But the principle, we are sorry to say, can not be carried out completely; and furthermore, the officials do not cease being real men, do not become mere abstractions without class consciousness. This may be quite apart from the fact that, in Europe at least, a participation in a definite form of undertakings--viz., handling large landed estates--is regarded as a favorable means of getting on in the service of the state, and will continue to be so as long as the landed nobility preponderates. In consequence of this, many officials on the Continent, and one may even say the most influential officials, are subject to pressure by enormous economic interests; and are unconsciously, and often against their will, brought into the class contests. There are factors, such as extra allowances made by either fathers or fathers-in-law, or hereditary estates, and affinity to the persons in control of the landed and moneyed interest or allied with them, whereby the solidarity of interest among the ruling class is if anything increased from the fact that these officials, practically without exception, are taken from a class with whom since their boyhood days they have been on terms of intimacy. Were there, however, no such unity of economic interests the demeanor of the officials would be influenced entirely by the pure interests of the state. For this reason, as a rule, the most efficient, most objective and most impartial set of officials is found in poor states. Prussia, for example, was formerly indebted to its poverty for that incomparable body of officials who handled it through all its troubles. These employees of the state were actually, in consonance with the rule laid down above, dissociated completely from all interests in money making, directly or indirectly.