Golden Age of Science Fiction Vol XI

by Various

  I found Musch a less desirable acquaintance than Prigge. I suspected him of being addicted to drugs, and wondered how far his enthusiasm for the Meccanian spirit was an official pose; for, after completing my visit to the Great Gallery, I was asking him whether all artists were employed by the State, and whether there were not other types of pictures produced, besides those represented in the Great Gallery, when he began to tell me of another phase of art.

  "All artists," he said, "who in the seventh year of their training are accepted by the Academy are employed permanently by the State; the others are found other employment according to their capacity, but are not permitted to produce pictures."

  "I suppose," I said, "the artists who are taken into the service of the State are controlled in some way. What happens, for instance, if they turn out to be idlers?"

  "They are certainly controlled. The Board selects the subjects for the year, for each artist, according to his capacity. Of course he may suggest subjects too, but until they are approved he is not allowed to proceed. He must also submit a plan or sketch of his proposed treatment."

  "And is a painter not allowed even in his own leisure to paint subjects of his own choice?"

  "Ah, there you touch upon an interesting subject," replied Musch, with something like a leer. "The Board are naturally desirous of preserving the Meccanian spirit in all its purity, but the effort to rise to the sublime heights of emotion which that demands, produces a reaction, and many of our artists find an outlet for this, so that beside the pure stream of Meccanian Art there flows, as it were, another stream."

  "In other words," I suggested, "they carry on an illicit production of works of a lower ethical quality, which can only be disposed of by being sold to the rich."

  "Your intuition is remarkable," he replied.

  "Not in the least," I said. "One only requires a little knowledge of human nature to see what must happen. But how does this practice escape the attention of the Super-State?" I said.

  "There are many patrons of Art among the higher official class," replied Musch significantly.

  This was the first time I had learnt from any person that the State had any chinks in its armour.

  "Perhaps you can tell me," I said, "something which has puzzled me ever since I came here, and that is--Why your Super-State occupies itself so meticulously with such things as Music, and the Drama, and Art. Such interests seem rather foreign to the main purpose for which, as I understand it, the great statesmen who have made Meccania what it is, designed it."

  "I have often wondered the same thing myself," replied Musch. "I can only say that if all this side of life were left unregulated, the life of the State would be incomplete. Sooner or later the consciousness of the State must embrace all things."

  I said no more, and this was the last I saw of poor Musch, for next day he was ill, and I was taken by another Sub-Conductor, whose name was Grovel, to see the Mechow Memorial Museum. Almost everything in Mecco is a sort of memorial or reminder of Prince Mechow. Mechow Street, Mechow Square, the Mechow Monument, Mechow Park, the Mechow Palace, Mechow Hotels meet one at every turn. There are even Mechow whiskers, of a pattern seldom seen outside Meccania, but immensely popular among middle-aged officials of the Third and Fourth Classes. Curiously enough, I learnt that the higher officials rather resent the wearing of this style of whisker by subordinate officials, but as it is a sort of symbol of loyalty it is not considered proper to repress it.

  The Museum is near the square and is the largest biographical museum in existence. It contains a model of the house Prince Mechow was born in, with all his clothes and toys, all the schoolbooks he used, and models of all the rooms he lived in, including his bedrooms. One room contains all the letters he wrote, all the letters written to him, all the minutes he wrote as a Civil servant, the very pens he used, the office furniture, etc. etc. The library contains not only the books he read, and the few he wrote, but an enormous number of books and pamphlets written about him personally and about all his work.

  Besides his printed speeches, which run into many volumes, there are phonographic records of them, which are 'performed' daily in a special hall, to youths and girls from the High Schools.

  One large room contains models of all the towns in Meccania, as they were before his reforms and as they are now. Another room is devoted to the great Monument. It contains the original plans and models, as well as a model of all the copies erected in various towns. Adjoining this room is a large collection of photographs of Prince Mechow, casts of his face and waxwork models of him as he appeared on several great historical occasions. One case in the library struck me as very characteristic. It was a series of volumes in folio, sumptuously bound. The first was entitled Prince Mechow as Statesman; and there were at least thirty others with such titles as Prince Mechow as Subject, Prince Mechow as Conservative, Prince Mechow as Reformer, Prince Mechow as Student, Prince Mechow as Author, Prince Mechow as Orator, Prince Mechow as Philosopher, Prince Mechow as Husband and Father, Prince Mechow as Agriculturist, Prince Mechow's Taste in Art, Prince Mechow's Taste in Music, Prince Mechow's Taste in Literature, Prince Mechow's Taste in Nature, Prince Mechow's Loyalty, Prince Mechow's Generosity, Prince Mechow's Pets, Prince Mechow's Religion.

  CHAPTER VII

  A MECCANIAN APOSTLE

  IT was a week or two after my visit to the Mechow Museum that I made the acquaintance of one of the Foreign Observers who was staying at the hotel. A day or two before, I had been sent for by the Hotel Manager, and had been presented with a small certificate authorising me to take my meals in the common dining-room, and to converse with other foreigners whose names I was instructed to enter in my diary. I had previously noticed a certain gentleman from Luniland whose face seemed familiar to me. On this particular evening he came across to my table and introduced himself as Mr. Johnson, a friend of Mr. Yorke, in whose house I had stayed and where he had met me. We soon fell into conversation, and when dinner was over we retired for a long chat to a corner of the smoke-room. It appeared that he had been in Mecco over a year, and had travelled also in various parts of the country. In fact, this was his second visit, he said, his first having been made a few years before. He was a man of about forty-five, tall and slim, with a rather large bony nose and a grave but kindly expression. His manner was quiet and dignified, and at first he spoke with a certain obvious restraint; but afterwards he became more genial and was rather humorous, after the manner of many of his countrymen.

  "I should rather like to ask what you think of this country, but it would hardly be fair, because the chances are that every word we say here is overheard. I always suspect they have one of those beastly contrivances fixed in the walls, to enable the manager or somebody representing the Authorities to listen to everything that goes on. I don't much mind if they turn me out of their precious country, but I wouldn't like to get you into trouble. Anyhow, I believe if we were to begin talking in my language, which I remember you speak very well, we should presently have somebody round reminding us that it is against the rules."

  "Yet you have spent quite a long time in the country apparently," I remarked. "I have really been wondering whether to stay here much longer, and perhaps you could give me some tips if I decide to stay."

  "Well," he replied, "it's just a matter of taste whether you like the country. I shouldn't be able to stand it but for one thing."

  "And what is that?" I asked.

  "It enables me to thank God every hour that I am not a Meccanian."

  "Yes," I said, "there's something in that. I myself object to some of the inconveniences that these numerous regulations about everything entail, but they are nothing, I suppose, compared with what it would feel like if one expected to spend one's life here."

  "It's just possible they really like it. But what sort of' tips' were you thinking of? Perhaps I know the ropes a little better than you, if you have been here only a month or two."

  "Well, there are two things I would like to know," I replied.
"I am rather tired of being 'conducted' about everywhere. That's the first. And I want to get to know individual people as I did in Luniland. Here, so far, I have met only officials, always on duty. It seems impossible to get into contact with real live people. Until lately, as you know, I was forbidden to talk to the people staying in the hotel; but now that I have got over that difficulty, although, no doubt, I can pick up a certain amount of information from my fellow Foreign Observers and enjoy their conversation, I am no nearer getting to know the Meccanian private citizens themselves."

  "And do you particularly want to know them?" asked Mr. Johnson.

  "One naturally wants to know what the people of any country are like, and unless one has some fairly intimate intercourse of a social kind with people of different ranks and types, one might almost as well stay at home and read the matter up in books," I replied.

  "I see. You are a genuine Foreign Observer. Well, to tell the truth, so am I," he said more confidentially. "I am not here because I like it. I detest the whole lot of them. I came here for the first time five or six years ago. I had heard a lot about the country and its wonderful organisation. Organisation! Blessed word! I had also heard some rather tall stories, and thought the accounts had been exaggerated. I came with an open mind. I rather prided myself on being an impartial observer. I was prepared to allow a lot for the natural differences of taste between one nation and another. At first I was so keenly interested that I didn't mind the little restrictions, but when the novelty had worn off, and I began to realise what it all meant, I determined to make a more thorough study of the country than I had at first thought would be worth while. So I am here now studying Meccanian education. Now the only way, so far as I know, of getting rid of your everlasting' conductors' is to get permission to study some special subject. I went through just the same experience. I was what they call merely a' general' observer. The Authorities don't exactly like the 'general' observer. They can't find it in their hearts to let him alone. As they regulate their own people they must keep as close a watch on the foreigner. As he doesn't fit into their system, they have to invent a system for him. It is troublesome to them, and not very pleasant for the foreigner; but Meccanian principles make it necessary. However, if you can satisfy them that you are a bona fide student of some special subject âÄî it doesn't matter what it is, you may choose anything from the parasites in the intestines of a beetle to the philosophy of the Absolute--they will treat you quite decently, according to their lights."

  "How do you account for this difference?" I asked.

  "They are immensely flattered by the notion that if you come here to study anything, it must be because their knowledge is so superior to what can be found elsewhere. However, if you want to get rid of the daily worry of a' conductor,' that is what you must do. But you must be a specialist of some sort, or they won't admit you to the privilege."

  "But there is no special subject I want to study," I said. "I am just a 'general' observer, and if I undertake to study a special subject I shall miss seeing what I most want to see."

  "That is a difficulty. Perhaps you had better go on as you have been doing, and when you have had enough of that, go in for some political institutions; they have got you registered as a National Councillor, so you can pretend to study the working of the Constitution or some such thing."

  "That's rather a good idea," I said; "but, judging from what I have seen, I should doubt whether they will let me see what I want to see."

  "Why, what do you want to see?"

  "Just what I cannot get from an inspection of the machinery of the State--the effect of the laws and customs on the actual life of the people."

  "Ah, that you will have to get by the aid of your imagination."

  "But," I suggested, "is it not possible to get permission to live in some family, or with several different families in different classes in succession?"

  "Oh yes," replied Johnson, "quite possible, if you are prepared to go through all the necessary formalities; but I doubt whether you will get much by it. You see, each family is a sort of replica, in miniature, of the State. They will have to report to the Police once a week upon all your doings. Every word you say will be listened to. They will be studying you, just as you will be studying them. I have tried it. There is no natural intercourse in this country. Try it if you like, but I am sure you will come to my opinion in the end.

  "Don't forget to enter the time of this conversation in your diary," Mr. Johnson said as we parted. "If you make a mistake, or if I make a mistake, we shall have an interview with an inspector from the Time Department, and the hotel manager will worry us to death about it."

  The next day I resumed my tour of observation with a new' conductor' whose name was Lickrod. He was almost affectionate in his greeting when we met at the Police Office, and we had not been long together before I recognised that he was a different type from Prigge, or Sheep, or any of the others I had met. He was to take me to see the Industrial town, and he was full of enthusiasm for everything we were to see. As we went along in the tram he explained rather effusively that it was a great pleasure to him to meet foreigners. He had a mission in life, just as Meccania had a mission among all the nations. He was a loyal Meccanian âÄî in fact, he yielded to no man in his loyalty to the State; but for that very reason he ventured to criticise one defect in the policy of the Government. I began to wonder what that could be.

  "I have travelled abroad," he said, "and I have seen with my own eyes the benighted condition of so many millions of my fellow-creatures. I come home, and I see everywhere around me order, knowledge, prosperity, cleanliness--no dirt, no poverty, no disorder, no strikes, no disturbance, no ignorance, no disease that can be prevented-- Culture everywhere. It makes me almost weep to think of the state of the world outside. We have not done all that we might have done to carry our Culture abroad. We have kept it too much to ourselves. In my humble way, as a Conductor of Foreigners, I take every opportunity I can of spreading a knowledge of our Culture. But instead of a few score, or at most a few hundred, foreigners every year, we ought to have thousands here. Then they would become missionaries in their own countries. I always impress upon them that they must begin with the reform of education in their countries; and I would advise you, before you return, to make a thorough study of our system of education. Without that you cannot hope to succeed."

  "But," I suggested, "if other countries followed your example would they not become as strong as you? Perhaps your Government looks at it from that point of view."

  "There are, on this question," he observed sagely, "two opposite opinions. One is that it is better to keep our Culture to ourselves; the other is that we ought to teach other nations, so that ultimately all the earth can become one great and glorious Meccania."

  By this time we had arrived at the entrance to the Industrial town. Conductor Lickrod broke off to note the time of our arrival, and to lead me into the office of the Governor or Controller of what, for convenience, I may call Worktown. Indeed the Industrial quarter is known by a similar term in Mecco. This Controller is responsible for the preservation of order; but as there is no difficulty about discipline in the ordinary sense of the word, his functions are rather to promote a high standard of Meccanian conduct among the workers of all ages and grades. In this work he is assisted by scores of Sub-Controllers of Industrial Training, as they are called.

  The organisation of the Controller's Department was explained before we proceeded to any of the works. There was a large room filled with thousands of little dossiers in shelves, and card-index cases to correspond. The particulars of the character and career of every worker in the town could be ascertained at a moment's notice. All the workers were either in the Fifth or Sixth Class, but they were divided into more than a dozen subgrades, and the card-index showed by the colour which of the many grades any particular person had attained.

  I asked how the workmen were engaged.

  "The industrial career of a workman," said Lickrod
enthusiastically, "begins, if I may so express myself, with the dawn of his industrial intelligence. In our schools--and here you perceive one of the perfections of our educational system-- our teachers are trained to detect the signs of the innate capacity of each child, and to classify it appropriately. In 70^ per cent of cases, as you will see from the last report of the Industrial Training Section of the Department of Industry and Commerce, the careers of boys are determined before the age of thirteen. The rest is merely a question of training. By a proper classification we are able to adjust the supply of each different kind of capacity to the requirements of our industry.

  We avoid all the waste and uncertainty which one sees in countries where even the least competent workmen are allowed to choose their employment. We guarantee employment to everybody, and on the other hand we preserve the right to say what the employment shall be."

  "Does that mean," I asked, "that a workman can never change his employment?"

  "In some of the more backward parts of the country it is sometimes necessary for workmen to change their employment; but here, in Mecco, we should think we had managed our business very badly if that were necessary."

  "But without its being necessary, a man might wish to change. I have heard of many cases, in Luniland and Transatlantica, of a clever and enterprising man having risen to eminence, after an experience in half a dozen different occupations. Here, I understand, that is impossible."

  "Ah," replied Lickrod, "I see you have not grasped the scientific basis of our system. You say such and such a person rose to eminence, shall we say as a lawyer, after having been, let us say, a printer or even a house-painter. If there had been a sufficient supply of good lawyers it is probable that he would not have succeeded in becoming an eminent lawyer. Now, we know our requirements as regards lawyers, just as we know our requirements as to engineers. We have also the means of judging the capacity of our young people, and we place them in the sphere in which they can be of most service."