Give him real authority so that he
may establish his influence. Place his name at the head of other
men of little consequence in the golden box. Then there will be
absolutely no ground for dispute when the time comes to open the
box.
If every President will do likewise this system can be used
without fear of a break for hundreds of years. Otherwise we will
have only the Imperial system on paper to rely on for assistance,
which is not even to be thought of. A glance through the pages of
Chinese history will show the numerous cases in the reign of
Emperors when princes fought in the very confines of the Emperor's
palace while the corpse of their royal father lay unburied in the
hall. Thus it is seen that the hidden cause of the safety or
otherwise of the country does not lie with the mere formality of a
constitution either in a republic or a monarchy.
VII. THE CASE OF DIAZ, THE DICTATOR
The critics bring up the example of Mexico where live rivals have
been struggling with each other for the presidency, and the
internal confusion of the Central and South American republics as
well as Portugal, as an unquestionable proof of their contention
that a republic is not so good as a monarchy. I imagine that the
idea of these critics is that all these disturbances can be
avoided if all these republics were changed into monarchies. Let
me tell them that Diaz ruled over Mexico for thirty years, and
only died as an exile in May last (I am not quite sure of the
exact month).
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