From the moment of his election there is an amplitude of employment for the new-comer. Thus of the junior councillors four hold the onerous posts of registrars of all births and deaths throughout the realm, their business in this capacity taking them far afield, for the whole system of Meleagrian registration is closely bound up with its public policy and edicts. Two more are concerned with the shipping and fishing industries; two with the control and inspection of the colonies in Barbaria; two are entrusted with the interests of the many indentured labourers; two or more act as commissioners of forest lands; at least four are charged with the important and troublesome duties as regards public sanitation and hygiene; and so on till every public department falls under the direct supervision of the nominees of this Council of Seventy and more. Such a shuffling and allocation of public offices may seem arbitrary and detestable to the windy demagogues of our twentieth-century civilisation; but I can assure my readers, as the result of my most careful and unbiased observation, the practical effect on the well-being of the community at large far exceeds any vaunted results that ever I saw or heard of in any democratic community on Earth. Nor do I marvel; for jobbery, sentimentalism, waste, financial dabbling, denominational intrigue, family influence are all necessarily absent from the workings of a council that is composed only of highly trained persons of gentle birth who, having resigned all the domestic and material interests of life, have no private or monetary ends to consider, but act solely for the benefit of the state, which they have chosen voluntarily to serve after a long preliminary course of special education.