onorary 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. The interval before he is a candidate for the presidency
is intended to give time for him to recognize fully that he has
returned into the general mass of the nation, and is identified with it
rather than with the industrial army. Moreover, it is expected that he
will employ this period in studying the general condition of the army,
instead of that of the special group of guilds of which he was the
head. From among the former heads of departments who may be eligible at
the time, the President is elected by vote of all the men of the nation
who are not connected with the industrial army."
"The army is not allowed to vote for President?"
"Certainly not. That would be perilous to its discipline, which it is
the business of the President to maintain as the representative of the
nation at large. His right hand for this purpose is the inspectorate, a
highly important department of our system; to the inspectorate come all
complaints or information as to defects in goods, insolence or
inefficiency of officials, or dereliction of any sort in
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