Book One

There was recently a rather serious difference of opinion between that great expert in the art of government, His Invincible Majesty, King Henry the Eighth of England, and His Serene Highness, Prince Charles of Castile. His Majesty sent me to Flanders to discuss and settle the matter, along with my friend Cuthbert Tunstall, an excellent person who has since been appointed Master of the Rolls, much to everyone's satisfaction. Of his learning and moral character I shall say nothing—not because I am afraid of seeming prejudiced in his favour, but because they are too remarkable for me to describe adequately, and too well known to need describing at all. I have no wish to labour the obvious.

We were met at Bruges, as previously arranged, by the envoys from Castile, who were all men of great distinction. Their nominal leader was the Mayor of Bruges, and a splendid fellow he was; but most of the thinking and talking was done by the Provost of Cassel, George de Theimsecke. This man was a born speaker, as well as a highly trained one. He was also a legal expert, and both by temperament and by long experience a first-rate negotiator. After one or two meetings there were still some points on which we had failed to agree, so they said goodbye to us for a few days and set off for Brussels, to consult their royal oracle. In the meantime I went to Antwerp on business of my own.

While I was there, I had several frequent visitors, but the one I liked best was a young native of Antwerp called Peter Gilles. He is much respected by his own people, and holds an important post in that town; but he fully deserves promotion to the highest post of all, for I do not know which impressed me more, his intellectual or his moral qualities. Certainly he is a very fine person, as well as a very fine scholar. He is scrupulously fair to everyone, but towards his friends he shows so much genuine kindness, loyalty, and affection, that he must be almost unique in his all-round capacity for friendship. He is unusually modest, utterly sincere, and has a shrewd simplicity all his own. He is also a delightful talker, who can be witty without hurting anyone's feelings. I was longing to get back to England and see my wife and children, as I had been away for over four months; but my homesickness was to large extent relieved by the pleasure of his company and the charm of his conversation.

One day I had been to a service at the Cathedral of Notre Dame, a magnificent building which is always packed with people. I was just starting back to my hotel when I happened to see Peter Gilles talking to an elderly foreigner with a sunburnt face, a long beard, and a cloak slung carelessly over one shoulder. From his complexion and costume I judged him to be a sailor. At this point Peter caught sight of me. He immediately came up and said good morning, then before I had time to reply, drew me a little further away.

'Do you see that man over there?' he asked, indicating the one he had been talking to. 'I was just bringing him along to visit you.'

'If he's a friend of yours,' I said, 'I'll be very glad to see him.'

'When you hear the sort of person he is,' said Peter, 'you'll be glad to see him anyway—for there's not a man alive today who can tell you so many stories about strange countries and their inhabitants as he can. I know what a passion you have for that kind of thing.'

'Then I didn't guess too far wrong,' I remarked. 'The moment I saw him, I thought he must be a sailor.'

'In that case you made a big mistake,' he replied. 'I mean, he's not a sailor of the Palinurus type. He's really more like Ulysses, or even Plato. You see, our friend Raphael—for that's his name, Raphael Nonsenso—is quite a scholar. He knows a fair amount of Latin and a tremendous lot of Greek. He's concentrated on Greek, because he's mainly interested in philosophy, and he found that there's nothing important on that subject written in Latin, apart from some bits of Seneca and Cicero. He wanted to see the world, so he left his brothers to manage his property in Portugal—that's where he comes from—and joined up with Amerigo Vespucci. You know those Four Voyages of his that everyone's reading about? Well, Raphael was his constant companion during the last three, except that he didn't come back with him from the final voyage. Instead, he practically forced Amerigo to let him be one of the twenty-four men who were left behind in that fort. So he stayed out there, to indulge his taste for travel, which was all he really cared about. He didn't mind where he eventually died, for he had two favourite quotations, "The unburied dead are covered by the sky" and "You can get to heaven from anywhere"—an attitude which, but for the grace of God, might have led to serious trouble. Anyway, when Vespucci had gone, Raphael did a lot of exploring with five other members of the garrison. Finally, by an amazing stroke of luck, they turned up in Ceylon. From there he made his way to Calicut, where he was fortunate enough to find some Portuguese ships, and so, quite unexpectedly, got a passage home.'

'Well, thank you very much,' I said. 'I'll certainly enjoy talking to a man like that. It's most kind of you to give me a chance of doing so.'

I then walked up to Raphael and shook hands with him. After making a few stock remarks, as people generally do when first introduced, we adjourned to the garden of my hotel, where we sat down on a bench covered with a layer of turf, and began to talk more freely.

First of all Raphael told us what happened to him and the other men in the fort, from the point where Vespucci left them. By polite and friendly behaviour they gradually started ingratiating themselves with the local inhabitants. Soon relations were not merely peaceful but positively affectionate. They got on particularly well with a certain king, whose name and nationality have slipped my memory. He most generously provided Raphael and his five fellow-explorers with food and money for their journeys, which involved the use of boats as well as carriages. He also supplied a most reliable guide, who was told to put them in touch with various other kings, to whom they were given letters of introduction. Thus after travelling for many days they came to some large towns and densely populated areas, with quite a high standard of political organization.

Apparently, at the equator, and throughout most of the torrid zone, you find vast deserts parched by perpetual heat. Everything looks grim and desolate. There are no signs of cultivation, and no animal life, except for snakes and wild beasts, or equally wild and dangerous human beings. But, if you go on a bit further, things gradually improve. The climate becomes less extreme, the earth grows green and pleasant, human beings and animals are not so fierce. Finally, you come to people living in towns and cities, who are constantly engaged in trade, both by land and by sea, not only with one another or with their immediate neighbours, but even with quite distant countries.

'This gave me the chance,' said Raphael, 'of travelling about all over the place, for whenever I found a ship just setting sail I asked if my friends and I might go on board, and they were always glad to let us. The first ships we saw were flat-bottomed, with sails made of papyrus leaves stitched together, or else of wicker-work, or in some cases of leather. But the ones we came across later had sharp keels and canvas sails, and were generally just like ours. The sailors out there have a good knowledge of winds and tides, but I made myself extraordinarily popular with them by explaining the use of the magnetic compass. They'd never heard of it before, and for that reason had always been rather frightened of the sea, and seldom risked going on it except during the summer. But now they put such faith in their compasses that they think nothing of winter voyages—although this new sense of security is purely subjective. In fact their overconfidence threatens to convert an apparently useful invention into a source of disaster.'

It would take too long to repeat everything he told us about each place. Besides, that is not the purpose of this book. I may conceivably do so in another one, emphasizing the most instructive parts of his story, such as the sensible arrangements that he noticed in various civilized communities. These were the points on which we questioned him most closely, and he enlarged most willingly. We did not ask him if he had seen any monsters, for monsters have ceased to be news. There is never any shortage of horrible creatures who prey on human beings, snatch away their food, or devour whole populations; but examples of wise social planning are not so easy to find.

Of course, he saw much to condemn in the New World, but he also discovered several regulations which suggested possible methods of reforming European society. These, I say, will have to be dealt with later. My present plan is merely to repeat what he said about the laws and customs of Utopia.

I must start by recording the conversation which led up to the first mention of that republic. After shrewdly pointing out the mistakes that have been made on both sides of the globe—and there are certainly plenty of them—Raphael went on to discuss the more sensible features of Old and New World legislation. He seemed to have the facts about every single country at his fingertips—as though he had spent a lifetime wherever he had stopped for a night. Peter Gilles was particularly impressed.

PETER: My dear Raphael, I can't think why you don't enter the service of some king or other. I'm sure any king would jump at the chance of employing you. With your knowledge and experience, you'd be just the man to supply not only entertainment, but also instructive precedents and useful advice. At the same time you could be looking after your own interests, and being a great help to all your friends and relations.

RAPHAEL: I'm not really worried about them. I feel I've done my duty by them already. Most people hang on to their property until they're too old and ill to do so any longer—and even then they relinquish it with a very ill grace. But I shared out mine among my friends and relations when I was still young and healthy. I think they should be satisfied with that. They can hardly expect me to go a stage further, and become a king's slave for their benefit.

PETER: God forbid! Service, not servitude, was what I suggested.

RAPHAEL: A few letters don't make all that difference.

PETER: Well, call it what you like, I still think it's your best method of helping other people, both individually and collectively, and also of making life pleasanter for yourself.

RAPHAEL: How can I do that by acting against all my instincts? At present I live exactly as I please, which is more, I suspect, than the vast majority of court officials can say. Besides, kings have quite enough people competing for their friendship already. It won't be any serious hardship for them to do without me, and a handful of others like me.

MORE: My dear Raphael, you're obviously not interested in money or power, and I couldn't respect you more if you were the greatest king on earth. But surely it would be quite in keeping with this admirably philosophical attitude if you could bring yourself, even at the cost of some personal inconvenience, to apply your talents and energies to public affairs? Now the most effective way of doing so would be to gain the confidence of some great king or other, and give him, as I know you would, really good advice. For every king is a sort of fountain, from which a constant shower of benefits or injuries rains down upon the whole population. And you've got so much theoretical knowledge, and so much practical experience, that either of them alone would be enough to make you an ideal member of any privy council.

RAPHAEL: You're quite mistaken, my dear More, first about me and then about the job itself. I'm not so highly qualified as you seem to think, and, even if I were, I still shouldn't do the slightest good to the community by giving myself a lot of extra work. To start with, most kings are more interested in the science of war—which I don't know anything about, and don't want to—than in useful peacetime techniques. They're far more anxious, by hook or by crook, to acquire new kingdoms than to govern their existing ones properly. Besides, privy councillors are either too wise to need, or too conceited to take advice from anyone else—though of course they're always prepared to suck up to the king's special favourites by agreeing with the silliest things they say. After all, it's a natural instinct to be charmed by one's own productions. That's why raven chicks are such a delight to their parents, and mother apes find their babies exquisitely beautiful.

So there you have a group of people who are deeply prejudiced against everyone else's ideas, or at any rate prefer their own. Suppose, in such company, you suggest a policy that you've seen adopted elsewhere, or for which you can quote a historical precedent, what will happen? They'll behave as though their professional reputations were at stake, and they'd look fools for the rest of their lives if they couldn't raise some objection to your proposal. Failing all else, their last resort will be: 'This was good enough for our ancestors, and who are we to question their wisdom?' Then they'll settle back in their chairs, with an air of having said the last word on the subject—as if it would be a major disaster for anyone to be caught being wiser than his ancestors! And yet we're quite prepared to reverse their most sensible decisions. It's only the less intelligent ones that we cling on to like grim death. I've come across this curious mixture of conceit, stupidity, and stubbornness in several different places. On one occasion I even met it in England.

MORE: Really? Have you been to my country too, then?

RAPHAEL: Certainly I have. I was there for several months, soon after that disastrous civil war which began with a revolution in the west country, and ended with a ghastly massacre of the rebels. During my stay, I received a lot of kindness from the Most Reverend John Morton, the Archbishop of Canterbury. He was also a Cardinal, and at that time Lord Chancellor of England. I must tell you about him, Peter—for I can't tell More anything he doesn't know already. He was a person that one respected just as much for his wisdom and moral character as for his great eminence. He was of average height, without a trace of a stoop, although he was fairly old. He had the sort of face that inspires reverence rather than fear. He was quite easy to get on with, though always serious and dignified. Admittedly he was rather inclined to be rude to people who asked him for jobs, but he meant no harm by it. He only did it to test their intelligence and presence of mind, for he found these qualities very congenial, so long as they were used with discretion, and considered them most valuable in public life. He was a polished and effective speaker, with a thorough knowledge of the law. He also had a quite remarkable intellect, and a phenomenal memory—two natural gifts which he'd further developed by training and practice.

Apparently the King had great confidence in his judgement, and at the time of my visit the whole country seemed to depend on him. This was hardly surprising, since he'd been rushed straight from the university to Court, when he was not much more than a boy, and had spent the rest of his life in the public service, learning wisdom the hard way, by having to cope with a long series of crises. And what one learns like that isn't easily forgotten.

I once happened to be dining with the Cardinal when a certain English lawyer was there. I forgot how the subject came up, but he was speaking with great enthusiasm about the stern measures that were then being taken against thieves.

'We're hanging them all over the place,' he said, 'I've seen as many as twenty on a single gallows. And that's what I find so odd. Considering how few of them get away with it, why are we still plagued with so many robbers?'

'What's odd about it?' I asked—for I never hesitated to speak freely in front of the Cardinal. 'This method of dealing with thieves is both unjust and socially undesirable. As a punishment it's too severe, and as a deterrent it's quite ineffective. Petty larceny isn't bad enough to deserve the death penalty, and no penalty on earth will stop people from stealing, if it's their only way of getting food. In this respect you English, like most other nations, remind me of incompetent schoolmasters, who prefer caning their pupils to teaching them. Instead of inflicting these horrible punishments, it would be far more to the point to provide everyone with some means of livelihood, so that nobody's under the frightful necessity of becoming first a thief and then a corpse.'

'There's adequate provision for that already,' replied the lawyer. 'There are plenty of trades open to them. There's always work on the land. They could easily earn an honest living if they wanted to, but they deliberately choose to be criminals.'

'You can't get out of it like that,' I said. 'Let's ignore, for the sake of argument, the case of the disabled soldier, who has lost a limb in the service of King and Country, either at home or abroad—perhaps in that battle with the Cornish rebels, or perhaps during the fighting in France, not so long ago. When he comes home, he finds he's physically incapable of practising his former trade, and too old to learn a new one. But as I say, let's forget about him, since war is only an intermittent phenomenon. Let's stick to the type of thing that happens every day.

'Well, first of all there are lots of noblemen who live like drones on the labour of other people, in other words, of their tenants, and keep bleeding them white by constantly raising their rents. For that's their only idea of practical economy—otherwise they'd soon be ruined by their extravagance. But not content with remaining idle themselves, they take round with them vast numbers of equally idle retainers, who have never been taught any method of earning their living. The moment their master dies, or they themselves fall ill, they're promptly given the sack—for these noblemen are far more sympathetic towards idleness than illness, and their heirs often can't afford to keep up such large establishments. Now a sacked retainer is apt to get violently hungry, if he doesn't resort to violence. For what's the alternative? He can, of course, wander around until his clothes and his body are both worn out, and he's nothing but a mass of rags and sores. But in that state no gentleman will condescend to employ him, and no farmer can risk doing so—for who could be less likely to serve a poor man faithfully, sweating away with mattock and hoe for a beggarly wage and a barely adequate diet, than a man who has been brought up in the lap of luxury, and is used to swaggering about in military uniform, looking down his nose at everyone else in the neighbourhood?'

'But that's exactly the kind of person we need to encourage,' retorted the lawyer. 'In wartime he forms the backbone of the army, simply because he has more spirit and self-respect than an ordinary tradesman or farmhand.'

'You might as well say,' I answered, 'that for purposes of war you have to encourage theft. Well, you'll certainly never run short of thieves, so long as you have people like that about. And, of course, you're perfectly right—thieves do make quite efficient soldiers, and soldiers make quite enterprising thieves. The two professions have a good deal in common. However, the trouble is not confined to England, although you've got it pretty badly. It's practically a world-wide epidemic. France, for instance, is suffering from an even more virulent form of it. There the whole country is overrun even in peacetime—if you can call it that—by mercenaries who have been brought in for much the same reasons as you gave for supporting idle retainers. You see, the experts decided, in the interests of public safety, that they must have a powerful standing army, consisting mostly of veterans—for they put so little faith in raw recruits that they deliberately start wars to give their soldiers practice, and make them cut throats "just to keep their hands in", as Sallust rather nicely puts it.

'So France has learnt by bitter experience how dangerous it is to keep these savage pets, but there are plenty of similar object-lessons in the history of Rome, Carthage, Syria, and many other countries. Again and again standing armies have seized some opportunity of overthrowing the government that employed them, devastating its territory, and destroying its towns. And yet it's quite unnecessary. That's obvious enough from the fact that for all their intensive military training the French can't often claim to have beaten your wartime conscripts—I won't put it more strongly than that, for fear of seeming to flatter present company.

'Besides, it's not generally thought that either of the types you mentioned, the tradesman in town or the ignorant farmhand in the country, is actually so very frightened of the retainers in question—unless his physical strength isn't equal to his courage, or his spirit has been broken by privations at home. The fact is that though these retainers start off with powerful physiques—for no gentleman would stoop to corrupt an inferior specimen—they soon get soft and flabby by sitting around doing nothing, or nothing that a woman couldn't do. So there's really not much risk of their losing all their manhood, if they were taught useful trades and made to work like men. In any case I don't see how it can possibly be in the public interest to prepare for a war, which you needn't have unless you want to, by maintaining innumerable disturbers of the peace—when peace is so infinitely more important.

'But that's not the only thing that compels people to steal. There are other factors at work which must, I think, be peculiar to your country.'

'And what are they?' asked the Cardinal.

'Sheep,' I told him. 'These placid creatures, which used to require so little food, have now apparently developed a raging appetite, and turned into man-eaters. Fields, houses, towns, everything goes down their throats. To put it more plainly, in those parts of the kingdom where the finest, and so the most expensive wool is produced, the nobles and gentlemen, not to mention several saintly abbots, have grown dissatisfied with the income that their predecessors got out of their estates. They're no longer content to lead lazy, comfortable lives, which do no good to society—they must actively do it harm, by enclosing all the land they can for pasture, and leaving none for cultivation. They're even tearing down houses and demolishing whole towns—except, of course, for the churches, which they preserve for use as sheepfolds. As though they didn't waste enough of your soil already on their coverts and game-preserves, these kind souls have started destroying all traces of human habitation, and turning every scrap of farmland into a wilderness.

'So what happens? Each greedy individual preys on his native land like a malignant growth, absorbing field after field, and enclosing thousands of acres with a single fence. Result—hundreds of farmers are evicted. They're either cheated or bullied into giving up their property, or systematically ill-treated until they're finally forced to sell. Whichever way it's done, out the poor creatures have to go, men and women, husbands and wives, widows and orphans, mothers and tiny children, together with all their employees—whose great numbers are not a sign of wealth, but simply of the fact that you can't run a farm without plenty of manpower. Out they have to go from the homes that they know so well, and they can't find anywhere else to live. Their whole stock of furniture wouldn't fetch much of a price, even if they could afford to wait for a suitable offer. But they can't, so they get very little indeed for it. By the time they've been wandering around for a bit, this little is all used up, and then what can they do but steal—and be very properly hanged? Of course, they can always become tramps and beggars, but even then they're liable to be arrested as vagrants, and put in prison for being idle—when nobody will give them a job, however much they want one. For farm-work is what they're used to, and where there's no arable land, there's no farm-work to be done. After all, it only takes one shepherd or cowherd to graze animals over an area that would need any amount of labour to make it fit for corn production.

'For the same reason, corn is much dearer in many districts. The price of wool has also risen so steeply that your poorer weavers simply can't afford to buy it, which means a lot more people thrown out of work. This is partly due to an epidemic of the rot, which destroyed vast numbers of sheep just after the conversion of arable to pasture land began. It almost looked like a judgement on the landowners for their greed—except that they ought to have caught it instead of the sheep.

'Not that prices would fall, however many sheep there were, for the sheep market has become, if not strictly a monopoly—for that implies only one seller—then at least an oligopoly. I mean it's almost entirely under the control of a few rich men, who don't need to sell unless they feel like it, and never do feel like it until they can get the price they want. This also accounts for the equally high prices of other types of livestock, especially in view of the shortage of breeders caused by the demolition of farms, and the general decline of agriculture. For the rich men I'm talking about never bother to breed either sheep or cattle themselves. They merely buy scraggy specimens cheap from someone else, fatten them up on their own pastures, and resell them at a large profit. I imagine that's why the full effects of the situation have not yet been felt. So far they've only inflated prices in the areas where they sell, but, if they keep transferring animals from other districts faster than they can be replaced, stocks in the buying areas too will gradually be depleted, until eventually there'll be an acute shortage everywhere.

'Thus a few greedy people have converted one of England's greatest natural advantages into a national disaster. For it's the high price of food that makes employers turn off so many of their servants—which inevitably means turning them into beggars or thieves. And theft comes easier to a man of spirit.

'To make matters worse, this wretched poverty is most incongruously linked with expensive tastes. Servants, tradesmen, even farm-labourers, in fact all classes of society are recklessly extravagant about clothes and food. Then think how many brothels there are, including those that go under the names of wine-taverns or alehouses. Think of the demoralizing games people play—dice, cards, backgammon, tennis, bowls, quoits—what are they but quick methods of wasting a man's money, and sending him straight off to become a thief?

'Get rid of these pernicious practices. Make a law that anyone responsible for demolishing a farm or a country town must either rebuild it himself or else hand over the land to someone who's willing to do so. Stop the rich from cornering markets and establishing virtual monopolies. Reduce the number of people who are kept doing nothing. Revive agriculture and the wool industry, so that there's plenty of honest, useful work for the great army of unemployed—by which I mean not only existing thieves, but tramps and idle servants who are bound to become thieves eventually. Until you put these things right, you're not entitled to boast of the justice meted out to thieves, for it's a justice more specious than real or socially desirable. You allow these people to be brought up in the worst possible way, and systematically corrupted from their earliest years. Finally, when they grow up and commit the crimes that they were obviously destined to commit, ever since they were children, you start punishing them. In other words, you create thieves, and then punish them for stealing!'

Long before I'd finished, the lawyer was ready with his answer. He was evidently one of those people whose method of argument consists in repeating what you've said, rather than replying to it—as though having a good memory were all that mattered.

'That was a very fine effort,' he said, 'especially for a foreigner whose information is bound to be second-hand, and therefore inaccurate—as I'll very briefly demonstrate. I'll begin by running through the points you've made. Then I'll show where you've gone wrong through your ignorance of local conditions. And finally I'll refute all your arguments. Proceeding in that order, I think you've made four—'

'Just a moment,' interrupted the Cardinal. 'After such an introduction, your reply seems unlikely to be as brief as you suggest. So don't bother to produce it now—keep it fresh for your next meeting. Why not make it tomorrow, if you're both free then? Meanwhile, my dear Raphael, I'd very much like to hear just why you object to capital punishment for theft, and what penalty you think would be more in the public interest. For even you, I take it, feel that stealing should be stopped. And since it goes on merrily in spite of the death penalty, what power on earth could stop it, what possible deterrent could be effective, if the fear of death were removed? Surely any reduction of sentence would be interpreted as a positive invitation to crime?'

'Your Grace,' I said, 'it seems to me quite unjust to take a man's life because he's taken some money. To my mind no amount of property is equivalent to a human life. If it's argued that the punishment is not for taking the money, but for breaking the law and violating justice, isn't this conception of absolute justice absolutely unjust? One really can't approve of a régime so dictatorial that the slightest disobedience is punishable by death, nor of a legal code based on the Stoic paradox that all offences are equal—so that there's no distinction in law between theft and murder, though in equity the two things are so completely different.

'God said, "Thou shalt not kill" —does the theft of a little money make it quite all right for us to do so? If it's said that this commandment applies only to illegal killing, what's to prevent human beings from similarly agreeing among themselves to legalize certain types of rape, adultery, or perjury? Considering that God has forbidden us even to kill ourselves, can we really believe that purely human arrangements for the regulation of mutual slaughter are enough, without any divine authority, to exempt executioners from the sixth commandment? Isn't that rather like saying that this particular commandment has no more validity than human laws allow it?—in which case the principle can be extended indefinitely, until in all spheres of life human beings decide just how far God's commandments may conveniently be observed.

'Under the law of Moses—which was harsh enough in all conscience, being designed for slaves, and rebellious ones at that—thieves were not hanged, but merely fined. We can hardly suppose that the new dispensation, which expresses God's fatherly kindness towards His children, allows us more scope than the old for being cruel to one another.

'Well, those are my objections on moral grounds. From a practical point of view, surely it's obvious that to punish thieves and murderers in precisely the same way is not only absurd but also highly dangerous for the public. If a thief knows that a conviction for murder will get him into no more trouble than a conviction for theft, he's naturally impelled to kill the person that he'd otherwise merely have robbed. It's no worse for him if he's caught, and it gives him a better chance of not being caught, and of concealing the crime altogether by eliminating the only witness. So in our efforts to terrorize thieves we're actually encouraging them to murder innocent people.

'Now for the usual question—what punishment would be better? I'd have found it much harder to answer, if you'd asked me what would be worse. Well, why should we doubt the value of a system which those expert administrators, the Romans, found satisfactory for so long? They, as we know, sentenced people convicted of major crimes to penal servitude for life in mines or stone quarries.

'However, the best arrangement I know is one I came across while travelling through Persia, in a district generally known as Tallstoria. The Tallstorians form quite a large and well-organized community, which is completely autonomous, except for having to pay taxes to the King of Persia. As they're a long way from the sea, practically encircled by mountains, and content to live on the produce of their own soil, which is extremely fertile, they have little contact with foreigners. They've never had any wish to increase their territory, which is secured against external aggression both by the mountains and by the protection-money that they pay to the Great King. This means that they're exempt from military service, so they're able to live in comfort, if not in luxury, and be happy, if not exactly famous or glorious—for, apart from their immediate neighbours, I doubt if anyone has ever heard of them.

'Well, in Tallstoria a convicted thief has to return what he's stolen to its owner, not, as in most other countries, to the King—who according to the Tallstorians has just about as much right to it as the thief himself. If the stolen goods are no longer in his possession, their value is deducted from his own property, the rest of which is handed over intact to his wife and children. He himself is sentenced to hard labour. Except in cases of robbery with violence, he's not put in prison or made to wear fetters, but left quite free and employed on public works. If he downs tools or goes slow, they don't slow him down still more by loading him with chains—they accelerate his movements with a whip. If he works hard, he's not treated at all badly. He has to answer a roll-call every evening, and he's locked up for the night—but otherwise, apart from having to work very long hours, he has a perfectly comfortable life.

'The food, for instance, is quite reasonable. It's provided at the public expense, since convicts work as servants of the public. The procedure for raising the money varies from place to place. In some districts it's collected from voluntary contributions. This sounds an unreliable method, but in practice it brings in more than any other, for the people there are extraordinarily kind-hearted. Elsewhere, certain public revenues are set aside for the purpose, or a special poll-tax is levied. There are also some places where, instead of being employed on public works, convicts are hired out to private enterprise. Anyone needing their services goes to the market-place and engages them by the day, at a rather lower wage than he would pay for free labour. He's also allowed to whip them if they don't work hard enough. This system ensures that they're never out of work, their meals are provided for them, and each convict makes a daily contribution to public funds.

'They all wear clothes of a special colour, which nobody else wears. Their heads aren't actually shaved, but the hair is clipped short just above the ears, and a tiny piece is cut off one of them. Their friends are allowed to give them food and drink, and clothes of the regulation colour, but it's a capital crime for anyone to give them money, or for them to accept it. So it is for free men to accept money on any pretext from slaves—as convicts are usually called—or for slaves to touch any kind of weapon.

'Each slave is given a badge to show which district he belongs to, and it's a capital crime to take one's badge off, to be seen outside one's own district, or to speak to a slave from another district. As for running away, it's just as risky to plan it as to do it. The penalty for being accessory to any such plan is death for a slave, and slavery for a free man—whereas by betraying an escape-project you can earn a reward in cash, if you're a free man, or your freedom, if you're a slave. In either case the informer receives a pardon for his part in the plot, on the principle that it must always be safer to abandon a criminal undertaking than to go ahead with it.

'Well, that's how the system works, and it's obviously most convenient and humane. It comes down heavily on crime, but it saves the lives of criminals, treating them in such a way that they're forced to become good citizens, and spend the rest of their lives making up for the harm they've done in the past.

'In fact there's so little risk of their relapsing into their old habits, that they're generally regarded as the safest possible guides for long-distance travellers, who employ them in relays, one for each district they pass through. You see, slaves have no facilities for highway-robbery. They're not allowed to carry weapons. If money is found on them, it proves that they've committed a crime. If they're caught, punishment is automatic, and they haven't the slightest hope of not being caught—for how can you make an unobtrusive getaway when your clothes are quite different from ordinary people's, unless you decamp in the nude?—and even then your ear will betray you.

'There's still, of course, a theoretical risk that they might start a conspiracy to overthrow the government. But how could the slaves of any one district hope to organize such a large-scale operation, without first sounding and stirring up the slaves in several other districts? And that's physically impossible. They're not even allowed to meet them, or talk to them, or say good morning to them, let alone conspire with them. Besides, can you imagine anyone cheerfully letting the other slaves of his district into a secret which would be so dangerous for them to keep, and so very profitable for them to betray? On the other hand, every slave has some hope of recovering his freedom, simply by doing what he's told and giving the authorities reason to believe that he'll go straight in future—since a certain number of slaves are released every year for good conduct.'

I then added that I didn't see why this system shouldn't be adopted in England. It would produce far better results than the so-called 'justice' that the lawyer had praised so highly.

At this our learned friend—I mean the lawyer—shook his head.

'Such a system,' he announced, with a smile of contempt, 'could never be adopted in England, without serious danger to the country.'

That was all he said—and practically everyone else agreed with him.

Then the Cardinal gave his opinion.

'It's hard to predict,' he said, 'without giving it a trial, whether it would work or not. But suppose the King were to postpone the execution of death sentences for an experimental period—having first abolished all rights of asylum. If the results were good, we'd be justified in making the arrangement permanent. If not, the original sentences could still be carried out, with quite as much benefit to society, and quite as much justice, as if they were carried out now. In the meantime no great harm could have been done. As a matter of fact, I don't think it would be at all a bad idea to treat vagrants in the same way. We're always making laws about them, but so far nothing has had the slightest effect.'

This, from the Cardinal, was enough to make everyone wildly in favour of an idea which nobody had taken seriously when I produced it. They were particularly keen on the bit about vagrants, since that was his own contribution.

Perhaps I ought to leave out the next part of the conversation, which was not wholly serious. But I don't think I shall, because it was perfectly harmless, and had a certain relevance to the point at issue. Among those present was a professional diner-out, who wanted you to think that he was merely acting the fool but played the part almost too convincingly. His efforts to raise a laugh were usually so feeble that one tended to laugh at him rather than with him. But occasionally he'd come out with something rather good, thus restoring one's faith in the proverb, 'If at first you don't succeed, try, try, try again.' Well, somebody gave him his cue by remarking that the Cardinal and I between us had solved the problem of thieves and vagrants, so it only remained to decide on appropriate state action to deal with poor people who were either too old or too ill to earn their living.

'Just leave it to me,' said this gentleman. 'I'll tell you exactly what to do. The fact is, I'm desperately anxious to get that sort of person out of my sight. I've suffered so often from demands for money in that whining sing-song of theirs—a form of music which has never charmed a penny out of me. What always happens is this—either I don't feel like giving them anything, or else I do, but I can't, because I haven't got anything to give. So now they're learning not to waste their energy. When they see me walking past, they just let me walk past, without saying a word. They know I might as well be a priest, for all the help I'll be to them. Well, I propose a law for the compulsory enrolment of beggars in Benedictine monasteries, the males to become lay brethren—that's the technical term for monks—and the females to become nuns.'

The Cardinal smiled, and jokingly agreed. So did all the others, with perfectly straight faces. The only exception was a certain friar, who'd apparently studied theology. Normally a grimly serious type of person, he was so delighted by these digs at priests and monks that he too started trying to be funny.

'Ah, but you won't get rid of beggars quite so easily,' he said. 'What are you going to do about us mendicant friars?'

'Why, that's already taken care of,' replied the wag. 'Don't you remember the Cardinal's splendid regulation for the control and useful employment of tramps?'

Everyone glanced at the Cardinal, to see how he was taking it, and, as he showed no signs of disapproval, the remark was greeted with applause—except by the friar. He, not very surprisingly, reacted to this cold douche of satire by losing his temper and becoming downright abusive. He called the man every rude name he could think of, including a son of Belial, and wound up with some fearful curses out of Holy Scripture.

At this point the clown started clowning in real earnest. He obviously felt in his element.

'My dear friar,' he began, 'you mustn't get so angry. You know what it says in the Bible, "Ye shall possess your souls in patience".'

'I'm not angry, damn you!' shouted the friar—those were his very words. 'Or if I am, I've every right to be. "Be ye angry, and sin not", that's what it says in the Psalms.'

The Cardinal gently suggested that he should try to keep his temper.

'My temper, sir?' he repeated. 'There's nothing wrong with my temper. It's righteous zeal that makes me say these things, the sort of righteous zeal that inspired the saints. Hence the words of the Psalmist, "The zeal of thy house hath eaten me up", or of the hymn that we sing in church:

They who mocked the great Elisha,

As he mounted up to Bethel,

By a baldhead's zeal was punished.

And I dare say this filthy sneering idiot may find the same thing happening to him.'

'I'm sure your feelings do you great credit,' said the Cardinal, 'but I wonder if your behaviour wouldn't be even more saintly—it would certainly be wiser—if you refrained from making a fool of yourself by arguing with a fool.'

'No, sir,' retorted the friar, 'it would not be wiser, for who could be wiser than Solomon? And Solomon says, "Answer a fool according to his folly"—which is precisely what I'm doing. I'm showing him the bottomless pit that he's liable to fall into, if he isn't very careful. In Elisha's case, it was forty-two mockers against only one baldhead, and yet his zeal was enough to punish them. So how much worse it's going to be for this man here—a single mocker against all the friars in Christendom, a very high proportion of whom are bald! Besides, we have a Papal Bull expressly forbidding anyone to mock us, on pain of excommunication.'

Seeing that the thing would go on indefinitely, the Cardinal gave the wit a sign to withdraw, and tactfully changed the subject. A few minutes later he got up and dismissed us, as he had to interview some people who'd applied to him for help.

Well, my dear More, I'm afraid I've subjected you to a very long lecture. Only you really did ask for it—and you listened so attentively that I felt you wouldn't want me to leave anything out. Anyway, the conversation seemed worth repeating, if only in general outline, so as to give you some idea of the way these people think. You see, everything I said was treated with contempt, until it appeared that the Cardinal was not against it—and then they were immediately all for it. In their efforts to flatter him, they were even prepared to applaud, and almost take seriously the suggestions made by a hanger-on of his, simply because the great man laughingly approved of them. So you can guess how much notice people would take of me and my advice at Court!

MORE: My dear Raphael, I enjoyed every word of it. There's so much wit and wisdom in everything you say. Besides, it all carried me back, not merely to England, but in a sense to my own boyhood—it recalled such pleasant memories of the Cardinal, in whose household I was brought up. I liked you from the start, my dear Raphael, but you've no idea how much your warm tribute to his memory has increased my feeling for you. But I still can't help thinking that if you could only overcome your aversion to court life, your advice would be extremely useful to the public. Which means that it's your positive duty, as a good man, to give it. You know what your friend Plato says—that a happy state of society will never be achieved, until philosophers are kings, or kings take to studying philosophy. Well, just think how infinitely remote that happy state must remain, if philosophers won't even condescend to give kings a word of advice!

RAPHAEL: Oh, philosophers aren't as bad as all that. They'd be only too glad to offer advice—in fact many of them have done so already in their published works—if only people in power would listen to them. And that's doubtless what Plato meant. He realized that kings are too deeply infected with wrong ideas in childhood to take any philosopher's advice, unless they become philosophers themselves—as he learned by experience with Dionysius. What do you suppose would happen if I started telling a king to make sensible laws, or trying to expel the deadly germs of bad ones from his mind? I'd be promptly thrown out, or merely treated as a figure of fun.

For instance, just imagine me in France, at a top-secret meeting of the Cabinet. The King himself is in the chair, and round the table sit all his expert advisers, earnestly discussing ways and means of solving the following problems: how can His Majesty keep a grip on Milan, and get Naples back into his clutches? How can he conquer Venice, and complete the subjection of Italy? How can he then establish control over Flanders, Brabant, and finally the whole of Burgundy?—not to mention all the other countries that he has already invaded in his dreams.

One gentleman proposes a pact with the Venetians, to remain in force for just so long as the King shall find convenient. He should take them into his confidence, and even allow them a certain amount of the plunder—he can always demand it back later, when he has got what he wants. Another gentleman recommends the employment of German mercenaries, and a third is in favour of greasing the palms of the Swiss. A fourth advises His Majesty to propitiate the Holy Roman Empire with a sacrifice of gold. A fifth thinks it might be wise for him to improve relations with the King of Aragon, and as a peace-offering hand over the kingdom of Navarre—which doesn't belong to him anyway. Meanwhile a sixth is proposing that the Prince of Castile should be enticed into the French camp by promises of a marriage alliance, and that some of his courtiers should be paid a regular salary for their support.

And now for the knottiest problem of all—what's to be done about the English? Well, obviously the first step is to arrange a peace-conference, and conclude a solemn treaty of alliance which means absolutely nothing. In other words, call them friends, but regard them as potential enemies. The Scotch must therefore be kept standing by, ready to start an invasion at a moment's notice, in case the English make the slightest move. It might also be as well to offer secret encouragement—under the terms of the treaty it can't be done openly—to some exiled English nobleman with pretensions to the throne. This would give His Majesty an extra hold over the King of England, whom he otherwise wouldn't trust an inch.

At this point, while all these mighty forces are being set in motion, and all these worthy gentlemen are producing rival plans of campaign, up gets little Raphael, and proposes a complete reversal of policy. I advise the King to forget about Italy and stay at home. I tell him that France is already almost too big for one man to govern properly, so he really needn't worry about acquiring extra territory.

I then refer to an incident in the history of Nolandia, a country just south-east of Utopia. On the strength of some ancient marriage, the King of Nolandia thought he had a hereditary claim to another kingdom, so his people started a war to get it for him. Eventually they won, only to find that the kingdom in question was quite as much trouble to keep as it had been to acquire. There were constant threats of internal rebellion and external aggression. They were always having to fight either for their new subjects or against them. They never got a chance to demobilize, and in the meantime they were being ruined. All their money was going out of the country, and men were losing their lives to pay for someone else's petty ambition. Conditions at home were no safer than they'd been during the war, which had lowered moral standards, by encouraging people to kill and steal. There was no respect whatever for the law, because the King's attention was divided between the two kingdoms, so that he couldn't concentrate properly on either.

Seeing that this hopeless situation would continue indefinitely, if they didn't do something about it, the Nolandians finally decided on a course of action, which was to ask the King, quite politely, which kingdom he wanted to keep.

'You can't keep them both,' they explained, 'because there are too many of us to be governed by half a king. Why, even if we were a lot of mules, it would be a full-time job looking after us!'

So that exemplary monarch was forced to hand over the new kingdom to a friend of his—who was very soon thrown out—and make do with the old one.

I also remind the French King that even if he does start all these wars and create chaos in all these different countries, he's still quite liable to find in the end that he has ruined himself and destroyed his people for nothing. I therefore advise him to concentrate on the kingdom that his ancestors handed down to him, and make it as beautiful and as prosperous as he can, to love his own subjects and deserve their love, to live among them and govern them kindly, and to give up all ideas of territorial expansion, because he has got more than enough to deal with already.

Now tell me, my dear More, how do you think he'll react to my advice?

MORE: Not terribly well, I must admit.

RAPHAEL: Now let's imagine another situation. Suppose some king's financial advisers are discussing how to increase his capital. One suggests raising the value of the currency when the King has to pay money out, and lowering it abnormally when payments are due to him. This will have the effect of increasing his receipts, and reducing the cost of meeting his liabilities. A second suggests that the King should pretend to start a war. This will give him an excuse for levying extra taxes. Then, at his own convenience, he can solemnly make peace, while posing, for the benefit of the lower orders, as a kind ruler who can't bear the thought of bloodshed. A third reminds him of some moth-eaten old law, which has long been obsolete—which everybody breaks, because nobody's aware of its existence—and urges him to collect the fines so incurred. It will greatly redound to his credit, in a moral as well as a financial sense—for the operation will be carried out under the cloak of justice. A fourth advises him to introduce legislation imposing heavy fines for certain offences, preferably of the most anti-social type. He can then sell exemption from such laws to anyone who finds them inconvenient. This will ensure his popularity with the general public, while providing a double source of revenue—for first he'll get the fines collected from profiteers who fall into his trap, and secondly he'll get the money paid for special dispensations. Of course, the price of these will vary in proportion to the King's moral character. The higher his principles, the more reluctant he'll be to let anyone act against the public interest—so the more a dispensation will cost.

A fifth recommends him to get some hold over the judges, so that they'll always give a verdict in his favour. He should also invite them to the Palace, and consult them about his legal position. He may be quite obviously in the wrong, but one of the judges is sure to discover a loophole which will serve to defeat justice. Whatever motives he may have for doing so—a passion for contradiction, a dislike of the obvious, or a simple wish to please—the result will be the same. Soon every judge will be voicing a different opinion, a perfectly clear case will begin to seem controversial, and the plainest facts will be questioned. This will give the King a splendid chance of interpreting the law to his own advantage. Everyone else will agree, from either fear or politeness, and eventually this interpretation will be boldly pronounced from the Bench. After all, there are so many ways of justifying a verdict for the Crown. One can either appeal to equity, or to the letter of the law; or to some perversion of its meaning, or in the last resort to a principle which carries more weight with conscientious judges than any law on earth—the 'indisputable royal prerogative'.

There's unanimous support for the doctrine of Crassus, that you can never have enough money, if you've got an army to maintain. It's also generally agreed that a King can do no wrong, however much he may want to, because everything belongs to him, including every human being in the country, and private property does not exist, except in so far as he's kind enough not to seize it. He should always reduce such provisional private property to a minimum, since his safety depends on preventing his subjects from having too much wealth or freedom. These things make people less willing to put up with injustice and oppression, whereas poverty and privation make them dull and submissive, and stifle the noble spirit of rebellion.

At this point I get up again, and say that it would be most unwise as well as most immoral for the King to do any of these things, because his prestige and security depend less on his own than on his subjects' wealth.

'Why do you suppose they made you king in the first place?' I ask him. 'Not for your benefit, but for theirs. They meant you to devote your energies to making their lives more comfortable, and protecting them from injustice. So your job is to see that they're all right, not that you are—just as a shepherd's job, strictly speaking, is to feed his sheep, not himself. As for the theory that peace is best preserved by keeping the people poor, it's completely contradicted by the facts. Beggars are far the most quarrelsome section of the community. Who is more likely to start a revolution than a man who's discontented with his present living conditions? Who could have a stronger impulse to turn everything upside down in the hope of personal profit, than a man who'd got nothing to lose?

'No, if a king is so hated or despised by his subjects that he can't keep them in order unless he reduces them to beggary by violence, extortion, and confiscation, he'd far better abdicate. Such methods of staying in power may preserve the title, but they destroy the majesty of a king. There's nothing majestic about ruling a nation of beggars—true majesty consists in governing the rich and prosperous. That's what that admirable character Fabricius meant when he said he'd rather govern rich men than be one. Certainly a man who enjoys a life of luxury while everyone else is moaning and groaning round him can hardly be called a king—he's more like a gaoler.

'In short, it's a pretty poor doctor who can't cure one disease without giving you another, and a king who can't suppress crime without lowering standards of living should admit that he just doesn't know how to govern free men. He should start by suppressing one of his own vices—either his pride or his laziness, for those are the faults most liable to make a king hated or despised. He should live on his own resources, without being a nuisance to others. He should adapt his expenditure to his income. He should prevent crime by sound administration rather than allow it to develop and then start punishing it. He should hesitate to enforce any law which has long been disregarded—especially if people have got on perfectly well without it. And he should never invent a crime as an excuse for imposing a fine—no private person would be allowed to do anything so dishonest.'

I then proceed to tell them about a system they have in Happiland, a country not far from Utopia. There the King has to swear a solemn oath at his coronation that he'll never keep more than a thousand pounds of gold in his treasury, or an equivalent amount of silver. Apparently the system was started by an excellent king of theirs, who cared more about his country's welfare than his own. He thought it would prevent the accumulation of royal wealth on such a scale as to cause national poverty, and chose that particular figure because he reckoned it would be enough to suppress a revolution or repel an invasion, but not enough to inspire a king with thoughts of foreign conquest. That was his main idea, but not his only one. He also hoped this arrangement would ensure that there was always enough money in circulation for ordinary purposes of exchange, and that the King would have no motive for raising money unfairly, since he wouldn't be allowed to keep any capital in excess of the statutory limit. Now there you have the type of king who's feared by bad men and loved by good ones—but if I said things like that to people who were quite determined to take the opposite view, do you think they'd listen to me?

MORE: Of course they wouldn't, and I can't say I'd blame them. Frankly, I don't see the point of saying things like that, or of giving advice that you know they'll never accept. What possible good could it do? How can they be expected to take in a totally unfamiliar line of thought, which goes against all their deepest prejudices? That sort of thing is quite fun in a friendly conversation, but at a Cabinet meeting, where major decisions of policy have to be made, such philosophizing would be completely out of place.

RAPHAEL: That's exactly what I was saying—there's no room at Court for philosophy.

MORE: There's certainly no room for the academic variety, which says what it thinks irrespective of circumstances. But there is a more civilized form of philosophy which knows the dramatic context, so to speak, tries to fit in with it, and plays an appropriate part in the current performance. That's the sort you should go in for. Otherwise it would be like interrupting some comedy by Plautus, in which a lot of slaves were fooling about, by rushing on to the stage dressed up as a philosopher, and spouting a bit of that scene in the Octavia where Seneca is arguing with Nero. Surely it would be better to keep your mouth shut altogether than to turn the thing into a tragicomedy by interpolating lines from a different play? For, even if your contribution were an improvement on what had gone before, the effect would be so incongruous that you'd ruin the whole show. No, do the best you can to make the present production a success—don't spoil the entire play just because you happen to think of another one that you'd enjoy rather more.

The same rule applies to politics and life at Court. If you can't completely eradicate wrong ideas, or deal with inveterate vices as effectively as you could wish, that's no reason for turning your back on public life altogether. You wouldn't abandon ship in a storm just because you couldn't control the winds.

On the other hand, it's no use attempting to put across entirely new ideas, which will obviously carry no weight with people who are prejudiced against them. You must go to work indirectly. You must handle everything as tactfully as you can, and what you can't put right you must try to make as little wrong as possible. For things will never be perfect, until human beings are perfect—which I don't expect them to be for quite a number of years!

RAPHAEL: The only advantage of that method would be that I mightn't find it quite so maddening as making a real effort to cure other people's madness. But if I'm to speak the truth, I'll have to say the sort of things that you object to. I don't know whether it's right for a philosopher to tell lies, but it's certainly not my way. Besides, though they might be annoyed by what I said, I don't see why it should be thought so fantastically out of the ordinary. It's not as if I'd recommended the system operated in Plato's imaginary Republic, or in Utopia today. Now that, while undoubtedly better than ours, might well strike them as rather odd, because it's based on communal ownership instead of private property.

Of course they wouldn't like my proposals. Having set their hearts on a certain course of action, they'd naturally resent being shown the dangers that lay ahead, and told to give the whole thing up. But apart from that, what did I say that couldn't or shouldn't be said in any company? If we're never to say anything that might be thought unconventional, for fear of its sounding ridiculous, we'll have to hush up, even in a Christian country, practically everything that Christ taught. But that was the last thing He wanted. Didn't He tell His disciples that everything He had whispered in their ears should be proclaimed on the housetops? And most of His teaching is far more at variance with modern conventions than anything I suggested, except in so far as His doctrines have been modified by ingenious preachers—doubtless on your recommendation!

'We'll never get human behaviour in line with Christian ethics,' these gentlemen must have argued, 'so let's adapt Christian ethics to human behaviour. Then at least there'll be some connection between them.'

But I can't see what good they've done. They've merely enabled people to sin with a clear conscience—and that's about all I could do at a Cabinet meeting. For I'd either have to vote against my colleagues, which would be equivalent to not voting at all, or else I'd have to vote with them, in which case, like Micio in Terence, I'd be 'aiding and abetting insanity'.

As for working indirectly, and when things can't be put right, handling them so tactfully that they're as little wrong as possible, I don't quite see what that means. At Court you can't keep your opinions to yourself, or merely connive at other people's crimes. You have to give open support to deplorable policies, and subscribe to utterly monstrous resolutions. If you don't show enough enthusiasm for a bad law, you'll be taken for a spy or even a traitor. Besides, what chance have you got of doing any good, when you're working with colleagues like that? You'll never reform them—they're far more likely to corrupt you, however admirable a character you are. By associating with them you'll either lose your own integrity, or else have it used to conceal their folly and wickedness. So much for the practical results of your indirect method!

There's a delightful image in Plato, which explains why a sensible person is right to steer clear of politics. He sees everyone else rushing into the street and getting soaked in the pouring rain. He can't persuade them to go indoors and keep dry. He knows if he went out too, he'd merely get equally wet. So he just stays indoors himself, and, as he can't do anything about other people's stupidity, comforts himself with the thought: 'Well, I'm all right, anyway.'

Though, to tell you the truth, my dear More, I don't see how you can ever get any real justice or prosperity, so long as there's private property, and everything's judged in terms of money—unless you consider it just for the worst sort of people to have the best living conditions, or unless you're prepared to call a country prosperous, in which all the wealth is owned by a tiny minority—who aren't entirely happy even so, while everyone else is simply miserable.

In fact, when I think of the fair and sensible arrangements in Utopia, where things are run so efficiently with so few laws, and recognition of individual merit is combined with equal prosperity for all—when I compare Utopia with a great many capitalist countries which are always making new regulations, but could never be called well-regulated, where dozens of laws are passed every day, and yet there are still not enough to ensure that one can either earn, or keep, or safely identify one's so-called private property—or why such an endless succession of never-ending lawsuits?—when I consider all this, I feel much more sympathy with Plato, and much less surprise at his refusal to legislate for a city that rejected egalitarian principles. It was evidently quite obvious to a powerful intellect like his that the one essential condition for a healthy society was equal distribution of goods—which I suspect is impossible under capitalism. For, when everyone's entitled to get as much for himself as he can, all available property, however much there is of it, is bound to fall into the hands of a small minority, which means that everyone else is poor. And wealth will tend to vary in inverse proportion to merit. The rich will be greedy, unscrupulous, and totally useless characters, while the poor will be simple, unassuming people whose daily work is far more profitable to the community than it is to them.

In other words, I'm quite convinced that you'll never get a fair distribution of goods, or a satisfactory organization of human life, until you abolish private property altogether. So long as it exists, the vast majority of the human race, and the vastly superior part of it, will inevitably go on labouring under a burden of poverty, hardship, and worry. I don't say that the burden can't be reduced, but you'll never take it right off their shoulders. You might, of course, set a statutory limit to the amount of money or land that any one person is allowed to possess. You might, by suitable legislation, maintain a balance of power between the King and his subjects. You might make it illegal to buy, or even to apply for a public appointment, and unnecessary for a state official to spend any money of his own—otherwise he's liable to recoup his losses by fraud and extortion, and wealth, rather than wisdom, becomes the essential qualification for such posts. Laws of that type would certainly relieve the symptoms, just as a chronic invalid gets some benefit from constant medical attention. But there's no hope of a cure, so long as private property continues. If you try to treat an outbreak in one part of the body politic, you merely exacerbate the symptoms elsewhere. What's medicine for some people is poison for others—because you can never pay Paul without robbing Peter.

MORE: I disagree. I don't believe you'd ever have a reasonable standard of living under a communist system. There'd always tend to be shortages, because nobody would work hard enough. In the absence of a profit motive, everyone would become lazy, and rely on everyone else to do the work for him. Then, when things really got short, the inevitable result would be a series of murders and riots, since nobody would have any legal method of protecting the products of his own labour—especially as there wouldn't be any respect for authority, or I don't see how there could be, in a classless society.

RAPHAEL: You're bound to take that view, for you simply can't imagine what it would be like—not accurately, at any rate. But if you'd been with me in Utopia, and seen it all for yourself, as I did—I lived there for more than five years, you know, and the only reason why I ever left was that I wanted to tell people about the New World—you'd be the first to admit that you'd never seen a country so well organized.

PETER: I must say, I find it hard to believe that things are so much better organized in the New World than in the Old. I should think we're just as intelligent as they are, and our civilization is older. It therefore embodies the fruits of long experience, by which I mean all the schemes that we've worked out for making life more comfortable—not to mention several chance discoveries, which could never have been achieved by deliberate planning.

RAPHAEL: You'd be more qualified to judge the age of their civilization, if you'd read their history books. If these are to be trusted, there were towns in the New World before human life had even begun in the Old. As for what you say about intelligence and chance discoveries, there's no reason to suppose we have a monopoly of either. We may or may not be more intelligent than they are, but I'm quite sure they leave us far behind in their capacity for concentration and hard work. According to their records, they'd had no contact whatsoever with Trans-equatorials, as they call us, until we landed there—except on one occasion, twelve hundred years ago, when a ship was driven off its course in a storm, and wrecked on the coast of Utopia. A few survivors managed to swim ashore, including some Romans and Egyptians, who settled there for good.

Now, this will give you some idea what good use they make of their opportunities. There wasn't a single useful technique practised anywhere in the Roman Empire that they didn't either learn from these survivors, or else work out for themselves, once they'd been given the first clue. They got all that from just one contact with our hemisphere. But if, by any similar accident, a Utopian has ever found his way over here, we've completely forgotten about it, as I dare say people will soon forget that I was ever there. On the strength of our first meeting, they immediately adopted all the best ideas that Europe has produced—but I doubt if we'd be quite so quick to take over any of their arrangements which are better than ours. And that's the main reason, I think, why although they've got no more intelligence or natural resources than we have, they're so much ahead of us politically and economically.

MORE: In that case, my dear Raphael, for goodness' sake tell us some more about the island in question. Don't try to be too concise—give us a detailed account of it from every point of view, geographical, sociological, political, legal—in fact, tell us everything you think we'd like to know, which means everything we don't know already.

RAPHAEL: There's nothing I'd enjoy more, for it's all quite fresh in my memory. But it'll take some time, you understand.

MORE: All right, let's go in to lunch straight away. Then we'll have the whole afternoon at our disposal.

RAPHAEL: Let's do just that.

So we went indoors and had lunch. After the meal we returned to the same spot, sat down on the same bench, and told the servants we were not to be disturbed. Then Peter Gilles and I asked Raphael to keep his promise. Seeing that we really meant it, he took a few moments to collect his thoughts, and then began as follows: BTDI30DZy8H5xmGa6ddEEn4WSvyBS+v4TKiapUzSwt03b50wcnvzEKnuAST+2cQO