 not so wasteful as
you think; not so wasteful as forcing-grounds for fruit out of season, I think.
Go and have a look at the sheep-walks high up the slopes between Ingleborough
and Pen-y-gwent, and tell me if you think we waste the land there by not
covering it with factories for making things that nobody wants, which was the
chief business of the nineteenth century.«
    »I will try to go there,« said I.
    »It won't take much trying,« said he.
 

                                   Chapter XI

                                        

                             Concerning Government

»Now,« said I, »I have come to the point of asking questions which I suppose
will be dry for you to answer and difficult for you to explain; but I have
foreseen for some time past that I must ask them, will I 'nill I. What kind of a
government have you? Has republicanism finally triumphed? or have you come to a
mere dictatorship, which some persons in the nineteenth century used to prophesy
as the ultimate outcome of democracy? Indeed, this last question does not seem
so very unreasonable, since you have turned your Parliament House into a
dung-market. Or where do you house your present Parliament?«
    The old man answered my smile with a hearty laugh, and said: »Well, well,
dung is not the worst kind of corruption; fertility may come of that, whereas
mere dearth came from the other kind, of which those walls once held the great
supporters. Now, dear guest, let me tell you that our present parliament would
be hard to house in one place, because the whole people is our parliament.«
    »I don't understand,« said I.
    »No, I suppose not,« said he. »I must now shock you by telling you that we
have no longer anything which you, a native of another planet, would call a
government.«
    »I am not so much shocked as you might think,« said I, »as I know something
about governments. But tell me, how do you manage, and how have you come to this
state of things?«
    Said he: »It is true that we have to make some arrangements about our
affairs, concerning which you can ask presently; and it is also true that
everybody does not always agree with the details of these arrangements; but,
further, it is true that a man no more needs an elaborate system of government,
with its army, navy, and police, to force him to give way to the will of
