind, the stoppers from ears so deaf. Have not the signs been made manifest for long years past? Was the message of the slum undecipherable? Had the Police Court, the Asylum, the Workhouse no voice? Could the ever-growing acceptance - not confined to manual labour - of State theories subversive of our present order convey no lesson? Had those responsible for the management and control of our Industrial System made a generous response - and more important, a willing and sympathetic response - to the demand of Labour for a fairer share? It would almost appear that those upon whom these questions make no imperative demand for answers - answers open and honest and after self-interrogation - are ignorant that rights of property arc social products. They are not established by natural law. Questioned by those upon whom the corresponding duties fall, they are to be vindicated only by their justice. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.