[Mike Marlow]

Below the Inner Party comes the Outer Party, which, if the Inner Party is
described as the brain of the State, may be justly likened to the hands.
Below that come the dumb masses whom we habitually refer to as 'the
proles', numbering perhaps 85 per cent of the population. In the terms of
our earlier classification, the proles are the Low: for the slave
population of the equatorial lands who pass constantly from conqueror to
conqueror, are not a permanent or necessary part of the structure.
In principle, membership of these three groups is not hereditary. The
child of Inner Party parents is in theory not born into the Inner Party.
Admission to either branch of the Party is by examination, taken at the age
of sixteen. Nor is there any racial discrimination, or any marked
domination of one province by another. Jews, Negroes, South Americans of
pure Indian blood are to be found in the highest ranks of the Party, and
the administrators of any area are always