 fact that the nation would be the sole corporation in the field would, it
was seen, relieve the undertaking of many difficulties with which the partial
monopolies had contended.«
 

                                   Chapter VI

Dr. Leete ceased speaking, and I remained silent, endeavoring to form some
general conception of the changes in the arrangements of society implied in the
tremendous revolution which he had described.
    Finally I said, »The idea of such an extension of the functions of
government is, to say the least, rather overwhelming.«
    »Extension!« he repeated, »where is the extension?«
    »In my day,« I replied, »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, that is, to the military and police
powers.«
    »And, in heaven's name, who are the public enemies?« exclaimed Dr. Leete,
»Are they France, England, Germany, or hunger, cold, and 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. 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
