45 Hitman Physiology. 



higher wages ; large guarantee societies like the Free Masons, 

 Foresters, Odd-Fellows, &c., raising funds by a general tax for 

 the support of the sick and the burial of the dead; clubs of 

 various kinds for similar objects; companies to insure against 

 fire, shipwreck, accidents, and injuries. These are all modes 

 of partial association, more or less mutual and equitable in 

 their operation. When we have gone a few steps farther, all 

 these will be swept away, or rather merged in the general 

 industrial and social organisations which will perform all 

 their functions which will remove anxiety, and make want 

 impossible. 



When the functions of govern ment the central administra- 

 tion of all the social organisations of a country and the areas 

 of all countries will become a matter of convenience rather 

 than ambition are better understood, most of these private, 

 partial, mercenary, and costly companies, each with its corps of 

 needless officials and its train of idle consumers, will be dis- 

 pensed with. The most advanced governments have shown 

 what can be done in this way by a few examples. The British 

 Government distributes letters, newspapers, books, money, and 

 small parcels of merchandise over a vast empire with a facility, 

 despatch, certainty, and economy that seem marvellous. I 

 place a penny stamp on this Part of this Book, and it is carried, 

 fast as steam can convey it, to the farthest corner of the United 

 Kingdom. Threepence carries it to Canada or California, and 

 fourpence to New Zealand, by way of San Francisco. Here is 

 demonstration of the power of combined action. 



Surely the government that carries our letters, and books, 

 and small parcels of merchandise; that keeps our money, pays 

 us for its use, and sends it in the smallest sums over a large 

 part of the world; which guards us with its police, and protects 

 us and our commerce with its diplomatic and consular, military 

 and naval establishments, could just as well do a few other 

 things more safely and far more economically than they are 



