CHAPTER XI: CONCERNING GOVERNMENT



"Now," said I, "I have come to the point of asking questions which I
suppose will be dry for you to answer and difficult for you to
explain; but I have foreseen for some time past that I must ask them,
will I 'nill I. What kind of a government have you? Has
republicanism finally triumphed? or have you come to a mere
dictatorship, which some persons in the nineteenth century used to
prophesy as the ultimate outcome of democracy? Indeed, this last
question does not seem so very unreasonable, since you have turned
your Parliament House into a dung-market. Or where do you house your
present Parliament?"

The old man answered my smile with a hearty laugh, and said: "Well,
well, dung is not the worst kind of corruption; fertility may come of
that, whereas mere dearth came from the other kind, of which those
walls once held the great supporters. Now, dear guest, let me tell
you that our present parliament would be hard to house in one place,
because the whole people is our parliament."

"I don't understand," said I.

"No, I suppose not," said he. "I must now shock you by telling you
that we have no longer anything which you, a native of another
planet, would call a government."