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your poor sore feet? Confucius Gravely. I thank you for your kind inquiries. I am well. Burge-Lubin That’s right. Sit down and make yourself comfortable. Any business for me today? Confucius Sitting down on the first chair round the corner of the table to the President’s right. None. Burge-Lubin Have you heard the result of the bye-election? Confucius A walkover. Only one candidate. Burge-Lubin Any good? Confucius He was released from the County Lunatic Asylum a fortnight ago. Not mad enough for the lethal chamber: not sane enough for any place but the division lobby. A very popular speaker. Burge-Lubin I wish the people would take a serious interest in politics. Confucius I do not agree. The Englishman is not fitted by nature to understand politics. Ever since the public services have been manned by Chinese, the country has been well and honestly governed. What more is needed? Burge-Lubin What I can’t make out is that China is one of the worst governed countries on earth. Confucius No. It was badly governed twenty years ago; but since we forbade any Chinaman to take part in our public services, and imported natives of Scotland for that purpose, we have done well. Your information here is always twenty years out of date. Burge-Lubin People don’t seem to be able to govern themselves. I can’t understand it. Why should it be so? Confucius Justice is impartiality. Only strangers are impartial. Burge-Lubin It ends in the public services being so good that the Government has nothing to do but think. Confucius Were it otherwise, the Government would have too much to do to think. Burge-Lubin Is that any excuse for the English people electing a parliament of lunatics? Confucius The English people always did elect parliaments of lunatics. What does it matter if your permanent officials are honest and competent? Burge-Lubin You do not know the history of this country. What would my ancestors have said to the menagerie of degenerates that is still called the House of Commons? Confucius: you will not believe me; and I do not blame you for it; but England once saved the liberties of the world by inventing parliamentary government, which was her peculiar and supreme glory. Confucius I know the history of your country perfectly well. It proves the exact contrary. Burge-Lubin How do you make that out? Confucius The only power your parliament ever had was the power of withholding supplies from the king. Burge-Lubin Precisely. That great Englishman Simon de Montfort⁠— Confucius He was not an Englishman: he was a Frenchman. He imported parliaments from France. Burge-Lubin Surprised. You don’t say so! Confucius The king and his loyal subjects killed Simon for forcing his French parliament on them. The first thing British parliaments always did was to grant supplies to the king for life with enthusiastic expressions of loyalty, lest they should have any real power, and be expected to do something. Burge-Lubin Look here, Confucius: you know more history than I do, of course; but democracy⁠— Confucius An institution peculiar to China. And it was never really a success there. Burge-Lubin But the Habeas Corpus Act! Confucius The English always suspended it when it threatened to be of the slightest use. Burge-Lubin Well, trial by jury: you can’t deny that we established that? Confucius All cases that were dangerous to the governing classes were tried in the Star Chamber or by Court Martial, except when the prisoner was not tried at all, but executed after calling him names enough to make him unpopular. Burge-Lubin Oh, bother! You may be right in these little details; but in the large we have managed to hold our own as a great race. Well, people who could do nothing couldn’t have done that, you know. Confucius I did not say you could do nothing. You could fight. You could eat. You could drink. Until the twentieth century you could produce children. You could play games. You could work when you were forced to. But you could not govern yourselves. Burge-Lubin Then how did we get our reputation as the pioneers of liberty? Confucius By your steadfast refusal to be governed at all. A horse that kicks everyone who tries to harness and guide him may be a pioneer of liberty; but he is not a pioneer of government. In China he would be shot. Burge-Lubin Stuff! Do you imply that the administration of which I am president is no Government? Confucius I do. I am the Government. Burge-Lubin You! You!! You fat yellow lump of conceit! Confucius Only an Englishman could be so ignorant of the nature of government as to suppose that a capable statesman cannot be fat, yellow, and conceited. Many Englishmen are slim, red-nosed, and modest. Put them in my place, and within a year you will be back in the anarchy and chaos of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Burge-Lubin Oh, if you go back to the dark ages, I have nothing more to say. But we did not perish. We extricated ourselves from that chaos. We are now the best governed country in the world. How did we manage that if we are such fools as you pretend? Confucius You did not do it until the slaughter and ruin produced by your anarchy forced you at last to recognize two inexorable facts. First, that government is absolutely necessary to civilization, and that you could not maintain civilization by merely doing down your neighbor, as you called it, and cutting off the head of your king whenever he happened to be a logical Scot and tried to take his position seriously. Second, that government is an art of which you are congenitally incapable. Accordingly, you imported educated negresses and Chinese to govern you. Since then you have done very well. Burge-Lubin So have you, you old humbug. All the same, I don’t know how you stand the work you do. You seem to me positively to like public business. Why won’t you let me take you down to the coast some weekend and teach you marine golf? Confucius It does not interest me. I am not a barbarian. Burge-Lubin You mean that I am? Confucius That is evident. Burge-Lubin How? Confucius People like you. They like cheerful