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Afterwards Squealer was sent round the farm to explain the new arrangement to the others.

"Comrades," he said, "I trust that every animal here appreciates the sacrifice that Comrade Napoleon has made in taking this extra labour upon himself.

Do not imagine, comrades, that leadership is a pleasure! On the contrary, it is a deep and heavy responsibility.

No one believes more firmly than Comrade Napoleon that all animals are equal.

He would be only too happy to let you make your decisions for yourselves.

But sometimes you might make the wrong decisions, comrades, and then where should we be? Suppose you had decided to follow Snowball, with his moonshine of windmills - Snowball, who, as we now know, was no better than a criminal?"

"He fought bravely at the Battle of the Cowshed," said somebody.

"Bravery is not enough," said Squealer.

"Loyalty and obedience are more important.

And as to the Battle of the Cowshed, I believe the time will come when we shall find that Snowball's part in it was much exaggerated.

Discipline, comrades, iron discipline! That is the watchword for today.

One false step, and our enemies would be upon us.

Surely, comrades, you do not want Jones back?"

Once again this argument was unanswerable.

Certainly the animals did not want Jones back; if the holding of debates on Sunday mornings was liable to bring him back, then the debates must stop.

Boxer, who had now had time to think things over, voiced the general feeling by saying: "If Comrade Napoleon says it, it must be right." And from then on he adopted the maxim, "Napoleon is always right," in addition to his private motto of "I will work harder."

By this time the weather had broken and the spring ploughing had begun.

The shed where Snowball had drawn his plans of the windmill had been shut up and it was assumed that the plans had been rubbed off the floor.

Every Sunday morning at ten o'clock the animals assembled in the big barn to receive their orders for the week.

The skull of old Major, now clean of flesh, had been disinterred from the orchard and set up on a stump at the foot of the flagstaff, beside the gun.

After the hoisting of the flag, the animals were required to file past the skull in a reverent manner before entering the barn.

Nowadays they did not sit all together as they had done in the past.

Napoleon, with Squealer and another pig named Minimus, who had a remarkable gift for composing songs and poems, sat on the front of the raised platform, with the nine young dogs forming a semicircle round them, and the other pigs sitting behind.

The rest of the animals sat facing them in the main body of the barn.

Napoleon read out the orders for the week in a gruff soldierly style, and after a single singing of 'Beasts of England', all the animals dispersed.

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