The Stench of Corruption.

A righteous wind is sweeping across Europe and corruption is being exposed all over. According to the author, he do not mean, say, in Russia, where an entirely new system and changing property relations offer golden opportunities to speculators. He means in steady, prosperous, respectable Western Europe. In Italy, where the purge brought the old regime down, the Prime Minister of the new one is now under investigation. In France, ministers tumble and tycoons tremble. In Spain, the escaped former head of the Civil Guard is still, mysteriously, in hiding, while in Great Britain one can find the going rate for a representative asking one's question in Parliament. Everywhere one looks; it's scandals, sleaze and putrefaction. The face of continental Europe is changing. The political parties enter the stage last, as a sort of belated fire brigade, driven to action by popular pressure. This picture reflects a general postwar trend: the diminution of the power of Parliament, of elected assemblies and of political parties. This tendency, however, has been greatly accelerated in the last dozen years or so by the spread of consensus politics in continental Europe.