nction than that must be, or one, however performed, more certain to
breed universal dissatisfaction."

"I beg your pardon," replied Dr. Leete, "but I think you exaggerate the
difficulty. Suppose a board of fairly sensible men were charged with
settling the wages for all sorts of trades under a system which, like
ours, guaranteed employment to all, while permitting the choice of
avocations. Don't you see that, however unsatisfactory the first
adjustment might be, the mistakes would soon correct themselves? The
favored trades would have too many volunteers, and those discriminated
against would lack them till the errors were set right. But this is
aside from the purpose, for, though this plan would, I fancy, be
practicable enough, it is no part of our system."

"How, then, do you regulate wages?" I once more asked.

Dr. Leete did not reply till after several moments of meditative
silence. "I know, of course," he finally said, "enough of the old order
of things to understand just what you mean by that question; and yet
the present order is so utterly different at this point that I am a
little at loss how to answer you best. You ask me how we regulate
wages; I can only reply that there is no idea in the modern social
economy which at all corresponds with what was meant by wages in your
day."

"I suppose you mean that you have no money to pay wages in," said I.
"But the credit given the worker at the government storehouse answers
to his wages with us. How is the amount of the credit given
respectively to the workers in different lines determined? By what
title does the individual claim his particular share? What is the basis
of allotment?"

"His title," replied Dr. Leete, "is his humanity. The basis of his
claim is the fact that he is a man."

"The fact that he is a man!" I repeated, incredulously. "Do you
possibly mean that all have the same share?"

"Most assuredly."

The readers of this book never having practically known any other
arrangement, or perhaps very carefully considered the historical
accounts of former epochs in which a very different system prevailed,
cannot be expected to appreciate the stupor of amazement into which Dr.
Leete's simple statement plunged me.

"You see," he said, smiling, "that it is not merely that we have no
money to pay wages in, but, as I said, we have nothing at all answering
to your idea of wages."

By this time I had pulled myself together sufficiently to voice some of
th