“In Zelania the soil is a basis of wealth; capital and labor are the active factors, and society, for the good of each and all, proposes that these factors shall peacefully pursue the joint enterprise of production, according to the dictates of justice and humanity.
“It is selfish, of course. Capital must be secure, and industry must necessarily move her tireless wheels. Then society, as a whole, having an interest in each of its members, and a stake in the proceeds, must be the arbiter in all industrial disputes, and the interested parties, being loyal members of the social compact, must yield obedience to the public will.”
Well, that is worth embalming!
They numbered the people. If high or low,
Was not worth asking; enough to know
That each had wants; and, that all might live,
Those receiving must willingly give.
Then strove they in love, and not in hate,
To build for aye this matchless State;
For they knew that a temple could not endure
That enriched the baron, and crushed the poor.
“Society,” continued the sage, “made up of the industrial cells, requires the security of every shilling, the service of every member, and the peaceful co-operation of all the factors in every industrial enterprise, and as it has not yet been determined how much of our imagined ‘natural rights’ we may be called upon to yield for the general good, the passionless decision of the public will, for the time being at least, must be the only guide.
“Under the benign ægis of a rule, bearing the lengthened legend, ‘The Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Act,’ there serenely reposes the most perfect industrial security known in this discontented world. The Labour Laws of Zelania may be ‘experimental,’ but they sprang from the soul of the public conscience, they were moulded by a desire to secure impartial justice, and for many years they have given a degree of industrial peace, stability, and prosperity, that has won the favour of the general citizenship, and is now exciting the surprise and winning the admiration of the world.
“Then, to cap the climax, my children,” said Mr. Oseba, “of all the measures ever calculated to confirm the claims of the Master as to the ‘brotherhood’ of man, it has been ordained in Zelania that, under liberal provisions, all persons above the full age of sixty-five years, shall be entitled to a life pension.”
In harmony with other liberal legislation, support for these measures was asked, Oseba informs his people, not as a matter of charity, but of justice, for it seems to have been held that as members of an industrial community, all worthy persons were supposed to have entitled themselves to a living, and that those who found themselves indigent at that age, had either met with misfortune, or had failed to receive a just equivalent for his or her contribution to the public wealth. There, it seems to be recognised that the world owes, to all men, a living, and that these pensions are advances made to those who have failed to “collect” what was properly due to them. Rather new.[G]
A public sentiment that, above the taint of charity, coins its “respect for worthy old age” into sovereigns, that may be “demanded as a right,” by the deserving, stands as far above the pious cant of other countries—as philosophy stands above superstition.