1.—Communism.

The rank and file of the communists want to drive round in cars and splash other people with mud. In fact, if a poor man has a maliciously envious nature he's bound to become a communist. Most communists are fanatics, and the rest are insincere. The ones at a university are almost always intellectual poseurs who think that radicalism is a very modern and very clever compensation for an inferiority complex.

Now the most interesting fact about communism is the way it changes. Our grandfathers thought it would be fairer than capitalism; they thought it would be more in accord with the principles of Christianity; but they knew that it was merely Utopian and quite impracticable. Now the vicious and swinish thing about communism is that although its theory is still the same its value has altered. It's no longer impraticable, for it works rather well in Russia and in China. And similarly it's no longer good and beautiful: it is foul with the horrible taint of the unclean thing that wants to corrupt the honour and the freedom, the liberty and the equality, that are cherished in the speeches of Mr. Baldwin and Herr Hitler.

How much wiser are we than our grandfathers; for the impossible has happened and the good is bad. How much purer are we; for they gave pride of place to material objections and we give it to moral objections. How much more bitterly do we fear the power of the Russian beast.