It may be convenient here to state some of the broad features of the governing and social system. It has already been said that, without approaching to communism, it had long since been decided that every human being was entitled to a share in the good things of the world, and that destitution was abhorrent. It was also recognised that the happiest condition of humanity was a reasonable amount of work and labour. For that very reason, it was decided not to make the labour distasteful by imposing it as a necessity. The love of work, not its necessity, was the feeling it was desirable to implant. Manual work carried with it no degradation, and there was little work to be done which did not require intelligence. Mere brute force was superseded by the remarkable contrivances for affording power and saving labour which were brought even to the humblest homes. The waves, tides, and winds stored up power which was convertible into electricity or compressed air; and either of these aids to labour-saving could be carried from house to house as easily as water. If men and women wished to be idle and State pensioners, it was open to them to follow their inclination; but they had to wear uniforms, and they were regarded as inferior by the healthy body politic. The aged, infirm, and helpless might enjoy State aid without being subjected to such a humiliation or to any disability. The starting-point was that, if a person was not sufficiently criminal to be the inmate of a prison, he should not be relegated to a brutal existence. It was at first argued that such a system would encourage inaction and idleness; the State would be deluged with pensioners. But subtler counsels prevailed. Far-seeing men and women argued that the condition of the world was becoming one of contracted human labour; and if the viciously inclined refused to work, there would be more left to those who had the ambition to be industrious. "But," was the rejoinder, "you are stifling ambition by making the lowest round of the ladder so comfortable and luxurious." To this was replied, "Your argument is superficial. Survey mankind; and you will see that, however lowly its lowest position, there is a ceaseless, persistent effort to rise on the part of nearly every well-disposed person, from the lowliest to the most exalted." Ambition, it was urged, was natural to man, but it was least active amongst the poverty-crushed classes. Mankind as a whole might be described as myriads of units striving to ascend a mountain. The number of those contented to rest on the plateaus to which they had climbed was infinitesimal compared with the whole. It would be as difficult to select them as it would be to pick out a lazy bee from a whole hive. Whether you started at the lowest class, with individuals always on the point of starvation, with families herded together with less decency than beasts of the fields, and with thousands of human beings who from