The Americans who live on the Zone are an interesting social experiment without knowing it. They form one of the unique communities of the world. Somebody has said that the Zone situation is described by the word "suburban," but that does not express it. Every man lives in a government-furnished house, rent free. Free also is his electric light and a ration of fuel for cooking. Ice is so cheap that it is practically free. He buys everything that he eats and wears in the commissary's stores, where goods are sold to him at cost. So they are--at what they cost _him_. Prices now do not differ materially from retail figures in the States on the same goods. If housekeeping tires, there are the commissary restaurants, clean and wholesome, always available for good meals at reasonable prices. Good schools are furnished free, of course, for the children. There is a free dispensary where all minor ailments are treated and medicine furnished free. The government hospitals are among the best in the world, and employees' rates are less than the cost of living at home. The Zone man is under Civil Service rules, receives a generous vacation, with a steamer rate to New York so low that it covers little more than his meals en route. The scale of his wages is based on an increase of twenty per cent over the pay for the same class of service in the United States. Cheap household service abounds and is about as satisfactory as household service is anywhere. If he is lonesome, the government clubhouse, with its community life, good recreation, and well-stocked reading room, is always open to him practically without cost; and if he gets tired of the Zone, there is always Panama and the interior country with its never-failing places of interest and exploration. Here are all the advantages of the socialized state and no workingmen or clerks in all the world are so well paid, or taken care of, as these Americans on the Zone. It is a fine, efficient piece of provision for the men who do the work. Therefore the Zone dweller should be a satisfied and happy man, dreading nothing but the day when he must return to the States. [Illustration: ENCHANTED ISLANDS IN GATUN LAKE] In practice, however, the American on the Canal Zone is not so contented as the external features of his lot would lead one to suppose. There is an undercurrent of petty complaint, directed at everything in general, and indicative of a state of mind as much as of actual evils existent. These complaints are the results of too much community life without room for individual ownership or initiative. The followers of Bellamy should come to the Zone and stay long enough to get a few pointers. The trouble is that there is necessarily much of uniformity of housing, commissary, social, and living conditions. The American people are, after all, strong individualists, and every man likes to have something that is distinctively his own.