The Buttercup Spell by Henry Cecil

Author:Henry Cecil
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: House of Stratus

The matter was considered, and as it did not seem that any harm could come from the suggestion being adopted, two Ministers were invited to volunteer to opt out.

‘After all,’ said the Prime Minister, ‘you can always come in later.’

The following week a crowded House heard the Prime Minister introduce a Bill to enable the water supply for the whole country to be impregnated with buttercup pollen each year. There were some dissentient voices.

‘I’m all in favour of brotherly love,’ said one dissenter, ‘but I am very much against people being compelled to take any form of drug. I thought it absolutely wrong that our water should be treated with fluoride, and I said so in no uncertain terms at the time. Although the object then was intended to be a beneficial one, as it is now, it is quite wrong in a free country to drug people in any way, even though it may be entirely for their benefit and for the benefit of their neighbours. I may myself willingly drink the stuff, having regard to its remarkable qualities and to the assurances we have had from the analysts that only good can come from taking it. I have no doubt myself that it might be greatly to the advantage of all of us that all of us should take it. Nonetheless, taking it must be a matter of choice. It must not literally be thrust down our throats. I am most grateful to Mr and Mrs Strang, and I think that society as a whole owes them a most tremendous debt. Nevertheless I stand for the right of every citizen of this country to decide for himself what he wants to eat and what he wants to drink. If this Bill becomes law, it will give him no option. What may follow next? May we, perhaps, be given a powder which will make us run a hundred yards in five seconds. Or even fly through the air? Who knows? By all means give the public every possible opportunity of drinking this powder. Make it freely available to everyone, but to compel every man, woman and child in this country to drink what the Government tells them to drink, is to my mind a gross restriction upon the freedom of choice of the individual. I shall, therefore, vote against this Bill, and I ask the Government, even at this stage, to reconsider the matter.’

However, in the end the Bill was passed in both Houses by a substantial majority. The two factors which mainly influenced those in its favour were the reduction of road accidents and the strong probability that industrial disputes would be similarly reduced. At the time millions of man-hours were being lost in strikes and lockouts.

A factory was set up to extract the pollen and arrangements were made to distribute it and to pollenise the water supply. This of course took some little time, and it was several months before the whole population was under buttercup influence.

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