wreck. If the force of Christian love and charity should not be powerful enough to attract a sufficient and efficient staff for this kind of labour, then certainly compulsion will be employed to force the uncharitable to do their duty. The following are at present the statistics of defensive, protective, and charitable labour, as given by the census of 1861 Army and navy at home and abroad. 300,000 13,000 22,000 2,600 4,400 834 1,248 10,000 354,082 Substituting national armament for standing armies will at once restore 300,000 soldiers to useful employments in trades* and manufactures, and the time which the citizen soldiers will require for drilling and manoeuvring will but occupy a very small portion of their leisure, and will not, in the least degree, interfere with any other labour; for all work being obligatory on all, the 300 working-days which the greater part of the population now spend in incessant labour, will most probably be reduced to 100, if not below that amount. The drilling, marching, manoeuvring, and handling of arms, the exercises on horseback, the practice of gunnery, will, moreover, afford capital bodily exercise for every citizen, and will, therefore, confer great sanitary benefits upon the population. More arduous than drilling will certainly be that kind of labour which is now performed by the 13,000 artificers and * The Janissaries of Turkey, the best and most patriotic of Turkish soldiery, numbering about 40,000 men, rose in insurrection in the year 1702, and forced Mustapha II. to abdicate. They became tired of severe military discipline, and demanded to be allowed to carry on trades and handicrafts in their own homes. labourers in Her Majesty's dockyards. If similar labour is required in the future, it will certainly have to be shared by all. The police, which now numbers 20,000 members, or one policeman for every 2,000 persons, will experience a very great reduction in their numerical strength in consequence of the almost total cessation of crime; and it is certain that their future proportion to the whole population will be as low as one policeman for every 10,000 persons, which will reduce the force from 20,000 to 2,000. The alternate participation of every adult member of the community in the service required in hospitals and asylums, will be conducive to greater care of the sick, and create particular attachment and gratitude on the part of the patients towards their attendants, which will be the more extensively the case, as most persons when they fall ill will prefer to be treated and nursed in the hospitals. The work of the 1,248 grave-diggers, whose present laborious occupation can scarcely be called a charitable one, will, in the future, be performed by the whole of the adult male population, who will share in it by equal allotment. This kind of labour will, however, assume a real charitable character in the future social state; for grave-digging having been made obligatory on all, there will be such a great number of persons to do the work that a different grave-digger can be assigned for each burial, and the solitary act of the last charity that man can render unto his fellow-creature will certainly remain solemnly and indelibly impressed upon each separate grave-digger, and this the more so as his turn for this work will call him only at the rare interval of ten years, which is proved by comparing the number of 500,000 deaths that occur annually with the number of 5,000,000 males of the age from twenty to sixty to whom grave-digging would be assigned by equal allotments. THIS CHAPTER XXXVIII.-ADMINISTRATIVE LABOUR. THIS kind of labour, which, to some extent, may be likened to the present civil service, is, however, in its nature very different from it. The abolition of money and private property will at one stroke extinguish a whole host of civil servants, now numbering Even the post office service, now employing 14,131 persons, will, in the future, experience a diminution of its servants, for the decrease of commerce and manufactures will inevitably be followed by a less voluminous commercial correspondence. But although there will be a great decrease and even total cessation of certain branches of the present civil service, the nature of the future administration will require a much greater staff of such servants than there are now employed. The regulation and direction of all labour, industry, manufactures, arts and sciences, having become the most important departments of the state, numerous offices will have to be opened for this purpose. We will here give a sketch of these administrative departments, and an inference may then be drawn from their nature as to the number of persons it will require for the future civil service. The superior administration of any branch of the civil service will be called a ministry, and there will be separate departments for education, law, police, navigation, agriculture, manufactures, mining, locomotion, handicrafts, arts and sciences, etc. To every department will be, in the next degree, subordinate directories or boards of administration, and these will again be sub-divided into sections and commissions. The educational department, for instance, will have authority over the follow ing boards :-The board for elementary literary education, for industrial apprenticeship, for art training, for scientific instruction, for bodily exercise of the pupils, for their maintenance, and for the organization of the staff of teachers. The board of elementary learning will have a section for providing the necessary books of instruction, another for materials-maps, models, etc. These sections will also furnish reports and statements concerning progress, and suggest improvements in all branches of elementary learning. The board of industrial training will have separate sections for the instruction in skilled labour, in factory and mining work, in nautics, for the erection and preservation of industrial schools, workshops, model factories, mines, training-ships, model locomotives, etc. The board for art training will have a section for each. separate art-for painting, drawing, sculpture, music, acting, etc. The board of maintenance will have separate sections for the victualling, clothing, and boarding of the pupils. The sanitary school-board will be subdivided into sections for bodily exercise,-drilling, gymnastics,-diet, medical attendance, etc. The board for the teaching staff will have separate sections for the organization of the most efficient staff of teachers in elementary education, in industrial apprenticeship, in artistic and scientific training, etc. We must not omit to call here particular attention to the reports that each section, board, and department, will have to present every year to the nation, and in which the progress achieved and the economies practised, in labour as well as in materials, will be clearly and faithfully pointed out. The department of jurisprudence will superintend the administration of justice. It will have a board for recording the proceedings in the law courts, both civil and criminal; also a board for the administration of punishments, and a board for the training and practice of lawyers. The ministry of agriculture, for instance, will be subdivided into numerous offices, amongst which will be conspicuous a board for the introduction of newly-invented or improved * See appendix page. agricultural implements and modes of husbandry. It will also have a board for the management of cattle, another for the breeding of horses, another for the rearing of poultry; also a board for preserving game, and a board for the partial combination of industrial labour with the temporary stay of a part of the population in the country. Each of these agricultural boards will have various sections to superintend, as, for instance, the board for mechanical and scientific farming will have a section for each important implement. The department of manufactures can have as many boards as there are manufactures, and each manufacturing board can have as many sections as there are branches or modes of processes in a certain manufacture. Thus the board for the cotton manufacture would have separate sections for the spinning, weaving, bleaching, dyeing, and printing of cotton goods. The department of skilled labour will have the direction of all trades and handicrafts, and these will have each a board divided into various sections, amongst which the most important will always be the sections of improvement and progress. All boards of trades and manufactures will also have a statistical section, which will make estimates for the articles of produce required for the necessary provision of raw materials, tools, and machinery. This section will also give a numerical report and a list of the persons qualified for each particular trade. The accounts of the statistical section will enable each trade and manufacture to adjust the supply to the demand, and over-production, which now so often causes loss to both manufacturers and merchants, will be avoided. As an illustration of this we need only mention the simple arrangement by which the necessary quantity of shoes for the whole nation will be made without any deficiency or superfluity in their supply. Each person will have a spare pair of shoes made to his measure. This pair will remain deposited for him in the national shoe magazine. Besides this pair, which is kept in store for him, he has two pair at home for actual wear and change. When one of these is worn out, he is entitled to fetch his new pair from the national storeroom, and another new pair, made to measure, will immediately replace the one taken away. |