The Sun Also Sets

THE VERY first words addressed to me by my summer employer were unremarkably observant. "My God," he cried, "you're English." This, alas, is all too true. It is also something of a novelty in the British Houses of Parliament, where the lobbies echo with the sound of eager young Americans panting for the fray. Far from being the club-like sanctum it popularly is supposed to be, the British Parliament rapidly is becoming a summer camp for hordes of keen foreigners.

To the unsuspecting guest this appears odd. Surely a country that has with such high success and low cunning preserved every quaint and tourist-attracting feature it posesses--regardless of intrinsic worth--would take especial care to do so in the case of its government. After all, is not "Inertia" the great rallying call of the British? What possibly could have induced Parliament to introduce such vast numbers of Americans into its musty domain?

As usual in these sad days, filthy lucre is the mother of innovation. The preponderance of American accents in Parliament is yet another cunning British scheme to milk its antiquity for all that it is worth. Not content with turning the entire country into its meager conception of a tourist's paradise, England has gone it one better and changed its government to suit the times. Penury again is the cause of change.

IT APPEARS that the English are unwilling to work for no pay. They subscribe to the wholly rational theory that future employers--if there are such a thing in these uncertain economic times--will look with righteous scorn upon such futile experience. Someone they feel who is either foolish or rich enough to work for nothing while still a penniless youth undoubtedly will still be both foolish and rich enough to do so later. Ergo, a distinct lack of natives chomping at the bit to join the lowly hordes of parliamentary researchers.

Americans, on the other hand, appear delighted to work for nothing. Secure in their anticipation of future employment, they hasten to fritter away their summers in such congenial and prestigious surroundings. Such indeed is their enthusiasm for the Mother of Parliaments that many are willing not only to work eight hours a day without the slightest monetary reward but also to pay for the privilege of doing so through various exorbitant programs.

This enthusiasm proves an absolute godsend to back bench Members of Parliament who receive but meager salaries on which they usually manage to mantain one devoted and underpaid secretary. To such MPs crowds of keen and reasonably intelligent free research assistants are manna from heaven. With the aid of one to three such assistants the beleagured MP may now indulge in as much work as he feels suitable or necessary.

This is not to say that the foreign research assistant is necessarily onto a bad thing. On the contrary, he now has ample opportunity to enter into copious correspondence with the assorted lunatics of his MP's constituency. From them he will learn such endearing and necessary information as the fact that youth unemployment in Britain could be substantially alleviated if not actually eradicated by the simple expedient of building a wall around the Isle of Wight. This, incidentally, also would have the beneficial effect of preventing the erosion by which the island apparently is much menaced.

SHOULD THIS elevating contact with some of Britain's looniest minds lose its charm, the research assistant alternately can choose to immerse himself in the topics of national importance with which he has been entrusted.

Such all-important questions as the exact status of a group of women cricketers who inadvertently visited South Africa, or the possible viability of various tentative two-mile stretches of motorway can easily be elaborated upon until they assume the nature of compulsive interests. The variety of briefs and letter that can be written upon such topics is legion and easily will appeal to the budding intellectual.

Lastly, the research assistant should if at all possible choose a MP whose political views are as diametrically opposed to his own as possible. This will afford him continual entertainment and teach him the valuable art of dissimulation so necessary to future success.

If despite these myriad opportunities for simple pleasure the assistant feels exploited or even despondent, let him reflect upon the cheering fact that without his presence the British government would be spending still more of the money it so patently lacks. He may then view his summer in the light of a charitable contribution to the British economy and return to his native climes in a rosy glow of pleasant self-righteousness.