“I am not sure, not very sure, that all the people of Zelania are worthy participators in these noble benefactions; I am only explaining the facts of the situation, the generous sentiment that so largely prevails among the people, and the purposes and intentions of the makers of the law.
“Of course Zelanian statesmen may need to remind the people, that increased effort will be demanded for every opportunity given, and that for personal success, energy, self reliance and hustle must be wholly relied upon, or there may be some misunderstanding.”
Whoever leans heavily upon the Government—not the language of the chaste Oseba—usually gets tired easy, so while it is well to furnish every passenger with a life preserver, the fellow who is too lazy to kick deserves to die at sea, to save funeral expenses.
“But, my children,” says Mr. Oseba, with rather a human smile, “as it is much less wearisome to put on avoirdupois than to put on grey matter, the social millennium has not yet become firmly seated, even in Zelania.”
But, Mr. Oseba, they are steaming up and they will get there all the same, for now that the light has been turned on, the audience will encourage the players to grander performances.
In all changes in life there are sorrows. We come into, and go out of life with pain. In every advance some are left behind, by every improvement some hand is left idle, until it is trained to a new duty. Every economic advance violates some custom under which hoary wrongs found an honored refuge.
But I conclude, from many pages, that Zelania’s labor laws are still imperfect, as the leaders themselves recognise, by further improving them. But she is safe in her situation, and these eternal principles of justice are destined to exercise a wide influence throughout the world, for improved light always gives the whole plant a more symmetrical growth.
To the undeviating progress of the industrial situation of Zelania, the world is indebted, first, of course, to her unparalleled natural conditions, second to the intelligence of her people, then to her progressive statesmen, and especially to R. J. Seddon and the able men who have constituted his political family. These, without tradition, history or precedent, have raised the industrial plane of the country to a condition approaching the social ideal—as per mandate.
Like Bolivar and Lincoln and many other of humanity’s torch bearers, Mr. Seddon, by the force of his own genius, arose from the industrial walks of life. His was not a meteor flight bursting resplendently upon a startled world; but faithfully biding his time, he came prepared, and evidently he came to stay—for the time of his leave-taking has not yet been announced.
