"Oh, but it is," insisted Johnson. "The danger takes several forms. Meccania is tremendously strong as a military power. She knows it, and other nations know it. Suppose a great war took place, and she were successful; she would bring other nations under her power, as she has done in the past. These would soon be compelled to adopt her institutions. Then, in self-defence, other nations would feel themselves compelled to resort to the same means as have proved successful in her case, to make themselves strong too. To a certain degree that has already taken place. Lots of our military people now are always agitating to introduce what they call reforms, to place us on a level with Meccania. Then all sorts of cranks come over here: Sanitary Reformers, Eugenists, Town Planners, Educationists, Physical Culturists, Temperance Reformers, Scientific Industrialists, and so forth. Each of them finds some idea he wants to push. There are people who think that if they could only cure unemployment they would bring in the millennium, and they are willing to reconstruct society for the sole purpose of doing away with unemployment. And so we get disconnected bits of Bureaucracy set up, first for this and then for that. By and by some one will come along who will try to co-ordinate the whole thing." I had evidently set Mr. Johnson on to a train of thought that excited him, for he usually took things very calmly. After a short pause he went on: "And yet I don't think the greatest danger comes from these would-be bureaucrats of ours. With us the bureaucrat only gets his chance when we have played the fool so badly that somebody has got to step in and set things right. For instance, we had what we called magistrates at one time. They were supposed to be the prominent citizens with common sense and initiative; but they became so incompetent, and the authorities chose them so foolishly, that they lost the public confidence; so we had to replace them partly by officials and partly by paid judges. Then look at our manufacturers; they hadn't the sense to apply a reasonable proportion of their profits to developing their business on scientific lines, so the State had to step in and compel them to. They hadn't the sense, either, to encourage their workpeople to become educated, nor even to pay them any more than they could help. Consequently the State had to step in again. No, what I am most afraid of is our disinclination to set things right ourselves. We can't let mothers go on murdering their babies, we can't let food dealers poison the public, we can't let seducers of children traffic in obscenity; and as the public is apathetic about all these things the bureaucrat steps in and adds another Department to the fabric. What I am afraid of chiefly is that we shall get into a bad mess that will place us at the mercy either of the Meccanians over here or of our own Meccanians at home." CHAPTER IX MECCANISATION