The Darkest Hours - 18 Chilling Dystopias in One Edition. Samuel Butler
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spent upon either military purposes or upon State officials, beyond what is strictly necessary, is grudged. The people scrutinise very keenly all public expenditure. They prefer to spend what they regard as their own money in their own way. It seems to me therefore, that either your people do not look at the matter in the same way, or if they do, that the State has discovered a very effective way of overcoming their objections.”
“What you say,” replied Lickrod, “only brings out more and more the difference between our Culture and that of other nations. This sense of antagonism between the interests of the individual and the interests of the State, which has hindered and apparently still hinders the development of other countries, has been almost entirely eradicated among the Meccanians.”
“What!” I said, “do you mean that a Meccanian pays his taxes cheerfully?”
“What taxes?” asked Lickrod blandly.
“I do not know in what form your taxes are paid,” I said, “but they must be paid in some way, and I suspect that even in Meccania, if they were left to voluntary subscription, the Exchequer would not be quite so full.”
“Now that is a very curious instance of what I am tempted to call the political stupidity of other nations. Instead of removing all circumstances that provoke a consciousness of difference between the individual and the State, they seem to call the attention of the private citizen, as they call him, to these differences. They first allow a man to regard property as entirely his own, and then discuss with him how much he shall contribute, and finally make him pay in hard cash.”
“And how do you manage to get over the difficulty?” I said.
“All Meccanians are taught from their youth—even from early childhood—that all they have they owe to the beneficent protection of the State. The State is their Father and their Mother. No one questions its benevolence or its wisdom or its power. Consequently all this haggling about how much shall be paid this year or that year is avoided. The State is the direct paymaster of nearly half the nation. Hence it can deduct what is due without any sense of loss. Through our Banking system the collection of the rest is quite easy. The private employers deduct from the wages of their employees, and are charged the exact amount through the Banks. No one feels it.”
“But does your Parliament exercise no control over taxation?” I asked in some surprise.
“Our Parliament is in such complete accord with the Government that it would not dream of disturbing the system of taxation, which has worked so well for over thirty years,” replied Lickrod.
“Have they the power to do so?” I asked.
“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?”
“There is still an immense fund of religious sentiment that is squandered upon unworthy objects: this may be—I feel sure it will be—directed into a nobler channel. Our ritual, too, in no way corresponds to the sublimity of the Idea of the Super-State. The ritual of the Catholic Church—which is after all but a section of the whole State—is still superior, from the sensuous and the artistic point of view, to our State ritual. Our reverence for the State is too cold, too inarticulate. I have sometimes thought that the Emperor might found an order of priests or monks who would cultivate an inward devotion that would inevitably give birth to a real religion of the State.”
“You are a true missionary,” I said; “in fact, I think you are entitled to be considered a Meccanian Apostle. I have learnt a great deal from our intercourse, and just as you have suggested that the Government might bring more foreigners to see the wonders of your Meccanian Culture, I would suggest that they should send you and others like yourself into other countries to enlighten them as to the real mission of Meccania.”
He was pleased to accept this testimony from an innocent and well-disposed Foreign Observer, and said that I could best show my appreciation by inducing more of my fellow-countrymen to come and study the wonders of Meccanian Culture.
Chapter VIII.
The Mechow Festival
I told Mr. Johnson of this conversation when next we met, and he seemed immensely amused by it. “You will have a chance of seeing a bit of Meccanian ritual to-morrow,” he said.
“You mean this Prince Mechow Festival,” I replied. “What is it like? I suppose you have seen it before?”
“Haven’t you noticed the whole town is crowded with visitors?” he said. “But I won’t take the edge off by telling you anything about it. You shall see it for yourself without prejudice.”
I was aroused about five o’clock next morning