In response to MACHO's criticism of monarchy, the WTA firmly believes that monarchy is the best system of governance for Middle-Earth at this time. We acknowledge that "centuries of slow and steady decline" are both undesirable and the likely outcome of continual monarchy. Our reason for desiring a monarchy for Middle-Earth is that the generations of stability that a monarchy provide will be the ideal base for a more cautious investigation of the alternatives. We see MACHO's and MEAD's proposals of the immediate introduction of democracy as grossly irresponsible, ignoring the great risk of widespread catastrophic upheaval because of the untested hope of something better. A monarchy under Prince Imrahil will allow us to recover from the devastating War and rebuild our society and our economy without putting us at risk of further upheaval. Once we have recovered, we may start to cautiously investigate options for Middle-Earth's long-term future.
While we acknowledge that expertise certainly does exist outside the hands of the nobility in many areas, including commerce, the WTA maintains that overlooking the experience of nobility and royalty would be a tremendous waste of the resources at hand. Statesmanship is not the same as running a business, and while the accomplished merchants will be an important voice in our Parliament, we believe that the experience of ruling held by the existing ruling classes is of utmost importance for a stable transitionary period. Only in the Shire, the one democratic region currently in existence, and a region with very different requirements of a government to Middle-Earth as a whole, is there any knowledge of statesmanship among the commoners. Obviously this is a deplorable and deeply unfortunate and classist situation, however the way to fight inequality is not to knock down the fortunate, it is to raise up the unfortunate. By forsaking the nobility, MACHO and MEAD will harm Middle-Earth while benefitting no-one, unlike the WTA, who will help the underpriveliged while maintaining Middle-Earth's expertise.
Our ennoblement and honours system will move power in the nobility gradually, over many generations, away from the hereditary upper classes towards meritocratic experts, allowing us not to waste Middle-Earth's accumulated knowledge and wisdom.
In response to allegations that centralised power will result in corruption, I must disagree. As we have stated above, there is strong historical evidence that over the scale of a few centuries, monarchy is stable. In other words, hereditary monarchs remain righteous for many generations. Since we can, in the medium term, be sure of the moral integrity of our King and his advisers, this group can ensure that the middle management of the nation do not fall to corruption. Additionally, we hope that openness of government and freedom of press and reporting will lead to the discrediting of politicians who become corrupt. We agree with MACHO that leaving the control of taxation and of tax-collecting to local authorities presents a far greater risk of corruption than a centralised system, where the watchers and the watched may be in close proximity. We emphatically disagree that local systems make it easier to remove corrupt officials, as in small localities, the very small size of government makes it all too easy for corruption to reach the core, whereas in a larger central body, hundreds of politicians will be watching each other, all will be watched from above by the King and his councillors, and the public will be watching all. We feel that the danger posed by corruption at a small scale is too serious to risk. Local bodies will be better regulated by independent central bodies, who will be non-partisan in local issues so better able to make balanced decisions. Again, the greater size of the central government makes redundancies and safety precautions far more feasible.
On currencies, the WTA too hopes to introduce a universal paper- and credit-based currency, backed by a central bank, and made feasible by our unified fiscal policy. Together with our improvements in infrastructure, this should increase the trading power of local communities and facilitate our program for redistribuing wealth. We agree that paper money will be far more difficult to forge than coinage is.
And to Glaurung, the WTA takes the welfare of all sentient inhabitants of Middle-Earth most seriously. Due to the heterogeneity of the needs and desires of the different races of Middle-Earth, the system of elections to Parliament shall be organised such that Middle-Earth is split up into many overlapping sets of constituencies, one set for each race, to ensure adequate representation of races in minority areas. This way, the dragons, who, as a small minority in all of Middle-Earth except perhaps the Grey Mountains, will have the power to elect a couple of members of Parliament, while otherwise their needs could be sadly overloooked. As another example, as well as the several constituencies for the Men in Rohan, there will be one for the Dwarves, so that the inhabitants of the Glittering Caves may have a vote. This system will also encourage the mainstream political parties to appoint officials of differing races to positions of power.
Additionally, the WTA must highlight our opponent's use of the deeply offensive term "dragon-sickness" in reference to government corruption. The WTA considers stereotyping utterly unacceptable, and deplore the use of such racially-charged language.
Our paper- and credit-based currency will allow those dragons with a love of collection gold and jewellery to do so in a way that is not detrimental to local communities or the economy. The free market and our equality legislation will allow dragons to obtain jobs (for example in academia, in politics, in business), or to hire out their unique services (for example, for high-speed transportation in competition with the eagles, or the production of high-temperature environments for research and industry). Our education system will end the fear of dragons that is widespread among the other races, allowing dragons to take their place among the free people of Middle-Earth.