ABSTRACT
It may be objected that a statesman is not a principal but an agent; so long as his countrymen are deaf to the appeals of a wider morality, he has no mandate to be otherwise. If his policies are selfish, the fault is theirs, not his. But this surely misrepresents the situation. A government is open to criticism; in democratic countries it is constitutionally bound to justify its stewardship, and must seek re-election from time to time. But this is quite different from saying that statesmen are delegates, with a mandate to pursue specified objectives, and entitled to act only within limits authorized by their subjects.
