Page:A hundred years hence - the expectations of an optimist (IA hundredyearshenc00russrich).pdf/276

 instrument of placing in power an administration which is now proceeding to pass measures that he abhors. He has no redress. Nor, abandoning the extreme case of such highly-mixed policies as I have endeavoured to amuse the reader by imagining, has the voter who changes his mind, or who finds that he has been bamboozled with false promises, any means of helping to undo the harm he has helped to do. It used to be said that, on an average, parliamentary government worked well—that it carried out in a rough way the will of the people. But the peoples of a hundred years hence are going to be much more particular about matters of such high importance. They are not going to be content with a rough approximation in matters of the very highest moment when they are able to secure with perfect accuracy most of their wishes in matters of quite minor importance. They will not be satisfied to know exactly what time it is at any moment of the day (as of course they will know, all instruments for time-measuring being controlled by wireless synchronisation) and not to know exactly what their rulers are going to do about matters upon which the very fate of the country may depend. Neither will they have remained so stupid as to think that whatever one body of politicians considers right must be right and that whatever another body thinks right must necessarily be