You say that the State will select through two or three highly sensitive officials.  In the first place you have got to catch your officials.  And remember, these, too, in the eyes of their fellow-workers, will be men who have got hold of a soft thing.  The considerations that govern the selection of State-paid artists will control the election of State-paid experts.  By what sign shall the public recognise the man of sensibility, always supposing that it is a man of sensibility the public wants?  John Jones, the broker’s man, thinks himself quite as good a judge of art as Mr. Fry, and apparently Mr. Asquith thinks the trustees of the National Gallery better than either.  Suppose you have by some miracle laid hands on a man of aesthetic sensibility and made him your officer, he will still have to answer for his purchases to a popularly elected parliament.  Things are bad enough at present:  the people will not tolerate a public monument that is a work of art, neither do their obedient servants wish to impose such a thing on them; but when no one can live as an artist without becoming a public servant, when all works of art are public monuments, do you seriously expect to have any art at all?  When the appointment of artists becomes a piece of party patronage does anyone doubt that a score of qualifications will stand an applicant in better stead than that of being an artist?  Imagine Mr. Lloyd George nominating Mr. Roger Fry Government selector of State-paid artists.  Imagine—­and here I am making no heavy demand on your powers—­imagine Mr. Fry appointing some obscure and shocking student of unconventional talent.  Imagine Mr. Lloyd George going down to Limehouse to defend the appointment before thousands of voters, most of whom have a son, a brother, a cousin, a friend, or a little dog who, they feel sure, is much better equipped for the job.

If the great communistic society is bent on producing art—­and the society that does not produce live art is damned—­there is one thing, and one only, that it can do.  Guarantee to every citizen, whether he works or whether he loafs, a bare minimum of existence—­say sixpence a day and a bed in the common dosshouse.  Let the artist be a beggar living on public charity.  Give to the industrious practical workers the sort of things they like, big salaries, short hours, social consideration, expensive pleasures.  Let the artist have just enough to eat, and the tools of his trade:  ask nothing of him.  Materially make the life of the artist sufficiently miserable to be unattractive, and no one will take to art save those in whom the divine daemon is absolute.  For all let there be a choice between a life of dignified, highly-paid, and not over-exacting employment and the despicable life of a vagrant.  There can be little doubt about the choice of most, and none about that of a real artist.  Art and Religion are very much alike, and in the East, where they understand these things, there has always