SOME BOOKS OF THE WEEK.
Macs In ear Musa does uot necessarily preclude subsequent resists.) The Revolt of Labour against Civilization. By W. H. V. Reade. (Oxford: Blackwell. 3s. net.)—In this clever essay a well-known Oxford tutor examines the Bolshevik theory that the "proletariat " alone should count. Me sums up the
evolution of the idea thus : " First honour brings wealth, then wealth buys honour, then honour means nothing but wealth, then the supposititious authors of wealth are the only honourable persons." Ho opposes to this as the law of civilization the formula that " the greater the necessity of things, the smaller their importance." Mr. Reade, like Ruskin, is oppressed by the spectacle of the modern industrial town—he would welcome a considerable reduction of the population. As for the citizens
"wise expect to be housed and cl:etored and educated without lifting a finger on their own behalf, fed when times are hard by subsidies to millers or bakers, employed and paid on their own terms, insured against the penalties of incompetence, pensioned in their declining years, and barely subject to the accident of mortality, what else will there be but political cant and doctrinaire phrases to distinguish such creatures from sleek and pampered slaves ? "
Mr. Reade has no specific remedy to propose : that indeed is a merit, of his essay, which is intended to make the reader think furiously, and which' achieves its purnose.
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