Page:Conventional Lies of our Civilization.djvu/115

Rh shams. The Government lies to the people when it calls upon them to select their representatives; it lies to the Parliament when it lays decrees and measures before it for discussion and approval, for the choice of the people does not confer upon their representatives the power to enforce the will of the people, and the Parliament has no authority or influence to change any of the decisions of the Government.

In those countries where the will of the people is really constitutionally enforced, the position of the monarch is ignominious, but the fiction of his supreme authority is so skillfully concealed, and the external honors and personal advantages and pleasures directly connected with the maintenance of his royal position, are #o numerous and important, that we can understand how men of self-esteem and little sensitiveness, can condescend to assume the role of a puppet whose tongue and limbs are set in motion by the strings pulled by the members of the Cabinet. But in those other countries where the Parliament is a political imposition, the part of the puppet is played by the representatives of the people, and it is much more difficult to understand how men worthy of the name, can find in the petty gratification of their vanity, any compensation for the humiliations which, as members of the legislature or Parliament they are obliged to endure. We can understand how a king in his magnificent palace, in his becoming uniform, in receipt of his splendid allowance, only hearing the most exalted expressions of respect, "gracious Majesty," "illustrious Highness" and so on, falling like snow-flakes about his ears, surrounded on all sides by luxury and the most exaggerated outward forms of homage, we can understand how he can forget that the will of the people is the actual sovereign, and that his glittering pageant of royalty would