“They have the power to ask questions, certainly,” he replied; “but the taxes are fixed for periods of seven years. That is to say, the direct taxes falling upon each separate class are fixed every seven years in each case; so that the taxes for the First Class come up for revision one year, those for the Second Class the next year, and so on. The Constitution does not allow Parliament to increase the amount asked for by the Government, and as the vote is taken not individually but by classes, it is hardly to the interest of any of the classes to try to reduce the amount assessed upon any one class. Besides, the Government derives a considerable proportion of its income from its own property in the shape of mines, railways, forests, farms, and so forth. When we hear foreigners speak of Parliamentary Opposition we hardly know what the term means. It is entirely foreign to the Meccanian spirit.”
“You speak of the Government,” I remarked, “but I have not yet discovered what the Government is.”
“I am afraid I must refer you to our manuals of Constitutional Law,” replied Lickrod.
“Oh, I know in a general way the outline of your Constitution,” I said, “but in every country there is a real working Constitution, which differs from the formal Constitution. For instance, Constitutions usually contain nothing about political parties, yet the policy and traditions of these parties are the most important factors. The merely legal powers of a monarch, for instance, may in practice lapse, or may be so rarely exercised as not to matter. Now in Meccania one sees a powerful Government at work everywhere—that is, one sees the machinery of Government, but the driving force and the controlling force seem hidden.”
“You may find the answer to your question if you make a study of our political institutions. At present I am afraid your curiosity seems directed towards matters that to us have only a sort of historical interest. It would never occur to any Meccanian to ask who controls the Government. His conception of the State is so entirely different that the question seems almost unmeaning.”
“I have recently spent a long time in Luniland,” I remarked at this point, “and I am afraid a Lunilander would say that if such a question has become unmeaning to a Meccanian, the Meccanians must have lost the political sense.”
“And we should say that we have solved the problem of politics. We should say,” he went on, “that the Lunilanders have no Government. A Government that can be changed every few years, a Government that has to ask the consent of what they call the taxpayers for every penny it is to spend, a Government that must expose all its business to an ignorant mob, a Government that must pass and carry out any law demanded by a mere majority—we do not call that a Government.”
“They regard liberty as more important than Government,” I replied, with a smile.
“They are still enslaved by the superstitions of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries,” he replied solemnly. “No nation will make real progress until it learns how to embody its physical, intellectual and spiritual forces in an all-embracing State. Our State may be imperfect—I know it is—but we are in the right way; and developed as it may be in another century it will completely answer all human requirements.”
“Developed?” I said, almost betraying my amusement, for I wondered what further developments the Super-State was capable of. “In what directions do you anticipate development?”