six-hundred-and-seventieth

Updated: May 4, 2025

To have the ten-thousandth part of a voice in selecting among the varying policies of sundry ambitious gentlemen, all of whom have been foisted on me by committees, and of whom the successful one whose professed views may be quite antithetical to mine and can at best only roughly represent them will have, when he is not absent or manoeuvred into silence, the six-hundred-and-seventieth part of a voice in accepting or rejecting the ideas of half a dozen very ambitious gentlemen, whose measures are themselves liable to be quashed at the eleventh hour by an Upper House that sits without my will or consent, and which is in its turn legally liable to be superseded by the Sovereign, whose government is all the while being really carried on in silence by permanent officials whose very names I do not know and who have no connection with me beyond accepting, in ignorance of my existence, my dole towards their salaries, this is not a form of democracy that appeals very attractively to me as an individual member of Demos.

Israel Zangwill - Without Prejudice