by Anthology
"Exactly," I remarked. "What else should they do?"
"Here," said Sheep, "these are the least of their functions. We employ fewer police in keeping order in the streets, and in detecting criminals, than any country in the world. Crime and disorder are almost unknown in Meccania. Our people are so well brought up that they have little desire to commit crime. Those who do show any propensity in that direction are deported to criminal colonies and give very little trouble afterwards. Besides, there is, after all, very little opportunity to commit crime, as you would soon discover if you attempted to do so."
"I can well believe that," I said. "But what, then, do your police find to do?"
"Speaking generally, their function is to see that the regulations devised for the good of the State are properly carried out."
"And those regulations are rather numerous, I suppose?"
"Undoubtedly. As they affect every department of life, there are many occasions upon which the assistance of the police is necessary in order that people shall not make mistakes," said Sheep.
"But," I said, "I thought that the officials of each department of State attended to so many things that there would be little left for the police. For instance," I added, "the inspectors of food and clothing, of buildings, of public health, of education, and so forth."
"Yes, yes," answered Conductor Sheep; "but suppose some matter arises which may belong to several departments; the citizen needs guidance. Quite apart from that, the police watch over the life of the people from the point of view of the general public interest. They collect information from all the other departments. Suppose a man neglects his attendance at the theatre: the amusement authority must report the case to the police. Similarly with all the other departments. Suppose, for instance, a man were to try to make an unauthorised journey, or to remain absent from work without a medical certificate, or to exceed his proper expenditure and get into debt, or try to pass himself off as a member of a higher class: in such cases it is the police who take cognisance of the offence. Then there is the annual report and certificate of conduct with respect to every citizen. How could this be filled up without exact information? All this involves a great deal of work."
"Indeed it must," I replied.
"You see, then, that our police are not idle," said Sheep triumphantly.
"Indeed I do," I replied.
After this enlightening explanation the offices of the Police Department no longer presented a mystery to me. I looked with awe at the hundreds of volumes of police reports in the official library of the Bridgetown police office, and wondered what the Central Police Office Library would be like; for I was told it contained a copy of every police report of every district in the country, as well as those for the great capital Mecco.
When we came to the Department of Education, which was one of the institutions managed by the State and the Municipality, Conductor Sheep regretted once more that I had chosen Tour No. i. We could only spare half a day at most for this important department. Here, again, I can only note a few of the unusual features of the system* as explained to me by my encyclopaedic conductor. We saw no schools except on the outside, but I noticed the children going to and from school. They all marched in step, in twos or fours, like little soldiers. They did not race about the streets or play games. Wherever they started from they fell into step with their comrades and carried their satchels like knapsacks. The State Inspectors, it seems, decide what is to be taught, and how it is to be taught: the local officers carry out their instructions and classify the children. In the office of the Department there is a sort of museum of school apparatus in connection with the stores section. The books are all prescribed by the Central Department, and no others may be used. The children of the Sixth and Seventh Classes attend common schools in order to get the benefit of better classification. There are no schools in Bridgetown for the members of the First and Second Classes. They go elsewhere, but the other classes have separate schools. The children of the Sixth and Seventh Classes stay at school until they are twelve; but their instruction is largely of a practical and manual kind. Those of the Fifth Class remain until fifteen, and are trained to be skilled workmen. After fifteen they receive instruction in science in connection with their several occupations.
Closely connected with the system of education, for the three lowest classes, is the Juvenile Bureau of Industry. This is controlled by the Department of Industry and Commerce. No young person in Meccania can take up any employment without a certificate granted by this Department. The officials of the Juvenile Bureau, after consultation with the officials of the Education Department, decide what occupation boys and girls may enter, and no employer is allowed to engage a boy or girl except through the medium of the Bureau.
"What about the inclinations of the boys and girls, and the desires of their parents?" I remarked to Sheep.
"The inclinations of the boys?" said Sheep, more puzzled than surprised. "In what way does that affect the question?"
"A boy might like to be a cabinet-maker rather than a metal worker, or a mason rather than a clerk," I said.
"But such a question as that will have been determined while the boy is at school."
"Then when does he get the chance of choosing an occupation?"
"It will depend upon his abilities for different kinds of work. And he can hardly be the judge of that himself," added Sheep.
"Where do the parents come in, then?" I asked.
"The parents will naturally encourage the boy to do his best at school. And after all, does it matter much whether a boy is a mason or a carpenter? In any case, the number of carpenters will be decided each year, and even each quarter, by the Department of Industry. It is not as if it would alter his class, either; he will be in the same class unless he is very exceptional and passes the State Examination for promotion."
I saw it would be useless to suggest any other ideas to Sub-Conductor Sheep, who seemed constitutionally unable to understand any objections to the official point of view. I could hardly hope to learn much about education in a single afternoon. All we saw was the mere machinery from the outside, and not even a great deal of that. I gathered that there was a most minute classification, with all sorts of subdivisions, of the children according to their capacities and future occupations. There were sufficient local inspectors to provide one for each large school, and their chief business was to conduct psychological experiments and apply all sorts of tests of intelligence in order to introduce improved methods of instruction. The inspectors themselves were all specialists. One was an expert on mental fatigue, another devoted himself to classifying the teachers according to their aptitude for teaching particular subjects, another specialised in organising profitable recreative employments for different grades of children; another superintended all juvenile amusements. Sheep showed me the exterior of a large psychological laboratory attached to the Technical College. Bridgetown was too small to have a University of its own, but it had two large' Secondary' Schools for pupils in the Third and Fourth Classes, and an enormous technical school for the boys of the Fifth Class. It was fitted up like a series of workshops for all sorts of trades, with class-rooms and laboratories attached. Sheep asserted that it was through these schools that the Meccanian artisans had become by far the most efficient workmen in the whole world. I had not time to ask many questions about the provision for games or physical training, but from something Sheep said I inferred that whilst games had been reduced to a minimum the experts had devised a system of physical training which satisfied all Meccanian requirements.
Sheep strongly advised me to study Meccanian education in Mecco if I ever got there. All true Meccanians recognised, he said, that the whole national greatness of Meccania rested on their system of education. No doubt statesmen had done much, but the ground had been prepared by the schoolmasters, and the statesmen themselves had been brought up in the Meccanian system of education. He himself, he confided, was the son of a Meccanian village schoolmaster.
&
nbsp; Why then, I asked, begging his pardon if the question were indiscreet, did he wear the chocolate button which indicated that he had once been a member of the Fifth Class?
"When the sevenfold classification was introduced," he answered, "village schoolmasters who were not graduates were in the Fifth Class, and I was in the Fifth Class until I was thirty and gained my promotion in the Police Department."
Tour No. i made no provision for studying the lighter side of life in Bridgetown. Sheep said that practically all forms of amusement were controlled by a section of the Department of Culture, but t at the Organising Inspectors of Private Leisure were appointed locally, subject to the approval of the Central Department.
"Organising Inspectors of Private Leisure I "T exclaimed. "What an extraordinary institution!"
"In what way extraordinary?" said Sheep.
"I am sure they do not exist in any other country," I replied.
"Perhaps not," replied Sheep; "but, then, our culture is not modelled on that of any other country. Possibly other countries will discover the use of such officials when they have developed a better system of education."
"But what is their function?" I asked.
"Any person who has more than an hour a day unaccounted for, after doing his day's work, and fulfilling all his other duties, is required;o submit a scheme every half-year, showing what cultural pursuit he proposes to follow. The inspectors will assist him with expert advice and will see that he carries out his programme."
"Is there nothing left unregulated in this country?" I asked in as innocent a tone as I could command.
"That is a very interesting question," replied Sheep. "If you will consult the Forty-eighth Annual Report of the Ministry of Culture you will find an interesting diagram, or map, showing the whole field of Meccanian life and the stages in its organisation. One by one all the spheres of life have been gradually organised. If you examine the diagram showing the present state of Meccania, and compare it with similar maps for other countries, you will perceive how very much more advanced our culture is than that of any other country."
"And what regions still remain for the Department of Culture to conquer?"
"An investigation is going on at the present time into the interesting question of individual taste," he answered. "It is being conducted by the ^Esthetic Section of the Department, but they have not yet reported."
Where everything is so completely regulated it is not surprising to find that poverty, as understood in many countries, no longer exists; but I was not quite clear how it was provided against. Once more Sheep was ready with a complete explanation.
"Our laws," he said, "do not permit anyone to remain idle, and the regulation of the expenditure of the lower classes secures them against improvidence. Besides, as they contribute to insurance funds, they receive a pension in old age, and allowances during sickness or disablement. Poverty is therefore impossible."
"Apparently, then," I remarked, "if the labouring classes will surrender their liberty to the State they can be relieved of all danger of poverty."
"I do not understand what you mean by surrendering their liberty," replied Sheep.
"In many other countries," I said, "people desire to please themselves what they will work at, and indeed whether they will work at all. They Hke to have the liberty of striking, for instance, against wages or other conditions that do not satisfy them, and I have heard people in such countries declare that they would rather preserve their freedom in such things than be secured even against poverty."
"It is no part of my business to discuss such questions," replied Sheep, "but I have never heard such a question even discussed in Meccania. The foundation of Meccanian law is that the private individual has no rights against the State."
It was towards the end of the week that I mentioned to Conductor Sheep that I had had great difficulty in procuring a copy of the local newspaper published in Bridgetown; in fact, I had not managed to get a sight of it. Sheep explained that Tour No. i did not allow time for the study of local social life in such detail as to provide a place for such a thing, but he was good enough to procure me a sight of the Bridgetown Weekly Gazette. It was well printed on good paper, but it was more like an official municipal record than a newspaper. It contained brief reports of municipal committee meetings, announcements as to forthcoming examinations, lists of persons who had passed various examinations; and statistics of births, death sand marriages. The figures for the births were given in an unusual form. There were fifty first-born boys, forty-five first-born girls; forty-seven secondborn boys, forty-eight second-born girls; and so on down to three fourteenth-born boys and seven fourteenth-born girls. There were statistics of accidents, with brief details. There was a list of small fines inflicted for various infringements of regulations, and announcements of forthcoming legal cases. The only advertisements were a few concerning sales of property and household goods. It was altogether the driest document calling itself a newspaper I had ever seen. I tried to draw Sheep on the subject of newspapers in general, but he seemed rather annoyed.
"I procured this Gazette," he said, "as a concession to your curiosity, although it forms no part of our programme, and now you wish to go into a subject which is totally unconnected with our tour. The question is of historical interest only, and if you stay in Meccania long enough to study the historical development of our Culture, you will study the history of the Press in its proper place and connection. I will, however, add for your present information that the Central Government issues a complete series of Gazettes, which serve the same purpose for the country as a whole as the Bridgetown Weekly Gazette for his locality." With that the subject was closed for the present.
Although I had now been here nearly a whole week, I had not yet had an opportunity of strolling round to see anything that might catch my fancy. Everything had been done according to the programme. Nevertheless, I had noticed a few things in the course of my daily tours which Conductor Sheep did not think worthy of comment. I got very tired of his guide-book style of explanation. Bridgetown was hardly worth the painful and systematic study which he compelled me to give to it, and I decided to go straight on to the capital in a few days.
I saw no drunken people—the regulations do not permit drunkenness. I saw no loose women in the streets. On this subject I can get no information from Sheep, but I suspect there is something to learn. There were no advertisement hoardings. I must confess I rather missed them; they may be ugly, but they are often interesting. The shops were very dull. Nothing was displayed in the windows to tempt people to buy, and there were no people about the streets shopping in a casual way. People must know what they want, and go to the shops which specialise in the particular article. There were large stores; but even these were so divided into departments that there was little fun in shopping. Indiscriminate and casual shopping is distinctly discouraged by the State. Advertising is restricted to trade journals, except for a little in the miserable local gazettes. Only those forms of production which the State considers necessary are allowed to expand indefinitely; all the others are regulated. Consequently there are none of the incitements to expenditure which exist in most modern countries. I have never been a great shopper, but I could not have believed how much duller life was without the attractions of the shop windows and the stores, if I had not been here. For instance, I found that I had very foolishly come without a pair of bedroom slippers, so I wanted to buy a pair. I looked round naturally for a shop where I should see such things displayed in the window, but I had to go to the slipper section of the boot department of a store, choose from an illustrated catalogue the quality I wanted, and take whatever they had.
I thought I should have seen book-shops displaying all the most recent books and publications. In other countries I found it possible to pick up a great deal of information by noticing the kind of literature exposed for sale. Booksellers' shops have always an attraction for me. To my amazement the booksellers' shops have disappeared from Meccania, yet I
know from my own reading they used to be quite a feature in the life of the old Meccania. The censorship of the printing trade has apparently revolutionised the book-selling business. At any rate, the only place in which I could get to see books in Bridgetown was at a sort of office in the Technical College. It seems that the Publications Department of the Ministry of Culture—I think that is the right name—has in every town a public room, fitted up like a small library, in which all the current books published are exhibited for six months at a time. This is really a very useful institution in itself, but the books exhibited were not on sale, so all the pleasurable excitement of a book-shop was wanting. To buy books one must order them through an authorised book-agent, who has a sort of monopoly. I wondered why such an extraordinary arrangement should have been made, but when I got the explanation from Sheep it was quite consistent with the general scheme of things here.
I asked him whether the Government discouraged the public from reading. He said, "Not at all. Our people are great readers; they do not need any incitements to read. They consult the lists of new books and come to the book-room to see any book in which they are interested. Then they decide whether to buy it or to borrow it from the public library."
"But why do you not permit people to open book-shops?"
"It would be a sheer waste," replied Sheep. "One book-agent can supply all the books required in Bridgetown without keeping a stock of thousands of books that would never be wanted or not wanted for years. Apply the same principle to other towns and you will see that by keeping only one central stock we effect a great economy."
I pointed out that in other countries the publishers kept the stock and supplied booksellers with what they wanted, allowing them to keep a few copies for the immediate sales; and that consequently this was almost as economical an arrangement.
"But," said Sheep, "we have no publishers in your sense of the word. When a book is written it cannot be printed without the sanction of the Government censors, who decide how many copies in the first instance are to be issued. The publishers are really printers who arrange the form and style of the book, but undertake no responsibility such as publishers in other countries undertake."