12
PARTISAN REVIEW
ably well; he had gained a greater confidence from the masses, to
whom it appeared that a leader so well guarded against
himself
by
humor, would never become a tyrant. But it took more than humor
to curb the appetite. To tell the truth, he did not absolutely trust him–
self. "Perhaps," he had wondered, "I stooped to trickery. Hadn't I
known that the article would soon be traced to its author and that
this would make the country trust me all the more-that
is,
further
disarm it against me?" Without the deepest, almost religious belief in
the ends to which non-violence was dedicated, without the constant
attempt to overcome the vanity and the greed, the desire for power
and the other corrupting impulses to which the political leader was
subject, he might even if he achieved
his
ends, easily transgress against
them, and pervert the general gain into a private or a bureaucratic
exploitation.
But was non-violence still possible? The present administration,
while it had not yet fully shown what it was capable of, had already
indicated that it was better prepared than its predecessors to protect
the aims of government-to maintain the rule and not to yield. · It
had the advantage of freedom from public opinion in the mother
country. There the oppression had already been instituted. Under the
guise of rebuilding the national economy the whole country had been
subjected to military discipline-or rather, the war in which it had
been engaged for seven years had never been declared at an end.
The army and the navy were maintained at full fighting strength.
Trade unions were regulated and long hours were still exacted from
factory workers, with strikes forbidden. All expression of protest was
gradually curbed, and finally stifled. Parliament had not convened in
three years and no election had been held in more than a decade.
Political parties had been realigned for the duration of the "national
emergency"-which meant that they had all been placed under the
control of the political council so that, while they differed in name,
they now had the same leadership. Moreover, "experimental prisons"
had been introduced and were rapidly overflowing with subjects for
experiment. For the first time in history, a colony found itself not
much worse off than the mother country.
The administration had good reason to fear its own ambitions.
The colony was so vast that, at least until recently, there had not been
enough arms at the government's dic;posal to coerce even an unarmed
population. Millions of rounds of ammunition (their calculations must
have amazed the government statisticians) would be needed to en–
force the same discipline upon the colony that the mother country
