Page:The Spirit of the Chinese People.djvu/197

Rh theories of Government, the Magna Chartas of Liberty and Constitutions of Europe, the diplomats—the actual Statesmen and Ministers in charge of the government and conduct of public affairs in a country now are there merely to carry out the will of the people: in other words, merely to do whatever the plain men and women in the country tell them to do. Thus we see that the diplomats,—the Statesmen and Ministers in the Government of the countries in Europe today, have also become mere machines, talking machines; in fact mere puppets as in a Marionnettes show; puffed-up puppets without any will of their own, worked, pulled and moved up and down by the plain men and women. Being mere hollow puffed-up puppets, with only a voice, but without any will of their own, how then can it be said that the diplomats,-the Statesmen audand [sic] Ministers now in European countries are responsible for this war?

Indeed the most curious thing, it seems to me, in the government of all the European countirescountries [sic] today is that every one who is actually in charge of the conduct of affairs in the Government,—ruler, soldier as well as diplomat or Statesman and Minister, is not allowed to have any will of his own; not allowed to have any power to do what he thinks best for the security and good of the nation, but every plain man and woman,—John Smith, editor of the "Patriotic Times," Bobus of Houndsditch, once in Carlyle's time, sausage maker and jam manufacturer, but now owner of a big Dreadnought ship building yard, and