there any
reason why we have to listen to these accusations when--"

Watson held up a hand, curtly, "Let us finish. If you have something to
say, we'll gladly listen when we're through."

Gunther was flushed but he snapped, "Go ahead then, but don't think any
of we Genoese are being taken in."

Watson said, "True enough, it took us a time to unite our people ..."

"Time and blood," Peter MacDonald muttered.

"... But once underway the Texcocan State has moved on in a progression
unknown in any of the Genoese nations. To industrialize a society you
must reach a certain taking off point, a point where you have sufficient
industry, particularly steel, sufficient power, sufficient scientists,
technicians and skilled workers. Once that point has been reached you
can move in almost a geometric progression. You build a steel mill and
with the steel produced you build two more mills the following year,
which in turn gives you the material for four the next year."

Buchwald grunted his disbelief.

Watson looked up and down the line of Genoese, the Earthmen as well as
the natives. "On Texcoco we have now reached that point. We have a
trained, eager population of over one billion persons. Our universities
are turning out highly trained effectives at the rate of more than
twenty million a year. We have located all the raw materials we will
need. We are now under way." He looked at them in heavy amusement. "By
the end of the next decade we will bury you."

Martin Gunther said calmly, "Are you through?"

"Yes. For the time," Watson nodded.

"Very well. Then this is _our_ progress report. In the past forty years
we have eliminated feudalism in all the more advanced countries. Even in
the remote areas the pressures of our changing world are bringing them
around. The populace of these countries will no longer stand to one side
while the standard of living on the rest of Genoa grows so rapidly. On
most of our planet, already the average family not only enjoys freedom
but a way of life far in advance of that of Texcoco. Already modern
housing and household appliances are everywhere. Already both land cars
and aircraft are available to the majority. The nations have formed an
Inter-Continental League of governments so that it is unlikely that war
will ever touch us again. And this is merely a beginning. In ten years,
continuing our freely competitive way of developing, all will be living
on a scale that only the wealthy can aff