218	THE  BRITISH  APPROACH  TO  POLITICS
But discussion cannot find the truth unless the disputants
have access to facts. In Britain, defenders and critics of the
Government can use statistics of undisputed accuracy concerning
trade, employment, taxation and the public welfare. If—and it
is in Britain a fantastic supposition—the Government attempted
to intimidate a Civil Servant into falsifying the figures, he has
only to disclose the feet and the resulting scandal would defeat
the attempt. The servant of a dictator must, for the sake of his
employment or even his life, produce such statistics as his master
approves. Statistics can be misinterpreted or wrongly used in
any argument Under any system; but while the statistics of a
democracy are in themselves reliable, those of a dictatorship
are not. This third merit, superior honesty, appears also in the
handling of money and appointments. Corruption and embezzle-
ment of public funds together form an evil that has plagued
all Governments from time immemorial; it is denounced in the
Scriptures and those who practise it occupy a special place in
Dante's Inferno. Aspirants to dictatorship, like the Belgian
Resists, declare it to be the chief feature of Parliamentary life;
the whispered jokes with which a dictator's subjects console
themselves, impute it to his officials. Democracy, however, has
an antidote, the Opposition, to whom the discovery of bribery or
false accounts will be a powerful weapon. Dictatorship can
always prevent open scandal by getting rid of those who ask
awkward questionsy.or by veiling its finances in secret; but for
this very reason, once corruption enters it is less easily rooted
out. The immediate cause of the overthrow of the German
democracy was the desire of Prussian landowners to prevent the
exposure of their embezzlements*
Financial dishonesty is usually committed by underlings; it
does not appear to be common among the chief statesmen of
democracies nor among dictators themselves, who seek power
rather than luxury. But every dictator must appoint subordinates
who know that personal loyalty will cover a multitude of sins;
the local boss, who can reply to critics by accusing them of