During the early years of the twentieth century, the New Liberals spread a political ideology which was much closer to socialism than to Victorian liberalism. Indeed, they preached State intervention in favour of social welfare, national prosperity and imperialistic strength; that social policy which logically required extra care and increased attention for ‘the lifeblood of the nation’,1 and was meant to thwart the increasing mood of entropy and decadence which the British society had known since the end of the nineteenth century. The results of the medical and intellectual examinations of soldiers enlisted for the Boer War highlighted the necessity to develop an efficient socioimperialistic policy, so as to improve the living conditions and the standard of education of the weakest and poorest individuals of the British nation and thus defend the British...