"All that is conceded," I said. "But, with all its defects, the
plan of settling prices by the market rate was a practical plan;
and I cannot conceive what satisfactory substitute you can
have devised for it. The government being the only possible
employer, there is of course no labor market or market rate.
Wages of all sorts must be arbitrarily fixed by the government. I
cannot imagine a more complex and delicate function than that
must be, or one, however performed, more certain to breed
universal dissatisfaction."

"I beg your pardon," replied Dr. Leete, "but I think you
exaggerate the difficulty. Suppose a board of fairly sensible men
were charged with settling the wages for all sorts of trades under
a system which, like ours, guaranteed employment to all, while
permitting the choice of avocations. Don't you see that, however
unsatisfactory the first adjustment might be, the mistakes would
soon correct themselves? The favored trades would have too
many volunteers, and those discriminated against would lack
them till the errors were set right. But this is aside from the
purpose, for, though this plan would, I fancy, be practicable
enough, it is no part of our system."

"How, then, do you regulate wages?" I once more asked.

Dr. Leete did not reply till after several moments of meditative
silence. "I know, of course," he finally said, "enough of the
old order of things to understand just what you mean by that
question; and yet the present order is so utterly different at this
point that I am a little at loss how to answer you best. You ask