d 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. No, Mr. West, I am sure on reflection you will
perceive that it was in your age, not in ours, that the extension of
the functions of governments was extraordinary. 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 any assumption by government of the charge of the
national industries. We should have thought that no arrangement could
be worse than to entrust the politicians with control of the
wealth-producing machinery of the country. Its material interests were
quite too much the football of parties as it was."

"No doubt you were right," rejoined Dr. Leete, "but all that is changed
now. We have no parties or politicians, and as for demagoguery and
corruption, they are words having only an historical significance."

"Human nature itself must have changed very much," I said.

"Not at all," was Dr. Leete's reply, "but the conditions of human life
have changed, and with them the motives of human action. The
organization 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. Under such circumstances it seems almost strange
that you dared entrust them with any of your affairs. Nowadays, on the
contrary, society is so constituted that there is absolutely no way in
which an official, however ill-disposed, could possibly make any profit
for himself or any one else by a misuse of his power. Let him be as bad
an official as you please, he cannot be a corrupt one. There is no
motive to be. The social system no longer offers a premium on
dishonesty. But these are matters which you can only understand as you
come, with time, to know us better."

"But you have not yet told me how you have settled the labor problem.
It is the problem of capital which we have been discussing," I said.
"After the nation had assumed conduct of the mills, machinery,
rail