A century of industrial development had transformed the material world, whilst in the meantime the organisation of the State had almost stood still. The Super-State must borrow from the Socialists the conception of an all-embracing power and activity, and from the Industrial world the machinery for the execution of its will. The most efficient and successful business firms were those which got every ounce of work out of every member of the firm. The Super-State must not be less resourceful. Now as to the methods, said the Professor. How was the State to absorb into its service all the energies of the nation, without at the same time becoming a Social Democracy? Already the Social Democrats, as in Prince Bludiron's time, were proclaiming that the Capitalist State was working out for them the Social Revolution predicted by Spotts; and as in Prince Bludiron's days so under Prince Mechow they went on waiting for the Social Revolution. They are waiting still. In the meantime Prince Mechow got into the saddle and began his practical reforms. He was a man of the most extraordinary energy and versatility. He was not content to begin with Education and wait for a generation. He attacked a dozen different problems at the same time: Education, Industry, Commerce, Railways, Finance, the Press, the Stage, the Professions, the Church--every side of national life received his attention; but the prime instrument through which he worked was the Bureaucracy. He laid it down as an axiom that the machinery of the State must work so smoothly that the people should be unaware of its operations. There have been instances in history, he wrote in one of his letters, in which a Government has been overturned in a single day. How? By a perfectly planned _coup d'état_. What can be accomplished on a single occasion can be done as a part of the regular working of the State Machinery. Our Super-State must be capable of a _coup d'état_ every day. Those of his friends who did not see the necessity for his reforms he silenced by showing them that if they did not capture the State the Social Democracy would do so.