Page:Tyranny of Shams (1916).djvu/104

 of our politicians confess that one must almost lay aside one’s honesty and ideals on entering the political world.

A series of grave struggles and threats of civil war in the first half of the nineteenth century inaugurated the present political phase in Europe. It transpired after Waterloo that the English parliamentary system, in which our statesmen took such pride, was a hollow and corrupt sham. A comparatively few wealthy landowners controlled the nation, and bought votes for their nominees. After some years of agitation the working men of the great manufacturing centres formed armies and threatened to force the doors of Westminster at the point of the pike. This elicited a system of restricted, but real, popular representation. Later enlargements of the franchise improved the system, and to-day some six or seven million adult males elect our legislators. Until recently this scheme was largely frustrated by the power of a non-elected House to suppress any measure which did not please a privileged minority, but this is now materially modified. Six million free and adult representatives of the nation appoint and control the men who make our laws, and direct the king how to act.

But in practice this admirable theory becomes a mockery and an illusion. It may be taken as a Euclidean postulate that out of six million people of any civilised nation four or five millions will be—shall we say?—somnolent: not from want of