ns
are, or should be, treated by those who understand the 'science and
objects of government' on a semi-financial basis. I mean, they should
be dealt with as an investor deals with his funds, in order to make as
much out of them as possible, not to bring real benefit to the
country."

"You put the matter rather awkwardly, but I think I follow you. I will
try to explain. In the first place, all the old-fashioned Jingo
nonsense about patriotism and the 'honour of the country' has, if
people only knew it, quite exploded; it only lingers in a certain
section of the landed gentry and a proportion of the upper middle
class, and has no serious weight with leading politicians."

"How about Lord Beaconsfield?"

"Well, he was perhaps an exception; but then he was a man with so
large a mind--I say it, though I detested him--that he could actually,
by a sort of political prescience, see into the far future, and shape
his course accordingly. But even in his case I do not believe that he
was actuated by patriotism, but rather by a keener insight into human
affairs than most men possess."

"And yet he came terribly to grief."

"Because he outflew his age. The will of the country--which means the
will of between five hundred thousand and a million hungry fluctuating
electors--could not wait for the development of his imperial schemes.
They wanted plunder in the present, not honour and prosperity for the
Empire in the future. The instinct of robbery is perhaps the strongest
in human nature, and those who would rule humanity on its present
basis must pander to it or fail. The party of progress means the party
that can give most spoil, taken from those that have, to those that
have not. That is why Mr. Gladstone is such a truly great man; he
understands better than any one of his age how to excite the greed of
hungry voters and to guide it for his own ends. What was the
Midlothian campaign but a crusade of plunder? First he excited the
desire, then he promised to satisfy it. Of course that is impossible,
but at the time he was believed, and his promises floated us
triumphantly into power. The same arguments apply to that body of
electors whose motive power is sentiment--their folly must be pandered
to. For instance, the Transvaal Convention that Mrs. Carr mentioned is
an admirable example of how such pandering is done. No man of
experience can have believed that such an agreement could be wise, or
that it can result in anything but