You have attained nearly all that our most advanced political economists regard as the perfection of economical order--a population nearly stationary, and a soil much more than adequate to their support; a general distribution of property, total absence of permanent poverty, and freedom from that gnawing anxiety regarding the future of ourselves or our children which is the great evil of life upon Earth and the opprobrium of our social arrangements.

You have carried out, moreover, the doctrines of our most advanced philosophers; you have absolute equality before the law, competitive examination among the young for the best start in life, with equal chances wherever equality is possible; and again, perfect freedom and full legal equality as regards the relations of the sexes.

Are your countrymen satisfied with the results ?" "Yes," answered my host, "in so far, at least, that they have no wish to change them, no idea that any great social or political reforms could improve our condition.

Our lesson in Communism has rendered all agitation on such matters, all tendency to democratic institutions, all appeals to popular passions, utterly odious and alarming to us.
But that we are happy I will venture neither to affirm nor to deny.
Physically, no doubt, we have great advantages over you, if I rightly understand your description of life on Earth.

We have got rid of old age, and, to a great extent, of disease.