Magick Without Tears

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!