running from one end of the country to the other. If a certain district, then, is going to object to have such a valuable asset given to it, it will surely be that there is some reason for such an objection. That being so, would it not be folly to have an authority to force that community to submit to the railway passing through ?

If this reason does not exist, we are simply supposing a society of unreasonable people and asking how they should co-operate together. The truth is that they could not co-operate together, and it is quite useless to look for any state of society which will suit such a people. The objection, therefore, need not be raised against Anarchism, but against society itself. What would a government society propose to do ? Would it start a civil war over the matter? Would it build a prison large enough to enclose this community, and imprison all the people for resisting the law? In fact, what power has any authority to deal with the matter which the Anarchists have not got ?

The question is childish. It is simply based on the supposi- tion that people are unreasonable, and if such suppositions are allowed to pass as arguments, then any proposed state of society may be easily argued out of existence. I must repeat that many of these questions are of this type, and a reader with a due sense of logic will be able to see how worthless they are, and will not need to read the particular answers I have given to them.

No. 13.

Suppose your free people want to build a bridge across a river, but they disagree as to position. How will you settle it ?

To begin with, it is obvious, but important, to notice that it is not I, but they, who would settle it. The way it would work out, I imagine, is something like this: —

We will call the two groups who differ A and B. Then —

(1) A. may be of opinion that the B. scheme would be utterly useless to it, and that the only possible position for the bridge is where it has suggested. In which case it will say: "Help our scheme, or don't cooperate at all."