News From Nowhere, Or, an Epoch of Rest, Being Some Chapters From a Utopian Romance

handled the brute force that the deluded people allowed them to use for their own purposes; I mean the army, navy, and police.

(I)  Reasonable men must needs think you are right.

(H.)  Now as to those Law-Courts.  Were they places of fair dealing according to the ideas of the day?  Had a poor man a good chance of defending his property and person in them?

(I)  It is a commonplace that even rich men looked upon a law-suit as a dire misfortune, even if they gained the case; and as for a poor one—why, it was considered a miracle of justice and beneficence if a poor man who had once got into the clutches of the law escaped prison or utter ruin.

(H.)  It seems, then, my son, that the government by law-courts and police, which was the real government of the nineteenth century, was not a great success even to the people of that day, living under a class system which proclaimed inequality and poverty as the law of God and the bond which held the world together.

(I)  So it seems, indeed.

(H.)  And now that all this is changed, and the “rights of property,” which mean the clenching the fist on a piece of goods and crying out to the neighbours, You shan’t have this!—now that all this has disappeared so utterly that it is no longer possible even to jest upon its absurdity, is such a Government possible?

(I)  It is impossible.

(H.)  Yes, happily.  But for what other purpose than the protection of the rich from the poor, the strong from the weak, did this Government exist?

(I.)  I have heard that it was said that their office was to defend their own citizens against attack from other countries.

(H.)  It was said; but was anyone expected to believe this?  For instance, did the English Government defend the English citizen against the French?

(I)  So it was said.

(H.)  Then if the French had invaded England and conquered it, they would not have allowed the English workmen to live well?

(I, laughing)  As far as I can make out, the English masters of the English workmen saw to that: they took from their workmen as much of their livelihood as they dared, because they wanted it for themselves.

(H.)  But if the French had conquered, would they not have taken more still from the English workmen?

(I)  I do not think so; for in that case the English workmen would have died of starvation; and then the French conquest would have ruined the French, just as if the English horses and cattle had died of under-feeding.  So that after all, the English workmen would have been no worse off for the conquest: their French Masters could have got no more from them than their English masters did.

(H.)  This is true; and we may admit that the pretensions of the government to defend the poor (i.e., the useful) people against other countries come to nothing.  But that is but natural; for we have seen already that it was the function of government to protect the rich against the poor.  But did not the government defend its rich men against other nations?

(I)  I do not remember to have heard that the rich needed defence; because it is said that even when two nations were at war, the rich men of each nation gambled with each other pretty much as usual, and even sold each other weapons wherewith to kill their own countrymen.

(H.)  In short, it comes to this, that whereas the so-called government of protection of property by means of the law-courts meant destruction of wealth, this defence of the citizens of one country against those of another country by means of war or the threat of war meant pretty much the same thing.

(I)  I cannot deny it.

(H.)  Therefore the government really existed for the destruction of wealth?

(I)  So it seems.  And yet—

(H.)  Yet what?

(I)  There were many rich people in those times.

(H.)  You see the consequences of that fact?

(I)  I think I do.  But tell me out what they