The dole, which is now being accorded in the
shape of old-age pensions, may fairly be compared to the free
transportation to their homes with which the Bank of Monte Carlo
assuages the feelings of its destitute victims. The national
organization and policy is so arranged that the majority must lose. The
result will be inevitably a diminution of the ability of the United
Kingdom to hold its own in competition with its economic and political
rivals; and in all probability this pressure from the outside will
eventually force the English nation to reconsider the basis of its
political and economic organization and policy.
IV
DEMOCRACY AND NATIONALITY IN FRANCE
The recent history and the present position of France illustrate another
phase of the interdependence of the national and the democratic
principles. The vitality of English national life has been impaired by
its identification with an inadequate and aristocratic political
principle. In France the effective vitality of the democracy has been
very much lowered by certain flaws in the integrity of French national
life.
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