456 
MAGICK WITHOUT TEARS 
unit concerned realizes that it is in danger of strangulation . 
Consider England's food supply! Switzerland, Russia, China, 
the U.S.A. can laugh at U-boats . England must support a 
Navy, a wealth-consuming , not a wealth-producing, item in 
the 
Budget. 
Similar remarks apply to practically all 
Government Departments. The minimum of organization is 
desirable ; all artificial doctrinaire multiplication of works 
which produce no wealth is waste; and for many reasons 
(some absurd, like "social position") tend to create fresh 
unnecessary necessities . Ad infinitum, like the fleas in the 
epigram! 
When laws are reasonable in the eyes of the average man, 
he respects them, keeps them, does his best to maintain 
them ; therefore a minute Police Force , with powers strictly 
limited, is adequate to deal with the almost negligibly small 
criminal class. A convention is laudable when it is convenient. 
When laws are unjust, monstrous, ridiculous, that same 
average man, will he-nill he, becomes a criminal; and the law 
requires a Tcheka or Gestapo with dictatorial powers and no 
safeguards to maintain the farce . Also, corruption becomes 
normal in official circles; and is excused. I refer you to Mr. J. 
H. Thomas.) 
One evil leads to another; the seven devils always take 
possession of a house that is swept and garnished to the point 
at which people find it uncomfortable. 
But is not all this beside the point, you ask? No. It was 
needful to indicate this cumulative progression to social 
shipwreck, because, to-day an obvious peril of the most 
menacing. In 1904 no ordinary sane person foresaw anything 
of the sort. But special knowledge alters things, and it is 
certain that the Masters anticipated , with great exactness of 
calculation, the way things would go in the political world. 
Practically all the messages received during the "Cairo 
Working" (March-April 1904 e.v.) came to me through 
1. The OtanceUor of the Exchequer, having fIXed the increase of Income Tax at 
threepence, proceeded to defraud the Insurance Companies by insuring himself 
against a rise of that sum!