Once nominated, he exercises an absolute local power, on condition of satisfying the interests of his committees. Before this necessity the general interest of the country disappears almost totally from the mind of the elected representative.
Naturally the committees, having need of docile servants, do not choose for this task individuals gifted with a lofty intelligence nor, above all, with a very high morality. They must have men without character, without social position, and always docile.
By reason of these necessities the servility of the deputy in respect of these little groups which patronise him, and without which he would be no one, is absolute. He will speak and vote just as his committee tells him. His political ideal may be expressed in a few words: it is to obey, that he may retain his post.
Sometimes, rarely indeed, and only when by name or position or wealth he has a great prestige, a superior character may impose himself upon the popular vote by overcoming the tyranny of the impudent minorities which constitute the local committees.
Democratic countries like France are only apparently governed by universal suffrage. For this reason is it that so many measures are passed which do not interest the people and which the people never demanded. Such were the purchase of the Western railways, the laws respecting congregations, &c. These absurd manifestations merely translated the demands of fanatical local committees, and were imposed upon deputies whom they had chosen.
We may judge of the influence of these committees when we see moderate deputies forced to patronise the anarchical destroyers of arsenals, to ally themselves with anti-militarists, and, in a word, to obey the most atrocious demands in order to ensure re-election. The will of the lowest elements of democracy has thus created among the elected representatives manners and a morality which we can but recognise are of the lowest. The politician is the man in public employment, and as Nietzsche says:—
``Where public employment begins there begins also the clamour of the great comedians and the buzzing of venomous flies. . . . The comedian always believes in that which makes him obtain his best effects, in that which impels the people to believe in him. To- morrow he will have a new faith, and the day after to-morrow yet another. . . . All that is great has its being far from public employment and glory.''
4. The Craving for Reforms.
The craze for reforms imposed suddenly by means of decrees is one of the most disastrous conceptions of the Jacobin spirit, one of the formidable legacies left by the Revolution. It is among the principal factors of all the incessant political upheavals of the last century in France.
One of the psychological causes of this intense thirst for reforms arises from the difficulty of determining the real causes of the evils complained of. The need of explanation creates fictitious causes of the simplest nature. Therefore the remedies also appear simple.