used to dealing with questions of justice--"

"Rather more with questions of law, I'm afraid," the other returned,
pleasantly, putting his feet together before him and looking down at them
in a way he had. "But, still, I have a great interest in questions of
justice, and I confess that I find a certain wild equity in this
principle, which I see nobody could do business on. It strikes me as
idyllic--it's a touch of real poetry in the rough-and-tumble prose of our
economic life."

He referred this to me as something I might appreciate in my quality of
literary man, and I responded in my quality of practical man: "There's
certainly more rhyme than reason in it."

He turned again to the minister:

"I suppose the ideal of the Christian state is the family?"

"I hope so," said the minister, with the gratitude that I have seen people
of his cloth show when men of the world conceded premises which the world
usually contests; it has seemed to me pathetic.

"And if that is the case, why, the logic of the postulate is that the
prosperity of the weakest is the sacred charge and highest happiness of
all the stronger. But the law has not recognized any such principle, in
economics at least, and if the labor unions are based upon it they are
outlaw, so far as any hope of enforcing it is concerned; and it is bad for
men to feel themselves outlaw. How is it," the lawyer continued, turning
to the Altrurian, "in your country? We can see no issue here, if the first
principle of organized labor antagonizes the first principle of business."