Tarzan and the Ant Men · Chapter 10 (2/2)

“Extravagance reigns supreme. It rests, like a malign incubus, upon the king and his government. To mend its inroads upon the treasury, the burden of the incubus is shifted from the back of the government to the back of the people in the form of outrageous taxes which no man can meet honestly and have sufficient remaining wherewith to indulge his appetites, and so by one means or another, he passes the burden on to those less fortunate or less shrewd.”

“But the heaviest taxation falls upon the rich,” Gofoloso reminded him.

“In theory, but not in fact,” replied Gefasto. “It is true that the rich pay the bulk of the taxes into the treasury of the king, but first they collect it from the poor in higher prices and other forms of extortion, in the proportion of two jetaks for every one that they pay to the tax collector. The cost of collecting this tax added to the loss in revenue to the government by the abolition of wine and the cost of preventing the unscrupulous from making and selling wine illicitly would, if turned back into the coffers of the government, reduce our taxes so materially that they would fall as a burden upon none.”

“And that, you think, would solve our problems and restore happiness to Veltopismakus?” asked Gofoloso.

“No,” replied his fellow prince. “We must have war. As we have found that there is no enduring happiness in peace or virtue, let us have a little war and a little sin. A pudding that is all of one ingredient is nauseating⁠—it must be seasoned, it must be spiced, and before we can enjoy the eating of it to the fullest we must be forced to strive for it. War and work, the two most distasteful things in the world, are, nevertheless, the most essential to the happiness and the existence of a people. Peace reduces the necessity for labor, and induces slothfulness. War compels labor, that her ravages may be effaced. Peace turns us into fat worms. War makes men of us.”

“War and wine, then, would restore Veltopismakus to her former pride and happiness, you think?” laughed Gofoloso. “What a firebrand you have become since you came to the command of all the warriors of our city!”

“You misunderstand me, Gofoloso,” said Gefasto, patiently. “War and wine alone will accomplish nothing but our ruin. I have no quarrel with peace or virtue or temperance. My quarrel is with the misguided theorists who think that peace alone, or virtue alone, or temperance alone will make a strong, a virile, a contented nation. They must be mixed with war and wine and sin and a great measure of hard work⁠—especially hard work⁠—and with nothing but peace and prosperity there is little necessity for hard work, and only the exceptional man works hard when he does not have to.

“But come, you must hasten to deliver the hundred slaves to Vestako before the Sun enters the Warriors’ Corridor, or he will tell your little joke to Elkomoelhago.”

Gofoloso smiled ruefully. “Some day he shall pay for these hundred slaves,” he said, “and the price will be very high.”

“If his master falls,” said Gefasto.

“When his master falls!” Gofoloso corrected.

The Chief of Warriors shrugged his shoulders, but he smiled contentedly, and he was still smiling after his friend had turned into an intersecting corridor and gone his way.