§ 6

The Aristocracy of Learning takes a high place in the new democracy. We have seen that a party chest no longer exists, so men poor in purse, but rich in wisdom and understanding, if not called “Peers of the Realm,” have become so by their outstanding merits. Hereditary titles are the exception. The ancient titles and families go on, but it is an exception when they are added to. It is agreed that opportunists and place hunters were numerically increased by the facilities provided for the purchase of honours. In the new State no honours can be purchased, but they can be won! Money may make a prominent man, but not a great one. By making the King President of the Privy Councillors it was thought that the grave responsibility carried with it would strengthen the monarchy, and, holding on to the fine tradition of kingship, the country would benefit more than under repeated elections consequent upon a shifting Republic, meaning that stability is more likely to be reached under a Constitutional Monarch than under a vacillating Republic.

To sum up this portion of my dream. Centralisation is a thing of the past! Each county governs itself; and this plan has been thought to be wise because every county has its own idiosyncracy, its own needs, and its own powers of production, some Industrial, some Agricultural, but each one must, to be well governed, be represented by the most varied and highly trained minds. So each intellectual class is called upon to administer, which system prevents the commercial element from overriding the intellectual; hence a better balance is maintained than under the old system, which pushed into the background some of the best minds in the community, who, not being commercial, but taking another view, undoubtedly a higher one, were regarded as fanatics, their ideas being received with a shrug of the shoulders as a gesture of contemptuous pity.

But a wider education, hence better manners, has altered all this, and members of a class that held in contempt any intelligence applied other than to commerce have learnt that there are many sides to a nation’s greatness, none of which can be neglected without detriment to the whole. Besides the Mayor each Commune has its Minister of Public Health, who must be a capable authority not an amateur but an expert, who has under him a staff of officers ever on the watch for the good of the people. Next to him is the Minister for Agriculture. In industrial centres a Minister for Industrialism is at work, whose duty it is to see that all factories are sanitary, the workmen neither overcrowded or overworked. There is a protecting Minister of all rivers and lakes, into which no refuse from factories is permitted to drain. This law, if not obeyed, the factory can be immediately shut up. All coal smoke is forbidden, whether from factories or private houses. This law at first was resented, and until fines for its non-observance were heavy, was not obeyed. As soon as offenders found there was no way to avoid smoke, they applied science and now the evil never occurs. Electricity is used as energising power as well as for heat giving, all engines are driven by it, hence in the whole of England the scandal of a smoking chimney of any sort or kind is never presented.

“We are wiser now,” said a scientific man. “We know it to be not only folly to waste coal, but wrong to smirch the sky, hide the sun, and poison trees and vegetables with evil fumes—it can be prevented.” As I hovered over a part of England, not long ago blasted and blackened, where not a tree would grow, where the sun rarely penetrated through the evil clouds of unconsumed fuel, I wondered how it was we permitted that miserable state of things to go on. Now the country smiles under the sun; what was a desert is a garden, and what were pale, sad people are now sunburnt, merry and strong folk, as the British race was before the artificial tyrant Industrialism began to bleach them. The climate of the British Isles is not genial, we all know that, but the difference since coal smoke has ceased to darken the sun is so great as to provide another climate. Fogs there are and always will be in our Island, but smoke fogs are no more, hence an outdoor life is led which was impossible under the circumstances of the past. If the Communes had only effected that change they would have benefited the human race quite incalculably. Each Commune has its Minister of Education assisted by a staff of competent superintendents, who visit local schools and issue reports that are laid before a Council elected from chosen men of character and distinction. Each Commune has a Minister of Arts and Crafts, for music and the drama, including dancing, which I notice has become an art and an essential one, in the training of the young in good manners and graceful demeanour.