§ 62

Theories were abundant, practice now prevails. So sure is the growth of practical education that those who thought in grooves, now think broadly; hence they are not easily misled. The effort of each Commune is not to make new laws, but to enforce a few already made which, protecting every class, are not limited to one pre-eminently. It is said, “We got tired of Government which, to save their seats, listened to the last popular clamour, and toyed with transient public needs and opinions; which listened to the discontented and tried to appease them by promises which they knew they could not fulfil. We see through that paradox! We were tired to death of ‘The Plain Man,’ the obstinate ignorant utilitarian. We don’t want the kind of man who prevailed, who, to lay a B line of tramways, would, if he could, pull down the sacred trusts left to us by creative master minds. We do not want the kind of man who, for the sake of ‘Rents,’ would build factories or cheap houses on every open space, the ‘lungs of our Cities.’ We do not want the man who looks upon every fair garden to destroy it and erect ‘Flats’; who would float a company with promises of 10 per cent. when the capital is mostly on paper.”