Outside of the handicraft of the workmen, we have established a scale for estimating a just rate of pay for all employees in professional and business pursuits. This arrangement is based upon the qualities of TALENT, INTELLIGENCE and CAPABILITY. Each one of these is divided into three grades, and whoever stands first in all of them is entitled, of course, to the highest pay for his services. Usually, however, these high qualifications secure a reward beyond the scale. This system of rewarding labor has a far-reaching effect in our political economy, and is a complete uniformity with the general tendency of our efforts to promote steady values. The most important element of cost in all commodities offered for sale is labor, and that can never be cheapened. We have not a single product of industry in our list which represents in its labor cost, as many of yours do, the underpain, gaunt and hopeless toil of some fellow creature struggling for the scanty means to live.
Owing to our many concessions physical industry has been curtailed of that excessively wearisome and exhausting character known to you. Without the oppressions which bear down upon it on your planet, its pursuit never reaches that forced extremity which brings the bent form and care-worn face.
A considerate custom has fixed our period of daily labor at six hours; one-half of which, under the equitable adjustment of our wage rates, affords sufficient pay, under ordinary circumstances, to furnish a liberal enjoyment of life. Under our system three hours of work each day affords a share of wealth somewhat in excess of the share usually obtained by the workmen of the Earth for their average of ten hours’ labor. Our industrial force has, therefore, a facility of expansion and contraction, without distressful results, which yours does not possess. No serious changes are wrought with us by a reduction of working force to half time, and consequent half pay; while more or less pinching and misery are sure to follow such an occurrence with you.
From these careful attentions to the interests of labor, we have brought it into repute as one of the most honorable as well as the most profitable pursuits of life. I have endeavored to show you some of the ways by which this grand purpose has been attained. I must not, however, omit to remind you, that as our government takes upon itself to perform innumerable enterprises, which on the Earth are left to individuals and organizations of men, its direct dealings with those who toil are more intimate and extensive than yours. It is better enabled thereby to carry into operation those methods which distinguish our system. The greater part of the energies of our government and the wisdom of our statesmanship have been directed to this end of supporting labor, and out of it, without question, comes the general serenity and contentment which prevail.
CHAPTER X.
When it is decided by our authorities that a new city shall be built to meet the requirements of increasing numbers, and to establish that convenient co-operation in branches of industry and trade which close association affords, its location is left entirely to the judgment of a board of government officers, of sanitary and civil engineering skill. If, as is frequently the case, the proposed site is already occupied by one or more tenants in rural pursuits, they are scrupulously indemnified in all losses which result from their dispossession.
I wish to impress upon you here, that a tenant, under our government, has even greater security of possession than your land owners. The prevailing sense of justice, and a widespread interest, have established the right of a renter to hold and enjoy, against all competition, his allotment during his life. He has also the right, under our custom, to convey its possession by will; and it is more generally the case on our planet than on yours, that a piece of land is held for generations in the same family. Our government exercises some rights of interference, to the end that the size of a farm shall conform, as near as possible, to such dimensions as to employ no great excess of labor over that capable of being supplied by the family of the occupant. In a general way, the tenant enjoys the same rights of ownership which are held by your individual holders in fee, except that he cannot convey title, and does not take to himself any emolument arising from increased value. His rent is simply an equivalent to your tax, with the very important difference, that its amount depends entirely on the season’s productiveness, and is never a burden.
Once decided upon, the proposed city becomes the subject of universal interest. Its plans are submitted and approved, just as your proposals for a single edifice. All its parts must conform with each other; the choice of its location chiefly depends upon drainage and water supply, and it possesses these advantages in the highest perfection. Every house must be erected in conformity with rules. Work is commenced by the erection of public buildings in the center, and the laying of drain, water, heat and electric conduits through its newly surveyed streets. People come to it, as they come to your new cities, for the purpose of gain in trade and industry, and locate themselves as they choose under a fixed and uniform land rental. They erect edifices as you do, varying them as they like in their internal structure, but strictly conforming in their outer elevations to the style adopted by our architectural commission, which supervises also the material employed, and the safety and durability of the work. Any disreputable or depraved quarter is of course impossible under this plan; nor could such an encouragement and propagation of crime exist in one of our cities, as they do in yours, even had we the class of tenants to people them. It must be charged among the evils of your landlordism, that it not only promotes vice through its tendency to impoverish your masses, but is ready at all times to multiply it, by affording quarters for convenient association.