“In Zelania, the State, or the people in their organised capacity, aids from the general store the people in their individual capacity—to help themselves.
“The State gives nothing. There is humiliating charity nowhere, but elevating justice everywhere. The State puts a man on a farm, loans him money, helps him up hill, and then demands that he play the Hercules. It will loan him a spade—not to lean upon or to pawn, but to dig with—and he must keep it bright and pay for its use.
“The idea in Zelania, my children, is to have no lords and no paupers—that all men shall be producers, and not vagrants; tax-payers, and not tax-eaters—and that every citizen shall become a sturdy democrat, who will honorably strive as a stock-holder in a paying concern.
“Joint encouragement is given,” said he, “and that may be called socialistic; but individual action is demanded, and that is democratic.
“Many persons in Zelania think that the government train is rushing ahead too rapidly, but these should observe the tendencies of the times, and realise the advantages of the general prosperity. Many others think the train moves too slowly, but these should realise the conservatism of wealth, the dangers of exploring uncharted seas, and they should remember that to-day, in all the essentials of human progress, they are by far the most advanced of all peoples.
“Of course, there are occasional failures in Zelania, enough to furnish healthy examples; for while any man who will hustle may thrive, the Almighty does not line up the jerseys for every lout that likes cream in his chocolate. Even in Zelania, the man who claims that this world owes him a living must make some effort to collect that little bill.
“As a fact, in Zelania they furnish a fellow with about everything but brains. This, doubtless, they would willingly do, but as there are a few things in which Nature seems to practice economy, so far there has appeared no surplus of brains—no, not even in Zelania.”
Here I cluster some of Mr. Oseba’s graphic conclusions into my own “chaste” language:—