Most of them cannot expect to become in all respects our equals: the more wretched, the more degraded, they were before, so much the more boundless is their delight, their gratitude, at being here treated by everyone as equals; on no account would they forfeit the respect of their new associates, and, as these latter universally avoid drunkenness, so the former avoid it also.' 'You have explained to us why there are no drunkards in this country,' I said. 'But it appears to me much more remarkable that your principle of granting a right of maintenance to all who are incapable of working, whatever may be the occasion of that incapacity, has not overwhelmed you with invalids and old people without number. Or have we yet to learn of some provisions made to defend you from such guests? And how, without exercising a painfully inquisitorial control, can you prevent the lazy from enjoying the careless leisure which the right of maintenance guarantees to real invalids? I can perfectly well understand that your intelligent Freelanders, with their multitudinous wants, will not be content with forty per cent., when a little easy labour would earn them a hundred per cent. But among the fresh immigrants there must certainly be many who at first can scarcely know what to do with the full earnings of their labour, and who at any rate--so I should suppose--would prefer to draw their maintenance-allowance and live in idleness rather than engage in what, from their standpoint, must appear to be quite superfluous labour. Perhaps, with respect to the right to a maintenance-allowance, you make a distinction between natives and immigrants; if so, what gives a claim to maintenance?'