“I wouldn’t do anything. She mostly creeps in the East End, where one needn’t bother about her. And she’s as much at home there as an opossum is in the bush. So don’t bother me about her.”
“Just so,” smiled Kangaroo. “I’d like to provide public kitchens where the children can get properly fed—and make the husband do a certain amount of state labour to pay for it. And for the rest, leave them to go their own way.”
“But their minds, their souls, their spirits?” said Somers.
“They must more or less look after them themselves. I want to keep order. I want to remove physical misery as far as possible. That I am sure of. And that you can only do by exerting strong, just power from above. There I agree with you.”
“You don’t believe in education?”
“Not much. That is to say, in ninety per cent. of the people it is useless. But I do want those ninety per cent. none the less to have full, substantial lives: as even slaves have had under certain masters, and as our people hardly have at all. That again, I think, is one of your ideas.”
“It is,” said Somers. But his heart sank. “You want a kind of benevolent tyranny, then?”
“Not exactly. You see my tyrant would be so much circumscribed by the constitution I should establish. But in a sense, he would be a tyrant. Perhaps it would be nearer to say he would be a patriarch, or a pope: representing as near as possible the wise, subtle spirit of life. I should try to establish my state of Australia as a kind of Church, with the profound reverence for life, for life’s deepest urges, as the motive power. Dostoevsky suggests this: and I believe it can be done.”
“Perhaps it might be done here,” blurted Somers. “Every continent has its own way, and its own needs.”
“I agree,” said Kangaroo. “I have the greatest admiration for the Roman Catholic Church, as an institution. But the creed and the theology are not natural to me, quite. Not quite. I think we need something more flexible, and a power less formal and dogmatic; more generous, shall I say. A generous power, that sees all the issue here, not in the after-life, and that does not concern itself with sin and repentance and redemption. I should try to teach my people what it is truly to be a man, and a woman. The salvation of souls seems too speculative a job. I think if a man is truly a man, true to his own being, his soul saves itself in that way. But no two people can save their souls alive, in the same way. As far as possible, we must leave it to them. Fata volentem ducunt, nolentem trahunt.”