word _slagthrit_, "principle"; and when they believe
themselves acting from some high moral motive they are capable of almost
any monstrous injustice or stupid folly. This insane devotion to principle
is craftily fostered by their political leaders who invent captivating
phrases intended to confirm them in it; and these deluding aphorisms are
diligently repeated until all the people have them in memory, with no
knowledge of the fallacies which they conceal. One of these phrases is
"Principles, not men." In the last analysis this is seen to mean that it
is better to be governed by scoundrels professing one set of principles
than by good men holding another. That a scoundrel will govern badly,
regardless of the principles which he is supposed somehow to "represent,"
is a truth which, however obvious to our own enlightened intelligence, has
never penetrated the dark understandings of the Tortirrans. It is chiefly
through the dominance of the heresy fostered by this popular phrase that
the political leaders are able to put base men into office to serve their
own nefarious ends.

I have called the political contests of Tortirra struggles of interests.
In nothing is this more clear (to the looker-on at the game) than in the
endless disputes concerning restrictions on commerce. It must be
understood that lying many leagues to the southeast of Tortirra are other
groups of islands, also wholly unknown to people of our race. They are
known by the general name of _Gropilla-Stron_ (a term signifying "the Land
of the Day-dawn"), though it is impossible to ascertain why, and are
inhabited by a powerful and hardy race, many of whom I have met in the
capital of Tanga. The Stronagu, as they are called, are bold navigators
and traders, their proas making long and hazardous voyages in all the
adjacent seas to exchange commodities with other tribes. For many years
they were welcomed in Tortirra with great hospitality and their goods
eagerly purchased. They took back with them all manner of Tortirran
products and nobody thought of questioning the mutual advantages of the
exchange. But early in the present century a powerful Tortirran demagogue
named Pragam began to persuade the people that commerce was piracy--that
true prosperity consisted in consumption of domestic products and
abstention from foreign. This extraordinary heresy soon gathered such head
that Pragam was appointed Regent and invested with almost dictatorial
powers. He at once