There was a feeble stamp or two upon the floor; but the audience, though curious and impressed, were not up to the level of the speaker, and did not know what to make of him. He saw this, and he changed his tone. “I read the other day of the kind of parliament that was a real parliament of the people. Once every two months the whole population met in a great square; and there they were asked to choose the men that were to govern them. They voted all by word of mouth--no ballot tickets in those days--for there was not one of them that was afraid to give his opinion. They chose their men for two months, no more. They were men that were known to all the place that had been known from their cradles; no strangers there, but men they could lay their hands on if they went wrong. It was for two months only, as I tell you, and then the parliament came together again, and the men they had chosen gave an account of what they had done. In my opinion--I don’t know what you may think--that was as perfect a plan of government, and as true a rule of the people as ever existed on this globe. Who is that grumbling behind there? If it is you, Paul Markham, stand up like a man and say what you’ve got to say.” There was a pause for a moment, and everybody looked round; but as no reply was made, the hearers drowned all attempts at opposition in a tumult of stamping feet and approving exclamations. “That was something like,” they cried. And “Go on. Go on! Bravo, Spears!” “Ah, yes. You say ‘Bravo, Spears!’ because I humour you. But that young fellow there at the back, I know what he meant to say. It was all rotten, rotten, rotten to the core; that peoples’ parliament was the greatest humbug that ever was seen; it was the instrument of tyrants; it was the murderer of freedom; there was nothing too silly, nothing too wicked for it; its vote was a sham, and its wisdom was a sham. Ah! you don’t cry ‘Bravo, Spears!’ any more. The reason of all this is that we never get hold of the right men. I don’t know what there is in human nature that makes it so. I have studied it a deal, but I’ve never found that out. The scum gets uppermost, boils up and sticks on the top. That’s my experience. The less honest a man is, the more sure he is to get up to the top. I don’t speak of being born equal like some folks; but I think every man has a right to his share of the place he’s born in--a right to have his portion wherever he is. One man with another, our wants are about the same. One eats a little more, one drinks a little more (and we all do more of that than is good for us), than the rest. But what we’ve got a right to is our share of what’s going. Instead of great estates, great parks, grand palaces where those who call themselves our masters live and starve us, we have a right, every man, to enough of it to live on, to enough----”