There is an instructive little anecdote upon the occupation of Rome in
1870.
When the French garrison was withdrawn and the Northern Italians had
occupied the city, representative machinery was set to work, nominally
to discover whether the change in Government were popular or no. A tiny
handful of votes was recorded in the negative, let us say forty-three.
Later, in the early winter of that same year, a great festival of the
Church was celebrated in the Basilica of St. Peter and at the tombs of the
Apostles. The huge church was crowded, many were even pressed outside the
doors. When the ceremony was over the dense mass that streamed out into
the darkness took up the cry, the irony of which filled the night air of
the Trastevere and its slums of sovereign citizens. The cry was this:
"We are the Forty-three!"
It is an anecdote that applies continually to the modern representative
system in every country which has the misfortune to support it. No one
needs to be reminded of such a truth. We know in England how the one
strong feeling in the elections of 1906 was the desire to get at the South
African Jews and sweep away their Chinese labour from under them.
The politicians and the party hacks put into power by that popular
determination went straight to the South African Jews, hat in hand, asked
them what was their good pleasure in the matter, and framed a scheme in
connivance with them, by which no vengeance should be taken and not a
penny of theirs should be imperilled.
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