The Darkest Hours - 18 Chilling Dystopias in One Edition. Samuel Butler
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a generation. He attacked a dozen different problems at the same time: Education, Industry, Commerce, Railways, Finance, the Press, the Stage, the Professions, the Church—every side of national life received his attention; but the prime instrument through which he worked was the Bureaucracy. He laid it down as an axiom that the machinery of the State must work so smoothly that the people should be unaware of its operations.
There have been instances in history, he wrote in one of his letters, in which a Government has been overturned in a single day. How? By a perfectly planned coup d’état. What can be accomplished on a single occasion can be done as a part of the regular working of the State Machinery. Our Super-State must be capable of a coup d’état every day. Those of his friends who did not see the necessity for his reforms he silenced by showing them that if they did not capture the State the Social Democracy would do so.
During the first ten years of his regime he worked wonders. He renewed the State control of all the large industries. He took into the service of the State all the most capable business men and manufacturers, all the best scientists and engineers as well as the best administrators. The Censorship of the Press was continued and extended to every form of literature. He bought up all the big newspapers and drove all the little ones into bankruptcy. When every clever journalist was engaged on the State newspapers and all advertisements were controlled, there was not much room for an ‘opposition’ Press. The Schools and Universities were already well under control, but he revised the whole system. He made every teacher and every professor a direct servant of the State. Every textbook was revised. He paid particular attention to history, philosophy and literature. The new generation were thus educated in an atmosphere calculated to cultivate the true Meccanian spirit. Inspectors, organisers and directors of Education infused new energy into the system and trained the whole population to co-operate with the Super-State.
As to the proletariat, he saw to it that there was no unemployment. Production went up by leaps and bounds, wages were increased, but there was no waste. Goods that could not be disposed of immediately were stored, but methods of control and regulation were introduced to direct industry into the right channels. Whilst he controlled the wage-earners he at the same time controlled the employers. All surplus wages and profits were invested in the State funds.
Of course there was opposition to these reforms. The Military Class were slow to understand his methods, so he established periodical military councils, took them into his confidence and eventually won them over completely. As for the Social Democrats, he did not scruple to employ against them the same methods they would have employed against him. He made use of secret agents to preach the doctrine that by his methods the way would be prepared for the social revolution. When at length he inaugurated the system of the seven social classes the Social Democrats professed to see in this a means of stimulating class consciousness; but after a few years they discovered that no class was willing to surrender its privileges. The Fifth Class, which includes the most skilled artisans in Europe, began to see that no revolution would improve their position, whilst it might lower them to the level of the Sixth or Seventh Class. The boasted solidarity of the proletariat proved to be an illusion, like most of Spotts’s ideas.
When he reformed the railway system he made travelling free. But of course if travelling were to be free, restrictions must be imposed. Similarly in regard to housing. He applied all the technical knowledge in the country to the problem. Standardised houses and other devices made it possible to rebuild any portions of our cities and to transfer population from one region to another with the greatest ease. On the other hand, restrictions were necessary. You cannot have free trade in houses and at the same time guarantee a house to every family.
I have condensed Dr. Proser-Toady’s lecture, which lasted several hours, into such short compass that it gives very little idea, I am afraid, of the complete revolution worked out by Prince Mechow’s reforms. For instance, he showed how the whole character of politics had been transformed, how the questions that agitated Meccania sixty years ago had entirely disappeared; how the Press no longer existed, because its functions had been absorbed by other agencies; how the Parliament, which I was surprised to hear still existed, was now organised to correspond with the seven social classes; how the State was so wealthy that control over taxation was no longer necessary.
He ended with a remarkable passage about the seven social classes and the national Meccanian uniforms.
“Many Foreign Observers,” he said, “in times past, have made merry over our sevenfold classification and our national costumes. What have other nations to put in their place? They too have these classes, for they are natural and inevitable. They have their nobles, their soldiers, their officials and professional men, their bourgeoisie, their artisans, their labourers and their degraded ‘submerged tenth.’ But they are afraid to call them by their proper names, afraid to recognise them. They have no uniforms, no dignified and pleasing costumes; but you never mistake one class for another. You never mistake the labourer for the wealthy bourgeois or the popinjay aristocrat. Nowhere else, they say, would people consent to wear the servile badge of their caste. We Meccanians are proud of our seven national colours. So far from being a degradation, the historical origin of the costumes proves that it is a privilege to wear them. The seven uniforms were once the ceremonial dress of the seven guilds established by Prince Mechow. When permission was granted for all the members of the classes to wear the ceremonial dress it was the occasion of national rejoicings everywhere. The national costumes are part of the Ritual of the Super-State.”
Long-winded as some parts of the lecture were, I must confess it was most illuminating, and to me, as a student of politics and sociology, exceedingly interesting. I begin to understand now what the Meccanian Super-State really is.
Chapter V.
Culture in Mecco
During the first few weeks of my tour in Mecco—Tour No. 4—Conductor Prigge kept my nose well to the grindstone. At times he made me feel like a small schoolboy, at times like a prisoner in charge of a warder. It would be tedious to detail all the incidents of my daily rounds, or to describe everything in the exact order in which it was presented to my view. So I propose to set down, as they remain in my mind, the most interesting or remarkable features of this truly remarkable city. One circumstance, however, annoys and almost distresses me. I cannot get into contact with any individual living people. I see everything as a spectacle from the outside.
As I go about, the impression of orderliness, cleanliness, and even magnificence of a kind, is such as I have seldom felt in any part of the world. At times the whole city gives one the same sort of feeling that one experiences in going through a gigantic hospital, where everything is spotless and nothing is out of its place. I am even getting used to the coloured uniforms of the seven classes. In the central parts of the city green and yellow predominate; for the number of people belonging to the official class is enormous. Even apart from their actual number they are the most conspicuous, because the lower classes are at work in their factories and business houses, and are consequently seldom seen except when returning home in the evening. Occasionally I notice a few white uniforms (of the very select First Class) and occasionally, too, a crowd of officers in their brilliant scarlet uniforms. At the other end of the scale, the most common colour visible is the grey, worn by the numerous servants in the well-to-do quarters. The few servants who wear chocolate are mostly the lackeys of the very rich, and the upper servants in the large hotels.
On the day after Dr. Proser-Toady’s lecture, Conductor Prigge was more than usually “pedagogic.” I wanted to look about the streets and ask questions about many things that occurred to me at the moment, but he insisted upon pouring out detailed information about the drainage system, the postal areas, the parcels’ delivery areas, the telephone system, the market system, and so forth. What did interest me, however, was the organisation known as the Time Department, of which I had already seen something at Bridgetown.
There is, as I have said, an enormous number of public buildings in Mecco, but nobody can miss the gigantic office of the Time Department. It towers up, about seven stories high, over the surrounding buildings,