United States or Japan ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Merchants and managers of enterprises and shops, skippers of the schooners that comb the Dangerous Archipelago and the dark Marquesas for pearl and shell and copra, vanilla- and pearl-buyers, planters, and lesser bureaucrats, idlers or retired adventurers living in Tahiti, and tourists made the club for a few hours a day a polyglot exchange of current topics between man and man, a place of initiation and of judgment of business deals, a precious refuge against smug bores and a sanctuary for refreshment of body and soul with cooling drinks.
And because the nations had nothing to fear from one another, and because there were no scheming diplomatists and bureaucrats to make a living out of imaginary antagonisms, people forgot that they were French or German or Russian or English, just as the people of the United States of America had long before practically disregarded the fact that they came from Ohio or Oregon or Connecticut or Nevada.
Paris continued in a state of siege and the censors were the busiest bureaucrats in the capital.
The arbitrary power of the dynasty is based: upon the organisation of the army, the leadership of which is entrusted to the Germans; upon the feudal aristocracy who are the only real Austrians, since they have no nationality, though they invariably side with the dominant Germans and Magyars; upon the power of the police who form the chief instrument of the autocratic government and who spy upon and terrorise the population; upon the German bureaucrats who do not consider themselves the servants of the public, but look upon the public as their servant, and whose spirit of meanness and corruption is so characteristic of the Austrian body politic; finally, the dynasty relies upon the Catholic hierarchy who hold vast landed property in Austria and regard it as the bulwark of Catholicism, and who through Clericalism strive for political power rather than for the religious welfare of their denomination.
His father's administration of the family estates had not been successful; it is said that his mother had constantly pressed her husband to introduce innovations, but had not consistently carried them out; this was a not unnatural characteristic in the clever and ambitious woman who wished to introduce into agricultural affairs those habits which she had learnt from the bureaucrats in Berlin.
Possibly this prosperity prompted in the Russian bureaucracy the desire to bring the Grand Duchy closely into line with the rest of the Empire. On grounds other than constitutional, the bureaucrats had a case. They argued that while the revenue of Finland was increasing faster than that of Russia Proper, yet the Grand Duchy bore no share of the added military burdens.
Sir William Hamilton had a high opinion of the" General," soon to become Field-Marshal. He took a strong part in resistance to revolutionary propaganda, caused to be built the ships which assisted Nelson in 1795, and proved himself one of the most capable bureaucrats of the time. But the French proved too strong, and Napoleon was the cause of his disgrace in 1804.
The late clerk then rubs his hands, now empty, and says to himself, "I always did foresee the success of the business." But nearly all these retired bureaucrats have to fight against their former habits. "Some," Colleville used to say, "are victims to a sort of 'spleen' peculiar to the government clerk; they die of a checked circulation; a red-tapeworm is in their vitals.
The members of the two councils were in the main of English birth, and they constituted a local oligarchy known as the 'Bureaucrats' or the 'Château Clique' which held the reins of government. They were as a rule able to snap their fingers at the majority in the Assembly.
Thanks to his knowledge of the situation and promptness, we immediately put in our requisitions for the articles indispensable for the equipment of the regiment; and then, by ceaseless worrying of excellent bureaucrats, who had no idea how to do things quickly or how to meet an emergency, we succeeded in getting our rifles, cartridges, revolvers, clothing, shelter-tents, and horse gear just in time to enable us to go on the Santiago expedition.
Word Of The Day