"Absolutely," Maraton answered, without a second's hesitation. "You
people have, after all, only an external feeling for the deficiencies of
your social system. You don't feel, really--you don't understand. To
me, England at the present day--the whole of civilization, indeed, but
we are speaking now only of England--is suffering from an awful disease.
To me she is like a leper. I cannot think that any operation which
could cure her is too severe. She may have to spend centuries in the
hospital, but some day the light will come."

"When you talk like that," Mr. Foley declared, "you seem to us, Mr.
Maraton, to pass outside the pale of logical argument. But we want to
understand you. You mean that for the sake of altering our social
conditions, you would, if you thought it necessary, let this country be
conquered, plunge her for a hundred years or more into misery deeper
than any she has yet known? What good do you suppose could come of
this? The poor who are poor now would starve then. From whom would
come the mammoth war indemnity we should have to pay?"

"Not from the poor," Maraton replied. "That is one of my theories. It
would come from the very class whom I would willingly see enfeebled--the
greedy, grasping, middle class. The poor must exist automatically.
They could not exist on lower wages; therefore, they will not get lower
wages. If there is no employment for them, they will help themselves to
the means for life. If there is money in the country, they have a right
to a part of it and they will take it. The unfit amongst them will die.
The unfit are better dead."

"This is a dangerous doctrine, Mr. Maraton," Lord Armley remarked.