"In my day," said I, "it was considered that the proper functions of government, strictly speaking, were limited to keeping the peace and defending the people against the public enemy."
"And, in heaven's name, who are the public enemies?" exclaimed Dr. Leete. "Are they France, England, Germany? or Hunger, Cold, Nakedness? In your day governments were accustomed, on the slightest international misunderstanding, to seize upon the bodies of citizens and deliver them over by hundreds of thousands to death and mutilation, wasting their treasures the while like water; and all this oftenest for no imaginable profit to the victims. We have no wars now, and our governments no war powers; but in order to protect every citizen against hunger, cold, and nakedness, and provide for all his physical and mental needs, the function is assumed of directing his industry for a term of years. Not even for the best ends would men now allow their governments such powers as were then used for the most maleficent."
"Leaving comparisons aside," I said, "the demagoguery and corruption of our public men would have been considered, in my day, insuperable objections to government assuming charge of the national industries."
"No doubt you were right," rejoined Dr. Leete; "but all that is changed. We have no parties or politicians."
"Human nature itself must have changed very much."
"Not at all; but the conditions of human life have changed, and with them the motives of human action. The organisation of society with you was such that officials were under a constant temptation to misuse their power for the private profit of themselves or others. Now society is so constituted that there is absolutely no way in which an official could possibly make any profit for himself or anyone else by a misuse of his power."
III.—Labour's New Régime
"But you have not yet told me how you have settled the labour problem."
"When the nation became the sole employer," said Dr. Leete, "all the citizens became employees, to be distributed according to the needs of industry."
"That is, you have simply applied the principle of universal military service, as understood in our day, to the labour question."