There was much the same idea in Becket's
attempt to remove the Priest, who was then the popular champion, from the
ordinary courts. We shall have no Tribune; for we have no republic. We
shall have no Priest; for we have no religion. The best we deserve or can
expect is a Fool who shall be free; and who shall deliver us with laughter.
THE ART OF MISSING THE POINT
Missing the point is a very fine art; and has been carried to something
like perfection by politicians and Pressmen to-day. For the point is
generally a very sharp point; and is, moreover, sharp at both ends. That
is to say that both parties would probably impale themselves in an
uncomfortable manner if they did not manage to avoid it altogether. I
have just been looking at the election address of the official Liberal
candidate for the part of the country in which I live; and though it is,
if anything, rather more logical and free from cant than most other
documents of the sort it is an excellent example of missing the point.
The candidate has to go boring on about Free Trade and Land Reform and
Education; and nobody reading it could possibly imagine that in the town
of Wycombe, where the poll will be declared, the capital of the Wycombe
division of Bucks which the candidate is contesting, centre of the
important and vital trade on which it has thriven, a savage struggle about
justice has been raging for months past between the poor and rich, as real
as the French Revolution.
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