"Society," continued the sage, "made up of the industrial cells, requires the security of every shilling, the service of every member, and the peaceful co-operation of all the factors in every industrial enterprise, and as it has not yet been determined how much of our imagined 'natural rights' we may be called upon to yield for the general good, the passionless decision of the public will, for the time being at least, must be the only guide. "Under the benign _ægis_ of a rule, bearing the lengthened legend, 'The Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Act,' there serenely reposes the most perfect industrial security known in this discontented world. The Labour Laws of Zelania may be 'experimental,' but they sprang from the soul of the public conscience, they were moulded by a desire to secure impartial justice, and for many years they have given a degree of industrial peace, stability, and prosperity, that has won the favour of the general citizenship, and is now exciting the surprise and winning the admiration of the world. "Then, to cap the climax, my children," said Mr. Oseba, "of all the measures ever calculated to confirm the claims of the Master as to the 'brotherhood' of man, it has been ordained in Zelania that, under liberal provisions, all persons above the full age of sixty-five years, shall be entitled to a life pension." In harmony with other liberal legislation, support for these measures was asked, Oseba informs his people, not as a matter of charity, but of justice, for it seems to have been held that as members of an industrial community, all worthy persons were supposed to have entitled themselves to a living, and that those who found themselves indigent at that age, had either met with misfortune, or had failed to receive a just equivalent for his or her contribution to the public wealth. There, it seems to be recognised that the world owes, to all men, a living, and that these pensions are advances made to those who have failed to "collect" what was properly due to them. Rather new.[G] A public sentiment that, above the taint of charity, coins its "respect for worthy old age" into sovereigns, that may be "demanded as a right," by the deserving, stands as far above the pious cant of other countries--as philosophy stands above superstition. Indolence, poverty, sorrow and want are common to human society, and benevolence and charity have been lauded as saving virtues for many ages; but here, where new ideas seem to generate spontaneously, there has arisen a novel notion--that so closely is the world akin, that the very fact of a person having taken the pains to be born, to behave pretty well, to float to Zelania at the proper time and to exist for sixty-five years, justly entitles him or her to £18 worth of annual "respect."