I
think that the Erewhonians are beginning to become aware of these things,
for there was much talk about putting a tax upon all parents whose
children were not earning a competence according to their degrees by the
time they were twenty years old. I am sure that if they will have the
courage to carry it through they will never regret it; for the parents
will take care that the children shall begin earning money (which means
"doing good" to society) at an early age; then the children will be
independent early, and they will not press on the parents, nor the
parents on them, and they will like each other better than they do now.
This is the true philanthropy. He who makes a colossal fortune in the
hosiery trade, and by his energy has succeeded in reducing the price of
woollen goods by the thousandth part of a penny in the pound--this man is
worth ten professional philanthropists. So strongly are the Erewhonians
impressed with this, that if a man has made a fortune of over 20,000
pounds a year they exempt him from all taxation, considering him as a
work of art, and too precious to be meddled with; they say, "How very
much he must have done for society before society could have been
prevailed upon to give him so much money;" so magnificent an organisation
overawes them; they regard it as a thing dropped from heaven.
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