in red battalions. The other is that the vast estates into which England
has long been divided are passing out of the hands of the English gentry
into the hands of men who are always upstarts and often actually
foreigners.

Now, these are just the sort of things with which self-government was
really supposed to grapple. People were supposed to be able to indicate
whether they wished to live in town or country, to be represented by a
gentleman or a cad. I do not presume to prejudge their decision; perhaps
they would prefer the cad; perhaps he is really preferable. I say that
the filling of a man's native sky with smoke or the selling of his roof
over his head illustrate the sort of things he ought to have some say in,
if he is supposed to be governing himself. But owing to the strange trend
of recent society, these enormous earthquakes he has to pass over and
treat as private trivialities. In theory the building of a villa is as
incidental as the buying of a hat. In reality it is as if all Lancashire
were laid waste for deer forests; or as if all Belgium were flooded by the
sea. In theory the sale of a squire's land to a moneylender is a minor
and exceptional necessity. In reality it is a thing like a German
invasion. Sometimes it is a German invasion.

Upon this helpless populace, gazing at these prodigies and fates, comes
round about every five years a thing called a General Election. It is
believed by antiquarians to be the remains of some system of
self-government; but it consists solely in asking the citizen questions
about everything except what he understands. The examination paper of the
Election generally consists of some such queries as these: "I. Are the
green biscuits eaten by the peasants of Eastern Lithuania in your opinion
fit for human food? II. Are the religious professions of the President of
the Orange Free State hypocritical or sincere? III. Do you think that the