Wraithby had no more questions to ask. He knew all he wanted to know about the Dictatorship of the Proletariat. He felt, however, that something was expected of him. "About agriculture?" he began.
Everyone spoke at once He could distinguish
Phrases here and there. "Sown area increased by forty per cent. . . wall newspapers . . . spring sowing campaign . . . As the factories in 1920, so now the farms ..."
When the noise had abated, he said, "Thank you. Now I understand." He wanted to ask them, "Boys, dearest boys, are you sure that the parallel is correct? Factories and land? Isn't agriculture somehow more sensitive? Lending itself less to statistical treatment? Will peasants whose lives have been torn up by the roots make things grow even if you drive them into the fields at the end of a bayonet?" But he knew that it was as impossible to argue against a general idea as against an algebraic formula. So instead he said, "Ask me some questions."
Coyly; head on one side; wagging a finger
Hilaire Belloc (1870-1953) was born near Paris; a typical brief biography says ‘his mother settled in Sussex’ in 1878—leaving the implications unclear. In 1892—that is, at an age when most university men had categories graduated—he entered Balliol and won ‘1st Class in Honour History Schools’. He became something like a professional Roman Catholic, and seems to have been a lifelong believer in such things as the ‘Fall of Man’ and ‘Hell’. His Survivals and New Arrivals (1929) shows that he believed the Catholic Church was unlike any other institution, and had remained unchanged over the period of its existence, which he dated from ‘Jesus Christ’.
As with many intensively-propagandised persons
He could never bring himself to investigate his own elements and axioms. My personal belief, unsupported by documentary evidence, is that he hoped to become something like a reverse Martin Luther, reconquering England for the Faith after a period of persecution. He is Eurocentric, as I suppose is necessary for any convinced Roman Catholic.
His political ideal was a vaguely-defined ‘agrarian distributist’ society, perhaps based on France—he liked the idea of a robust, but not too bright, self-sufficient peasantry, who however wouldn’t mind paying a percentage to support their very own bishop, and with the Church holding a ‘special position’ in education.