Recognizing this fact, the nation entrusts to the honorary members of each guild the election of its general, and I venture to claim that no previous form of society could have developed a body of electors so ideally adapted to their office, as regards absolute impartiality, knowledge of the special qualifications and record of candidates, solicitude for the best result, and complete absence of self-interest.
"Each of the ten lieutenant-generals or heads of departments is himself elected from among the generals of the guilds grouped as a department, by vote of the honorary members of the guilds thus grouped.

Of course there is a tendency on the part of each guild to vote for its own general, but no guild of any group has nearly enough votes to elect a man not supported by most of the others.

I assure you that these elections are exceedingly lively." "The President, I suppose, is selected from among the ten heads of the great departments," I suggested.
"Precisely, but the heads of departments are not eligible to the presidency till they have been a certain number of years out of office.
It is rarely that a man passes through all the grades to the headship of a department much before he is forty, and at the end of a five years' term he is usually forty-five.

If more, he still serves through his term, and if less, he is nevertheless discharged from the industrial army at its termination.

It would not do for him to return to the ranks.