The Online Library of Liberty

A project of Liberty Fund, Inc.

• United States Prefatory Note
• Chapter XXXVIII: The Beginnings of Democracy In North America
• Chapter XXXIX: The Frame of Government : State, Local, and Federal Constitutions
• Chapter Xl: the Party System
• Chapter Xli: the Actual Working of the National and State Governments
• Chapter Xlii: the State Governments In Their Working
• Chapter Xliii: the Judiciary and Civil Order
• Chapter Xliv: Public Opinion
• Chapter Xlv: Recent Reforming Movements
• Australia
• Chapter Xlvi: Australian History and Frame of Government
• Chapter Xlvii: Australian Legislatures and Executives
• Chapter Xlviii: the Executive and the Civil Service
• Chapter Xlix: Australian Parties and Policies
• Chapter L: Questions Now Before the Australian People
• Chapter Li: Labour Policies and Proposals
• Chapter Lii: Characteristics of Australian Democracy
• New Zealand
• Chaptee Liii: the Country and Its First Half Century of History
• Chapter Liv: Richard Seddon and His Policies
• Chapter Lv: Compuisoby Aebiteation In Tbade Disputes
• Chapter Lvi: the Working of the Government
• Chapter Lvii: Results of Democratic Government
• Part Iii
• Chapter Lviii: the Decline of Legislatures
• Chapter Lix: the Pathology of Legislatures
• Chapter Lx: the Executive In a Democracy
• Chapter Lxi: Democracy and Foreign Policy 1
• Chapter Lxii: the Judiciary
• Chapter Lxiii: Checks and Balances
• Chapter Lxiv: Second Chambers
• Chapter Lxv: Direct Legislation By the People
• Chapter Lxvi: the Relation of Central to Local Government
• Chapter Lxvii: Comparison of the Six Democratic Governments Examined
• Chapter Lxviii: Types of Democratic Government
• Chapter Lxix: the Money Power In Politics
• Chapter Lxx: Responsibility
• Chapter Lxxi: Democracy and the Backward Races
• Chapter Lxxii: the Relation of Democracy to Letters and Arts
• Chapter Lxxiii: the Results Democratic Government Has Given
• Chapter Lxxiv: Democracy Compared With Other Forms of Government
• Chapter Lxxv: Oligarchies Within Democracies
• Chapter Lxxvi: Leadership In a Democracy
• Chapter Lxxvii: the Later Phases of Democracy
• Chapter Lxxviii: Present Tendencies In Democracies
• Chapter Lxxix: Democracy and the Communist State
• Chapter Lxxx: the Future of Democracy

PART III

This concluding Part contains —

A. An examination and criticism of democratic institutions in the light of the facts described in the survey contained in Part II. of the working of six democratic governments.

(Chapters LVIIL-LXVIII.)

B. Observations on certain phenomena which bear on the working of Democracy everywhere.

(Chapters LXIX.-LXXII.)

C. General reflections on the present and future of Democratic Government suggested by a study of the forms it has taken, the changes it has undergone, and the tendencies that are now affecting it.

(Chapters LXXIII. to End.)

CHAPTER LVIII

the decline of legislatures

Every traveller who, curious in political affairs, enquires in the countries which he visits how their legislative bodies are working, receives from the elder men the same discouraging answer. They tell him, in terms much the same everywhere, that there is less brilliant speaking than in the days of their own youth, that the tone of manners has declined, that the best citizens are less disposed to enter the Chamber, that its proceedings are less fully reported and excite less interest, that a seat in it confers less social status, and that, for one reason or another, the respect felt for it has waned. The wary traveller discounts these jeremiads, conscious of the tendency in himself, growing with his years, to dwell in memory chiefly upon the things he used to most enjoy in his boyhood,— the long fine summers when one could swim daily in the river and apples were plentiful, the fine hard winters when the ice sheets on Windermere or Loch Lomond gathered crowds of skaters. Nevertheless this disparagement of the legislatures of our own day is too general, and appears in too many forms, to be passed by. There is evidence to indicate in nearly every country some decline from that admiration of and confidence in the system of representative government which in England possessed the generation who took their constitutional history from Hallam and Macaulay, and their political philosophy from John Stuart Mill and Walter Bagehot; and in the United States that earlier generation which between 1820 and 1850 looked on the Federal System and the legislatures working under it in the nation and the States as the almost perfect model of what constitutional government ought to be. In the middle of last century most Liberal thinkers in France and Spain, in Italy and Germany expected a sort of millennium from the establishment in their midst of representative institutions like those of England, the greatest improvement, it was often said, that had ever been introduced into government, and one which, had the ancient world discovered it, might have saved the Greek republics from the Macedonian conqueror and Rome from the despotism of the Caesars. So the leaders of the revolutions which liberated Spanish America took as their pattern the American Federal System which had made it possible for a central Congress and legislative bodies in every State to give effect to the will of a free people scattered over a vast continent, holding them together in one great body while also enabling each division of the population to enact laws appropriate to their respective needs. By the representative system the executive would, they believed, be duly guided and controlled, by it the best wisdom of the country would be gathered into deliberative bodies whose debates would enlighten the people, and in which men fit for leadership could show their powers. Whoever now looks back to read the speeches and writings of statesmen and students between 1830 and 1870, comparing them with the complaints and criticisms directed against the legislatures of the twentieth century, will be struck by the contrast, noting how many of the defects now visible in representative government were then unforeseen.

These complaints and criticisms need to be stated and examined, if only in view of the efforts which peoples delivered from the sway of decadent monarchies, are now making to establish constitutional governments in various parts of Central and Eastern Europe.

As in Fart II. the failings of the legislatures in the six countries there dealt with have been already indicated, only a brief reference to them is here required. In the States of the American Union a sense of these failings has led to two significant changes. Many restrictions have been everywhere imposed by constitutional amendments on the powers of State legislatures; and more recently many States (nearly one-third of the whole number) have introduced the Referendum and the Initiative, the former to review, the latter from time to time to supersede the action of those bodies. The virtue of members had so often succumbed to temptations proceeding from powerful incorporated companies, and the habit of effecting jobs for local interests was so common, that a general suspicion had attached itself to their action. Moreover, the so-called “Party Machines,” which have been wont to nominate candidates, and on whose pleasure depends the political future of a large proportion of the members, prevented the will of the people from prevailing, making many members feel themselves responsible rather to it than to their constituencies. Like faults have been sometimes charged against Congress, though conditions are better there than in most of the States, but the Referendum and Initiative are of course inapplicable to the National government since the Federal Constitution makes no provision for them.

In France, while Paris is enlivened, the nation has been for many years wearied by the incessant warfare of the Chamber, divided into many unstable groups, with frequent changes from one Cabinet to another. The politicians have become discredited, partly by the accusations they bring against one another, partly by the brokerage of places to individuals and favours to localities in which deputies act as intermediaries between Ministers and local wire-pullers, while scandals occurring from time to time have, although few deputies have been tarnished, lowered the respect felt for the Chamber as a whole.

The same kind of brokerage is rife in Italy also. The deputy holds his place by getting grants or other advantages for his district, and is always busy in influencing patronage by intrigue.

In Great Britain these last-named evils have not appeared, partly because the Civil Service was taken entirely out of politics many years ago, partly because the passing of “private bills” for local or personal purposes is surrounded by elaborate safeguards. Yet the House of Commons seems to hold a slightly lower place in the esteem of the people than it did in the days of Melbourne and Peel. Its intellectual quality has not risen. Its proceedings are less fully reported. The frequency of obstruction and of the use of the closure to overcome obstruction have reduced the value of the debates and affected the quality of legislation, while also lessening respect for a body which is thought — though this is inevitable under the party system — to waste time in unprofitable wrangling. The “sterile hubbub of politics” was noted by a non-political critic even thirty years ago.1 The independence of members has suffered by the more stringent party discipline. The results of these causes are seen in the diminished deference accorded to Parliament, perhaps also in its slightly diminished attractiveness for able and public-spirited men.

In the new overseas democracies — Canada, Australia, and New Zealand — we cannot, except perhaps in New Zealand, now talk of a falling off, for the level was never high. Corruption is rare, but the standard both of tone and manners and of intellectual attainment is not worthy of communities where everybody is well off and well educated, and where grave problems of legislation call for constructive ability.

Setting aside the special conditions of each particular country, because in each the presence or absence of certain institutions may give rise to special defects, let us seek for some general causes which in all the countries named, though in some more than others, have been tending to reduce the prestige and authority of legislative bodies.

The spirit of democratic equality has made the masses of the people less deferential to the class whence legislators used to be drawn, and the legislatures themselves are to-day filled from all classes except the very poorest. This is in some respects a gain, for it enables popular wishes to be better expressed, but it makes a difference to Parliamentary habits. In England, for example, the old “country gentlemen,” who used to form more than half the House of Commons and from whom many brilliant figures came, are now a small minority. Constituencies are everywhere larger than formerly, owing to the growth of population and to universal suffrage; while the personal qualities of a candidate do less to commend him to electors who are apt to vote at the bidding of party or because the candidate is lavish in his promises. Not only do the members of legislatures stand more than heretofore on the same intellectual level as their constituents, but their personal traits and habits and the way in which they do business are better known through the press. In some countries much of the space once allotted to the reports of debates is now given to familiar sketches, describing the appearance and personal traits of members, in which any eccentricity is “stressed.” “Scenes” are made the most of, and the disorders which mark them have left a painful impression. Legislators, no longer conventionally supposed to dwell in an Olympian dignity, set little store by the standards of decorum that prevailed when, as in France and England two generations ago, a large proportion of the Chamber belonged to the same cultivated social circles, and recognized an etiquette which prescribed the maintenance of external forms of politeness. The defect perpetuates itself, because men are apt to live up to no higher standard than that which they find. The less the country respects them, the less they respect themselves. If politicians are assumed to move on a low plane, on it they will continue to move till some great events recall the country and them to the ideals which inspired their predecessors. The disappearance of this sense of social responsibility has affected the conduct of business. Every rule of procedure, every technicality is now insisted upon and “worked for all it is worth.” This stiffening or hardening of the modes of doing business has made parliamentary deliberations seem more and more of a game, and less and less a consultation by the leaders of the nation on matters of public welfare.

A like tendency is seen in the stricter party discipline enforced in the British self-governing Dominions. As party organizations are stronger, the discretion of representatives is narrowed: they must vote with their leaders. The member who speaks as he thinks is growing rare in English-speaking countries. Whips called him a self-seeker, or a crank, yet his criticisms had their value.

The payment of members has been supposed to lower the status and fetter the freedom of a representative. First introduced in the United States, where it was inevitable because in so large a country members had to leave their business and their often distant homes, to live in the national or in a State capital, it became inevitable in European countries also when the enfranchised wage-earners desired to send members of their own class into Parliament. How far it has affected the character of the representatives is not yet clear, but it everywhere exposes the poorer members to the imputation of an undue anxiety to retain their seats as a means of livelihood.

Just as the increased volume of platform speaking by leading politicians has lessened the importance of the part which Parliamentary debate used to play in forming public opinion, so has the growth of the newspaper press encroached on the province of the Parliamentary orator. Only the very strongest statesmen can command an audience over the whole country, such as that which a widely read newspaper addresses every day. The average legislator fears the newspaper, but the newspaper does not fear the legislator, and the citizen who perceives this draws his own conclusions.

Other organizations occupying themselves with public questions and influencing large sections of opinion, have arisen to compete with legislatures for the attention of the nation. The Conventions or Conferences of the old and “regular” parties, both in England and in America, have no great importance; for, being practically directed by the party leaders, they add little or nothing to the programmes whereto the party has been already committed. But the meetings of industrial sections and of the new class parties, such as the Trades Union Congress in England and the Congress of the Peasant party in Switzerland, the Socialist Congresses in France, and the Labour Union Congresses or assemblies representing the farmers or miners in the United States, the gatherings of farmers in Canada, and the still more powerful meetings of Labour organizations in Australia — all these are important, for they represent a large potential vote and their deliverances serve as a barometer showing the rise or fall of opinion on industrial issues. Those who lead them may win and wield a power equal to that of all but the most outstanding Parliamentary chiefs.

Whether or no it be true, as is commonly stated, that in European countries the intellectual level of legislative assemblies has been sinking, it is clear that nowhere does enough of that which is best in the character and talent of the nation find its way into those assemblies.1 In this respect the anticipations of eighty years ago have not been realized. The entrance to political life is easier now than it was then, but the daily round of work less agreeable, while the number of alternative careers is larger.

These changes, taken all together, account for the disappointment felt by whoever compares the position held by legislatures now with the hopes once entertained of the services they were to render. Yet may we not ask whether there was ever solid ground for these hopes? Were they not largely due to the contrast which the earliest free assemblies offered to the arbitrary or obscurantist governments which had been ruling everywhere but in America, Britain, and Switzerland, and against which the noblest intellects in the oppressed countries were contending? It was natural to expect that when men of such a type came to fill the legislatures of France, Germany, Italy, and Spain, they would rival the assemblies of the countries that were already thriving on freedom. That expectation was largely fulfilled as regards the first free assemblies, for those who led them were exceptional men, produced or stimulated by the calls of their time. The next generation did not in days of peace rise to the standard set in the days of conflict.

The issues of policy which now occupy legislatures are more complex and difficult than those of half a century ago. The strife of classes and formation of class parties were not foreseen, nor the vast scale on which economic problems would present themselves, nor the constant additions to the functions of governments, nor that immense increase of wealth which has in some countries exposed legislators to temptations more severe than any that had assailed their predecessors. The work to be done then was largely a work of destruction. Old abuses had to be swept away, old shackles struck off, and for effecting this a few general principles were thought to suffice. The next generation was confronted by constructive work, a remodelling of old institutions in the effort to satisfy calls for social reorganization, a difficult task which needed more hard thinking and creative power than were forthcoming. Thus while the demands on representative assemblies were heavier the average standard of talent and character in their members did not rise. Never was it clearer than it is to-day that Nature shows no disposition to produce men with a greatness proportioned to the scale of the problems they have to solve.

Taking all these causes into account, whatever decline is visible in the quality and the influence of legislatures becomes explicable without the assumption that the character of free peoples has degenerated under democracy. It remains to enquire what have been the results of the reduced authority of representative assemblies. The power which has departed from them must have gone elsewhere. Whither has it gone?

In the several States of the American Union it has gone to the Executive or to the People. The State Governor has become a leading figure whenever he happens to be a strong man with some initiative, some force of will, some gift for inspiring that confidence which legislatures fail to command. Not often perhaps does such a man appear, but when he appears he counts for more than he would have done' forty years ago. In an increasing number of States, the introduction of the Initiative and Referendum has narrowed the power of the representatives and transferred legislation to the citizens voting at the polls, while the Recall has made members displaceable by a popular vote before their term comes to an end. All State legislatures have lost the function of choosing a United States Senator, which has been now assigned to the popular vote, this being the only considerable change made in the Federal system. Congress has fallen rather than risen, and the power of the President, when he knows how to use it, and happens to be a strong man who takes the fancy of the people, has been tending to grow.

The Constitutions of France and Great Britain have remained the same in form and on the whole in practice. But in France the recurring dissatisfaction with the frequent changes of Ministry which intrigues in the Chamber bring about continues to evoke cries for a more stable Executive. The discontent with “Parliamentarism” which nearly led to a coup d'état in 1888, may have serious consequences, especially if the steadying influence excited by the fear of external aggression should cease to operate. In Britain the House of Commons is still the centre of political life, and the driving-wheel of Government. But the power of the Cabinet over the majority has grown as parties have stiffened their discipline, for majorities are strong in proportion to their docility. If that so-called “control of the caucus” which British pessimists bewail really exists, it is not so much the tyranny of a party organization acting under the committees that manage it in the constituencies as an instrument in the hands of the party chiefs. Cabinet over the majority has grown as parties have stiffened their discipline, for majorities are strong in proportion to their docility. If that so-called “control of the caucus” which British pessimists bewail really exists, it is not so much the tyranny of a party organization acting under the committees that manage it in the constituencies as an instrument in the hands of the party chiefs.

In Italy a somewhat different process seems to have made the Chamber more subservient than formerly to the Ministry, for although the party system holds no great power, deputies are brought into line by the manipulation of patronage and benefits bestowed on powerful business interests or on localities. The Spanish Cortes, divided into a number of groups, each following its leader, are little regarded by the people, who have shown (except in Catalonia) scant interest in the exercise of their now widely extended suffrage.

In these European cases it is rather the moral ascendancy than the legal power of the legislature that has been affected. But when moral power droops legal power ceases to inspire affection or respect.

Can any useful conclusions, any lessons available for practice be drawn from these facts?

The mischiefs arising in the United States, and (to a less extent) in Canada from the abuse for electoral purposes of legislative power in local and personal matters might be removed by stringent regulations, such as those which the British Parliament has imposed on the examination and enactment of private Bills.

A scandal complained of in some countries might be reduced if a system of strict competitive examinations for posts in the Civil Service were to cut away the opportunities members have of misusing their position for the purposes of patronage, while the transfer to local self-governing bodies of the powers exercised in administrative areas by the central government, together with the discontinuance of grants from the national treasury for local purposes would, while saving public money, dry up a copious fountain of jobbery, for where the money to be spent comes from local taxes its expenditure is more likely to be carefully watched.1 Any-how the central legislature would be relieved from one form of temptation.

These are what may be called mechanical remedies for evils arising from defects in the mechanism of Parliamentary institutions. With those causes of decline which are either independent of the legislatures themselves, or arise from the intensity of party spirit, or the indisposition of men qualified to serve their country to offer themselves as candidates,—for these causes the remedies have to be sought elsewhere. Representative Assemblies must remain the vital centre of the frame of government in every country not small enough to permit of the constant action of direct popular legislation; and even in such countries they cannot be altogether dispensed with. The utility which Mill and Bagehot saw in them remains, if perhaps reduced. The people as a whole cannot attend to details, still less exercise over the Executive the watchful supervision needed to ensure honest and efficient administration.

CHAPTER LIX

the pathology of legislatures

As new maladies assail the human body with advancing age or when the external conditions of life are changed, so with the progress of the years unforeseen weaknesses are disclosed in political institutions. The thinkers and statesmen of last century either did not discern or gave little thought to several such weaknesses incident to representative assemblies which have now begun to cause concern. Five of these chronic ailments, some of which have been briefly adverted to in the last chapter, deserve examination.

I. First comes the practice of what is called in England Obstruction, in America Filibustering, in Australia Stonewalling, in Germany Dauerreden, i.e. the systematic effort to delay the progress of business by speaking against time, or by a series of motions (usually amendments to a Bill) which are intended to keep the assembly as long as possible from reaching a decision on the main question before it. In a mild form this must have been an old device, pardonable or even justifiable when a party that found itself in a temporary majority tried to snatch a division. It could also be excused when employed as an honest protest by a minority which felt that it had not been allowed a fair chance of stating its case. In our times it has, however, been systematically used to paralyse the action of a legislature. In England, whose Parliament was formerly distinguished for a decorous propriety in the conduct of business, obstruction was raised to the level of a fine art,1 with the result not only of obliging the majority to spend excessive time over their measures, but of discrediting the House of Commons itself. The temptation to resort to it is strongest in countries living under the so-called “Cabinet” or “Parliamentary system,” because in them the fortunes of the Administration are associated with the measures it proposes, so that when an important Bill fails for want of time to be passed, or when the disproportionate expenditure of time upon it compels the abandonment of other measures, the Cabinet suffers, having been unable to fulfil promises made to its supporters. In such countries, therefore, an Opposition is often tempted to waste time, for even if the particular measure obstructed is not disliked on its merits, the Ministry is prevented from proceeding to other measures which are actually so disliked, and is thus made to seem impotent in the eyes of the electors. This abuse of the right of free discussion has, in most countries, compelled the adoption of rules enabling the majority to close debate and proceed to an immediate vote. Such rules, however necessary as a remedy, are themselves an evil, for they are in turn abused to pass measures which, having been imperfectly discussed, will probably prove faulty when they come to be applied. No remedy, except closure, has yet been discovered against obstruction, nor any for the misuse of closure itself. In England the Administration, when it suffered from the former, used to believe that the electors would punish obstructionist members by refusing to re-elect them, and these members, when silenced by the closure, likewise believed that the electors would commiserate them and condemn the Administration. But neither of these things happened. The electors did not examine the merits of the quarrel, but blamed both parties, and regretted the good old days when neither majority nor minority pressed its rights to their utmost legal limit.

Obstruction is only one of the causes which have made it difficult for representative assemblies to meet the demands for legislation, more numerous now' than ever before, that are made upon them. In France, in the United States, in England, arrears accumulate for overtaking which no means has yet been discovered.1

II. A comparatively new feature in representative assemblies is the multiplication of parties. Most countries began with two — the party of Advance, called in England Whigs, and afterwards Liberals, and the party which defended existing conditions, called Tories or Conservatives. So in France there was the conservative party of the Right, and the party of the Left which pressed for changes, the former generally monarchical in its sympathies, the latter republican. But latterly, partly by the splitting up of these old parties, partly by the emergence of new issues, sometimes of race, sometimes of religion, sometimes of class, parties have grown more numerous. In the British House of Commons there were in 1914 three well-organized parties to which two or three much smaller groups have now been added. In the German Reichstag there were in 1914 five or six,1 while in the French Chamber the eleven or twelve of 1914 have been but slightly reduced in number.

When a phenomenon appears simultaneously in several countries, one must search for a generally operative cause. Such a cause may be found in the fact that whereas the middle of last century was an era of destruction, when monarchical or oligarchic institutions were being rejected in favour of more popular forms of government, all the advocates of reform, while differing on some points, could agree in getting rid of what had become odious or obsolete. When, however, the work of construction had to be undertaken, divergences appeared between sections each of which had schemes of its own to propound. Thus Radicals drew apart from Liberals, and the classes which had special grievances tended to form class parties. Nevertheless there were also at work other causes, varying in different countries. Among these were Race and Religion. In Germany a Roman Catholic party arose many years ago, while the Poles formed a group by themselves. In the United Kingdom the sentiment of Irish nationality created a third party opposed to Liberals and Tories alike. In France the Catholic Church has kept alive a party which was at first Monarchist and still resists the anti-clerical Republican majority. This has happened in Holland and Belgium also. In Canada a Farmere' party, and even in Switzerland a Peasants' party, has arisen. In these countries, as well as in Britain and Australia, Socialist or Labour parties have evolved themselves on a basis partly of class interest, partly of theoretic doctrine. Only in the United States have the two old-established parties been strong enough to maintain their supremacy, doing this the more easily because it is not Congress but a vote of the people every four years that gives executive power to one or other party, so that the legislature is not, as in “Parliamentary countries,” the centre of political conflict.1 That Republic has thus escaped two unfortunate results which the Group system has produced in countries lying under the Parliamentary Frame of Government. One is the instability of Cabinets, the other the difficulty of carrying through controversial legislation. Where there are more than two parties, it is probable that no one party may hold a majority of the whole Chamber. The Executive, being dependent on the support of a majority, is in such cases liable to be defeated by any combination of the minority parties, and when power passes to the larger of those minorities, the new Executive, consisting of the chiefs of that party, is exposed to a like peril. This affects not only the tenure of office but the consistency and thoroughness of legislative measures, which have to be so framed as to obtain from members of the Opposition parties a support sufficient to enable them to pass. The only remedy lies in the making of bargains between the Executive and the leaders of one at least of the Opposition parties, thus creating a combination capable of keeping the Executive in power and helping it to pass some of its Bills; but such combinations are unstable, and legislation passed under such conditions becomes a matter of compromise, showing the faults incident to measures founded on no clear principle. Sometimes a minority party can, as the price of its support, extort from the party in power measures which the bulk of that party dislikes, and which may not express the general will of the nation.2 For these evils, such as they are, members of the legislatures cannot be blamed. The sources lie in the nature of a representative system; and though racial and even religious antagonisms may in time by a process of assimilation disappear from the greater countries, the social or economic bases of parties are likely to last so long as no single type of economic doctrine becomes completely dominant. Within the party of Advance there will always be some desiring to move faster than others, and theorists, attracting bands of followers, will point out various paths into the Promised Land.

III. From groups in the legislatures one may pass to note the results of the existence in the electorate of small sections which exercise a power disproportionate to their numbers. Where electors having a personal interest, such as a particular trade (e.g. dealers in intoxicating liquors), or the votaries of a particular view, such as anti-vaccinationists, regard their special interest or tenet as of supreme importance, they are apt to make their support of a candidate depend on his promising to support it in the legislature, and where the contest is likely to be close, the candidate will probably give the promise. Thus the interest or view, possibly little better than a fad, secures an artificial support in the legislature, and the real wishes of the electors are misrepresented. In Britain, for instance, the postal and telegraph clerks were (in the larger towns) accustomed to tell a candidate that they would vote for or against him according as he promised or refused to promise to support in Parliament their demand for higher salaries; and by this method they secured in the House of Commons a majority of votes which represented not the views of the electors generally, nineteen-twentieths of whom took no interest in the matter, but only the pliability of complaisant candidates, so that the Ministry, which wished to resist the demand, found itself overborne. It is a weakness of the representative system that it gives undue importance to any section which, forgetting its duty to the whole community, puts its vote up to be bid for by a candidate to whichever party he may belong. In Australia such action by the railway employees once gave rise to serious trouble.

IV. To understand another malady which now threatens the utility of representative assemblies we must cast a glance back into the history of the representative system. It began in the Middle Ages with the sending to the national council, presided over by the King, of persons deputed to grant to him money for the State services, and was also used for the promulgation of the few laws which were then passed, the chief of which, in England, related to the tenure of land. I take England as the example to be described because in it the representative system has had an unbroken career, now continued in other English-speaking countries. The earliest representatives had a simple duty, that of granting money to the Crown for the national services. By degrees the House of Commons drew to themselves larger and larger powers in legislation and delivered their views on the great political issues of the time. Members were understood to be expressing the general mind and will of those who dwelt in the shires and boroughs whence they came, and they usually did so.1 Little question was raised as to their obligation to precisely ascertain and obediently convey exactly what their electors desired. Practically they had a wide discretion, and felt themselves to be not merely representatives of particular localities, but also members of the Great Council of the Nation, successors of the (non-representative) Witan of Old England before the Norman Conquest, the Wise Men who were wont to consult with the Sovereign on all great matters touching the welfare of the realm, bringing to those matters not only the will of their constituents but their own wisdom, and therefore a freedom which could not be limited by positive instructions, because it was to be exercised after hearing what the Sovereign and his advisers, as well as their own colleagues, had to say to them. There were then, be it remembered, no newspapers, and public opinion expressed itself upon very few subjects. Broadly speaking, it was not till the eighteenth century that the question was seriously mooted how far a member's duty was to think, speak, and vote according to his personal views or according to the views of the majority of his constituents. The point was discussed by Edmund Burke in his famous letter to the Sheriffs of Bristol. His argument that the member is not and ought not to be a mere delegate held the field till in our own time the stress laid upon the principle of popular sovereignty has led many to contend that in a true democracy the representative must be nothing more than a sort of conduit-pipe conveying the will of those who elected him. The growth of party organization makes possible the application of the principle, for the political committee which exists in each constituency can watch the votes of its member and is likely, especially if so requested by the Central Office of the party to which he belongs, to warn him that he must give unquestioning support to the party leaders.

The various views held regarding the grounds for choosing a representative, and the duties incumbent on him, may be reduced to three theories or types of theory.

• (1) He may be chosen as the person whom the constituency selects to urge its special local demands, to state its special grievances, to obtain for it from the Government a full share of whatever is going in the way of money grants for local purposes, or any other favours.
• (2) He may be chosen as a person eminently fitted by character and attainments to meet and consult with other representatives in the council of the nation on public affairs, while also in accord with the general views of the constituency regarding those affairs.
• (3) He may be chosen as a spokesman of the party which holds a majority in the constituency, bound, whatever his personal opinions on any question, to speak and vote as the majority commands him, being thus a sort of telephone wire by which it transmits its wishes. This is the doctrine of the mandat imperatif, and has been strongly urged by those who carry furthest the belief that the people, i.e. the whole mass of voting citizens, hold a definite opinion and are prepared to declare their will regarding every question of some moment. Any other kind of representation seems to them undemocratic and delusive.

It is possible that the same man may combine the qualifications and fulfil the duties required and imposed by the first and third theories. He may serve the constituency for its local purposes and the party for its national as well as for local purposes. But he could not at the same time discharge also the duties prescribed by the second theory. No man can serve two masters. Cases arise in which the demands of a locality or the commands of a party are at variance with the interests of the nation, and the honest man who perceives this variance will have to sacrifice one or other. The third theory makes his duty to the party majority paramount.

Are there not here two duties each in itself clear, but at moments incompatible in practice? One duty of a member is that of securing full weight in Parliament for the opinion of his constituents, both as to the persons to be entrusted with executive power and as to the laws to be passed. The other duty, owed to the nation, is that of supporting whatever action, legislative or administrative, he believes to be best for the national interests. Does democratic theory require him to give a vote which his own judgment holds to be against those interests? Is he to be the mouthpiece of views he thinks mistaken? The matter is not so simple as it seems. The member may have been elected some while ago and conditions may have changed. Ministers may have so acted as to weaken the confidence his constituents then reposed in them. The question on which he has now to vote may be one on which he gave as a candidate no pledge, or maybe one which nobody foresaw at the time of the election. When his constituents chose him, can they have meant that he was not to profit by what he has learnt from debates in the legislature? If so, why have debates? It may be impossible for him to ascertain how the majority of his constituents would view the particular question now at issue. He may of course consult the local committee, but such a committee being usually more partisan than is the majority of his party, will probably tell him to support his party leaders, being naturally biassed in their favour whatever their conduct. Why should he become the slave of a small caucus? The electors must have meant to leave him some discretion, though it is hard to say how much.

It would seem, then, that the only way in which the system of the imperative mandate could be worked in practice would be to have in each constituency a committee constantly instructing the member how to vote, and for that purpose summoning a meeting of the party electors whenever an important issue arose. The objections to this need no stating. The only way in which a member could defend himself from charges of breach of faith to his electors would be by his announcing while a candidate that he reserved his freedom upon all questions save those on which he gave a positive and definite pledge.

One thing is clear. If a representative so dislikes the whole policy of his own party as to wish to cross over to the other, his duty is to resign his seat forthwith. This is now the rule in Great Britain. So, too, if his opinions have so changed as regards one important measure that, having been elected to advocate it, he can do so no longer, he must resign. But where the Executive Ministers have announced a new policy on a new issue, is he bound to follow them into it because the bulk of their and his party supports them in it? This question arose in England when a large majority of the Conservative party adopted a Protectionist policy in 1904–5. It arose in 1899 when the Government of that day entered on the South African War. One of their supporters, a member of high personal character, who had been resident in South Africa and knew its condition, disapproved of their policy and spoke against it in Parliament. The issue was a new one, but his local committee, apparently with the support of the local majority, called on him to resign. Nevertheless he retained his seat till the next general election and seemed to be generally held justified in doing so.

The present tendency in England is to make the member more distinctly a delegate than he is in France or Italy, where people pass lightly from one to another of the various Liberal and Radical groups,1 or than he is in America, where a straight party vote is exacted only on the main points of the party programme. In Switzerland the Constitution declares that he is not to consider himself a delegate, and the recent constitution of Esthonia enunciates the same view. To press hard the doctrine that a member is a mere delegate would result (a) in deterring men of independent character from entering Parliament; (b) in reducing the value of Parliamentary debate; (c) in increasing the control of local party committees; and (d) in making a Cabinet even more powerful over its followers in Parliament than it now is.

V. There remains to be mentioned a more serious menace to the healthy action of representative bodies.

Every party in a legislature is strong not only by its numbers but by its unity, i.e. by the freedom from internal dissensions which enables it to bring to bear its full strength and cast a unanimous vote on every important occasion. When a party has a definite programme and is earnest in pushing that programme, it may require those whom it approves as candidates to promise to hold together in the legislature and vote as one united body. They may be content to pledge themselves at their election to every item in the formally adopted party programme, and to give their votes accordingly. But as that document, like every other document, needs to be interpreted and applied to the circumstances of each case as it arises, this plan might not always secure unity, for members might interpret its terms differently, and circumstances might make the particular terms inapplicable. Hence some organizations have gone further by requiring candidates to undertake that they will, if elected, always obey any direction which the majority of the party in the legislature, assembled in a secret conclave — such as is called in America a “party caucus” — may pronounce. The member who has given such a promise foregoes his independence. He has his chance of influencing his colleagues in the conclave, but when a decision has proceeded from the majority of those present and voting, he, whether present or absent, will be bound, irrespective of his own convictions, to obey that decision.

This method enhances the power of a compact Group whether the group be a majority or minority of the whole Chamber. If it be a minority, the group are in a strong position to deal with the leaders of the majority party, for whenever the latter feel doubtful of success in a division, owing to differences in their own ranks, the group may offer to give its solid support upon certain terms favourable to themselves, and may thus extort from the other dominant party something the group desires. If, on the other hand, the group constitute a majority in the Chamber, it is omnipotent. The ball is at its feet; it can count on passing all its measures, and need not trouble to expound or defend proposals in debate except for the purpose of saving appearances and putting its case before the country. It has only to go on voting steadily what has been previously determined on in secret, uninstructed and unmoved by arguments from any other part of the Chamber, because there is no need for listening to words which cannot affect its predetermined action. The Chamber having ceased to be deliberative has become a mere voting machine, the passive organ of an unseen despotism. It may have even ceased to express the national will, for the majority of a majority party does not necessarily represent the view of the majority of the whole Chamber. Assume that whole Chamber to consist of 210 members, 110 of whom constitute the ruling Group. Suppose the majority of that group who decide upon a particular course to be 60 against 50 dissentients. Add to these fifty the hundred other members of the Chamber who are also opposed to the course proposed. That course will be carried by a compact majority of 110 against 100, although if the real opinion of the members were expressed by the vote, it would be rejected by 150 against 60. If we were to try to ascertain the probable will of the people on the matter by examining the popular majorities in each constituency by which the 60 members whose vote in caucus prevailed had been elected, as compared with the number of votes cast for the 150 members who disapproved, the contrast between the true popular will and the decision rendered by those who are supposed to represent it in the Assembly might become still more evident. Yet by this method of subjecting the whole Assembly to a bare majority of a majority the most far-reaching and possibly irrevocable decisions might be taken.

This may seem a sorry result for representative government to have reached, yet it is a logical and legitimate development of the principle of Majority Party Rule and there seems to be no remedy except by invoking the whole people to pass judgment upon Bills by a Referendum.

The Parliamentary caucus system here described was invented by the Irish party in the British House of Commons and worked there from 1880 to 1918. In its first ten years it proved effective, turning out two Ministries in succession after obtaining large concessions from each. It has also been practised with success in the legislatures of the Australian States and in that of the Federal Commonwealth. It has been to some extent adopted as regards various subjects by Socialist parties in the Trench Chamber, and may spread wherever party spirit is strong enough to induce men to subordinate their views and wills to the attainment of a few aims they are united in desiring. The requisites for its existence are two — a definite programme and a fervent party zeal. The presence of a strong-willed leader, able by his hold on the party outside the Chamber to maintain discipline among his followers within it, facilitates its work. C. S. Parnell's possession of the advantages mentioned counted for much, but the Australian Labour parties have won their victories mainly by the loyal cohesion of their members and the pressure of the outside Labour organization to which all are responsible.

Every one of the defects in or perversions of representative government which I have enumerated arises naturally out of the conditions of political life, and none is peculiar to countries living under universal suffrage. In particular, Obstruction and the rule of a legislative caucus are natural weapons of war, ready to the hand of party spirit. No attempt to deal by law with any of these evils has a promise of success. They can be cured only by the action of public opinion, which can show its displeasure at practices that lower the character and utility of representative assemblies. But opinion is in most countries too much absorbed with the economic and social aims to which legislation should be directed to give due attention to legislative methods, and the leaders of a party are usually too eager for a temporary victory to forgo the means, however dangerous for the future, by which victory may be won. It is not that they are short-sighted: many foresee clearly enough the consequences of their acts: it is that in politics most men are prone to sacrifice the future interests of the nation to the temporary interests of the party, or, to give them the benefit of a common excuse, to attain by pernicious means a laudable end.

Though the dignity and moral influence of representative legislatures have been declining, they are still an indispensable part of the machinery of government in large democracies, since it is only in comparatively small populations that citizens can be frequently summoned to vote by Referendum and Initiative. Hence the quality of a legislature, the integrity and capacity of its members, the efficiency of the methods by which it passes laws and supervises the conduct of the Executive, must continue to be of high significance to a nation's welfare. The dictum of a legal sage in the seventeenth century, “England can never be ruined except by a Parliament,” is true to-day of all countries in which the Parliamentary system exists, and is still able to hold its ground against revolutionary forces.

CHAPTER LX

the executive in a democracy

As men are apt to estimate the merits of a religion by the influence it exerts on the conduct of those who profess it, so a form of government may he judged by what it does for the peace and welfare of the people who live under it. In applying this test to democracy, which purports to be a “government of the laws and not of men,” we have to ask how far its legislative machinery succeeds in making good laws, its judicial machinery in providing for their just application, its executive machinery in carrying them out efficiently and in enforcing respect for them. The Legislature and the Judiciary have been already considered. It remains to examine the Executive or Administrative Department.

As freedom had been won by resistance to arbitrary monarchs, the Executive power was long deemed dangerous to freedom, watched with suspicion, and hemmed in by legal restraints, but when the power of the people had been established by long usage, these suspicions vanished, so that now it is only in countries where constitutional government is not well settled, as is still the case in most of the republics of Spanish America and in the small kingdoms of southeastern Europe, that the head of the Executive, be he President or King, can venture to aim at a dictatorship or can, as did the Kings of Greece and Bulgaria, betray the nation into a policy it disapproves. Only in France does enough of the old apprehension remain to make the people fear to extend the powers of their President. Thus it is unnecessary to treat here of the Executive as a danger to democracy. The world asks to-day, not how far that branch of government hankers after mastery but — how far is it an efficient servant, capable and honest?

The Executive Department has been often described as the weak point in popular governments. In them, as compared with oligarchies or autocracies, it is said to lack continuity in policy, promptitude in action, courage to enforce its decisions, judgment in the selection of officials, and the possession of that special knowledge and technical skill which administration requires in our day. To estimate the truth of these allegations let us examine such evidence to support or rebut them as is supplied by the six countries whose governments have been described in Part II. That examination may be taken under four heads — first, the quality of the Ministers, i.e. the political heads of Executive Departments, in the countries aforesaid; secondly, the subordinate officials, i.e. the civil service of the nation, which conducts all internal administration; thirdly, the departments concerned with national defence, army, navy, and air fleet.

A fourth head, the conduct of foreign affairs, presents different problems, and to it a separate chapter is devoted.

I. In all the countries described, except Switzerland, the ministerial chiefs of the departments of State are politicians, members of a party, entering or quitting office as their parties gain or lose power. There are always among them men of some prominence and generally of talent, who have risen either in the representative assembly by the gift of speech or by a service to their party which marks them out for promotion. Thus every ministry, especially in Parliamentary countries like France, Britain, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, is sure to contain four or five, or possibly more, leading figures in the ruling party, and they may turn out capable administrators. But ministerial posts, even important posts, are often conferred upon mediocre men whom the Prime Minister, or (in the United States) the President, finds it well to include in his Cabinet for political reasons of various kinds, perhaps because they have influence in some particular part of the country or with some particular section of opinion. In none of these six countries is much regard paid either to special knowledge or to aptitude for administration, save that in the legal posts professional skill and eminence are essential. Otherwise political considerations come first, though in Trance it has been usual to choose as Minister of War a General, and as Minister of Marine an Admiral. Switzerland stands by itself as not changing its Ministers, for they are elected for five years and almost always re-elected. They are selected from politicians who have had legislative experience, and are chosen rather in respect of their general capacity and the confidence their character inspires than on the score of their special fitness for any particular kind of administrative work.

This method of choice (in the five first-named countries) is based on the idea that as the Government is a party government kept in office by a party whose policy is that of the majority in the legislature (or, in the United States, that of the party to which the President belongs), the departments must be administered on the lines of this policy, and be defended in the legislature (except in the United States) by men who are experts in politics if in nothing else. The two disadvantages of the system are that the Minister may have no special competence, and that, however competent, he will, when his party loses power, be ejected from the office he has successfully filled; but against these may be set the advantage that an able incoming Minister can bring in new ideas and help to keep his department in touch with the movements of public opinion. In France, England, Canada, and Australia there is the further merit of securing that there shall almost always be some competent critics in the ranks of the Opposition. On the whole, the system described gives good results, and would give better if more weight were allowed in constructing a Cabinet to the qualifications, general or special, of the politicians selected, and less to merely political reasons. This remark applies to England also, where, though family favouritism and social influence now count for very little, political considerations still take precedence of expert knowledge and skill.

II. In all the six countries described the working staff of the departments, i.e. the administrative Civil Service of the country, is outside politics, and posts in it are held (except to some extent in the United States) irrespective of the transfer of power from one party to another. Partisan influences have, however, their influence on promotions, especially in the higher grades. In all the six countries the civil servants are as a class competent and honest, equal to those to be found in any European monarchy, and of course incomparably superior to those of Tsarist Russia, where corruption flourished like a green bay tree from the top to the bottom of the official hierarchy. Nowhere, however, were they so admirably trained as was the German bureaucracy; nowhere was so large a proportion of the nation's ability to be found in the nation's service. Democracy has given a better if not a more economical administration in France than did the monarchies that preceded it, and in Britain a much better administration than was that of the oligarchy before 1832. The British service contains plenty of ability in its higher grades, and all grades work loyally for their chiefs to whatever party the latter belong.

III. National defence against attacks from without has been well cared for in France and Switzerland. If much less was done in the United States, that was because the risk of war with any powerful State had seemed negligible down till 1915. The administrative work of the naval and military departments has been everywhere efficiently, and for the most part honestly done, though malpractices have from time to time occurred in connection with naval contracts in France and in the United States. To examine the reproach sometimes levelled at democratic Governments of neglecting their armies is not here possible, for it would require an enquiry into the circumstances in each several case where neglect has been alleged. The wolf does sometimes come unexpected, but how often has the cry of “Wolf” been raised when he was nowhere in the neighbourhood! For a nation to be unprepared because it has itself no aggressive spirit is unwise, but to be so over-prepared as to grow aggressive and launch an unjustified attack may have a still worse ending.

Among modern democracies France and Switzerland alone impose compulsory military service. In the other countries and in Britain the need for it is matter of controversy. The United States imposed it when she entered the Great War in 1917, and so did Great Britain in 1915 after about three millions of men had volunteered, as did New Zealand and Canada also. The Australian people, twice consulted by way of Referendum, refused. Australia and New Zealand had before 1914, and with little opposition, prescribed a certain measure of military training in peace-time. On the whole, democracies seem at present disposed to peace, but the ancient and mediaeval republics were fond of fighting, and the United States, to-day the most pacifically minded among great States, was in 1846 and in 1898 drawn into wars which might easily have been avoided.

IV. Now comes a more difficult and controversial question, viz. the effect of democracy upon the enforcement of the laws and especially on the maintenance of public order. Some have argued that governments installed by the votes of the multitude will fear to resist and suppress manifestations of popular feeling even when they pass into violence and rioting. Others have replied that no government can so well afford to show firmness as one which stands solidly planted on the people's will. Where a monarch or an oligarchy may stumble or halt lest it provoke a revolution, men chosen freely by the nation may go boldly forward.

There are facts to support both these contentions. Much may depend upon the circumstances of the particular case, much upon the character either of the Government in power or of the particular official who is charged with the duty of maintaining public order. In the United States the National Government has almost always shown the requisite firmness. President Cleveland during the Chicago riots of 1894 quelled an outbreak by sending in Federal troops. So recently as 1919 the action of a Governor of Massachusetts, who had dealt energetically with a strike of the Boston police, was, when he stood for re-election, endorsed by an enormous vote coming from both political parties. On the other hand, there have been Australian cases in which State Governments — usually but not always Labour Governments — have shown timidity, leaving it to the action of private citizens to preserve order, and to bring a strike to an end by themselves undertaking the work of running tram-cars or discharging ships' cargoes which strikers were trying to impede.1 In France a Ministry whose head was himself in sympathy with Socialist views showed great vigour and, aided by public sentiment, saved a dangerous strike situation. Like energy was shown in a like case in Switzerland in 1918, the great bulk of the nation approving the energetic action of the Federal Council. The same may be said of Canada, which has faithfully preserved the British traditions which make the vindication of the law the first duty of the Executive. Strikes which pass into violence are in our own day the most frequent causes of trouble, and the most difficult to deal with, because, although workmen on strike admittedly possess the right of endeavouring to induce those whom employers are trying to hire in their place not to accept the work offered, “Peaceful Picketing” is apt to pass into threats or something more than threats, nor is it easy to draw the line.1

In some of the American State Governments there has been laxity on the part of officials and slackness in action by the citizens when summoned to aid in preserving order. Lynching prevails extensively in several of the Middle as well as in most Southern States, and, though the opinion of thoughtful men condemns the practice, some Governors or Mayors who have tried to repress it did not receive the support they deserved. It is also stated that locally elected officials are often remiss in enforcing the payment of taxes, and prone to acquiesce in minor breaches of the law lest they should incur enmities which would endanger their re-election.2

In trying to answer the broad question from which this chapter started, whether a democratic Executive can be a strong Executive, let us distinguish two different senses which the question may bear. An Executive is strong against the citizens when the law grants it a wide discretionary authority to command them and override their individual rights. There is nothing to prevent a democracy from vesting any powers over the private citizen it pleases in its elected magistrates. This kind of strength, strictly limited in English-speaking countries, has been allowed to remain not only in Italy, Belgium, and Spain, but in France, where the Republican parties, though sometimes admitting that individual liberty is not duly safeguarded, do not like to part with a power they may need for crushing plots directed against the Republic.

But there is another sense in which the strength of an Executive is measured by its relation to the other powers in the State. The people may make- it independent of the legislature, choosing it by their own vote, possibly for a long term of years. They may enable it to defend itself against the legislature by giving it a veto and a sole initiative in foreign affairs. The United States has gone furthest in this direction, and its President, independent of Congress for a four years' term, is the least fettered of all Executives in free countries, though his power declines in moral authority as that term draws to its end, and though the temptation to seek re-election may unduly affect his independence. Continuity in policy is hard to secure where the representative assembly and the Executive are liable to be changed by frequently recurring elections. Ministers who may be swept out of office by a hostile vote of the legislature, or may see the legislature itself pass under the control of the party opposed to their own, are often deterred from bold action by the fear that it may endanger their own position, or may be reversed by their successors. They are unwilling to propose measures, however salutary, that are likely to be unpopular, and tempted to bid for support by promising bills whose chief merit is their vote-catching quality. This sort of instability and discontinuity is the price which must be paid for that conformity to the popular will of the moment which democracy implies. It is of course more harmful where the people itself is inconstant or capricious. Such have been some democratic peoples, such may be some of those that are now starting on their career as independent States. But it so happens that none of the nations we have been studying presents this character. In all of them there often comes a “swing of the pendulum” from one party to another at a general election, and sometimes the change rises into what Americans call a “tidal wave.” These oscillations are, however, mostly due not to changes of opinion on large principles, but to displeasure with errors committed by the Ministry. Even the French, supposed to be of an excitable temper, are at bottom a conservative nation, safely anchored some to one, some to another set of ideas and beliefs. Nowhere are changes of Ministry so frequent as in France; nowhere do they mean so little. Nevertheless, it remains true that the uncertain tenure of any particular Ministry both there and in Canada, Australia, and New Zealand — and this is true of England also — does operate to disturb the course of administration as well as legislation.

The results of this enquiry may be summed up as follows:

Ministries in democratic countries are no better in their composition, so far as ability is concerned, than they are elsewhere, for political reasons may do as much to prevent the selection of the fittest men, as secret intrigues do in monarchies or oligarchies. They are, however, more generally honest, being exposed to a more searching criticism than other forms of government provide.

The principle of equality has had the useful result of securing free access for all to the permanent Civil Service of the State and of restraining the tendency to favouritism in promotions. The United States, where patronage was most abused, has by degrees fallen into line with other democracies, and its Civil Service is correspondingly improving. Democratic governments, not being militaristic in spirit, are reluctant to vote money for war preparations, but when convinced that there is a danger of aggression, they rise to the emergency. The Executive in a parliamentary democracy suffers from its slippery foothold, which often prevents it from carrying through those legislative or administrative schemes of reform, the success of which depends on their maintenance for a course of years.1 Uncertainty of tenure deters it from action, however otherwise desirable, that is likely to offend any body of voters strong enough to turn the balance against it at an election. So, too, Opposition leaders who hope to overthrow and replace the holders of power are apt to trim or “hedge” in order to win the favour of a section that may turn the scale in their favour.1 On the other hand, a Ministry can usually count upon the support of the great majority of the people in a war, or at any other grave crisis, and will then be quickly invested with exceptional powers. Even on less serious occasions, a democratic community, be it the nation or such a unit as an American State or city, will usually rally to a courageous chief who gives it a strong lead. Politicians fail more often by timidity than by rashness.

As regards general domestic administration, democracies have nothing to be ashamed of. We have found the civil servants are fairly competent in all the six democracies examined — perhaps least so in the United States, where the results of the Spoils System are still felt — and the average of honesty is higher than it was in the less popular governments of the past. They are doubtless less efficient than was the bureaucracy of Germany before 1914, but efficiency was purchased at a price which free peoples cannot afford to pay.

CHAPTER LXI

democracy and foreign policy1

Statesmen, political philosophers, and historians have been wont to regard the conduct of foreign relations as the reproach of democratic government. The management of international relations needs — so they insist — knowledge, consistency, and secrecy, whereas democracies are ignorant and inconstant, being moreover obliged, by the law of their being, to discuss in public matters unfit to be disclosed. That this has been perceived by the people themselves appears from the fact that modern legislatures have left this department to officials, because it was felt that in this one department democracies cannot safely be democratic.

Per contra, popular leaders in some countries have, with an increasing volume of support, denounced Foreign Offices as having erred both in aims and in methods. They allege that the diplomacy of European States is condemned by the suspicion which it has constantly engendered and that the brand of failure is stamped upon it by the frequent recurrence of war, the evil which diplomacy was created to prevent.

These views, apparently opposite, are not incompatible. Oligarchies, and the small official class which in many democracies has had the handling of foreign affairs, may have managed them ill, and yet it may be that the whole people will manage them no better. The fault may lie in the conditions of the matter itself and in those tendencies of human nature which no form of government can overcome. What we want to know is not whether oligarchic and secret methods have failed — that may be admitted — but whether democratic and open-air methods will succeed any better. What light does history throw on the question?

Here at starting let a distinction be drawn between Ends and Means in the sphere of foreign policy, a distinction, which, though it exists in all branches of administration, is less significant in the domestic branches, because in them Ends, if not assumed as generally recognized, are and must be determined by the people through their representatives. Justice, the maintenance of public order, economy in expenditure are understood to be aims in every department, while the particular objects for which money is to be spent and the modes of raising it are prescribed by statute. But the relations of States to one another, varying from day to day as the circumstances which govern them vary, cannot be handled by large assemblies in a large country, but must be determined by administrators who are incessantly watching the foreign sky. Modern legislatures accordingly, though they sometimes pass resolutions indicating a course to be followed, or condemning a course which has been followed, by a Ministry, have recognized that in foreign affairs the choice of Means must belong to a small body of experts, and have accordingly left to these persons all details, and the methods which diplomacy must employ in particular cases, allowing them a wide, possibly a too wide, discretion.

But while Foreign Offices and diplomatic envoys may be the proper persons to choose and apply Means, the general principles which should guide and the spirit which should inspire a nation's foreign policy are a different matter, too wide in scope, too grave in consequences, to be determined by any authority lower than that of the people. There may be a divergence of opinion on these principles, i.e. on the Ends to be pursued, between the People of a country and those of their servants to whom the daily conduct of foreign affairs has been left, and it may be that the latter do not obey the real wishes of the people but seek Ends and apply principles which the people, if consulted, would disapprove. To this distinction as affecting conclusions regarding the range of popular action, I shall presently return.

About one aim there can be no divergence. The State must preserve its independence. It must be safe from attack, able to secure fair opportunities for its citizens to trade and to travel abroad unmolested; and these legitimate aims can be pursued in a spirit of justice and friendliness to other States. All States, however, whatever their form of government, have pursued other aims also, and pursued them in a way frequently at variance with justice and honour. They have attacked other States on trivial pretexts, have sought to acquire territory, to fill their own treasury, or enrich some of their own citizens, at the expense of their neighbours, have placed their State power at the service of men who pleaded that while enriching themselves they were benefiting the country by bringing money into it. Most States have, in pursuing these objects, been a law unto themselves. When strong, they have abused their strength, justifying all means by the plea of State advantage. They have disregarded good faith from the days when democratic Athens wantonly attacked the isle of Melos, killing and enslaving its inhabitants, down to the days of Louis XI. and Caesar Borgia, and from the days of Borgia's contemporary Machiavelli down to those of Frederick the Second of Prussia, who began his literary career with a book designed to refute the maxims of the Florentine statesman. Though in considering how popular governments have succeeded in the sphere of foreign policy, regard must be had to the moral quality of that policy both in Ends and in Means, the moral aspect may be in the first instance reserved, and the enquiry may go only to the question whether a democracy is in that sphere more or less efficient than other forms of government. Supposing “success” to mean the maximum of power a State can attain in the world arena, what kind of government will best attain it? We can thereafter return to the moral side and enquire what sort of government will be most likely to observe justice and good faith, doing its duty by its neighbour States as a good citizen does his duty by his fellows.

Does Ignorance forbid success to a democracy? Let us hear the case which professional diplomatists make.

A monarch is free to select his ministers and ambassadors from among the best informed, and most skilful of his subjects, and in an oligarchy the mind of the ruling class busies itself with foreign relations, and knows which of its members understand and are fitted to handle them. The multitude has not the same advantage. It is ill qualified to judge this kind of capacity, usually choosing its ministers by their powers of speech. If, instead of leaving foreign affairs to skilled men it attempts to direct them either by its own votes, as did the Greek cities, or by instructing those who represent it in the legislature, how is it to acquire the requisite knowledge? Few of the voters know more than the most elementary facts regarding the conditions and the policy of foreign countries, and to appreciate the significance of these facts, there is needed some acquaintance with the history of the countries and the characters of the leading men. Not much of that acquaintance can be expected even from the legislature. One of the strongest arguments for democratic government is that the masses of the people, whatever else they may not know, do know where the shoe pinches, and are best entitled to specify the reforms they need. In foreign affairs this argument does not apply, for they lie out of the normal citizen's range. All he can do at an election is to convey by his vote his view of general principles, and, in the case of a conflict between two foreign nations, to indicate his sympathies.

If the masses of the people have been inconstant in their views of foreign relations, this is due to their ignorance, which disables them from following intelligently the course of events abroad, so that their interest in these is quickened only at intervals, and when that happens the want of knowledge of what has preceded makes a sound judgment unlikely. They are at the mercy of their party leaders or of the press, guides not trustworthy, because the politicians will be influenced by the wish to make political capital out of any successes scored or errors committed by a Ministry, while the newspapers may play up to and exaggerate the prevailing sentiment of the moment, claiming everything for their own country, misrepresenting and disparaging the foreign antagonist Consistency cannot be expected from a popular government which acts under a succession of impulses, giving no steady attention to that department in which continuity of policy is most needed.

Secrecy in the conduct of diplomacy is vital in a world where each great nation is suspicious of its neighbours and obliged by its fears to try to discover their plans while concealing its own. Suppose the ministry of a country to have ascertained privately that a foreign Power meditates an attack upon it or is forming a combination against it, or suppose it to be itself negotiating a treaty of alliance for protection against such a combination. How can it proclaim either the intentions of the suspected Power or its own counter-schemes without precipitating a rupture or frustrating its own plans? A minister too honourable to deceive the legislature may feel himself debarred from telling it the facts, some of which may have been communicated under the seal of confidence. It is all very well to say that an open and straightforward policy best befits a free and high-minded people. But if such a people should stand alone in a naughty world, it will have to suffer for its virtues. As a democracy cannot do business secretly, it must therefore leave much, and perhaps much of grave import, to its ministers. Herein the superiority for foreign affairs of a monarchy or an oligarchy is most evident.1

There is force in these considerations, yet a monarchy in which the Sovereign may be either a fool, or the victim of his passions, or the plaything of his favourites, may succeeed no better than a democracy. An oligarchy is better qualified, for in it power rests with a few trained and highly educated men who keep a watchful outlook on neighbouring states. The Roman Senate in which these matters were controlled by leaders less numerous than a modern Cabinet, showed singular tenacity and (in its best days) singular judgment in directing the foreign relations of the Republic. And the same may be said of the ruling Council at Venice, who down to the eighteenth century were found able to keep secrets, and who proceeded upon well-settled lines, exempt from the caprices which an absolute sovereign is prone to indulge.

To test the capacity of a popular government in this branch of its action, let us see how far such governments have shown wisdom in following sound aims and have succeeded in applying the means needed to attain them. Of the six countries examined, three — Canada, Australia, New Zealand — had no foreign policy of their own, but adopted, while more or less influencing, that of Great Britain, so we must consider the policy of Britain along with those of France, Switzerland, and the United States.

The case of France is peculiar in this respect, that the general lines of its policy have during the whole life of the Third Republic (1871–1920) been determined by its position towards Germany, the one enemy from whom hostility was always to be feared, and from whom it was hoped to recover territory lost in war. This fact coloured all France's foreign relations, forcing her to husband her strength and to seek for allies. As all parties felt alike on this supreme issue, all were agreed in keeping it out of party controversy. The incessant changes of Ministries scarcely affected the continuity of policy. Democracy was on its good behaviour; fickleness as well as partisanship was held in check. Some friction arose between Ministers and Committees of the legislature, yet secrets were generally kept and the people acquiesced in a silence felt to be necessary. It goes without saying that errors were now and then committed, but these taken all together were less grave than the two which marked the later part of Louis Napoleon's reign — the expedition to Mexico and the war with Prussia. And, as the result has shown, they were incomparably less than those which brought ruin on the three great monarchies which entrusted their foreign relations to militaristic bureaucracies — Germany, Austria, and Russia.

Switzerland's foreign policy has long been prescribed by the obligation to preserve a strict neutrality. Lying between four great military Powers, she, while maintaining her own dignity, strove neither to offend nor to seem partial to any of them. All this has been done successfully by the Federal Council (a Cabinet of seven) always in the closest touch with the small legislature. The suggestion made that treaties should be submitted to a Referendum has not received much support, though it would be consistent with the wide application given to the principle of the Popular Vote on all matters of importance.1 Questions of foreign policy are seldom entangled with domestic issues, and rarely excite internal differences, just because the safety and independence of his country is the first care of every good Swiss. Particular steps might be blamed,2 but one can scarcely imagine the Federal Council taking a course which, so far as principle went, public opinion would disapprove.

Of all the Great Powers, the United States is that which had, till recent years, the fewest foreign questions to deal with. Standing apart in its own hemisphere, and with no State of that hemisphere approaching it in resources for war, it had little to do except with Spain so long as Spain held Cuba, with Mexico and with Great Britain. The people have cared little and known less about foreign affairs, except when their national pride was touched, or when their one favourite principle of policy, the exclusion of European interference from the New World, might seem to be affected. In either of these contingencies public opinion, soon worked up by an alert press, speaks out quick and loud. In this sense, therefore, public opinion controlled the conduct of foreign affairs whenever it cared to do so. At other times it has left them, unnoticed or unheeded, to the Executive and to the Senate. The Constitution associated that branch of Congress with the President, because, since neither he nor his Ministers can be ejected from office during his four years' term, it was deemed unsafe to let him have sole control. The President has a Secretary of State to advise him, who is sometimes a man of first-rate gifts, but more frequently only a politician selected because of his party standing, and possessing little knowledge of world affairs. The staff of the office has been small, and too frequently changed. The Senate has been mainly guided by its Foreign Relations Committee, a fluctuating body, usually containing a few able men among others who know little of anything outside their own country, and may regard the interests of their own State rather than those of the Union. Jealous of its powers, and often impelled by party motives, the Senate has frequently checked the President's action, sometimes with unfortunate results.1 It can debate with closed doors, but this does not ensure secrecy.

The President, however, who is always anxious to lead or to follow public opinion, and the Senate which is scarcely less so, concern us less than public opinion itself. As its rule is in the United States more complete than elsewhere, it furnishes the best index to the tendencies and capacities of a democracy.

The Republic has been engaged in three wars within the last hundred years. That against Mexico in 1846 was the work of the slave-holding party which then controlled the Executive and the Senate, and whose leaders brought it on for the sake of creating Slave States and strengthening the grip of slavery on the Union. It was widely disapproved by public opinion, especially in the northern States, but the acquisition, by the treaty which closed it, of vast and rich territories on the Pacific Coast did much to silence the voice of criticism.

The war against Spain in 1898 might probably have been avoided, for Spain had been driven to the verge of consenting to withdraw from Cuba when the breach came. But the nation, already wearied by the incessant troubles to which Spanish misgovernment had given rise during many years, had been inflamed by the highly coloured accounts which the newspapers published of the severities practised on the insurgents by Spanish generals, and the President, though inclined to continue negotiations, is believed to have been forced into war by the leaders of his own party who did not wish their opponents to have the credit of compelling a declaration. In obtaining, by the peace which followed a short campaign, the cession to the United States of Puerto Rico and the Philippine Islands, the President believed that he was carrying out the wishes of the people. This may have been so, for they were flushed with victory, and were moved not merely by the feeling that victory ought to bring some tangible gain, but also by a sort of philanthropic sentiment which was unwilling to hand back the conquered territories to Spanish maladministration. This war, therefore, though it shows that a popular government may yield to excitement and gratify its ambition for enlarged territory, cannot be deemed a caste of mere aggression for the sake of conquest.

The war of 1917 against Germany and Austria is too fresh in our memories to need comment. There was certainly nothing selfish or aggressive in the spirit that prompted America's entrance into it. The sinking of the Lusitania and other passenger vessels supplied a definite casus belli; the mind of the nation had been stirred to its depths by the sense that far-reaching moral issues were involved.

Not wars only, but also the general diplomatic relations of the United States with its neighbours to the North and South deserve to be considered. More than once, serious differences arose as to the frontier line beween the Republic and Canada. One in which the State of Maine was concerned was amicably settled in 1842, after long negotiations. Another relating to the far North West, where Oregon was in dispute between Britain and America, was, after bringing the nations to the edge of a conflict, adjusted by a compromise in 1845. Another gust of feeling which swept over the country in December 1895, roused by boundary questions between Great Britain and Venezuela, subsided as quickly as it had arisen, when the British government made a conciliatory answer to the American Note. A fourth controversy, which had lasted ever since 1783, regarding the rights of fishing in the North Atlantic, was referred to arbitration and disposed of in 1910 by a decision which both sides accepted gladly. By an exchange of notes in 1817 it had been agreed that only a very few armed vessels, just sufficient for police purposes, should be maintained by each country on the Great Lakes. This agreement has been faithfully observed ever since, and along a boundary of three thousand miles by land and water the reliance placed by each on the good faith and good will of the other has made military and naval preparations and defences needless. The example thus set to the world is creditable to the two peoples alike.

When in 1912 the long dictatorship of Porfirio Diaz vanished like melting snow, Mexico relapsed into anarchy. The property and lives of American citizens were frequently endangered. Some murders and many robberies were perpetrated by rebel bands which the nominal rulers at the capital could not suppress. Had the government of the United States wished to make these outrages a ground for occupying Mexican territory, it could have found justification for doing so. But the public opinion of the American people steadily resisted all temptations, perceiving that annexation would involve either rule over the Mexicans as a subject race, or their incorporation with the United States as full citizens. As both of these courses were equally fraught with danger, they determined to leave Mexico alone. A like disinterestedness had been shown in the case of Cuba, from which they had withdrawn their troops once (in 1903) after expelling Spain, and again a few years later when troubles in the island had compelled a second occupation. All these cases give evidence not only of the authority which popular opinion exerts over the main lines of foreign policy, but also of the growth in it of a spirit of good sense and self-restraint such as was not always seen in earlier years. The nation, when it came to full manhood, laid aside the spirit of self-assertion and the desire for conquest, and gave proof of a sincere desire to apply methods of arbitration and show its respect for the rights of other nations. An instance of this was furnished when in 1914 Congress, at the instance of the President and at the bidding of public opinion, repealed an Act by which it had in 1912 hastily asserted a particular power over the use of the Panama Canal, which the people, after the matter had been fully discussed, convinced themselves that they had disclaimed by the treaty with Great Britain of 1901. With this higher sense of justice there has also come a stronger aversion to war. No great people in the world is equally pervaded by the wish to see peace maintained everywhere over the world.

In Great Britain, the only other country which can be profitably referred to in this connection, the first long step towards democracy was taken in 1832, a second in 1868, a third in 1885. From 1848 onwards the opinion of the masses of the people, as distinct from that of the richer or more educated classes, became a factor to he reckoned with in foreign policy, though the conduct of diplomatic relations was left, and has indeed been left till now, in the hands of the Ministry of the day. During two years of revolution on the Continent (1848–1850), the sympathies of the masses were with the Italian, German, Hungarian and Polish revolutionary parties, but this was largely true of educated Englishmen generally, especially in respect of Italy, where tyranny had been most repulsive. Regarding the Crimean War no great difference showed itself between the governing class and the bulk of the people. Had the latter realized the detestable character of Turkish government and the hopelessness of reforming it, there would probably have been a stronger opposition to a resort to arms than Cobden and Bright succeeded in arousing. But the general hatred of Russian autocracy, personified in the Czar Nicholas I., made even the Radicals think that a war against him must be a righteous war. In 1857 the action in China of a British official led to hostilities, and roused a sudden and sharp controversy. The House of Commons condemned the Governor's conduct. The Ministry which defended him dissolved Parliament and secured a majority in the new House, the electors apparently considering that the high-handed behaviour of the Chinese justified the extreme steps taken by the Governor. The “insult to the flag” argument was largely used, and proved effective. Britain did not interfere in the two wars which secured the liberation of Italy (1859 and 1866), but popular sympathy was in both cases given to the Italian cause. When Garibaldi visited London in 1864 he received a welcome more enthusiastic than had ever before been given to any foreign hero.

The American Civil War of 1861–1865 was the first occasion on which a marked divergence between the sentiment of the masses and that of the so-called “classes” disclosed itself. “Society,” i.e. the large majority of the rich and many among the professional classes, sided with the Southern States, while nearly the whole of the working class and at least half of the middle class, together with many men of intellectual distinction, especially in the Universities, stood for the Northern. Feeling was bitter, and the partisans of each side held numerous meetings, but it was remarked that whereas the meetings which were called by the friends of the North were open to the general public, admission to those summoned to advocate the cause of the Seceding States was confined to the holders of tickets, because it was feared that in an open meeting resolutions of sympathy with the South could not be carried. These and other evidences, showing that the great bulk of the nation favoured the cause of the North as being the cause of human freedom, as soon as President Lincoln's Proclamation had made it clear that slavery would disappear, confirmed the Cabinet in its refusal to accede to Louis Napoleon's suggestion that England and France should join in recognizing the Seceding States as independent.

In 1876 a question of foreign policy emerged which revealed an even more pronounced opposition between the opinion of the masses and that of the classes. The Turkish Government, fearing a Bulgarian insurrection, perpetrated a horrible massacre, attended with revolting cruelties. When this became known in Russia, the Czar Alexander II. summoned the Sultan to introduce certain reforms, and on his refusal proceeded to declare war. Lord Beaconsfield, who was then at the head of the British Government, did not conceal his sympathy with the Turks, and would probably have carried Britain into a war against Russia to defend them had not an agitation in the country, which had been shocked by the news of the massacre, deterred his Cabinet from that course. When in 1878 the Russian armies had approached Constantinople and compelled the Turks to sign a peace largely reducing their territories, Britain was again brought by the Prime Minister to the verge of a war on their behalf, and a fresh popular agitation arose which lasted until the signature of the Treaty of Berlin. Through the angry political strife of these years, the majority of the richer and more educated classes approved the Ministerial policy, while the anti-Turkish cause found its support among the masses. The line of political distinction did not coincide with that of class, for there were crowds which acclaimed the Prime Minister, and there were men of wealth and men of intellectual eminence who denounced both him and the Turks. Still, the antagonism between the view of the multitude and that of what is called “Society” was well marked both in this momentous struggle and in that which followed over the Afghan War of 1878–1879, the moral issues arising in which were essentially the same as those which had been fought over from 1876 to 1878. This was not fully seen till the election of 1880, when the great majority recorded against Lord Beaconsfield showed how widely his policy had been disapproved by the voters. It was the first election since that of 1857 which had turned upon matters of foreign policy.

A like division of opinion reappeared in the years 1899 to 1901, during which a Ministry, which had become involved in a war against the two South African republics, met with opposition from a comparatively small section of the wealthier class, and a much larger section of the professional and middle and working classes. How far the sweeping defeat of that Ministry at the general election of 1905 was due to its South African policy cannot be determined, for other questions also were before the voters.

This is not the place to discuss the merits of these three great issues which in 1861 to 1865, in 1876 to 1880, and in 1899 to 1901 so sharply divided the British people. But if we may take the prevalent opinion of the nation to-day (1920) as a final judgment, i.e. as being likely to be the judgment of posterity, it is interesting to note that in all three cases the “classes” would appear to have been less wise than the “masses.” Everybody now admits that it was a gain for the world that in the American Civil War the Northern States prevailed and slavery vanished. Nearly everybody now admits that Lord Beaconsfield's Eastern policy has been condemned by its failure, for while the Turks continued to go from bad to worse, the reduction of their power which he tried to arrest in 1878 has been subsequently found inevitable. There is a less complete agreement regarding the South African War, but the majority of Englishmen seem now to regard that war as a blunder, which would have led at the outbreak of the Great War in 1914 to the separation of South Africa from Great Britain had it not been for the election of 1905, one result of which was to bring about the restoration of self-government under the British flag to the Orange Free State and the Transvaal as parts of the Union of South Africa.

It may seem strange that in all these cases the richer and more educated classes should have erred, while the poorer have been shown by the event to have judged more wisely. The causes are explicable, but to explain them and cite parallel phenomena from other countries would require a digression into history for which there is no room here. Summing up the results of this examination of the foreign policy followed by three great democratic countries during the last fifty years, we find that the case of France proves that it was possible for a democracy to follow a consistent policy, the conduct of the details whereof was left in the hands of successive administrations, and safely left because the nation was substantially agreed as to the general lines to be followed. The case of the United States proves that public opinion, which is there omnipotent, is generally right in its aims, and has tended to become wiser and more moderate with the march of the years. The case of Britain shows that the opinion of the bulk of the nation was more frequently approved by results than was the attitude of the comparatively small class in whose hands the conduct of affairs had been usually left. Declarations of the will of the masses delivered at general elections told for good.

There is another way also of reaching a conclusion as to the competence of democracies in this branch of government. Set the results in and for the three countries examined side by side with those attained in and for three other great countries in which no popular clamour disturbed the Olympian heights where sat the monarch and his group of military and civil advisers, controlling foreign policy as respects both ends and means. In Russia, in Austria-Hungary, and in Germany the Emperors and their respective advisers were able to pursue their ends with a steady pertinacity from month to month and year to year. No popular sentiment, no parliamentary opposition, made much difference to them, and in Germany they were usually able to guide popular sentiment. In choosing their means considerations of morality were in none of these countries allowed to prevent a resort to any means that seemed to promise success. Compare the situation in which Russia found herself in 1917, when the autocracy crashed to its fall, and the situations in which Austria and Germany found themselves in October 1918, with those in which that momentous year found the three free countries. The temptations and snares which surround and pervert diplomatic aims and methods in States ruled by oligarchies or despots often differ from the temptations of which popular governments have to beware. But they proved in these cases, and in many others, to have been more dangerous.

In these last few pages Ends rather than Means have been considered, though it is hard to draw a distinction, for most Ends are Means to a larger End; and the facts examined seem to show that in determining Ends the voice of the people must have authority. But what is to be said as to the details of diplomacy in which, assuming the main ends to be determined by the people, a wide choice of means remains open? It has been deemed impossible for the people to know either which means are best suited to the purpose aimed at or, if the people is kept informed of them, to apply those means successfully, for in our days what is told to any people is told to the whole world. So long as each nation strives to secure some gains for itself as against other nations by anticipating its rivals in enterprises, or by forming profitable alliances, or otherwise driving bargains for its own benefit, those who manage the nation's business cannot disclose their action without damaging their chances of success. Hence even the countries that have gone furthest in recognizing popular control have left a wide discretion in the hands of their Ministers or envoys and have set bounds to the curiosity of parliamentary representatives. Must this continue? If it does continue, what security have the people against unwise action or the adoption of dishonourable methods?

One expedient used to overcome this difficulty has been that of a committee of the legislature which can receive confidential communications from a Minister and can bind its members to keep them secret. This is done in the United States, where the Foreign Relations Committee of the Senate, though it cannot dictate to the President (or his Secretary of State), can through its power of inducing the Senate to refuse assent to a treaty exercise a constant and potent influence. So also in France each Chamber has a Commission for foreign affairs. In both countries declarations of war must proceed from the legislature. The committee plan has its defects. No secret known to more than three men remains for long a secret; and a Minister can, if he likes, go a long way towards committing his country before he tells the committee what he is doing, taking of course the chance that he may be disavowed. Sometimes, moreover, action cannot await the approval of a committee, for to be effective it must be immediate.

The voices which in European countries demand the abolition of secret diplomacy and the control by the people of all foreign relations appeal to an incontestable principle, because a nation has every right to deliver its opinion on matters of such supreme importance as the issues of peace and war. The difficulty lies in applying a sound principle to the facts as they have hitherto stood in Europe. If publicity in the conduct of negotiations is to be required, and the mind of the people to be expressed before any commitment is made by its Ministers, there must be a renunciation of such advantages as have been heretofore obtained by international combinations or bargains secretly made with other nations. If, on the other hand, these advantages are to be sought, secrecy must be permitted and discretion granted to Ministers. The risk that secrecy and discretion will be abused will be gradually lessened the more public opinion becomes better instructed on foreign affairs, and the more that legislatures learn to give unremitting attention to foreign policy. In England as well as in America few are the representatives who possess the knowledge needed, or take the trouble to acquire it. It is this, as well as party spirit, which has led Parliamentary majorities to endeavour to support their party chiefs, even when it was beginning to be seen that public opinion was turning against them. If Ministries were to become more and more anxious to keep as close a touch with the feeling of the nation in foreign as they seek to do in domestic affairs, the risk that any nation will be irrevocably entangled in a pernicious course would diminish. So too if there should be hereafter less of a desire to get the better of other nations in acquiring territory or concessions abroad, if a less grasping and selfish spirit should rule foreign policy, fewer occasions will arise in which secret agreements will be needed. The thing now most needed by the people and its representatives is more knowledge of the facts of the outside world with a more sympathetic comprehension of the minds of other peoples. The first step to this is a fuller acquaintance with the history, the economic and social conditions, and the characters of other peoples.

The conclusions to which the considerations here set forth point to are the following:

In a democracy the People are entitled to determine the Ends or general aims of foreign policy.

History shows that they do this at least as wisely as monarchs or oligarchies, or the small groups to whom, in democratic countries, the conduct of foreign relations has been left, and that they have evinced more respect for moral principles.

The Means to be used for attaining the Ends sought cannot be adequately determined by legislatures so long as international relations continue to be what they have heretofore been, because secrecy is sometimes, and expert knowledge is always required.

Nevertheless some improvement on the present system is needed, and the experiment of a Committee deserves to be tried.

Whatever faults modern democracies may have committed in this field of administration, the faults chargeable on monarchs and oligarchies have been less pardonable and more harmful to the peace and progress of mankind.

If the recently created League of Nations is to succeed in averting wars by securing the amicable settlement of international disputes, it must have the constant sympathy and support of the peoples of the states which are its members. That this support should be effectively and wisely given, the peoples must give more attention to foreign affairs and come to know more of them. Ignorance is the great obstacle.

CHAPTER LXII

the judiciary

There is no better test of the excellence of a government than the efficiency of its judicial system, for nothing more nearly touches the welfare and security of the average citizen than his sense that he can rely on the certain and prompt administration of justice. Law holds the community together. Law is respected and supported when it is trusted as the shield of innocence and the impartial guardian of every private civil right Law sets for all a moral standard which helps to maintain a like standard in the breast of each individual. But if the law be dishonestly administered, the salt has lost its savour; if it be weakly or fitfully enforced, the guarantees of order fail, for it is more by the certainty than by the severity of punishment that offences are repressed. If the lamp of justice goes out in darkness, how great is that darkness!

In all countries cases, sometimes civil, but more frequently criminal, arise which involve political issues and excite party feeling. It is then that the courage and uprightness of the judges become supremely valuable to the nation, commanding respect for the exposition of the law which they have to deliver. But in those countries that live under a Rigid Constitution which, while reserving ultimate control to the people, has established various authorities and defined the powers of each, the Courts have another relation to politics, and take their place side by side with the Executive and the Legislature as a co-ordinate department of government. When questions arise as to the limits of the powers of the Executive or of the Legislature, or — in a Federation — as to the limits of the respective powers of the Central or National and those of the State Government, it is by a Court of Law that the true meaning of the Constitution, as the fundamental and supreme law, ought to be determined, because it is the rightful and authorized interpreter of what the people intended to declare when they were enacting a fundamental instrument.1 This function of Interpretation calls for high legal ability, because each decision given becomes a precedent determining for the future the respective powers of the several branches of government, their relations to one another and to the individual citizen.

Capacity and learning, honesty and independence, being the merits needed in a judge, how can these be secured? Three things have to be considered: the inducements offered to men possessing these merits to accept the post, the methods of selecting and appointing persons found to possess them, and the guarantees for the independence of the judges when appointed. The inducements are three: salary, permanence in office, and social status, this last being largely a consequence of the other two. The modes of choice tried have been three: Nomination by the head of the Executive, Election by the Legislature, Election by the Citizens generally at the polls. The differences in the practice of the free governments examined in Part II. yield instructive results.

In France the salaries of the higher judges are low compared to the style of living which a judge is expected to maintain, but as the position is permanent and carries social consideration, men of approved abilities and solid learning are glad to have it The highest Court of Appeal enjoys great respect, and so do the chief judges in the great cities. All are selected by the Executive. Although party influences may sometimes affect the choice, the normally lifelong tenure of the office has practically secured judicial independence. Once, however (in 1879–83) what was called a “purification” of the Bench was effected by the removal of a good many judges whose loyalty to the Republic was suspected, a step which, though possibly justified by special circumstances, set an unfortunate precedent.2

Switzerland pays small salaries both to Federal and to Cantonal judges. All hold office for terms of years, but as they are usually reappointed if they have given satisfaction, the tenure is virtually permanent. The members of the Supreme Federal Court are chosen by the Federal Legislature for six years;1 those of the Cantonal Courts are elected by the people. No one proposes to alter the practice though some disapprove it. It is ancient, and is deemed the natural thing in a democracy. Most of the Cantons are so small that the electors are usually able to estimate the honesty and good sense of a candidate.

In the United States the Federal Judges are appointed by the President with the consent of the Senate, and are irremovable except by impeachment. They receive salaries small in proportion to the income which an eminent counsel can earn at the bar, but the dignity of the office makes the best lawyers willing to accept it. In five of the States the judges are appointed by the State Governor, in two they are chosen by the State legislature, in all the rest they are elected by the people for terms of various lengths, with salaries varying in amount, but almost always insufficient to attract the highest talent. The result has been to give an excellent Supreme Federal Court, a high average of talent in the other Federal Courts, a good set of judges in the States where appointment rests with Governor or Legislature, and in nearly all of the other States judges markedly inferior to the leading counsel who practise before them. In some States it is not only learning and ability but also honesty and impartiality that are lacking. The party organizations which nominate candidates for election for the Bench can use their influence to reward partisans or to place in power persons whom they intend to use for their own purposes. If the results are less bad than might have been expected, this is generally due to the action of the local Bar, which exerts itself to prevent the choice of men whom it knows to be incompetent.

The three British self-governing Dominions — Canada, Australia, and New Zealand — have followed the practice of the Mother Country. In all of them the judges are appointed by the Executive, hold office during good behaviour, i.e. practically for life, and receive salaries sufficient to attract leading lawyers. In all alike the posts are filled by competent men who enjoy the confidence of the community, a fact the more remarkable because the persons appointed have often been party politicians. It is the independence which life tenure gives, and the custom, inherited from England, which prescribes perfect impartiality and abstention from all participation in politics, that have made the judiciary trusted.

Why does popular election which the Swiss do not condemn give bad results in the States of the American Union? Mainly because in the former the matters that come before the Courts are comparatively small, whereas in the latter it may be well worth the while of a great railway or other incorporated company to secure the election of persons who will favour its interests when they become the subjects of litigation, and such a corporation can influence the party organization to nominate the men it wants. In small communities, moreover, such as are nearly all of the Swiss Cantons, a large proportion of the voters have some direct personal knowledge of the candidates, so that no party guidance is needed or would be tolerated, and can watch their behaviour in office, while in communities which count their population by millions the bulk of the voters have no such knowledge, and follow the lead given by the party organizations, each of which has its own friends to reward or axe to grind, and cares more for the subservience than for the merits of a candidate.

It may, however, be asked, Why should popular election produce a worse Bench than appointment by an Executive, seeing that the Executive is in the countries named (except Switzerland) an officer, or a Cabinet, chosen by a political party and disposed to serve its interests. Why then should a Prime Minister be any more likely to make good appointments than is a party organiaztion? If the Boss of an American State party organization is a party man, so is a State Governor, so is the President of the United States himself. The explanation is that the President is responsible to the Nation, and the Governor to his State. Either official would damage himself and his party if he made bad appointments, whereas the party Machine has no official character, and cannot be made responsible for what is legally the act of the voters when they elect a person whom the Machine has put forward as a candidate. The choice is theirs, for they need not have obeyed the Machine. Except in small communities such as boroughs or counties, the average elector has no means of knowing which of several candidates, with names probably all unfamiliar, has the talent needed, or the character, or the special attainments. Law has become a science, and a modern judge needs to know his own science just as much as does a professor of chemistry, the voters being no more fitted to choose the one than the other.

So much for the modes of appointment. As respects salaries and tenure, the moral of the facts stated needs no pointing. Where the inducements offered are scanty, capable men will not offer themselves. Unfortunately the average citizen has not, in some democracies, realized that the qualities needed must be well paid for, nor that a judge who has not to think of his re-election or promotion finds it easier to be independent.

There are three of the countries described in Part III. in which apprehensions are at present entertained regarding the status of the judiciary. In France the power of the Executive to promote men from lower to higher posts is thought to influence the minds of some magistrates who wish to stand well with the ruling party. In the States of the North American Union the displeasure of those eager to see Labour legislation promptly carried out, a displeasure evinced by the proposals for the Recall of judges or of decisions,1 may deter State judges from giving effect in their interpretation of State laws to those provisions of State Constitutions which inhibit the legislatures from interfering with rights of property and freedom of contract. In Australia the creation of a Court of Arbitration empowered to fix rates of wages and conditions of labour has made the selection of a person to discharge this delicate function a matter of keen interest to employers and employed alike, so that the Executive which appoints the judge is liable to be secretly pressed by persons belonging to one or the other class to choose a man whose proclivities they think they know, yet whose moral authority will suffer if those proclivities are believed by the public to have affected the choice.

A review of the judicial branch of government in the countries already examined, suggests, except as regards some States of the American Union, nothing to discredit democratic government, for it has provided justice, civil and criminal, at least as good as did any of the European monarchies or oligarchies, and better than did most of them. In Canada and Australasia public opinion has been vigilant. Barristers promoted from politics to the Bench have, when once they take their seat there, breathed an atmosphere so saturated with the English traditions, now two centuries old, of judicial impartiality and independence that they have very seldom yielded to partisan sympathies or party pressure. It has also been a benefit that in these countries they have been invariably selected from the Bar, with their former associates in which they maintain social relations, undisturbed by political differences, and to whose good opinion they are sensitive. Nor has the Bar been without its influence on the Government of the day in deterring it from appointing, in satisfaction of party claims, persons whose capacity or character fell below the accepted standard.

The new States that lately have been or are now being formed in Europe have not, nor had the republics of Spanish America, the advantage of like traditions and of an equally watchful opinion. In none of the now liberated countries, and least of all in those that had suffered from Turkish tyranny, were the Courts entirely trusted. It is much to be desired that they should regard the organization of the judiciary on a sound basis as one of the most important among the tasks that the creation of constitutional governments presents, seeing that nothing does more for the welfare of the private citizen, and nothing more conduces to the smooth working of free government than a general confidence in the pure and efficient administration of justice between the individual and the State as well as between man and man.

CHAPTER LXIII

checks and balances

That a majority is always right, i.e. that every decision it arrives at by voting is wise, not even the most fervent democrat has ever maintained, seeing that popular government consists in the constant effort of a minority to turn itself by methods of persuasion into a majority which will then reverse the action or modify the decisions of the former majority. Least of all do revolutionaries respect majorities, for they always justify, even in governments based on universal suffrage, the use of force to overthrow what a representative assembly may have decided, declaring that once the admirable result of their action has been seen it will secure general approval. Every people that has tried to govern itself has accordingly recognized the need for precautions against the errors it may commit, be they injurious to the interests of the State as a whole or in the disregard of those natural or primordial rights Which belong to individual citizens. Some sort of safeguard is required. A majority may be very small, or be uninstructed on the particular matter that comes before it, or deceived by those who speak to it, or be under the influence of temporary passion; and whether the action of the majority be directly given by popular vote, or proceed from a representative assembly, a majority vote may fail to express the best will of the people, who may regret to-morrow what was done to-day and blame the ignorance or the passion that misled them or their representatives. Nevertheless, the will of the majority must somehow prevail in the long run, for the acceptance of its decision is the only alternative to an appeal to force. Hence the problem arises: What can be done, while respecting the principle of majority rule, to safeguard the people against the consequences of their own ignorance or impetuosity? History records many a decision whose deplorable results might have been avoided had there been more knowledge, more time for reflection, more opportunity for reconsideration.

The annals of democratic governments largely consist in an account of the various expedients resorted to for this purpose. These have taken two general forms. One is the constitutional restriction of the powers either of a Primary or of a Representative Assembly by imposing on its action certain restrictions which it cannot infringe without transgressing the Constitution, such as directing certain delays to be interposed or certain formalities to be observed before a decision becomes final, or by prescribing a certain majority as necessary for specially important decisions, or, in the case of a representative assembly, by excluding certain subjects from the range of its functions. The other form is by a division of the whole power of the people, entrusting part of it to one, part to another authority. This may take place by making the Executive independent of the Legislature, or by setting up over against the Legislative Assembly (whether Primary or Representative) some other authority, a person or a body whose concurrence is to be required if the action of the Assembly is to have legal effect. The former of these modes may be called that of Checks, the latter that of Balances, each of the two authorities acting as a counterpoise to the other. Twenty-four centuries ago the ancient republics tried both plans, and their experiments have still an interest. The Greeks relied chiefly on Checks, the Romans chiefly on Balances.

In most of the Greek democracies the popular Assembly of the whole body of citizens, exerting a wider sway than belongs to any single body in modern republics, brooked no rival. Unwilling to restrict its powers, the Greeks devised other safeguards. One was the setting apart from the ordinary expressions of their will on current matters certain enactments passed in a specially provided way as being “Laws of the City,” not to be changed except in the same special way, and so coming near to what moderns would call a Rigid Constitution. They could not give due legal protection to the peculiar character of permanence which they desired these Laws to bear, because there was no means of preventing the Assembly from doing what it pleased; and when it passed a “Decree” inconsistent with a “Law” no one could call it to account nor with impunity disregard the “Decree” on the ground that it had, or that he believed it had, transgressed the “Law.” But as the sanction which protected the “Laws” was moral rather than legal, not invalidating the decree, though furnishing a ground for arguing that the decree should not be passed, the Athenians devised two methods for rendering more difficult a transgression of the enactments meant to be specially respected. One was to threaten with a penalty any citizen who should propose to repeal them. This had a certain awe-inspiring influence, but could of course be got round by first repealing the law which imposed the penalty and then proceeding to propose a repeal of the law that had been so entrenched against attack. The other and more ingenious plan was to permit a criminal process to be instituted by any citizen against the person who had induced the Assembly to violate the Law, much as in the seventeenth century in England a minister who had led the Crown into pernicious courses by giving it bad advice could be impeached and punished, or, to use a more familiar illustration, just as in some States of the American Union a saloon-keeper who had supplied to a customer the liquor that intoxicated him could be sued for damages by a person whose property the intoxicated customer had injured. This possibility of prosecution for wilfully misleading the people seems to have had a deterrent effect upon Athenian demagogues.1

The Romans, also unwilling to restrict the powers either of their supreme legislative body, the Comitia, or of their chief executive magistrates, or not knowing how to do so, resorted to the method of Balances, and worked their government by a number of authorities each set over against the other. Wide powers, deemed needed in a State that was always at war, were left to the magistrates, while other authorities were provided who might prevent the abuse of those powers in civil affairs. The Senate balanced the Consuls, the two Consuls balanced one another, the Tribunes by their veto power balanced all the higher magistrates. The Assembly itself could be arrested in its action not only by the Tribunes but by one Consul, for a quaint survival of ancient superstition permitted a Consul to send a message to the Assembly, when summoned at the call of his colleague or of a Tribune, announcing that he was watching the sky 1 for birds that might give omens, favourable or the reverse, to the Assembly. In this case the Assembly could not meet, and its meeting might be delayed from day to day while the piously obstructive Consul continued the search for cheering omens.

The United States has rivalled Rome in the pains taken to divide and subdivide power among various authorities and in the variety of the restrictions imposed upon most of them. The functions of government have been divided into the Legislative, Executive, and Judicial departments. The two branches of the Legislature, the Senate and the House, are balanced against one another, and limited by the veto of the Executive. The Executive is limited by the right of the Senate to disapprove his public service appointments and disallow treaties made by him, while the Judiciary as the interpreter of the Constitution has the function of declaring void any action of the other departments of Government which transgresses the will of the people as set forth in the Constitution. The ultimate fountain of power, Popular Sovereignty, always flows full and strong, welling up from its deep source, but it is thereafter diverted into many channels, each of which is so confined by skilfully constructed embankments that it cannot overflow, the watchful hand of the Judiciary being ready to mend the bank at any point where the stream threatens to break through.

The only checks which France and England and New Zealand have provided are to be found in the existence of Second Chambers, and will be mentioned in the chapter next following.

Without setting forth in detail the methods adopted in other countries, I may proceed to classify the precautions against hasty action under four heads. The first, that of rules regulating the procedure of legislative assemblies, is open to the objection that rules prescribed by the legislature itself, can be by it, if a sovereign body, repealed at its pleasure, destroying thereby the security they seemed to promise. If therefore they are to be effective, they must be placed out of its reach by being included in a Constitutional Instrument which the legislature cannot alter.

A second form of restriction consists in withdrawing from the competence of a legislature certain classes of subjects, reserving these for the direct action of the people themselves, so that if the representative legislature attempts to deal with them, its acts are legally null and void. The outstanding instances of this plan are found in provisions of the Federal Constitution and State Constitutions of the American Union, which reserve many matters for direct action by the people in the form of Constitutional amendments. The defects of this method are that it may prevent the passing of a measure urgently required, for the process of amending the Constitution is inevitably slow, and that it raises questions as to the validity of a law which cannot be promptly settled, for when it is doubtful whether a legislature has exceeded its powers, the question of validity must remain unsettled till decided by the Courts. Thus the legislature is hampered by doubts as to its powers, while the citizen may be embarrassed by not knowing whether or not to obey the challenged law. Despite these inconveniences, the system continues to find favour in America, where it has prevented much unwise action by the legislatures. It is also used in Australia and Canada and in Switzerland, though to a less extent, since neither the Confederation nor the Cantons distrust their representatives as the citizens do in many American States.

Thirdly, some nations have entrusted to the Executive the right of rejecting bills passed by the legislature. This plan, adopted in the American Federation and also in all but one of the several States of the Union, is possible only in those democracies which choose their chief executive magistrate by a popular vote for a comparatively short term of office, so that he, equally with the legislature, holds a direct mandate from the people and is responsible to them. Democratic principles would forbid the vesting of a veto in a hereditary king, or even in a president elected for life. The British Crown virtually parted with its right of dissent from the Houses two centuries ago, though that right has never been extinguished by statute.1 In the United States the veto of the President (in federal legislation) as also that of the State Governor (in State legislation) is valued as curbing the tendency of legislatures to pass faulty measures either from a demagogic purpose to curry favour with some large section of citizens, or at the bidding of powerful business interests which can get at the individual representatives or at the local party leaders who command a majority in the legislature. So largely and so beneficially is it used in the States that the Executive often gains credit with the people by his vetoes, and points, when he seeks re-election, to the list of bad bills which he has killed. The existence of this power has formed in State legislatures the habit of passing, in reliance on the Governor's “lethal chamber,” measures they know to be bad, thus contriving to earn merit with some person, or some section of their constituents, without injury to the general public.

A fourth way of restraining the legislature is found in submitting its acts to popular vote. This is the so-called Referendum, applied in Switzerland both in the Confederation and in the Cantons, and in many American States. It is separately examined in the chapter which deals with Direct Popular Legislation. On the direct action of the people by the Initiative no check is placed, but the instances in which the Swiss have erred in the use of this unlimited power seem to have been extremely few. They are an extraordinary people. The results in America are discussed elsewhere.1

Lastly there is the method of subjecting measures passed by the popular representative assembly to revision or rejection by another legislative body. This is the so-called Second Chamber scheme, preferable to a simple veto because it provides opportunities for a second discussion and possible improvement of a measure. It is so extensively used in democracies as to demand treatment in a separate chapter.

It is interesting to observe that in some of the countries mentioned the checks and balances which exist, or have existed, were not devised as safeguards, but were incident to the process of transition from monarchy or oligarchy to democracy, the old powers exercised by the Few being allowed to subsist in a reduced form side by side with the new powers conceded to the Many. This was the origin of the English House of Lords, now acting as a Second Chamber, which is a continuation of the ancient Great Council of the Nation (Magnum Concilium) whence the representative House of Commons was evolved, as a section thereof, in the thirteenth century.1 So the Second Chamber of Sweden survives as one of the old Four Chambers of the Four Orders (nobles, clergy, burgesses, and peasants) which had lasted down to our own time. Most of the Senates in modern countries have been deliberately contrived as checks on the popular House, in imitation of ancient Rome or of England. The veto of the President and the State Governor in the United States was suggested by the power, already disused long before 1787, which had formerly belonged to the British Crown. The restrictions on legislative action contained in American Constitutions were new, but they arose naturally as involved in the creation of Rigid Constitutions and along with the arrangements of a Federal system which allotted certain powers to the National Government while leaving others to the several States.

The need for safeguards against imprudent action in a democracy, and the practical utility of such safeguards in any particular case, depends largely on the character of each people. As there are individual men so impatient or impulsive that they do well to make it their rule never to post a letter written in anger till they have shown it to a judicious adviser or re-read it after twelve hours, while there are others whose coolness or caution renders such a rule superfluous, so likewise there are peoples, such as the Swiss, who can dispense with some of the safeguards others have found needful.

How to find a means of restraining the hasty impulses either of the whole people in a primary assembly or of a representative legislature has always been a difficult problem, because a balance has to be struck between the need for caution on the one hand and the need for promptitude on the other. Checks may work ill by giving too much weight to minorities, or by retarding action when speed is essential. Delays and obstacles placed in the way of the majority's will may tend to exasperation, and exasperation may induce violence or even revolution. The United States has gone farther than any other popular government in limiting and balancing the powers of each organ of government, and has doubtless escaped thereby some dangers while suffering some inconveniences. Britain and the British self-governing Dominions have followed a different path, and provide, except to some small extent in the Constitutions of Australia and Canada, few effective checks.1 No one thought of imposing restrictions on the House of Commons. Having won popular favour by extorting freedom from the Crown, it was allowed to reach a power with which it has never been willing to part, though the conditions of England have made its legal omnipotence a very different thing from what that was eighty years ago.

Though experience shows that no nation has ever been cool enough and wise enough to dispense with some restraint on its own impulses, the tide of fatalistic faith in the sovereignty of the people tends in nearly every country to sweep away such checks as exist, replacing them by no others; and the peoples who most need to be protected against themselves are the least disposed to provide such protection.

Here the spirit of Faith in the people and the spirit of Liberty part company. The former is content to let a majority have its way forthwith. The latter, not denying that in the end the majority must prevail, is concerned to secure for a minority the right of being fully heard, and for the people due opportunities for reflection.

CHAPTER LXIV

second chambees

Those modern thinkers and statesmen, who have held that every well-framed constitution should contain some check upon the power of the popular assembly have usually found it in the creation of a second assembly capable of criticizing, amending, and, if need be, rejecting measures passed by the other Chamber. It was, however, to no such doctrine that the national assemblies of the European Middle Ages owe their division into several Estates: three in France, four in Sweden, two in Hungary and England. Neither had the idea of this restriction on democratic haste emerged in the ancient world, though the Councils of Greek republics and the Senate at Rome, however different their functions, may be cited as showing some benefits which the existence of two bodies exercising constitutional powers may provide. This duality may be found as far back as the early ages of Greece, in which the Homeric poems show us a primary assembly of the whole people, with a council of the wise elders1 which holds its preliminary deliberations. With this one may compare what Tacitus tells of the primitive Germans, among whom the chiefs met in a small council to consider matters of minor importance, and held a preliminary debate on those graver questions which were to be brought before the Assembly.2 When the first constitutions of the American States were drafted, a Second Chamber was deliberately introduced in imitation of the British Parliament with its two Houses. The example has been followed in most of the countries that have given themselves frames of more or less popular government in modern times, including not only those which in the Old World have been influenced by the British model of Cabinet and Parliamentary government, but those also which in the Western hemisphere have taken the United States as their pattern. France, both in 1830 and 1875, created two, not regarding the dictum of Sièyés, who is said to have asked: “Of what use will a Second Chamber be? If it agrees with the Representative House, it will be superfluous, if it disagrees, mischievous,” a dilemma which recalls that attributed to the Khalif Omar when he permitted the destruction of the library at Alexandria, “ If the books agree with the Koran, they are not needed; if they differ, they ought to perish.”1

In European States (as also in Iceland) except Greece, Bulgaria, Finland, Esthonia2 and Jugo-Slavia the legislature consists of two Chambers.

The aim pursued in all these countries was substantially the same, viz. that of creating a legislative authority whose function it should be to review measures passed by the popular House in such a way as:

To prevent undue haste in the passing of important laws by securing a period during which the opinion of the people regarding a law may be duly formed and expressed.

To subject every project of law to a revision which might introduce improvements in form or substance.

While in some countries there were statesmen who desired for the Second Chamber powers practically equal to those of the “popular” House, it was, as a rule, intended that the latter should predominate.

Methods of Creating a Second Chamber

Many are the ways in which nations have constructed their Second Chambers. To classify these let us begin by dividing Governments into the Federal and the Unitary or non-Federal.

In Federal States the need for providing a representation of the several communities which make up the federation suggested the creation of a Chamber to which each component entity should return members, and this naturally became a Second Chamber for the whole nation. The United States led the way in creating its Federal Senate, and its example has been followed by Switzerland, Australia, the Union of South Africa, Argentina, Brazil and some other American republics. This plan is simple, and has the great advantage of securing for the Second Chamber that weight which the representation of important communities such as the Swiss Cantons or the American and Australian States carries with it.1

Unitary countries have adopted one or other of the following methods: Some have assigned to the head of the Executive the right of nominating to sit in the Second Chamber any persons he thinks fit. Others, while giving nominations to the Executive, have restricted its choice to persons above a certain age or belonging to specified categories, e.g. men who have filled certain high offices, or who possess a certain amount of property, or who come from a titled aristocracy, or who occupy positions which qualify them to express the wishes of important professions. Thus the Italian Senators are nominated for life by the Crown, i.e. by the Ministry. Spain, and Hungary before the destruction of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, had Chambers with some hereditary peers and other persons chosen by electorates composed of persons holding property of a prescribed value. The Legislative Councils in four of the Australian States are elected by voters possessing a (low) property qualification.2 Another method is to vest the election in the members of various local bodies, or persons selected from them, such as are the “ Electoral Colleges,” created from the Councils of the Departments and of the Arrondissements, and from the Communes in France (see Vol. I. p. 259). This plan, adopted also in Sweden and Portugal, has been termed “indirect election,” or “popular election in the second degree,” because the electors have been themselves elected by bodies chosen by the citizens.

Finally, in many countries the members of the Second Chamber are directly elected by the people on the same suffrage as members of the other or “more popular” House, but in and by larger constituencies, so as to provide a Second Chamber less numerous than the First. This is the method used in all the States of the North American Union, in each of which the State Senate, a body much smaller than the State Assembly or House of Representatives, is elected on manhood (or universal) suffrage, but in larger electoral districts. Federal Senators also are now (since 1914) elected by the people on a general vote taken over each State, and so are the members of the Senate in the Australian Federation (see Vol. II. p. 190, ante). Direct popular election has also been adopted by the Czecho-Slovak Republic for its Senate, the electors being over twenty-six and the candidates required to be over forty-five years of age, and the term of office eight years.

In the functions and powers allotted to Second Chambers there is also a diversity so great that I must be content with indicating the three classes into which these assemblies fall, viz.:

• 1. Those which are equal in power, both legally and practically, to the First, or “Popular” House. These include the Second Chambers elected on universal (or manhood) suffrage, such as the Senates of American States, the Senate of the Australian Commonwealth, and the Federal Senate of the United States. The powers of the latter are indeed greater than those of the House of Representatives, for it is not only a branch of the legislature but also a sort of Council to the President, advising and to some extent controlling him.
• 2. Those whose functions are legally equivalent, or nearly so, to those of the First Chamber, but whose power is practically inferior, perhaps much inferior. To this class belong the Chambers of France, Italy, Belgium, and most other European States, as well as those of New Zealand, the Dominion of Canada, and the Union of South Africa. Among these the French Senate is the strongest and that of Canada among the weakest.
• 3. Those whose powers are legally as well as practically slender, such as is the Senate in Holland and the Lagthing in Norway.1

The difference in functions between the two Houses turns chiefly on finance. An assembly not directly chosen by the tax-payers does not seem entitled to equal power with one directly elected as respects the raising of taxes and the appropriation of their proceeds to particular purposes, and since the control of revenue is the means of controlling the Executive, it follows that in countries where Ministers hold office at the pleasure of Parliament, such as France, Britain, and the British self-governing Dominions, it is the Popular House whose vote practically instals and displaces them.

Broadly speaking, the powers of the Second Chamber vary with the mode of its formation. They are widest where it is directly elected, narrowest where it is nominated or hereditary. The more it is Popular the more authority, the less it is Popular the less authority will it possess. Where not directly elected, it is always under the disadvantage of fearing to displease the popular House, lest the latter should seek to get rid of its resistance by rousing clamour among the people against it. The test of effective power is this: What happens when the two Houses disagree and each seeks to persist in its own view?

Now let us return to the methods of composing the Second House, and see which works best in practice.

None of the systems enumerated has altogether approved itself. Direct election by universal suffrage has doubtless the merit of securing for the Second Chamber a representative quality equal to that of the other Chamber. But in doing so it inevitably creates a competitive claim to equal authority. Springing directly from the people, and giving to each of its members this advantage over members of the larger House, that inasmuch as he is chosen by a larger electoral district he may claim to represent a greater volume of opinion, it is sure to become a rival of the First Chamber. The plan has, moreover, another fault. If the Second House has been elected at the same time as the larger House, it is likely to be controlled by the same political party, in which case its value as a moderating influence disappears. If, on the other hand, one of the two has been elected either earlier or later, whichever House has last come from the people will claim to be the true exponent of the people's mind. Moreover, the men who compose the two Houses will — an age limit makes no practical difference — have been drawn from the same class, so no new element of knowledge or wisdom is brought in to serve the nation. In the States of the American Union the Senates are no better than the Houses of Assembly; indeed, where corruption prevails the Senates may be worse, because as their members are fewer in number each member's vote is better worth buying and fetches a higher price. In Australia the Federal Senate, though smaller, is inferior to the House in the quality of its membership, because the abler and more ambitious men seek to enter the latter, from which Ministers are more frequently drawn. Nevertheless it asserts its equality. Little has been gained for that country except indeed that second consideration of Bills which their passage through another House implies, for the so-called “ mental outfit “ of the two Chambers is the same, or differs to the disadvantage of the Senate.

The plan of nomination by the Executive is even less to be commended, because members seem to be usually selected for party reasons; sometimes, as in Canada, not merely for the sake of securing for the Ministry a majority in the Second Chamber but also in order to reward its elderly supporters, who, weary of courting constituencies, gladly subside into a dignified armchair. There are countries in which secretly rendered political services or liberal contributions to party funds are believed to open the door of the Chamber to those whose merits the public had failed to discover. Election on a restricted franchise exposes the Chamber to the charge of being a class body, habitually opposed to the popular will. Election by Colleges drawn from local authorities has given to France a capable Senate, but it has brought party politics into the popular elections of those authorities themselves. Candidates seeking to enter a Departmental Council announce themselves as party candidates, and party organizations work for them, so each local body comes to be divided on partisan lines prescribed by national issues which have little or nothing to do with its proper functions. As in the United States the choice of Federal Senators by State legislatures helped to stamp upon those bodies almost from the first a partisan character, so the Departmental Councils in France are now more affected by national party influences than they might have been if a share in electing the Senate had not been assigned to them. Thus every method of choice has proved to have its defects, and nowhere have the results attained given complete satisfaction, a conclusion which does not in the least condemn the bicameral system in principle, for if no Second Chamber is perfect, neither is any First Chamber perfect. For each country the question is not whether it has got the perfection it desires, but whether it would not fare worse without some such addition to, or check upon, its popular House as a Second Chamber provides.

The reason which has made it more difficult to construct a Second Chamber than a “First” or “popular” Chamber is that the latter can be, and now is almost everywhere, created by direct election on a very wide suffrage. The application of this method has become a part of modern democratic theory, because it is supposed to be required by the fundamental dogma of Popular Sovereignty, and it has therefore led in America and Australia to the election of their Senates by universal suffrage. The objections to its application are (as already observed) that it creates two rival Chambers, and that they will be composed of the same kind of men. Why then have two? Cannot the will of the people be fully expressed through one? Accordingly, the most “advanced” theorists of our time seek to destroy Second Chambers altogether, while those who, because they have less absolute faith in the wisdom of the multitude, desire to check its impulses, are driven to look for some plan, other than direct popular election, by which a restraining authority can be created. But whichever way they turn they are stopped by the democratic dogma. Nomination by a Ministry, indirect election by local authorities, election in constituencies limited by property qualification, even election by the more popular House itself, all offend against that dogma. The ultimate issue comes to be whether the principle of direct and absolute Popular Sovereignty is incompatible with, or can be so far departed from as to admit, the imposition upon the legislature of such checks as will ensure that the deliberate will of the people itself shall be fully ascertained, after opportunity for deliberation has been afforded, before the final determination of any momentous question. If it is desired to make that departure from the dogma aforesaid by establishing a Second Chamber qualified to impose the check, such a Chamber must have some basis for its authority. What is this basis to be?

Functions and Powers of a Second Chamber

Let me now turn from this survey of the plans that have been tried and the results they have yielded to consider the Second Chamber problem in the light not only of experience but of the changed conditions under which popular government has to be carried on in the twentieth century. It is a double problem. What was said in the last preceding chapter makes it superfluous to restate the arguments used to prove that a Second Chamber is needed, so we may go straight to the two questions: If there is to be a Second Chamber how ought it to be constructed, i.e. how should its members be chosen? and, What powers ought to be assigned toit?

It may be said that the structure of the Chamber will depend upon the powers which it is meant to exercise. This is true. The powers will affect the structure. But so will the structure affect the powers. In discussing either branch of the problem we have to think of the other. If the powers are to be wide, the Chamber must be so constructed as to be fit, i.e. strong enough, to exercise them. If it is built upon a foundation not solid enough to bear a heavy weight the powers must be slender, otherwise it will totter under a shock. Bearing this in mind, let us begin with the Structure.

If we try to generalize some conclusions from the experiments heretofore made in divers countries, there will appear to be three sources from which a Second Chamber has in the past derived, or can now derive, the authority without which it would not be worth having. The first of these grounds is traditional respect felt for it by the people. If it has a long and dignified history, if its members belong to a powerful class which still enjoys social distinction, it may hold its place by the deference accorded to the persons who compose it. This deference maintained the House of Magnates in Hungary and the House of Lords in England, until the latter, in which both the ancient parties had been strong down till the middle of last century, passed so entirely under the control of one political party that it incurred the constant hostility of the other, its social status being at the same time rapidly lowered by the very large additions made to its number. Respect for antiquity has everywhere declined in our time, whose ways of thinking do not favour the maintenance either of time-honoured traditions or of any form of social deference.

The second ground of authority an assembly may enjoy comes from its representative character. If it is chosen by the people, it is deemed to speak the mind of the people and to have the weight of the people behind it. Upon this foundation the Senates of the several American States, whose members receive scant respect as individuals, and the Councils of the Swiss Cantons have been made to rest. Similarly, though to a slighter extent, the Second Chambers formed by Indirect or Secondary election, such as those of France, Denmark and (partially) Belgium, feel themselves, though weaker than the First Chambers because not the direct choice of the people, yet able, especially if adorned by men of talent, to exert considerable influence. Where, as is usually the case, the term of office is longer than that prescribed for the First Chamber, the Second Chamber draws some strength from the ampler experience of its members, but is in so far weaker as its representative authority has suffered by the lapse of time, since it seems to reflect the past rather than the present mind of the people.

The third ground is the personal merit and intellectual eminence of the members of the Second Chamber. If it were possible to discover in the nation, outside their popular First House, one hundred of the ablest men in the nation, men of experience and distinction in their several callings and also possessed of political knowledge and sound judgment, and to stock a Second Chamber with these men, it may be thought that the influence of their tested characters and personal eminence would compensate for the absence of popular election and would make their debates and decisions carry weight with the country. This does in fact happen, but to no great extent, with the Senates of Italy, Belgium, and Spain. For the best example of what authority intellectual power coupled with the glamour of tradition may give to an assembly, we must go back two thousand years to the long and splendid career of a body which was not elected, was not (in strictness) a Legislature, and cannot be classed as a Second House, because there was no First House but only the whole body of citizen voters set over against it1 The Roman Senate may well claim to have been the most successful of all the councils that have ruled in any state. It consisted, during the later Republic, of persons nominated, virtually for life,2 by two magistrates of the highest rank and reputation called Censors, elected once in five years. Custom prescribed that every person who had held one of certain high elective offices, including of course the consulship and praetorship, should be nominated to a seat in it and left the choice of the rest to the discretion of the Censors. Thus the Senate had two sources of authority, the memory of centuries during which it had guided the fortunes of the State, and the high distinction and official service of a large proportion of its members. Sustained by this traditional reverence it survived the popular assembly and popular freedom itself to become a passive instrument of the Emperor's power, retaining a legal status which was sometimes usefully turned to account, and so lived on for more than fourteen centuries, till at the fall (in a. d. 1453) of the New Rome on the Bosphorus, all that remained of Roman greatness in the East was replaced by a brutal tyranny.

Three theories have been and are held of the functions of a Second Chamber.

• 1. One is that it should have all the powers of the First or Popular House. We have, however, seen that such powers will not be granted to it unless it is directly elected, and the objections to two directly elected Houses confronting one another have been already stated. To make it the equal of the First Chamber is to invite it to contend for an equal right to popular support.
• 2. The second view is that it should be subordinated in financial legislation to the Popular House (and consequently should not be able to displace a Ministry), but should be for other kinds of legislation on the same footing. According to this theory it will be entitled not only to initiate bills, but also to amend and possibly reject bills sent up from the latter, though it will recognize that in a trial of strength it may prove the weaker.
• 3. The third is that its competence should be confined to the modest function of revising Bills passed by the “ Popular “ House, i.e. of suggesting amendments, and perhaps of recommending modifications of detail in financial proposals, but without power to reject or substantially alter a measure when returned to it by the Popular House in the form which the latter has approved. Let us take each of these three views in its probable working.

By common consent one of the functions of any Second Chamber would be that of revising the Bills brought to it from the more popular House. It is a great convenience to any Ministry passing a Bill to have an opportunity of setting right in another House mistakes or omissions overlooked in the House where the Bill originated, and the criticism of fresh minds, dealing with the measure in a calmer atmosphere, may correct various mistakes committed or overlooked. Though it is difficult to fix the extent to which revision should go, we may take it that those who hold this last view think that the Second Chamber must not enter on a conflict with the First, but submit after having made its protest. Note, however, a probable result. Were this view of a Second Chamber's functions to prevail, and revision be taken in the narrower sense of the term, such a body would become little more than a group of legal experts, a seat in which would not attract persons of ability and distinction. It would not constitute an effective check, even for the purposes of delaying hasty legislation, and the country might almost as well be without a Second Chamber.

If, however, the second view be adopted, and the Second Chamber be set up for the purpose of resisting ill-considered or unwise action on the part of the First House, the question arises: How far may such resistance go? How far may the material provisions of a Bill be altered? Alteration easily passes into practical rejection. Rejection is permitted to the Senate not only in the United States and in Australia, but also in France and Italy and Canada, though in these last the power is sparingly and cautiously exercised. Can it be refused to a Chamber which is to justify its existence by delaying action until the people have had full time for considering vital issues? Can financial questions be entirely excluded from its competence? Almost any change may be included in a measure professing to have objects primarily financial, and measures virtually revolutionary may thus be carried through in connection with the raising and the appropriation of public funds.

If the Second Chamber receives the right of offering some resistance, be it greater or smaller, to the First House, by what means are the differences between them to be adjusted? Five modes for reaching a decision have been suggested:

• 1. One mode is to fix a time after which the Second Chamber must accept any Bill passed a second (or third) time which the Second Chamber has rejected.
• 2. The two Houses may meet as one and he difference be determined by their joint vote after debate.
• 3. The votes taken in each House separately may be added together and the combined majority taken as decisive.
• 4. The Legislature may be dissolved and the Bill again voted on by both Houses after the general election, and ultimately by the Houses sitting together. This plan exists in the Australian Commonwealth.
• 5. A certain number of members of each House may be chosen to form a Joint Conference Committee, and the matter be settled by their vote after discussion.
• 6. The question may be referred to the whole people to be voted on by them just as is a Constitutional Amendment in an American State or a matter submitted to popular Referendum in Switzerland.

Which of these methods of settlement should be adopted in any particular State would depend upon the population of the country, the respective numbers of the two Houses, and other local conditions. In France, Switzerland, the United States and some other countries no constitutional provision for terminating a dispute exists. One or other House gives way, in France usually the Senate, in the United States more frequently the House of Representatives.

Reasons Which in our Time Increase the need for a Second Chamber

Before setting out the conclusions to which an examination of the two interdependent question of the Structure and the Powers of a Second Chamber seems to point, there is a further ground, besides those already mentioned, for creating a Second Chamber, a further value which such a body may possess.

A previous chapter has described the dissatisfaction with its representative Legislature which nearly every free people has come to feel; and I have sought to explain the causes which have produced the alleged decline in the quality and the consequent decline in the authority of legislatures. A decline in quality is not likely to be remedied so long as the conditions of membership in the Popular House remain so toilsome and exacting as they have become within the last thirty years, even in those European countries where the post of a representative is more attractive than it has been in the United States or Canada, in Australia or New Zealand. A French deputy is required to render to his constituents services that are incessant, laborious, often even humiliating. An English member is now expected to be constantly occupied in delivering speeches outside Parliament, on non-political as well as political topics, and, if he be fairly rich, is also expected to subscribe considerable sums to many objects connected with his constituency: his independence has been reduced, for party discipline has grown stricter, while the fatigue of elections recurring at least once in five years, is far greater than formerly. Hence many men exceptionally qualified for public service but who are no longer young and strong, or who are deficient in fluency of speech or other popular arts, do flot offer themselves as Candidates. If their talents can be made useful to the nation, it must be by placing them in a different kind of assembly, such as a Second Chamber not popularly elected, or in which the pressure coming from constituents is less heavy.

We have already seen that the two defects most frequently charged upon legislative bodies in our time are the following:

• 1. Legislatures contain too little of the stores of knowledge, wisdom, and experience which each country possesses.
• 2. Legislatures are liable to fall under the control of one political party disposed to press through, in a hasty or tyrannical spirit, measures conceived in the interests of that party or of a particular class in the community, often without allowing sufficient time for full debate, sometimes even by means of an organization of the ruling majority which binds all its members to support whatever measures have been adopted by the larger part of that majority. Where this happens it is not the legislature as a whole that governs, but a majority of a majority which may frequently be a minority of the whole body.1

Taken together, these defects are a danger to democratic government If a nation proceeds on the principle not only that the people are always right, but that their directly elected representatives are always competent to carry out in an efficient way the people's will, even when its action has been most hasty, then of course no check and little revising skill are needed. Or if, again, it be held that the harm caused by the errors of a representative body is less than the harm which would result from any attempt to delay its action, then again there need be no talk of a Second Chamber. But unless this view prevails, there must be some means for correcting the defects aforesaid, which tend to grow more dangerous because the functions thrust upon governments are becoming more numerous and complex, so that greater and greater special knowledge and skill are required to discharge them. More and more do they demand not only technical attainments, especially in the economic sphere, but also that power of steady and penetrating thinking not often present in the average legislator. The consequence is either that legislation and administration decline or that they fall into the hands of permanent officials constituting that sort of bureaucracy whose domination orthodox democracy denounces. Unless a nation is to lag behind its competitors it must rely upon a larger and stronger staff of officials to supply the defects of legislatures, or power will pass from it to those competing nations whose better-planned institutions are more practically efficient.

It has begun to be perceived that the existing legislative machinery of most countries does not sufficiently provide for the study of economic and social problems in a directly practical spirit by those on whom the duty falls of passing into law measures dealing with them, because legislatures incessantly occupied with party strife and with the supervision of the Executive in its daily work of administration have not the time, even if a sufficient number of their members have the capacity, for such investigation.

These considerations suggest that where such defects exist, with little prospect of curing them by improving the quality of directly elected legislatures,1 a remedy may be found in the creation of a Second Chamber into which men might be gathered who are eminent by their ability and the services they have rendered to the nation or to the district in which they reside, men who have gained experience in various forms of public work, such as local government and the permanent civil service at home or abroad, or who possess special knowledge of important branches of national life, as for instance agriculture, commerce, manufacturing industry, finance, education, or who have by travel and study acquired a grasp of foreign affairs and the general movements of the world. Such a Chamber might be made a kind of reservoir of special knowledge and ripened wisdom to be added to whatever knowledge and wisdom have already been gathered into the more popular House. Place might be found in it for persons representing the great professions, such as scientific research, medicine, law, engineering, though, of course, it ought not to be a mere aggregate of specialists, but predominantly composed of men familiar with public life and capable of dealing with political questions in a practical spirit, for the eminent man of science or man of letters is not always judicious, nor even cool and open-minded, when he approaches politics. No assembly can escape partisanship, but a calm and impartial spirit in a large proportion of its members would moderate that tendency in the whole body, and go far to secure popular confidence. The function of such a body in a country governed by Universal Suffrage would be not to aim at equal power with the Popular House but to approach all questions with as much as possible of a judicial mind and temper, recognizing its responsibility to the people, and resisting the Popular House only when there was good reason to believe that the matter in dispute had been hastily or rashly dealt with. It should not persist in opposition to whatever could be shown to be the people's will, but be content with trying to comprehend and give effect to that will when duly expressed, endeavouring to inform and influence the people through debates which would be conducted under freer conditions than is always possible in a large representative assembly. It would provide a forum in which foreign policy, seldom adequately handled in popular Chambers, might be dealt with at moments when the larger Assembly had no time to spare for them. Its Committees might study and report upon, either alone or in conjunction with Committees of the other House, questions of a non-partisan character upon which legislation seemed to be needed, and might prepare measures which would pass the more readily because proceeding from an authority not associated with one political party. In this way the labours of the Executive might be aided or relieved, and the longer term of service, say from six to nine years, assigned to its members would enable them to acquire an experience helpful in this branch of its work.1

If such a Second Chamber be desirable, how could it be created? Clearly not by direct popular election, which would tend to make it a mere replica of the First Chamber. Possibly by some one of the forms of Indirect Election previously referred to such as that used in Franca If this method were disapproved on the ground that it might create a Chamber scarcely less partisan than the Popular House, and not much more certain to represent the special qualities and attainments which a Second Chamber ought to possess, other expedients might be tried. One would be that of election by the First House divided for that purpose into local groups,1 and electing only a certain number of persons in each year, another that of Selection by a Commission appointed for that purpose, exercising by the appointment and in the name of the people a function resembling that of the Roman Censors.

The principle of making a Second Chamber strong and respected solely or mainly by the quality of its members and by the reputation their careers have gained for them, deserves to be considered by any nation which does not feel bound to press democratic principles to their full logical consequences. Let us imagine a small Selective Commission of men generally respected and trusted by the best opinion of their fellow-citizens to be specially appointed by the Legislature for the purpose of selecting persons fitted by ability, experience, knowledge of affairs — including of course high ex-officials — to sit in a Second Chamber for a term of not less than six or nine years. Such a Commission of Selection, created and renewed from time to time under the provisions of a permanent law, might choose, on principles and lines laid down in that law to guide their action, the persons who are to sit in the Chamber. The Commission ought to be a small (and as far as possible a non-partisan) body, both for the sake of fixing responsibility upon its members and in order to permit them to discuss freely and confidentially the qualifications of the persons to be chosen for the Chamber: and it might be desirable that most, though probably not all, of its members should be drawn from the existing Chambers, as they would have exceptional opportunities for knowing where the ablest and fairest minds among men engaged in public affairs were to be found. However conscientious and impartial the Commissioners might be they would be faced with one task of special difficulty. Capable and trusted men may be found if only experience, capacity, and character have to be regarded. But as the Chamber must be so composed as not to fall under the permanent control of one political party, for that would impair the moral influence on public opinion desired for it, some regard must be had not only to the eminence and wisdom of the persons to be selected, but also to the political opinions they hold, for if the Selectors should, however innocently, create a Chamber in which one party was evidently predominant, other parties would complain of unfair treatment, the prospects of success for the Chamber would be clouded and its influence be discredited at the outset. Probably, therefore, the safest method which a Selecting Commission could follow would be to assign to each political party, in fair proportion to its strength in the “more popular” House, a certain number of the persons possessing the merits which marked them out for selection, and then add to these a number of others who were not avowed adherents of any section of opinion, but, being also eminent in their several ways, were known as men of impartial and independent minds, fitted to hold the balance fairly between parties, and to exercise an unbiassed judgment on each issue as it arose. In some such way as this it might be possible to create a Chamber which, starting without anything like a large predetermined majority for any particular party, would be accepted by the people as entitled to speak with the authority which belongs to knowledge and experience.1 But so hard would it be to create a Selecting Commission not only capable of doing a work so delicate, but also sure to be generally recognized as having done it in an honest and impartial spirit, that one cannot be surprised to find that the experiment is still untried.

Were any plan of this nature proposed, the old question would recur, whether in a democratic country a Chamber so chosen would be allowed the powers necessary to attract to it men of distinction, and necessary also to render it an effective part of the constitutional machinery. It might be decried as unresponsive, because not by direct election responsible, to popular sentiment. Only at rare moments, such as was that in which the American Constitutional Convention of 1787 met, are the people disposed to forgo any part of their power for the sake of their security. Thus it happens that the very conditions which make a moderating Second Chamber desirable are those which prevent its creation. Though the dangers which used to be feared from oligarchies of rank and wealth have been passing away in free countries, though nobody now ventures to defy public opinion, though it is against new perils that precautions are needed to–day, it still seems unlikely that any people could be induced to feel so much self-distrust or exercise so much self-restraint as the delegating of part of its authority would involve. Yet further experience of the defects of existing legislatures and of the undue control exercised over them by party or class organizations, may some day enforce the call for the safeguards a Second Chamber could best provide. Unfortunately the time when safeguards are most required is the time when they are least likely to be provided.

CHAPTER LXV

direct legislation by the people

No feature of modern democracy better deserves study than the methods recently introduced for enabling the whole body of citizens to enact laws by their own direct action; and this for three reasons.

These methods are a return to the earliest form free government took in the Primary Assemblies of ancient nations, such as the Greek and Italic and Phoenician republics. They witness to a distrust of the representative system of government, which had been for a long while the only form employed in large countries, and was deemed to be in them not merely inevitable, but to have marked a long step forward in free government. This latest novelty, having been approved by the experience of some communities, being warmly advocated in others, and seeming to indicate the line which changes in popular government are likely to follow, well deserves to be examined.

As the chapters on Switzerland and the United States have described the working in those countries of the Referendum and Initiative, this chapter need do no more than summarize the results which these two institutions as there worked have given, and state briefly the general arguments which commend and the objections which dissuade their introduction elsewhere.

The movement of opinion towards the direct action of the whole people in legislation springs from two sources, one theoretic, the other practical.

The theoretic source is to be found in the dogma of Popular Sovereignty, very ancient in its legal form, for it goes back to the law of Rome, but in its modern garb fascinating and familiar from the days of Rousseau. It is fervently preached both on the European Continent and in the United States by enthusiasts who hold not only that all power belongs by Nature and of right to the People, but that it is truly and effectively their power only when exercised by them directly, not through persons chosen to represent them, for the so-called mandat imperatif by which the people instruct their representatives how to vote on their behalf has been found insufficient and in practice unworkable. The water must be drawn fresh from the spring among the rocks, not from the brook in its lower and perhaps polluted course.

The other or practical source is that disappointment with and distrust of legislative bodies which, more or less evident in all free countries, has reached its maximum in the United States. In many States the people, balked in repeated efforts to cure the faults of those bodies, have assumed the power to review their action by subjecting acts passed by the legislature to a popular vote of approval or rejection, and have also authorized a prescribed number of citizens to prepare and submit to such a vote Bills to be enacted without any intervention on the part of the legislature. It is this sense of an actual evil that has helped forward the movement beyond the Atlantic, whereas in Europe its strength has been chiefly drawn from abstract doctrine.

Decisions of the people may have their value for other purposes, also. Where a legislature consists of two Chambers, and differences of opinion arise between them, each persisting in its own view, then, unless the Constitution provides that the voice of one of the Chambers shall prevail against that of the other, a means of deciding between them may be found in submitting the law, or those parts of it on which the Chambers differ, to a vote of the whole people. This is now done in the Australian Commonwealth, is talked of in Norway and Belgium, finds a place in the new Constitution of Germany, and has been suggested as an expedient fit to be employed in Britain. There are also cases in which the nature of a law proposed makes it specially desirable that the wishes of the citizens should be so directly expressed upon it as to ensure their cordial support of its enforcement if enacted. A familiar instance is found in proposals to restrict the sale of intoxicating liquors. Legislatures have sometimes, either for the reasons just mentioned or to relieve themselves of responsibility, referred such questions to popular vote in a State or a city.

Direct Popular Legislation exists in Switzerland and in many States of the North-American Union, and that in two forms. One is the Referendum, i.e. submission to popular vote not only of amendments to the Constitution but also of ordinary laws passed by the Legislature. In some Swiss cantons all laws are required to be thus submitted — this is the Obligatory or Compulsory Referendum — in other cantons and in the Confederation, and also in the American States, the submission of a law takes place only at the demand of a prescribed number of citizens. This is the Optional Referendum.

The other form called Initiative is the proposal by a prescribed number of citizens of a Constitutional amendment, or a law, to be voted upon by the whole people. It exists in the Swiss Confederation as respects Constitutional amendments, as also in many of the Cantons and in many American States, as respects both Constitutional amendments and laws.

Let us now see (a) what use is made of each of these modes of legislation; (b) what matters can be submitted; (c) what is the proportion of citizens who vote; (d) what measures are taken to assist the citizens to vote aright; (e) what influence party spirit and party organizations exercise on the voting; (f) how far the people have shown themselves qualified for the function assigned to them; and (g) what has been the general result on the peace and welfare of the communities which have tried these new methods.

(a) Use made of the Referendum.—In the Swiss Confederation it has always been used sparingly, and in recent years less and less.1 In those Cantons where it is optional it is little resorted to, but the output of laws in Switzerland is at all times and in all cantons very small as compared with that of English-speaking communities. Zürich, where legislation is exceptionally brisk, and all laws are submitted, passed only 254 in the fifty years from 1869 to 1919, and the large majority of those were accepted.

In the United States the Referendum is much more freely used, not only because the laws passed are more numerous than in Switzerland, but also because many are passed at the instance of individuals or companies seeking benefits for themselves, and legislatures are distrusted. It is, however, now less frequently demanded than when it was first introduced, a change which may mean either that the legislatures are mending their ways or that the citizens have grown more indifferent, and less eager to deliver their judgment on enactments.

Use made of the Initiative.—This also is infrequent in the Swiss Confederation, where it is used only by way of Constitutional Amendment Between 1905 and 1919 eight proposals were submitted under it, of which only two were carried. It is more freely used in the Cantons, but even in Zurich only on twenty-eight occasions for laws and thrice for Constitutional amendments between 1866 and 1908, both years inclusive.

In the American States many bills are proposed by Initiative, because there is a more active spirit of discontent or aspiration which desires to effect sweeping reforms by popular impulse, believing these to be retarded by sordid influences playing secretly on the legislatures. If the need for an institution is to be judged by the use made of it, that need was great in many States. The Initiative proposals accepted are, roughly speaking, about as numerous as those rejected, whereas in Switzerland the majority are rejected.

(b) Nature of the Matters submitted.—In the Swiss Confederation the Legislature has under the Constitution the right of withdrawing from the operation of the Referendum any Decrees or Resolutions (being of general application, and not including the annual Budget) which it may deem urgent, and this right is frequently used, sometimes even when the urgency of the measure was far from apparent.1 A like power is allowed to the Legislature in American States, and has there also been occasionally employed under circumstances raising suspicion, so that Governors have vetoed Bills declared “Urgent” where the declaration seemed to have been made for the purpose of preventing the people from delivering their judgment.

In the American States Initative proposals made in the form of a Constitutional amendment are subject to no restriction imposed by the State Constitution, because any such restriction would be overridden by a change in the Constitution itself; and in point of fact both there and in Switzerland matters which ought to be dealt with by Laws and find no place in a Fundamental Instrument of Government, are now constantly made the subject of a Constitutional amendment proposed either by a Legislature or by Popular Initiative.1

(c) Proportion of the Citizens who vote.—In Switzerland the proportion of persons voting to the whole number of qualified citizens is, both at Referendum and at Initiative votings, almost always lower than at elections of representatives to Legislatures. In the Confederation it has risen as high as 79 and sunk as low as 34 per cent. In rural Cantons it has occasionally sunk to 21 per cent Abstentions are, of course, more frequent where there is no organization to bring up voters to the poll, and are in the United States often explicable by the fact that some Bills refer to purely local matters, out of the range of the average voter's knowledge or interest. One may say that the number voting, while varying with the interest felt in the particular question at issue, seldom exceeds half the total number of electors. This is true also of the American States, in which, however, the proportion voting is usually smaller.2 Cases have occurred in which measures have been carried by a minority, even a small minority, of the registered voters. Where this happens, can it be said that the will of the people has been expressed? It is argued that those who do not oppose must be taken to assent, but abstention may be due to ignorance of the importance of the issue or to a modest consciousness of incapacity to express any opinion whatever.

(d) Methods adopted to enable the Citizens to understand the Issues submitted.— Both in Switzerland and in America copies of the Constitutional amendments, laws, and proposals made by Initiative, sometimes accompanied by a statement of the arguments commending or attacking the law or proposal submitted are circulated officially, while supporters and opponents start their respective campaigns in the press and by public meetings.

(e) Influence on the Votings of Parties and Party Spirit.—In Switzerland, since party organizations are rarely active in discussing the issue submitted or in bringing up voters to the polls, the voting tends to convey the real judgment of the people unbiassed by party feeling. In the American States this is so far true that the party organizations, which exist rather for offices than for principles, seldom step openly into the arena, so the merits of the question submitted have a better chance of being fairly considered than an election would afford.

(f) How far have the People shown themselves qualified for Direct Legislation?—No nation has ever been better prepared for this task than the Swiss, for among them ignorance of and indifference to politics are least common. Every political issue to be voted on is abundantly discussed at public meetings and in the press; and the echoes of the discussion are heard far up in the secluded Alpine valleys. No one need want the means for forming some sort of opinion. The Swiss, shrewd, cautious, and inclined to conservatism, think before they vote. The minds of the peasants are slow working, somewhat narrow, as might be expected from rural folk living by tillage and dairying, thrifty and parsimonious, little influenced by abstract notions or plausible catchwords, but intelligent, willing to ponder any arguments within the range of their knowledge. The average citizen is withal independent and cool-headed, not surrendering himself to party leaders, and with a patriotism that qualifies the tendency to approve or condemn a proposal solely with a view to his personal interests. It was the right sort of people in which to try the experiment of the Referendum, and the success of the experiment has proved the people's competence. The fact that popular voting has been less and less used in the Confederation, though it has through the growth of population become easier than it was in 1874 to collect the signatures needed to bring a law before the people, is a further evidence of the good sense which confines the use of this power to cases in which there is a body of adverse opinion sufficiently large to make it worth while to put the country to the trouble and expense of a general voting.

Of the eighteen American States it is more difficult to speak in general terms, for though in most of them the population is agricultural, it is in others mixed with manufacturing or mining elements, and in some the recent immigrants from the backward parts of Europe are numerous. Hence both the proportion of educated and thoughtful men, capable of giving good leadership, and the average level of intelligence in the voters, differ greatly from State to State. The Western Americans take as intelligent an interest in public affairs as do Frenchmen or Englishmen, or Belgians, have had more political experience than Germans, are less impulsive and passionate than Spaniards or Italians or the Slav peoples.1 They are more restless and rather more inconstant and decidedly less conservative than the Swiss, but taken all in all they seem quite as fit as any European people, and probably fitter than the races of Central and Southern Europe, to apply the methods of Direct Legislation. Thus their example, if the experiment succeeds, will not suffice to prove that peoples like those of Lithuania and Poland, Serbia and Rumania, destitute of the experience Western Americans have enjoyed, can expect results equally good.

(g) What have these Methods of Legislation done for the Welfare of the Communities that use them?—The test of the success of the system is to be found partly in the approval it has found and the satisfaction it has created in the peoples which employ it, partly in a scrutiny of the merits or demerits of the enactments which it has accepted or rejected.

For Switzerland the former question is readily answered. The people are so entirely content with the Referendum that while no one proposes to abandon or restrict it, some propose to extend it. Regarding the laws passed or rejected a stranger must speak with diffidence, but the instances given in a previous chapter2 go to show that legislation has advanced on sound lines, and that under it the country and all classes therein have attained an unusual measure of material well-being and domestic concord. The spirit of conservatism and the spirit which seeks betterment by change have tempered each the other. Some good enactments have been delayed by the Referendum, but the loss has been slight, and possibly compensated by the more general support which the law obtained when ultimately passed. The results of the Initiative are less easy to estimate, but it receives a more general approval from the wise than it did thirty or even fifteen years ago. No one suggests that it has done any serious harm; many believe that it has accelerated several needed reforms. That its immense power is not abused appears from the fact that it has been invoked, in the Confederation, only thrice within the last fifteen years.

In the United States there is no such general consensus of opinion in the States which have experience of the Referendum: but it deserves notice that the number of States which have adopted it since S. Dakota led the way goes on increasing, and that in none where it exists do the people seem disposed to drop the power of direct law-making. Many observers, especially among lawyers, continue to dwell on the defects of the plan, pointing to the occasional rejection of Bills whose merits the people had not understood, to the confusion brought into administration by haphazard decisions, and to inconsistencies in policy, as for instance in the voting or rejecting of appropriations for educational purposes. Though the malign influence of the “money interests” has not been entirely eliminated nor the tone of the legislatures raised, many of such jobbing Bills as these bodies were wont to pass have been killed by Referendum or prevented from reaching that stage at which it would have killed them. The working of the Initiative has proved more-faulty, because rejection of the bad is easier than construction of the good, a task especially difficult when essayed by isolated groups of citizens, each group anxious to push forward its own projects. Many proposals submitted are not only ill-drafted, but calculated to confuse the existing law; many embody “fads,” or contain schemes with a kernel of sound principle, but presented in an unworkable form. Although therefore no serious harm has resulted, for the common sense of the people rejects most of the “freak bills,” the merits of the Initiative need to be tested by longer experience. Defects might be reduced by requiring all proposals to be put into a technically correct form by an official draftsman, and by limiting the number of issues to be placed before the citizens at the same voting.

In Oregon in 1912 there were submitted together at one fell swoop thirty-seven laws and Initiative proposals, while at the same time a number of officials had to be elected. The citizen on entering the voting compartment had to make up his mind on between forty and fifty distinct issues, merits of measures and merits of men. The best-informed and most experienced could hardly have an opinion on even one-fourth of the questions his vote was to decide.

This review of the working of Direct Popular Legislation in the countries where it has had a fair trial suggests some general reflections on its value for other democracies.

The arguments used to recommend it may be concisely stated as follows:

The Referendum corrects the faults of legislatures. Where those bodies act under the influence of corrupt motives or of class motives, or of purely party motives, an appeal from them to the whole people may prevent mischief. Legislative issues of permanent significance are disjoined from those transient party and personal issues which dominate legislatures. Where one party brings in a Bill from which it hopes to gain credit at an approaching election, its own fortunes, and especially those of its majority in the legislature, are bound up with the success of the measure, and the party in opposition has a motive for resisting it, because they will improve their chance of office by defeating the Bills of the party in power. Thus the merits of the case recede into the background. But if the Bill has to go to a popular vote, the decisive fight over it takes place before the people, for its enactment or rejection is their act. They may reject it without censuring the officials who prepared or the parliamentary majority which passed it. If the officials continue to be personally respected and trusted they may remain in office, though their Bill has failed, and the nation is spared the trouble of those general elections resorted to under the British Parliamentary system whenever a first-class Ministerial Bill has been defeated.

Take another case. In a legislature divided into groups one group specially anxious to carry a particular measure may by a “deal” with another group which dislikes that measure but is willing to accept it in order to carry some pet measure of its own, succeed in passing a Bill which the real mind of the majority of representatives, and still more the bulk of the electors, condemns. Or a section of the dominant ministerial majority may threaten to withdraw their support unless the Ministry consent to pass some Bill which it dislikes. The Ministry, in order to escape defeat, yields to the threat, so the Bill goes through, and in this case also against the real wishes of the majority. In both these cases a reference to the popular vote will checkmate the manœuvres of politicians.

An election is an Election, a choice between candidates as well as between policies, an occasion when so many issues of policy are simultaneously presented, that it is seldom possible to treat any one as having been really decided. After the election one party claims that the electors gave a “mandate” on one particular issue: another party or section makes a like claim, and there is no means of telling which is right. Only a consultation of the people can decide.

The Referendum helps the legislature to keep in touch with the people at other times than a general election, and in some respects in better touch, for it gives the voters an opportunity of declaring their views on serious issues apart from the distracting or distorting influence of party spirit. Thus representatives get to understand better the real mind of the electors as a whole, including those who are not their political supporters and therefore less known to £ personally.

The Referendum gives security that no law £ passed which is opposed to popular feeling. Legislatures may mistake the will of the people, or may, from party motives or class interests, take the risk of transgressing that will in the hope of doing so with impunity. An appeal to the people is the proper remedy.

Popular voting reduces Sectionalism in a nation, because men of different classes and parties find themselves working and voting together on issues which are outside the sphere either of class sentiments or of party programs.

A law receives strength from the approval which the people by their direct vote have stamped upon it. Because it is their own work they feel a fuller obligation to obey it and to make it obeyed.

The judgment of the whole people is a final judgment, from which there is no appeal. Roma locuta est. The ultimate authority having given its decision, controversy is stilled, at least until such time has passed and such new circumstances have arisen as may encourage a belief that the people will change its mind.

The three last-mentioned arguments recommend the Initiative also, but as it supersedes the legislature by enabling the people to pass a law without the participation of the latter, some further reasons must be advanced for introducing it. These reasons are in substance all one and the same, viz. that legislatures do not adequately express the people's will, so that the Referendum, which is confined to an expression of that will upon matters previously dealt with by the legislature, confers on the people only a part of their rights, giving no free scope for their action independent of the Legislature. Why should a body of persons chosen by the people close the door against the people themselves, allowing only such proposals of reform as take their fancy to pass through so that the people can deal with them? A party majority, perhaps corrupt, probably selfish, may for its own purposes hold back the people from getting what they desire, and the people must stand and wait, helpless till a general election arrives; and even then a new legislature may fail to carry out properly such wishes as the people have expressed. Thus while needed reforms are delayed, a sense of injustice is created which may break out in violence. Finally, if the people are fit to negative a Bill presented by the legislature, why are they not fit to frame one themselves?

In the American States — and wherever a Rigid Constitution limits the powers of legislatures — there is this further technical reason for employing the Initiative, that when employed by way of amending the Constitution, it overleaps all restrictions placed on the legislatures, because what the people put into the Constitution annuls those restrictions which their predecessors had imposed. This argument rejoices those who, desiring a free, swift unhampered course for the people's will, condemn the restrictions which Rigid Constitutions impose, while it repels those who value the restrictions just because they fear that swift unhampered course.

The objections urged against the Direct Intervention of the people can be even more briefly stated.

It reduces the authority and status of the legislature, lessens its responsibility to the people, and may induce it, yielding to a temporary and possibly factitious demand, to pass measures it does not approve in the hope that a voting by Referendum will reject them. It places matters that have been carefully considered and debated in a legislature — matters often beyond the comprehension of the average citizen — at the mercy of the voter's ignorance or prejudice. It is an appeal from responsibility to irresponsibility, from knowledge to ignorance. Not these objections only, but others of graver import apply to the Initiative. It brings before the people Bills that have never run the gauntlet of parliamentary criticism, which, if they have been carelessly or clumsily drafted, will, if enacted, confuse the law, creating uncertainty and inviting litigation. Citizens summoned by Referendum to vote on a Bill have at least the advantage of knowing that it has been scrutinized and amended by a competent legislative body, but an Initiative proposal has not had this advantage. It may contain many provisions, some which please, others which displease the voter, but he cannot amend it; and must either reject it as a whole or accept it as a whole, whatever its faults.

The Initiative offers a strong temptation to an excited faction or an unscrupulous leader to bring forward some scheme of sweeping change, promising to a section of the people benefits so alluring as to carry the law through on the top of the wave before its dangers can have been brought home to the nation. The fact that such attempts have failed when made in Switzerland because the good sense of the people repelled them, does not show that they might not succeed in some less intelligent and less cautious population. Once a revolutionary step has been taken by Initiative, repentance comes too late. It is far harder to agitate for its repeal, even if there is time to do so before it takes effect, than to rouse the people to compel by Referendum the reversal of a decision given by a legislature.

The reader can weigh for himself the pros and cons of the case. Were I to express my own opinion it would be that the Referendum has worked well in Switzerland, and if less well in the American States, yet not fatally ill, for no conspicuous mischiefs have followed and some good may have been done. The Initiative was not really needed in Switzerland, but neither in the Confederation or in the Cantons has positive harm resulted. In the American States the reformers would have done better to improve the methods of their legislatures and raise the quality of their members rather than try to supersede them by the Initiative, but of this they seem to have despaired. In experimenting with it, they have given it not quite a fair chance, for it has been employed not only far more frequently than in Switzerland but with a neglect of obvious precautions which would have reduced the defects it has shown. American experience has, however, been too short to enable a final judgment to be pronounced.

Before proceeding to enquire what light the data supplied by Switzerland and America throw upon the general value and applicability to other countries of Direct Popular Legislation, let me enumerate certain provisions which might, if attached to the use of the Referendum and Initiative, tend to cure or mitigate the risks incident to the employment of either.

• 1. The number of signatures required to support the demand for a Referendum should be determined with regard not only to the total number of voting citizens, but also to the distribution of population, for signatures are more easily collected in densely populated areas. It would seem desirable that the percentage of persons signing required to the total number of qualified citizens should be not less than 8 to 10 per cent for a Referendum, and nearly twice that number, say 16 to 18 per cent, for an Initiative.1
• 2. The practical evil most complained of in the working of the Initiative is the obscurity and confusion, due to bad drafting, of the Bills proposed. This might be remedied in one of two ways. The proposers might be required to have their Bill prepared for them by a skilled official draftsman, or, seeing that the special object of the Initiative is to bring before the people some proposed enactment which the legislature refuses to embody in a law, this object might be attained by giving to the Initiative proposal the form not of an English or American statute drawn out in full, but of a concise statement of the object to be attained, with a command to the legislature to prepare a Bill dealing with the matter which would be in due course submitted to a popular voting.
• 3. When any Bill is to be submitted, every voter should be officially supplied not only with the text of the measure to be voted on, but also with an explanation of its purpose and a summary, concise and impartial, of its provisions.
• 4. In the case of an Initiative, the proposed law should be submitted to the Legislature for examination, and that body should be required to prepare a statement of its views upon the proposal, which statement should be officially circulated with the text of the Bill,1 the legislature being also further entitled to draft and circulate an alternative Bill, calculated to effect such of the aims of the Initiative proposal as it approves. Another plan would be to entrust this function to a standing non-partisan Board.2
• 5. Some matters should be excluded from the operation of the Referendum, as for instance certain kinds of financial laws, and those which need immediate application. To these some would add all treaties with foreign countries. Whether Initiative proposals ought to be allowed to include Bills for imposing taxes and for granting money seems more than doubtful. The danger is obvious.
• 6. The number of propositions to be submitted at the same voting ought not to be larger than a citizen of average knowledge and intelligence can fit himself to vote upon.
• 7. To prevent the frequent repetition of an Initiative proposal, a time might be fixed within which a proposal substantially the same as one rejected should not be resubmitted.1
• 8. Inasmuch as the object of the Referendum is to elicit the opinion — if he has one — of the individual citizen, the influence of party organizations upon popular votings ought, so far as possible, to be reduced; and it would conduce to this if the votings were fixed for a time when no important election of a party character, such as the election of members of a Legislature, or of a President or other high official, is to take place.
• 9. To prevent important decisions from being determined by a minority of the whole people it might be provided that no Initiative should be carried at a voting in which less than a prescribed percentage, say three-fifths, of the qualified citizens took part.
• 10. Since in countries so large as France or Great Britain votings cannot be frequent, for the expenditure of time and money would be prohibitive, it would seem desirable to define the class of Bills on which a Referendum might be demanded. But can any definition be devised? In countries which, like Britain, have no constitution embodied in one instrument, there is no means of deciding what is a Fundamental Law; and in case it were thought proper to determine by a popular vote differences of opinion between two legislative Chambers, who shall say what differences are sufficiently important to warrant recourse to this solution? Some mechanical method, such as that of requiring a prescribed number of citizens, or of members of the Legislature, to demand a Referendum might be adopted, but such a provision would be open to abuse, for it may be assumed that nine politicians out of ten will resort to any device for embarrassing an antagonist or delaying a defeat.

Two serious difficulties stand in the way of the use of the Referendum in large populations such as those of France, Italy, and Great Britain. One is that of determining the cases in which a Referendum may be demanded. In France, if the Swiss precedent were to be followed, the number of signatures required to support a demand for Referendum would exceed 300,000, so the verification of signatures would be an almost impossible task, yet a necessary one, if the plan were to be properly worked. The other is that as nothing but the activity of organizations could bring up the voters to the poll, the campaigns for and against a measure would fall into the hands of party or class organizations, and a large percentage of the vote3 given would come from persons who took little real interest in the matter; which means that the best-organized party would usually win, and the chief aim of a Referendum, that of eliciting the genuine judgment of the citizens themselves, rather than opinions imposed on them by their would-be guides and by the pressure of numbers, would not be attained.

A nation which, encouraged by Swiss and American experience in Popular Legislation, desires to follow in the same path, must begin by considering the conditions favourable or unfavourable to the experiment.1

The first of these is the size and population of the country. The larger these are, the more costly and less satisfactory will popular votings be, for the influence of party or class organizations will be greater since without them it is hard to “get out the vote.”2 Swiss success has been largely due to the comparatively small voting areas.

In a country where the citizens are divided by sharp antagonisms of race or religion, voting will tend to follow the lines of those divisions and the citizens be less likely to deliver an independent and well-considered opinion on the merits of a proposal.

Where classes stand opposed to one another by social antagonism or conflict of economic interests, and where each class reads only the newspapers that make it their business to state its case and support its claims, the tendency to class solidarity in voting may be strong enough to make a popular vote, especially where the voting masses are large, grow into a menacing crisis. In a legislative body each side has to listen to the arguments of the other, and bitterness is mitigated by friendly personal relations between opposing politicians; but a struggle in which the whole nation directly takes part knows no such mitigations.

The value of Direct Legislation in its working depends largely upon the amount of power party organization and party spirit exert. If they are weak, or do not interfere when the voting is on Laws, there is a good chance of getting the real and independent judgment of the citizens; otherwise not. In Switzerland and the American States aforesaid these favouring conditions arc present. They are, of course, most likely to be present in times of comparative quiet, when no vital issues rouse excitement, and men are less disposed to blindly follow a party leader.

Thus it may be said that Direct Legislation is most likely to give good results in a small country, with a homogeneous population, intelligent and unemotional, not dominated by party organizations or inflamed by party bitterness. These are the conditions under which all democratic governments, great and small, have the best chance to flourish. As the function of direct law-making carries the citizens of a democracy a step further than that of choosing representatives who shall act on their behalf, the best proof of their civic competence is found in the successful discharge of this function. So far Switzerland alone has given that proof, her advantages having been such as few countries possess, and few can hope to acquire.

I have not dwelt, because it is obvious, on what is, if not the greatest, the most incontestable merit claimable for Direct Legislation. It is unequalled as an instrument of practical instruction in politics. Every voting compels the citizen who has a sense of civic duty to try to understand the question submitted, and reach a conclusion thereon. Many, sometimes even a half, fail to come to the polls, yet even these may derive some benefit from the public discussion that goes on. Everybody can listlessly read articles in the press or listen to speeches in a meeting, but thinking is strengthened and clarified and concentrated when it leads up to a plain issue. It is a good thing for the citizen to be relieved from the pressure of those personal or party predilections which draw him to one candidate or another and to be taken out of the realm of abstract ideology to face concrete proposals. Here is a plan which throws on him the responsibility of declaring a definite opinion on a specific proposition, forcing him to ask himself, Is it sound in principle? Will it work? Shall I vote for it or against it?

CHAPTER LXVI

the relation of central to local government

In an earlier chapter (Chapter XIII.) something has been said of the origin of self-government in small communities, and of the service it renders to democracy by implanting a sense of civic duly in the citizens and training them to discharge it. We have here to consider in the light of the facts described as existing in the several countries dealt with in Part II., but without repeating details there given, (a) what it is that a large democratic State may gain from the existence within it of a system of local self-government; (b) how governmental functions should be distributed as between the Central and the Local Authorities; (c) what is the best form in which democratic principles can be applied to the creation of the latter authorities, and (d) what defects in the working of local governments need to be guarded against.

In countries which, like France, Britain, and Australia, are governed by representative assemblies it is desirable to relieve, so far as possible, the strain upon the Central Government. A practically omnipotent legislature is liable to sudden fluctuations of opinion, and the fewer are the branches of administration which such fluctuations disturb, the more regular and stable will be the general course of affairs. Those of national importance must of course be dealt with by the National legislature, but there are many matters in which uniformity is not required, and the more these are left to local control the less will representatives be drawn away from national work. Where local discontents arise, it is better for them to find vent in the local area rather than encumber the central authority. Under a federal system of government, such as that of the United States, Canada, Switzerland, where many matters are left to be settled by State, or Provincial, or Cantonal assemblies, controversial issues are divided between those assemblies and the central national legislature, and a political conflict in the latter need not coincide with other conflicts in the former. The same principle holds true with regard to local authorities in smaller areas, such as the county or municipality. Men opposed in national politics may work together harmoniously in the conduct of county or municipal business, as happens in Switzerland and England, and to a large extent in the United States also.

The wider the scope of a central government's action, so much the larger is the number of the persons employed in the administrative work it directs, and the larger therefore the patronage at its disposal. Patronage is a powerful political engine, certain to be used for party purposes wherever admission to the civil service and promotion therein are not controlled by rules which secure competence through examinations administered by a non-partisan authority. The fewer temptations to the abuse of patronage are left within the grasp of the central authority, necessarily partisan in all the countries we have been studying, the fewer abuses will there be. The United States suffered until recent years from the so-called Spoils system, applied in municipalities as well as in the Federal service, but the evils would have been even greater had the same party been steadily supreme at the same time in the National Government and in the local governmental areas.

Elementary education is a branch of administration assigned in some countries to a central, in others to a local authority. The argument for giving it to the latter is strong because the interest of parents in the instruction of their children ought to be stimulated by the function of choosing the local school authority as well as by the right of representing to it any local need or grievance. This function they have enjoyed in the United States, Canada, and New Zealand, as well as in Switzerland and Great Britain, but to a much smaller extent in France, Australia, and Ireland. Reformers, impatient with the slackness and parsimony common among local authorities, have, however, been everywhere advocating State intervention, insisting that the reluctance of the local citizen to spend freely makes it necessary to invoke the central government, both to supervise schools and to grant the money from the national treasury for the salaries of teachers and various educational appliances. Here, as is often the case, the choice is between more rapid progress on the one hand and the greater solidity and hold upon the average citizen's mind which institutions draw from being entrusted to popular management.

In some countries possessing a highly trained civil service each department tends to lay undue stress upon uniformity, becomes attached to its settled habits, dislikes novelties, contracts bureaucratic methods, and may assume towards the private citizen a slightly supercilious air. Progress is retarded because experiments are discouraged. Popular interest flags because popular interference is resented, and officials fall out of touch with general sentiment. The more the central bureaucracy controls local affairs, the wider will be the action of these tendencies.

Lastly we come to another benefit, of a more theoretical aspect, yet with real value, which local self-governing institutions may secure. They contribute to the development of local centres of thought and action. Many a country has had reason to dread the excessive power of its capital city.1 There ought to be many cities, each cherishing its own traditions, each representing or embodying a certain type of opinion, and each, instead of taking its ideas submissively from the capital, supporting journals of the first excellence in point of news supply and intellectual force. Such cities will be all the more useful in forming independent centres of opinion if they have also strong local governments which enlist the active service of their leading citizens of all classes. France has in Lyons, Marseilles, and Bordeaux cities capable of fulfilling this function; and in the German Empire the influence of Berlin was qualified or counterbalanced by that of Munich, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Leipzig, Dresden, Cologne.

Upon the much-debated question whether the construction of public works not of evident national importance should be left to local authorities, their cost being defrayed out of local taxation, or whether this duty and burden should be undertaken by a central government, some light is thrown by the experience of France, Canada, New Zealand, and the United States. In all these countries a wide door has been opened to political intrigue and corruption by the practice of voting large sums for so-called “local improvements” from the national treasury in order to win support for the representative who presses for the grant of money and for the ministry which proposes or supports it. In the United States immense sums are wasted annually in this way, demoralizing both the legislature and the constituencies. Nobody is the better off in the end, but each locality, desiring to throw upon the State the cost of a work which it would otherwise have to pay in local taxation, forgets that in the long run it pays as much by the additional national taxation to which it contributes, indeed perhaps pays more, because it frequently happens that the “improvements” asked for are not needed, and are being undertaken for political reasons only. This is a habit to which democratic governments are specially prone, because the keepers of the public purse yield to the demands which representatives make. The principle that the cost of works undertaken solely for the benefit of a locality ought, in the interest of economy, to be defrayed out of local funds, would seem irresistible were it not for the fact that in many great cities a large majority of the voters, since they pay no local taxes, have no interest in thrifty management, and willingly support a council which spends lavishly on local purposes and wins popularity thereby. Where this happens the tax-paying class may think itself safer in the hands of the Central Government.

In the six countries examined in Part II. all the higher judges are appointed by the Central Government, as they are in Britain, but in some States of the American Union counties and cities are allowed to choose their judges, which they do by popular election, with results not always satisfactory. The detachment of the Bench not only from party politics but from all local influences is so evidently desirable that the choice of judges by local voting is a risky experiment.

Of such public institutions as prisons, reformatories, and lunatic asylums it is enough to say that their management by a central Government is likely to be more scientific and skilful than that of most local authorities would be, while not less economical. The questions that relate to pauperism are more difficult. Where the indigent have a legal claim to relief, to throw the cost of that relief on national funds while leaving the administration of it in local hands would be to invite extravagance and waste. If the locality dispenses the locality ought to pay, especially if outdoor relief is given. This question, which was a grave one for England ninety years ago, has fortunately little importance in other English-speaking countries or in Switzerland.

Whether the maintenance of public order should be entrusted to a national force, such as the gendarmerie in France and Italy and the Royal Constabulary in Ireland, or to local county and municipal authorities as in most English-speaking countries, is a question which will be answered according to the varying conditions of each nation. Experience seems to show that the less the police acquire the character of an army the better, and that character is more easily avoided when they are (as in England) raised, controlled, and paid by local authorities. There have, however, been in America city governments in which politics had so much infected police management that the State felt itself obliged to create within a city a police force under its own orders. Apart from this case, and the exceptional case of Ireland, the practice of English-speaking countries seems justified by the results.1

The composition or organization of local authorities in rural areas needs only a few sentences, for in all English-speaking countries, except the United States, and also in France and Switzerland, the plan of elected councils has been adopted; whereas in many States of the American Union there is no elected council for a county, each executive official being chosen by direct popular election for a particular branch or branches of work, his duties wherein are prescribed by the laws of the State. This plan has the disadvantage of disjoining from each other the various administrative departments, and leads to laxity in administration, because the only means of enforcing responsibility is by prosecuting an offending official.1 The smaller unit called the Town (corresponding to the smaller communes of Continental Europe) is better provided for, because although each branch of local business is handled by elected officers, who may act independently, the area is so small that their conduct can be watched and reviewed in the annual Town meeting, a popular primary assembly.2 In other English-speaking countries the counties, and any small areas such as the parish, are administered by elected councils, who appoint and supervise the officials. This is also the case in Switzerland and in France, where, however, the Central Government exercises a large measure of control.3

Municipal government presents more difficult problems, especially where the poorer sections of a large population inhabit one part or parts of the city, while the richer live in other parts or in the suburbs. In Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, as in Great Britain, boroughs and cities are governed by popularly elected councils, while the mayor is chosen by the council (except in some Canadian cities where he is elected by the people), and administration is carried on by committees of the council directing the officers whom it appoints. This system has, as a rule, been worked efficiently and honestly in Great Britain and New Zealand, while in Canada and (to a less extent) in Australia there have been occasional lapses into corruption or malversation. In Germany also there are elected councils, but their duty is not themselves to administer, but to supervise the trained permanent officials who handle the departments. The economy and practical success of this method are unquestioned, but some observers deem it too bureaucratic.

The Swiss system, which resembles that of Great Britain and her Dominions in assigning management to elected councils, differs therefrom by its free use of the direct popular vote or Referendum, by which measures of importance are submitted to the people for their approval or rejection. This plan works well, the cities being of moderate size, none with a population exceeding 200,000. Administration is efficient, economical, and honest. In France also every commune (a city as well as a rural area is a commune) has its popularly elected council, the authority of which is, however, limited by a right of interference allowed to the National Government. The abuses which have occurred in a few of the largest cities furnish justification for this check.1

It is in the United States cities that we find the most numerous and striking illustrations of the maladies to which democratic government is liable, but he who seeks to draw general conclusions from the scandals which have occurred there must remember how exceptional their circumstances have been. The cities have grown with extraordinary swiftness by the influx of masses of ignorant immigrants from Europe, and these immigrants, having no experience of politics and no social ties with the native American population, become an easy prey to the wiles of the unscrupulous leaders of party organizations. Having started with a system which left all power in the hands of elected councils upon whose members it was hard to fix responsibility, the Americans have been driven to withdraw power from these large bodies, and transfer it either to a popularly elected mayor possessing a wide discretionary authority or to small commissions acting (in many cases) through a business manager whom they appoint. These experiments are valuable contributions to the science of practical politics. Let it be added that American reformers prefer the plan of electing the commissioners by a general vote over the city to the other method, generally followed in the British Dominions, of elections in wards (divisions of the city), holding that the “general ticket” gives less scope for intrigue and secures better men.

Party organization and the microbe of party spirit, apparently endemic in National governments where large issues of policy have to be decided at elections, would be transient and practically negligible phenomena in local government were it not for the habit, old and strong in the United States, and often found in the municipalities of France and England, of fighting local elections on the issues of National party politics, even when these have nothing to do with the work of the councils to be chosen at those elections. This habit exists in the elections to the councils of departments and arrondissements in Trance, but scarcely at all in those of county councils in Great Britain, or of communal authorities in Switzerland. Three results which have proved harmful in America naturally follow. The minds of the electors are diverted from the personal merits of the candidates and from the local questions which the candidates, if elected, will have to deal with, to national partisan issues. The members of councils when elected are apt to act together as parties in those bodies, and such patronage as lies in the gift of a council is liable to be misused for partisan purposes, i.e. bestowed upon persons because they have served the party rather than because they are qualified to serve the city.

The plan has, however, been defended on the ground that it draws men of ability and ambition into local affairs, gives them a chance of showing their quality, opens a door to success in national politics. Without party guidance, moreover, the voter will not, at least in large populations, know whom to vote for, and the guidance which the party gives is worth something, since it must, for the sake of its own credit, put forward reputable candidates. Since a chief difficulty incident to municipal government is the reluctance of the leading men to devote their time and labour to work which interferes with the conduct of their own business and has little promise of any reward beyond the good of the city and the gratitude of fellow-citizens, the motive which party spirit and the prospect of an opening in national politics supply must be appealed to.1 Nothing but the wish to serve his political party or to make his way in public life will suffice to induce a man, tired by a long day's work in his office, to take up a further burden and give his evenings to municipal committees in the centre of the town instead of seeking repose in his home far off in the suburbs. Many of the men who have risen highest in American politics, and a few who have attained like distinction in England, have begun in local politics a career which led them far.

There is weight in these arguments, yet on the balance of considerations it is better that bodies whose proper functions lie in local matters should be kept free from the disturbing influence of questions foreign to their sphere. One of the values of local self-government lies in the habit it forms among the inhabitants of a town or district of bringing their knowledge and capacities into common stock for the benefit of the whole community, maintaining those friendly personal relations which befit neighbours, and not distracted by a desire for ulterior gains to their political party. When such gains become a motive, men are less scrupulous, suspicion thickens the air, a contentious spirit is engendered.

There has emerged in recent years one question of national moment which, since it belongs also to the sphere of local government, furnishes grounds for party action there. Where the State has assumed some functions previously either uncared for or left to private action, such as the conduct of a business, the housing of the poor, the supply of milk, the provision of music or theatrical entertainments, the law may permit a local authority to carry out policies of this nature at the expense of the local taxpayers. When a Socialist or Labour Party runs its candidates for local office as well as for the national legislature upon a platform including these policies, other political parties who resist such policies put forward their candidates also and use their party organizations in the electoral campaign, so that the elections inevitably take a party colour. If it is suggested that the national legislature should determine by general statutes the principles involved, and leave to local authorities only the mode of carrying them out, it may be answered that even in the application of such laws many concrete cases must arise on which Socialists and Individualists will differ, so that each party will have a legitimate motive for trying to secure the election of its own adherents.

The experience of the United States, conspicuous by the number and variety of experiments tried in local government, suggests some conclusions fit to be considered in Europe, in Canada, and in Australasia.

It is possible to have too many elections. When there are many posts to be filled, whether elective offices or seats in administrative councils, the number of pollings and the number of persons to be chosen at the polls becomes so large that the voter, unable to give an independent and intelligent vote, either stays away in weariness or votes blindly at his party's bidding.

Municipal administration has become more and more a business matter for experts in such sciences as sanitation and engineering. The chief duty of an elected council has therefore come to be that of appointing and supervising the permanent officials, and for this a comparatively small council can well suffice even in a large city.

The American and Swiss practice of submitting questions of moment to a popular Referendum has worked with results generally if not always satisfactory, and might if applied in Europe, at least in municipalities not exceeding a million of population, stimulate public interest and help towards a better definition of policy in municipal administration.

Human nature being what it is, favouritism and jobbery may always be expected, and the larger and richer communities grow, the greater will temptations be, so the one thing needful is to fix the constant attention of the people on the conduct of their affairs. Vigilance! unceasing Vigilance! What was said in an English city where the management of the police by a Committee of the Council had given occasion for criticism, “Watch the Watch Committee,” may be said of all Councils and Committees.

In European cities the duty of watching and criticizing municipal councils and officials is usually left to the press, but in American cities there are frequently associations of men, belonging to all political sections, who being well known and respected for their judgment and probity, render to the community the service not only of keeping an eye on municipal authorities, but that of recommending candidates to the citizens as worthy of confidence. Such a service is needed in those large European cities where the bulk of the electors do not and cannot know for whom to cast their votes in local contests.

It was in small communities that Democracy first arose: it was from them that the theories of its first literary prophets and apostles were derived: it is in them that the way in which the real will of the people tells upon the working of government can best be studied, because most of the questions which come before the people are within their own knowledge. The industrial and commercial forces which draw men together into large aggregations seem to forbid the hope that small self-governing units may reappear within any period to which we can look forward. Yet who can tell what may come to pass in the course of countless years? War and the fear of war were the chief causes which destroyed the little States. If the fear of war could be eliminated there might be some chance of their return.

CHAPTER LXVII

comparison of the six democratic governments examined

The examination contained in Part II. of the institutions which Democracy has given itself in different countries and of the phenomena which their working in each has shown needs to be completed by a comparison of those phenomena, for the rule of the people, taking in each different forms, has shown resemblances as well as diversities, both in the spirit which the institutions evoked and in the tangible results that have followed. No democratic government is typical; each has its merits, each its faults; and a judgment on democratic institutions in general can be formed only by observing which faults are most frequent, and how far each of these is specially characteristic of Democratic government, or rather belongs to Human Nature as displayed in politics. This chapter is meant to present the comparison in three ways:

First by noting the salient features of popular government in each of the six countries examined, and what each has contributed to political science in the way of example or warning.

Next by showing in which of those countries and to what extent in each the faults commonly charged on democratic government exist.

Thirdly by noting the presence in each country of what may be called the mental and moral coefficients, viz. those qualities in a people that help democracy to work its institutions in the right way, so as to obtain in the largest measure the benefits which governments have been established to secure.

I begin with a brief statement of the features most characteristic of each country.

I. Summary View of Salient Features

In France administration is highly centralized, much business which is in English-speaking countries left to local authorities being managed by officials who are appointed by and take their orders from the central government, so local self-government, narrowly circumscribed in its functions, and exciting little interest, does comparatively little for the political education of the people. France, having so far as methods of administration go, preserved the inheritance of the old monarchy, is the least democratic of democracies, for State authority is strong against the individual citizen. Yet although Government is strong, Ministries are unstable, because dependent on majorities in the legislature which fluctuate under the influence, sometimes of party passion, sometimes of personal intrigues. The legislature, or rather its directly elected branch, the Chamber of Deputies, is master of the political situation, and its individual members control individual Ministers, obtaining from them as the price of their support favours for their respective constituencies, and by means of these favours holding their own seats. In matters of moment the Second Chamber, largely composed of able and experienced men with a longer tenure of their seats, exerts a useful guidance or restraint, and the high average quality of the Civil Service makes administration efficient.

Behind both deputies and Ministers stand the great financiers, powerful through their wealth and the influence it enables them to exert upon the newspapers. Their influence, though sometimes steadying, can also be baneful, for it may induce the sacrifice of national interests to private interests, and it has sometimes enveloped public men in a mist of suspicions. The sky is seldom free from signs of storm, for fifty years of republican government have not assuaged the bitterness which divides the various parties, yet the faults of politics which sometimes seem to be a game played in the legislature by a comparatively small class, have not seriously affected the strength and progress of the nation.1 Foreigners have judged France too much by its politics and its politicians, underrating its spirit and vitality and stability.

The emergence of strong organizations advocating communistic doctrines, and accentuating antagonism between classes, are phenomena now visible all over the world, and the revolutionary movements thence arising would be more threatening under a less popular constitution. French democracy, with difficulties to face greater than any that have tested the other countries we have surveyed, has nevertheless brought the nation safely through a time of unprecedented perils.

Switzerland presents a striking contrast. Nowhere is administration so decentralized, for functions and powers are parcelled out not only between the Federal and the Cantonal Governments, but also betwen the Cantons and the Communes. The people are called upon to take a more direct and constant part in public work than any other State requires from its citizens, being accustomed to review by their votings the measures passed by their legislatures; and the citizens can, by the Initiative, put forward, without consulting those bodies, legislative proposals which popular voting adopts or rejects. The practice of local self-government has trained the people to fulfil these functions efficiently, keeping their attention fixed upon those who represent them in their assemblies or are entrusted with official business. Party spirit is comparatively free from virulence; elections have aroused little passion; the same member is returned time after time to the legislatures; the same members are retained for many years in the Administrative Councils. The less agreeable side of what may be called “small scale politics” appears in the petty intrigues which affect elections to minor posts in some communes and Cantons. Though the absence of corruption, both in the Federal and in Cantonal Governments, and the high standard maintained in public life for many years, are partly due to the absence of those temptations which men of great wealth can apply to politicians, much must also be ascribed to the vigilance of public opinion in small communities. In no democracy has the power of money counted for so little, in none has political life had so few prizes to offer. But after all, the most interesting lesson it teaches is how traditions and institutions, taken together, may develop in the average man, to an extent never reached before, the qualities which make a good citizen — shrewdness, moderation, common sense and a sense of duty to the community. It is because this has come to pass in Switzerland that democracy is there more truly democratic than in any other country.

As France shows at its maximum the power of the legislature,1 and Switzerland the power of the body of citizens voting directly, so the United States is the best example of the strength which party organizations can attain and the control they can wield. Legal authority, divided between the Federal Government and the Governments of the several States, is in both divided also between the elected Executive and the two elected houses of the legislature, the frequently recurring differences between which complicate both administration and legislation. Such co-operation as is needed to make the machinery work is created by the party organizations, which nominate for election both the representatives and (in the several States) the higher officials in each State as well as its Executive head; and as persons elected in the same area at the same time usually belong to the same party, both officials and representatives are expected to carry out its policy. The work which the organizations have to discharge has called into being a large class of professional politicians who live off the offices which they are able to secure for themselves and the various gains which fall to those who can exert private influence. Next to the power of Party, the most salient features of the United States system are the wide application of popular election to the choice of officials, including judges, and the recent introduction in many States of direct popular legislation in the form of Initiative and Referendum, as also of direct popular action on administration in the provisions for the Recall of executive and judicial officials by popular vote. Thus the inordinate number of elections throws on the voter more work than he can properly discharge.

Two of the faults charged on government in the United States are due to exceptional causes. That the Money Power has attained such huge proportions as to assail the virtue of officials and demoralize some State legislatures, must be largely ascribed to the prodigious fortunes which the swift development of a new country's resources created, the possessors of which found it worth while to buy favours from politicians who had them to sell. Similarly, the worst scandals of municipal misgovernment appeared where a sudden influx of old-world immigrants flooded cities that were already growing fast, phenomena unforeseen by those who granted universal suffrage to ignorant crowds who had no interest in honest and economical administration. These supervenient factors have told heavily against the working of democratic institutions. As against the evils they have caused must be set two points in which the institutions of the country have won the praise of foreign observers. One is the action of the Federal Courts in so interpreting and prudently developing the Constitution as to enable it to work well under new conditions that have imposed a heavy strain upon it. Another is the practice of local self-government which, diffusing an amount of political knowledge and creating a sense of civic responsibility, is surpassed only in Switzerland. It has helped to develop that public spirit which has from time to time, and notably in recent years, carried through movements of sweeping reform by which the political atmosphere has been purified.

Canada, Australia, and New Zealand have in common the English frame of parliamentary government, but their economic and social conditions are sufficiently dissimilar to have imprinted a different character on its working in each country.

In Canada two-thirds of the population live by work on the land, and nearly all the farmers own the soil they till. This has given stability to political parties and to the government as a whole. Ministries last on an average ten times as long as does a Ministry in France or in Australia. The legislatures, especially in the Provinces, have not fully maintained the best traditions received from England, for both they and some members of the administrations they install in power have been suspected of abusing their position. Responsibility is, however, pretty well secured by the power of questioning and dismissing Ministers, justice is honestly administered, order is effectively maintained over a vast and thinly peopled Western territory, and the difficulties which the presence of two races speaking different languages presents have been surmounted.

In Australia, where nearly half the population is gathered into a few great cities, the wage-earning class has been fully organized and obtained a political power which in other countries it is still only seeking. The rich, among whom there are no millionaires, take little part, at least openly, in politics. Frequent and hard-fought strikes have roused class antagonisms. The Labour Party created in the legislatures caucuses which, working along with the Trade Councils outside, obtained complete control of the Federal Parliament, and at one time or another of each of the State Parliaments; and their action has shown how the essence of parliamentary government may be destroyed with an apparent respect for its forms. Bold experiments in extending State action to industrial undertakings and in fixing wages by State authority have been tried by Labour Ministries and by others which depended on Labour support, but, except during strikes, law and order as well as a creditable standard of administrative efficiency and judicial purity have been maintained.

New Zealand has an agricultural landowning population larger in proportion to the whole than in Australia, but smaller than in Canada. The urban hand-workers, though they have never obtained a majority in Parliament, have been strong enough to secure legislation which in some points anticipated that of Australia in extending State functions, fixing wages, and taking over branches of business or industrial production. Parties, less organized than in Australia, have been less strictly disciplined. As the dominance of the parliamentary caucus has been Australia's most distinctive contribution to the art of politics, so has State Socialism been the contribution of New Zealand. Ministries have been stable, and public business not ill managed, though with scant regard to economy and a tendency to purchase parliamentary support by improvident grants to local purposes. Apart from this form of jobbery, government has been honest, and except among the wage-earners who show their discontent by frequent strikes, a spirit of general good-will bears witness to the country's prosperity.

In these three British Self-governing Dominions members of the legislatures receive salaries, but no class of professional politicians has arisen except in so far as the officials of Trade or Labour Unions, occupying themselves with politics as well as with purely industrial matters, can be so described.

II. Defects Observable in the Six Governments

(a) Instability of the Executive Government owing to frequent changes.

This, most conspicuous in France, has been conspicuous in Australia also, both in the Commonwealth and the State Governments. In the United States it is prevented by the constitutional arrangements which install an administration for a fixed period. It is not seen in Canada and New Zealand, and least of all in Switzerland.

(b) Failure of the Executive to maintain law and order.

In America this is evident in some only of the States, where lynching and other disorders have been tolerated. Against none of the other democracies is it chargeable. Strike riots have been frequent in Australia, France, and New Zealand, to a less extent in Canada; and though such breaches of the law occur in all countries, they are doubtless more frequent and more serious where the fear of losing votes by offending strikers deters an Executive from action.

(c) Administrative extravagance.

Economy, once expected to be among the strong points of democracy, has proved to be its weakest. Financial waste is worst in the United States National Government, owing to the desire to win votes by grants from the public treasury to localities, but the same evil is rampant in Canada and New Zealand, and to a less extent in France and Australia.

(d) Want of honesty in Administrators, Legislators, and Voters.

Though no democracy has sunk so low as either the ancient republics or many autocracies, such as those of Russia, Turkey, and China, the atmosphere has not been altogether wholesome in France, in Canada, and in many of the American States. In the United States Federal Government the tone is now satisfactory. Bribery occurs sporadically in the United States and Canada, but to a less extent than it did in England before that country had been democratized. Australia, New Zealand, and Switzerland have a good record.

(e) Faulty Administration of Justice.

In many of the American States where the Judicial Bench is filled by popular election, the Judges are far from competent; and in a few they are suspected of corruption. Everywhere the administration of criminal justice is so defective that a very high authority has called it “a disgrace to American civilization.”1 In France the inferior judges are not altogether trusted. In the other four countries the character of the Bench stands high.

(f) The spirit and power of Party.

Party spirit is no stronger in these democracies than it has often been under other governments, and it everywhere rises and falls according to the circumstances of the time. Party organization is a comparatively new phenomenon, first developed in the United States, where a strong and skilfully constructed system grew up between 1826 and 1860. It has rendered some services, but far greater disservices, in the land of its birth, and has been more or less imitated in Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and Great Britain, in all of which it is possibly the source of more evil than good. In France it counts for little, and in Switzerland for less.

(g) Professionalism in Politics.

The growth of a class which makes its living out of politics, due partly to the number of persons needed to work a party organization and partly to the existence of legislative and administrative posts sought as a livelihood and obtainable by party patronage, tends to pervert and even debase politics by making it a business occupation, in which the motive of civic duty is superseded by the desire of private gain. The class, large in the United States, exists in the other democracies, again excepting Switzerland, but is nowhere numerous, though it may increase with that raising of legislative salaries, recently effected in France and Australia, and now demanded in Britain, which makes a seat in the legislature more desired.

(h) The power of wealth.

Democracy was expected to extinguish this ancient evil, for every citizen is interested in preventing men from using money to secure gains for themselves at the expense of the community. It has, however, proved as noxious in republics as it was in the days when the favourites of kings could be bribed, though the methods now in use are less direct. Of the six countries, the United States has been that in which money has been most generally powerful during the last sixty years, France that in which it is probably most powerful now, while Canada comes next, Australia, New Zealand, and Switzerland being practically exempt, though of course a party or a group of men with ample funds for elections and able to run newspapers in its interest enjoys everywhere an advantage.

III. Presence or Absence of Favouring Conditions

We have so far been considering the results which democratic institutions, differing more or less in their features, have produced in six countries. These results have, however, been due not merely to the greater or less excellence either of the institutions or of the external conditions of the countries described, but also to the intellectual capacity and public spirit of the peoples that work them. Let some paragraphs be therefore given to this branch of the comparison.

(a) The intelligence of the Average man, and the sense of civic duty which leads him to try to understand and vote honestly upon the questions submitted at elections, are most largely developed in Switzerland, next in the United States, in Canada, and in New Zealand, with Australia perhaps a little behind. In France it is certainly not intelligence that is deficient, but a feeling among the peasantry and petite bourgeoisie that every citizen ought to make his opinion felt and his voice heard. As nothing approaching an absolute quantitative test can be applied to determine the volume of the health-giving ozone of public spirit in the atmosphere, one can do no more than conjecture whether it is increasing. In all the countries, France included, it seemed to me to be growing, though slowly, while improvement is perhaps most evident in the United States, where a reforming spirit is abroad.

(b) The extent to which the best-educated class, including many besides those who would be called the intellectual élite of the nation, exert themselves in public affairs, is to be measured not merely by their taking a hand in legislative or administrative work, but also by the contributions they make to thought on public questions and by their influence in the formation of national opinion.

Here the results of observation are disappointing. The extension of the functions of government and the increasing magnitude and complexity of the subjects falling within those functions have not elicited a corresponding will to serve the community on the part of those best fitted to serve it. In some countries one is told of a decline: but this may be because the want is more felt, not because the supply has fallen off: there is not less water, but more thirst. It is in France that public life seems to draw out most brilliance of talent, in Switzerland the most of sober wisdom. In none of the other countries does the traveller feel that the class to which wealth or knowledge or capactiy gives social influence is doing its full duty to the State. Administrative work attracts a fair number of competent men, but neither the legislatures nor more than a few of the Ministers seem equal to their tasks. The causes of this, already explained in the accounts given of each country, are much the same everywhere, but have in some been increased by the disposition to require from candidates a pledge to speak and vote with the majority of their party, whatever their individual opinion, a pledge which men of spirit refuse to give. It was thought, fifty years ago, that the extension of the suffrage and the growth of the sentiment of equality, coupled with the diffusion of education and the cheapening of elections, would draw new streams of talent, energy, and unselfish patriotism into the service of the State. But this has nowhere happened. Though the number of those who, belonging to classes formerly excluded, have now entered the legislatures, has increased, and though legislation is everywhere directed far more than formerly towards ameliorating the conditions of health and labour, there is no more talent, no more wisdom, no more of the disinterested zeal which subordinates all other interests to the common good. The more educated class, to whatever political party they belong, are in many countries heard to complain that public life is being vulgarized, that the laws which determine national prosperity are being misunderstood or ignored because abstract theories and vague sentimentalities fill the public mind, and that social classes are being alienated from one another for want of mutual understanding and the sense of a common interest. If and so far as there is any truth in these complaints, is not a principal cause to be found in the failure of the most educated and most thoughtful to take the part that belongs to them in public life?

(c) The existence of a sentiment of national unity and of an intelligently active public opinion. These two things go together, for if the former be weak, if the clashing of sectional interests and tenets diverts each section from its loyalty to the common good, sympathy is chilled and reciprocal comprehension lessened. I have dwelt in a previous chapter (Chapter XV.) on the advantages of government by Public Opinion as compared with the mechanical though indispensable methods of government by voting, and have sought to show that the value of Public Opinion depends on the extent to which it is created by that small number of thinking men who possess knowledge and the gift of initiative, and on the extent to which the larger body, who have no initiative but a shrewd judgment,1 co-operate in diffusing sound and temperate views through the community, influencing that still larger mass who, deficient both in knowledge and in active interest, follow the lead given to them. Taking the rule of Opinion in this sense, it is most fully developed in Switzerland and the United States, rather less so in Canada and New Zealand. In France, great as is the devotion to national glory and the Sacred Soil, the assimilative and unifying influence of opinion is weakened by the sharp divisions on religious questions, as it is in Australia by a like division upon Labour and class issues, a source of acerbity which has begun to appear also in such countries as Belgium, Holland, and Italy. The diffusion from one country into another of new types of economic doctrine and new schemes for the regeneration of society preached by enthusiastic missionaries has increased those forces that disunite nations, as in the sixteenth century there were Protestants who renounced their loyalty to a Roman Catholic king, and Roman Catholics prepared to revolt against a Protestant. Such phenomena may be transient, but for the present they disintegrate national opinion and subject democracy to an unexpected strain.

Neither the presence nor the absence of the three conditions just enumerated can be ascribed to democratic institutions, for much depends on the racial qualities and the history of each people, but their presence or absence is nevertheless a credit or discredit to those institutions, because it indicates how far they tend to accompany and strengthen democracy, enabling the machinery to play freely and smoothly without shocks and jars. It is a sign that something is wrong with a government if it fails to attract to its service enough of such talent as the country possesses; it is an evidence of its excellence if the will of the people is amply and clearly brought to bear on the governing authorities through the means by which opinion expresses itself in the intervals between the moments when it is delivered at the polls.

The examination and comparison made above have shown that however marked the differences are between one modern democracy and another, all have some defects in common. Wherever rich men abound the power of money is formidable in elections and in the press, and corruption more or less present. I will not say that wherever there is money there will be corruption, but true it is that Poverty and Purity go together. The two best-administered democracies in the modern world have been the two poorest, the Orange Free State before 1899 and the Swiss Confederation. In every country but Switzerland financial administration is wasteful, and that form of political jobbery which consists in angling for political support by grants of money to constituencies is conspicuously rife. So, too, the rise of a class of professional politicians must be expected if large salaries are paid to representatives. Such a class grows in proportion to the work party organizations have to do, and patronage is misused for party purposes wherever lucrative posts or so-called honours are at the disposal of a party Executive. These phenomena are all natural, the inevitable result of tendencies sure to operate where circumstances invite their action; and only two, the habit of buying support by grants to localities and by bills intended to capture votes from some section of the voters, are directly due to the system of party government by the votes of the masses. The existence of a class who make their living by politics, though ascribed to democratic government, is no worse than was the bestowal of places and pensions on Court favourites, or on the relatives or friends of Ministers, in monarchies or oligarchies. Unscrupulous selfishness will have its way under one system as well as another.

These observations may be summed up by saying that the chief faults observable in the democracies described are the following:

• (1) The power of money to pervert administration or legislation.
• (2) The tendency to make politics a gainful profession.
• (3) Extravagance in administration.
• (4) The abuse of the doctrine of Equality and failure to appreciate the value of administrative skill.
• (5) The undue power of party organizations.
• (6) The tendency of legislators and political officials to play for votes in the passing of laws and in tolerating breaches of order.

Of these faults, the first three have been observed in all governments, and the first not worse under Universal suffrage than it is to-day, though the forms of all three are now different and their consequences more serious; for the number of useless or undeserving persons who lived off the public revenue under the English oligarchy of the eighteenth century was smaller in proportion to the population than that of persons of the same type who live off it in the United States to-day, and the waste of public money in favours bestowed on constituencies and individuals under that English oligarchy or under the Prussian oligarchy down to 1914 was less in proportion to the total revenue than it is now in France or the United States or Canada. As the third fault is in Switzerland not visible, and the second only in a slight degree, these are plainly inseparable from democratic institutions. The evils attributable to the fourth, fifth, and sixth sources may be more definitely connected with popular government. The new democracies in particular suffer from an insufficient appreciation of the need in modern States of legislative and administrative knowledge and skill, an error particularly unlucky in nations which have been piling upon the State new functions for the discharge of which knowledge and skill are required. The years of rapid constitutional development in Australia and New Zealand coincided with the spread of new ideas in populations less well equipped for constructive work than were the older nations, and class antagonisms sprang up before a thoughtful and enlightened public opinion, able to profit by the lessons of experience, had time to establish itself as a ruling force. These things, however, may come: the defects of new countries are less disheartening than the declensions of old countries.

Democracy has opened a few new channels in which the familiar propensities to evil can flow, but it has stopped some of the old channels, and has not increased the volume of the stream. No institutions can do more than moderate or mitigate these propensities, but that which they can do is sufficient to make it worth the while of those who frame constitutions or lead reforming movements to study the institutions which have in one country or another given good results.

Two dangers threaten all these six countries, and indeed all modern democracies. One is the tendency to allow self-interest to grasp the machinery of government and turn that machinery to its ignoble ends. The other is the irresponsible power wielded by those who supply the people with the materials they need for judging men and measures. That dissemination by the printed word of untruths and fallacies and incitements to violence which we have learnt to call Propaganda has become a more potent influence among the masses in large countries than the demagogue ever was in the small peoples of former days. To combat these dangers more insight and sympathy, as well as more energy and patriotism, are needed than the so-called upper and educated classes have hitherto displayed.

CHAPTER LXVIII

types of democratic government

The forms which popular government have taken are many, and the future may see the emergence of others, though mankind shows singularly little inventiveness in this field of action compared to the resourceful ingenuity it evinces in adapting the forces of nature to its service.

This chapter may be confined to representative Frames of Government, since the direct rule of popular assemblies, universal in the ancient world, but applicable only to very small communities, has disappeared except in the Swiss Forest Cantons, while the direct action of the people by voting in large areas has been dealt with already. Among representative Governments three specially deserve to be studied — the Parliamentary and Cabinet System of Britain, which, reproduced in the British self-governing Dominions and France, has been more or less imitated in other European countries, the Presidential system of the United States, adopted in many of the other American republics, and the Executive Council system of Switzerland. As each of these has been described in the chapters of Part II. dealing with France, America, and Switzerland, this chapter is intended only to compare each with the others in respect of characteristic merits and defects. All these Frames have in common certain features, viz.:

• 1. They can exist (in essentials) either under a Republic or a (Nominal) monarchy, for the form of Monarchy which exists in such countries as Britain and the British self-governing Dominions, in Italy, Holland, Belgium, Sweden, Norway, and Spain resembles the ornamental façade of a large public building behind which the work of the office is carried on in a number of rooms, the arrangement of which has nothing to do with the design of the façade.
• 2. They can exist either under a Rigid Constitution embodied in a single Fundamental Instrument (as in the United States, Switzerland, and Australia) or under a Flexible Constitution, where all laws can be made and repealed by the same authority at any moment (as in Britain and New Zealand), or where there are only two or three Fundamental Laws easily changed (as in France).
• 3. They are all based on the doctrine of Popular Sovereignty, recognizing the people as the ultimate and only source of Power, to whomsoever it may delegate that power.
• 4. As a consequence of this feature, the right of raising revenue and appropriating it to the several services of the State belongs in all these systems to the representatives of the people.
• 5. They are all worked by political parties, this being what the old logicians called an Inseparable Accident, a quality not essential, but in fact always present.

The distinctive features of each of these systems or Frames of Government may be concisely stated as follows:

I. The. Cabinet or Parliamentary system has for its organs of government:

• (a) A (titular) Executive Head of the State, either elected for a term of years (as in France, Germany, Finland, Czecho-Slovakia, Poland, Esthonia, Portugal) or hereditary (as in Italy, Britain, Holland, Belgium, Greece, Norway), who is not responsible to the Legislature nor removable by it.
• (b) A group of Ministers, virtually, if not formally, selected and dismissible by the representative Legislature, and responsible to it. This group constituting the working Executive, is called the Cabinet, and its members must, everywhere by custom and in some countries by law, be members of the Legislature.
• (c) A Legislature, of one or two Chambers, elected by the citizens for a prescribed term of years but (in some countries) liable to be dissolved by the Executive Head, which means in practice the Cabinet.

II. The Presidential System consists of:

• (a) An Executive Head of the State, elected by the people for a term of years, removable (in many countries) by impeachment for grave offences, but otherwise irresponsible to the Legislature, not a member of the Legislature but entitled to address it, empowered to appoint and dismiss the chief officials and to conduct the external affairs of the country, though in these two functions the Legislature, or one branch of it, may be associated with him.
• (b) A group of Ministers, called the Cabinet, appointed and dismissible by the President, acting under his orders and responsible to him but not to the Legislature, and incapable of sitting therein.1
• (c) A Legislature, usually consisting of two Chambers, elected by the citizens for a term of years, and not dissoluble by the President. Their power of passing resolutions or statutes is subject (in the U.S. and some other countries) to a veto by the President, but (in the United States) any enactment so vetoed can be repassed and so become law by a majority of two-thirds in each Chamber.2

III. The Executive Council System, which for brevity's sake I shall call the Swiss, consists of:

• (a) A small Administrative Council chosen by the Legislature for a short term of years to carry on the executive business of the State under its direction, its members not sitting in the Legislature though allowed to address it.
• (b) A Legislature, consisting in Switzerland of two Chambers, elected for short terms, and not subject to dissolution.3
• (c) The People, i.e. the whole body of citizens, who can, when any constitutional amendment or law or resolution is submitted to them in pursuance of a demand proceeding from a prescribed number of citizens, approve or reject by their votes such enactment (Referendum), and who have also the power of enacting any proposal for a constitutional amendment, the submission of which has been demanded by a prescribed number of citizens (Initiative). The People are thus a second directly legislative authority, placed above the representative Legislature.

In all these equally democratic forms of government the sovereign power of the people is delegated, being in the Parliamentary form delegated entirely to the Legislature, in the Presidential form delegated partly to the Legislature, partly to the (elected) Executive and partly reserved to the People when they act by amending the Constitution, while in the Swiss form it is divided between the Legislature and the People acting on the occasions when they are summoned to vote by Initiative or Referendum.1

In comparing the aforesaid types three points have to be regarded:

• (a) Which of them succeeds best in giving prompt and full effect to the Will of the People.
• (b) Which is best calculated to guard against errors into which the people may be betrayed by ignorance, haste, or passion.
• (c) Which secures the highest efficiency in administration. The Parliamentary Type concentrates the plenitude of popular power in one body, the Legislature, giving to its majority that absolute control of the Executive which enables the latter, when supported by the Legislature, to carry out the wishes of the majority with the maximum of vigour and promptness. The only power which the Executive has against the Legislature is that of appealing to their common master the People at a general election; and in France the consent of the Senate is required for this purpose. The essence of the scheme is that lie Executive and the majority in the Legislature work together, each influencing the other; the Cabinet being in fact an Executive Committee of the Legislature. The working of the scheme presupposes not only the existence of parties, but a sentiment of party unity strong enough to induce the majority in the Legislature to entrust a large discretion to the Cabinet, and to support it, except now and then in very grave matters, with a trustful loyalty which assumes its action to have been right till proved to have been wrong. The Cabinet on its side is bound to adhere to the principles which are dear to the party as a whole and to keep the majority in the Legislature in good humour, straining its loyalty no further than is absolutely necessary, and taking from time to time into its own body members of the majority who have won their way to the front.

The presence of Ministers in a Legislature has two other advantages. Being in constant contact with members of the Opposition Party as well as in still closer contact with those of their own, they have opportunities of feeling the pulse of the Assembly, and through it the pulse of public opinion, and can obtain useful criticism, given privately in a friendly way, of their measures, while the members can by their right of questioning Ministers call attention to any grievances felt by their constituents and can obtain information on current public questions. Like other things, the right to interrogate is frequently abused, but any one who has been a Minister in the British House of Commons values the means it gives him of correcting or contradicting erroneous statements, of refuting calumnies, of explaining the reasons for his administrative acts without being obliged to seek the aid of the newspapers.

This system is therefore calculated to secure swiftness in decision and vigour in action, and enables the Cabinet to press through such legislation as it thinks needed, and to conduct both domestic administration and foreign policy with the confidence that its majority will support it against the attacks of the Opposition. To these merits there is to be added the concentration of Responsibility. For any faults committed the Legislature can blame the Cabinet, and the people can blame both the Cabinet and the majority. In the long run the enforcement of Responsibility depends on the activity and sanity of public opinion in each party and the strength of its outside party. This Parliamentary system renders an incidental service in bringing able men to the front, giving them a position from which they can catch the ear of the nation and show themselves qualified for office. Power of speech is what first attracts notice, but if to that they add solid qualities of character — good sense, industry, loyalty, honesty — their colleagues in the Legislature come to respect them, and to trust them when they rise to be Ministers. Moreover, the alternation of power from one party to another provides in the leaders of the Opposition men who can criticize with knowledge the policy of their successors, and who if called upon to succeed those successors, bring in their turn some experience with them.

As the actual working Executive has necessarily a party character, it is a merit of this system that the Nominal Executive, be he King or President, should stand outside party, and represent that permanent machinery of administration which goes on steadily irrespective of party changes. An elected President cannot so easily fill this rôle as can a hereditary king, though some Presidents have filled it well in France. When a Cabinet falls, the transfer of power to another is a comparatively short and simple matter. The Executive Head (i.e. in England the Crown, in France the President, in Canada or Australia the Governor-General) commissions the leader of the Opposition to form a new Ministry; the occupants of the chief offices are promptly changed, and the ship, having put about, is soon under way on her new course, commanded by a new captain, and all this may happen without the worry and cost of an election.

These merits of the Parliamentary system are balanced by serious defects.

The system intensifies the spirit of party and keeps it always on the boil. Even if there are no important issues of policy before the nation there are always the Offices to be fought for. One party holds them, the other desires them, and the conflict is unending, for immediately after a defeat the beaten party begins its campaign to dislodge the victors. It is like the incessant battle described as going on in the blood-vessels between the red corpuscles and the invading microbes. In the Legislature it involves an immense waste of time and force. Though in theory the duty of the Opposition is to oppose only the bad measures and to expose only the misdoings of the Administration, in practice it opposes most of their measures and criticizes most of their acts. Legislation is either, as in France, apt to be sacrificed to “interpellations” intended to damage the Cabinet, or, as in England, to be delayed and clogged by the interposition of party conflicts.

Debates over measures admittedly good are often vexatiously protracted merely in order to prevent the Ministry from carrying other measures which are disliked, or an angry Opposition may seek to damage it by so obstructing all business as to force them to present at the end of the session a sorry harvest of statutes.

Crediting the close association of Executive and Legislature with the merit of avoiding friction, it is also true that where either organ dominates the other, the consequences may be unfortunate. In the eighteenth century the Ministry commanded a large section of the British House of Commons by means of pocket boroughs which the Crown held, or could obtain the use of from their owners. In England, whenever a Ministry has a strong party organization at its beck and call, it can put pressure upon members through the local party committees in their constituencies; and it has happened in Italy that a Minister may in one way or another obtain control by unseen methods over a large section of the representatives. In France, on the other hand, it is Ministries that suffer, for members are able to extort all sorts of favours for their constituencies from Administrations whose instability compels them to angle for every possible vote; and in Australia a Labour Ministry is a passive instrument in the hands of a parliamentary caucus which is itself controlled by an organization outside Parliament. A subservient Ministry loses the respect of the nation, as a dominant one lowers the credit of the Legislature.

A system which makes the life of an Administration depend upon the fate of the measures it introduces disposes every Cabinet to think too much of what support it can win by proposals framed to catch the fancy of the moment, and to think too little of what the real needs of the nation are; and it may compel the retirement, when a bill is defeated, of men who can ill be spared from their administrative posts.

The Cabinet system grew up in Britain when there were only two parties. When between 1876 and 1906, there appeared a third and, somewhat later, a fourth, it worked less well. The same thing happened in Australia after 1900, has since then happened in South Africa, and is now happening in Canada. In Trance for many years past no Ministry has been able to hold office except by getting several groups to unite so as to form a majority of the whole Chamber. Group alliances are what chemists call an unstable compound, and when they dissolve, down goes the Ministry.1

Lastly, the very concentration of power and swiftness with which decisions can be reached and carried into effect is a source of danger. There is no security for due reflection, no opportunity for second thoughts. Errors may be irretrievable.

The Presidential or American system on the other hand was built for safety, not for speed. Founded on the doctrine that the Executive and Legislative departments ought to be kept separate, because only thus could the liberty of the citizen be secured, it not only debars the Executive Head and his Ministers from sitting in the Legislature, but in the United States permits the latter both to narrow by law the President's field of action and to refuse him the money needed for carrying out any policy they disapprove. He is helpless against them, except in the narrow sphere which the Constitution reserves to him, and in that sphere the Senate can hamper him in the selection of his high officials.2 These well-meant provisions, grounded on fears for liberty, have proved inconvenient by impeding the co-operation of representatives and administrators. The former cannot question the latter, except by means of Committees. The latter have not, unless through a Committee, the means of conveying the needs of their departments to the representatives. Delay, confusion, much working at cross purposes are the result: and this is particularly felt in the sphere of finance where the legislature may refuse money when the Executive needs it, and may grant money for no better purpose than to purchase the political support of powerful sections or clamorous constituencies. The “Separation of Powers” has for some purposes turned out to be not the keeping apart of things really distinct but the forcible disjunction of things naturally connected. There is, moreover, no certainty that the Legislature will carry out the wishes of the Administration, however reasonable. They may even decline to pass the statutes needed to give effect to treaties duly ratified.1

The Presidential system leaves more to chance than does the Parliamentary. A Prime Minister is only one out of a Cabinet, and his colleagues may keep him straight and supply qualities wanting in him, but everything depends on the character of the individual chosen to be President. He may be strong or weak, wise or short-sighted. He may aim at standing above party and use his authority and employ his patronage with a single eye to the nation's welfare, or may think first of his own power and his party's gain, and play for his own re-election. The re-eligibility of the President has so often been supposed to unduly affect his action that many Americans think he should be legally disqualified for a second continuous term of office.2 In some republics such a provision exists.

The United States has best shown the strength and weakness of the system, but just as it works differently in the hands of different men, so is it a different thing in different countries. In nearly all of the republics of Latin America racial and social conditions throw larger powers into the hands of the Executive chief than would be permitted to him in the United States. This has been seen in constitutional Argentina and Uruguay, as well as in those disorderly States where a President is usually a military dictator. Legally the powers may seem the same: practically they are wider in the countries where constitutional traditions are still new and public opinion still weak or divided into sections by an economic or religious antagonism.

For administrative purposes it is a gain that the members of the Cabinet are not, like those of Britain, obliged to give constant attendance in the Legislature, and that when a Minister starts a promising policy he can count on carrying it on without being upset by a sudden change of government. The Legislature, too, since it cannot displace the President, nor even a Minister, is not distracted from the work of legislation by debates intended to discredit the existing and install a new administration.

Two other merits may certainly be credited to the Presidential scheme. Under it legislatures are less dominated by party spirit than those of Britain and France, of Belgium and Australia and Canada, for party discipline is not so strict at Washington as at Westminster, though the party organizations are stronger.1 Under it there is also a greater sense of stability, partly because a shifting of the political balance can take place only at elections, points fixed by law, partly because the legislature can by withholding funds check the Executive in any project thought to be risky, while the Executive can by its veto arrest the legislature in a dangerous course. In either case, the appeal is to the judgment of the nation, to be given, if not forthwith by public opinion, then before long at the next general election. The moderate elements in the country need not fear a sudden new departure: the demagogue cannot carry his projects with a run.2

Is Responsibility to the People, a cardinal merit in every form of free government, better secured under the Parliamentary or under the Presidential system? Apparently under the former, because there is more unity, the Cabinet having over the whole policy and administration of the country that full power which their majority in the Legislature has granted them. If they err by omission or by commission, they cannot shift the blame to Parliament, for if they do not receive from it the necessary support they can either dissolve it or resign office, transferring responsibility to it or to their successors.

Under the Presidential scheme the President is responsible, except where the Legislature fails either to pass at his request the laws, or to supply the money needed to carry out the policy he recommends, in which case it is not he but the Legislature that becomes answerable for any resulting evil. The majority in a Legislature which prevents a President from acting of course incurs a responsibility attaching to the party which has elected it: and a party may so suffer, but it is a responsibility far less definite than that attaching to a Cabinet, or to the leaders of an Opposition, in a Parliamentary country.1 When President and Legislature belong to the same party, it is to him that the nation looks, for he can ask the Legislature for all that the conjuncture requires, be it statutes or grants of money. But when he and the Legislature are at odds, and the country is not evidently with the one or the other, there is nothing for it but to bear with the deadlock and await the next ensuing election.

In the Presidential system the man chosen to be Head of the Government becomes more definitely Head of the Nation than does a Prime Minister in a Parliamentary country like France, Canada, or England. The eyes of the whole people are fixed upon him even if he be a man of less than first-rate quality, whereas in Parliamentary countries it is only striking personalities such as Pitt or Cavour or Bismarck that excite a similar interest and exert a similar authority. An American President stands high above others, meaning more to the people than leaders in Congress do, and always sure to command attention when he speaks. He need not consult his Cabinet nor regard its advice as must a French or British Prime Minister. To his Cabinet he is a Master, to a French or British Cabinet only a Chief. A Prime Minister may fall at any moment if the Assembly tires of him: a President stands firm, and has to be taken by the nation for better or worse while his term lasts. Hence the method of choosing the Irremoveable Head becomes proportionately more important. No perfect method has been found, but this much may be said for popular election that whereas the method of natural selection from the Assembly in parliamentary countries gives a perhaps undue advantage to oratorical brilliance, the method of deliberate choice by a legal act of the whole people affords a wider field of choice for persons of other gifts, for men like George Washington, or of the type to which in their different ways such strong personalties as Grover Cleveland and Theodore Roosevelt belonged. It often fails to find the fittest men, but it has, at least in the United States, excluded the unworthy.1 American experience cannot, however, be taken as a general guide. There are in Europe, as well as in those Spanish American republics in which a popular election without violence is now possible, countries where election by an Assembly is the safer method.2 This was the view of those who framed the present Constitution of France.3

These two types of government so far resemble one another, having both sprung from the common root of a feudal monarchy, that it has been necessary to consider them together.4 The third or Swiss type has a very different source, for Switzerland was never ruled by a single sovereign, and its legislature grew out of the diplomatic conferences in which the delegates of thirteen little States met to discuss their common foreign policy.1 The mainspring of the Constitution is the National Assembly, which controls the Executive and in which the whole power of the People is embodied, except in so far as the Constitution limits legislative action and in so far as the people have a final voice in legislation by the Referendum and Initiative. The Swiss system has the advantage of simplicity and of a concentration of authority. The National Assembly chooses and supervises the small Federal Council which carries on administration. Both are watched by public opinion, and can be overruled if necessary by popular vote. Policy, both foreign and domestic, is continuous, moves with an even step, the ideas the same, the men the same. No time is wasted in party strife. Economy and efficiency are secured. The unchecked power which the people can exercise when by the Initiative their votes amend the constitution or enact a law, has not proved dangerous in a country with a population so shrewd, cool, and accustomed to the use of freedom. There are few prizes ambition can strive for beyond the respect and trust of fellow-citizens. A humdrum State, but it is prosperous and contented, and nowhere does patriotism glow with so steady a flame.

Can the advantages which this type of government has bestowed on Switzerland be secured elsewhere by like institutions? The conditions are peculiar: a small nation, its citizens not indeed poor, but very few of them rich, highly intelligent, long trained by local self-government, little distracted by party spirit. It is hard to suppose in any other country a coincidence of these conditions sufficient to give such an institution as the Swiss Federal Council a like chance of success. Nevertheless, we may imagine that even in a country twice the size of Switzerland, a small Cabinet Council appointed by and in the closest touch with the Legislature, and itself appointing and supervising the heads of administrative departments might, in quieter times than the present, carry on public business with less friction and at less cost than has been found possible under either the Parliamentary or the Presidential system. An Administration not immersed in the whirlpool of party politics might devote itself to the task of bettering the condition of the masses of the people by measures none the less effective because they were not designed to win the momentary support of any section. Politics would be less spectacular: but after all politics were made for men, not men for politics. It would be hard to introduce such a system in any country where the passing of laws has been long associated with party strife, and where the distrust of opponents, intensified in our days by class sentiment, makes each side suspect whatever proceeds from the other; but since alike in France, in America, and in England the constitutional machinery that exists for investigating, preparing, and enacting legislation upon economic and industrial topics has failed to give satisfaction, light upon the problem of improving that machinery ought to be sought in every quarter.

Other schemes of government than the three here described might be invented, and one such, that of a series of local Assemblies, each sending one or more of its best men to a higher Assembly till they culminate in a Central Executive and a Central Council, has taken a sort of shape in the scheme of Russian Soviets. Many paths might be cut in the forest, but for the present it is enough to indicate those that are well trodden.

If we return to the questions whence we started, it would seem that of the three types examined the people's will receives a fuller and prompter effect under the Parliamentary system and the Swiss system than under the Presidential. The distinctive quality of this last which some would call a fault and others a merit, lies in the fact that by dividing power between several distinct authorities, it provides more carefully than does the Parliamentary against errors on the part either of Legislature or Executive, and retards the decision by the people of conflicts arising between them. The Swiss, guarding themselves against mistakes committed by the Legislature but placing no check on the direct action of the people, seem to take the greatest risks; but they are really the most conservative in spirit of all the nations, and make the least use of the wide powers reserved to the citizens. Efficiency is most likely to be secured by the Parliamentary system, because whatever the Executive needs it is sure to obtain from its majority in the Assembly, subject, of course, to any check which the existence of a Second Chamber may provide.

As between these two systems the Parliamentary seems to be preferred by the new States which have arisen in Europe during the last hundred years, the newest adopting it in the French rather than in the British form. The Presidential system has found favour among the Latin American republics which drew their ideas of self-government from the United States, and has in most of them allowed the Executive a wider power, going so far as in the Argentine Federation to permit a President to supersede the elected officials of a State on the ground that this is necessary to secure a fair election, no party trusting its adversary to conduct elections fairly. So far as the experience hitherto acquired warrants any general conclusion, that conclusion would be that while the Parliamentary has many advantages for countries of moderate size, the Presidential, constructed for safety rather than promptitude in action, and not staking large issues on sudden decisions, is to be preferred for States of vast area and population, such as are the United States and Germany.

Those who hold the chief merit of a scheme of government to lie in the amplitude of its provisions for the expression of the popular will may observe that the Swiss system is the only one which brings out that will in an unmistakable and unpervertible form, viz. by an Initiative or Referendum vote, whereas under the other two systems a vote given at an election, being given primarly for a candidate, not for a law or executive act, does not convey the people's judgment on any specific issue.1

That is true, but the cumbrousness and cost of any frequent use of the Referendum in a large country are practically prohibitive, and the party which possessed a strong and ubiquitous organization would have an unfair advantage at a voting. The opinion delivered would be for half or more of the citizens not their own, but an opinion imposed upon them by others. If the Will of the People means the personal mind and purpose of each individual citizen, to search for it is to search for the pot of gold at the foot of the rainbow.

CHAPTER LXIX

the money power in politics

Philip, King of Macedon, was wont to boast that he could take any city into which he could drive an ass laden with gold. Many statesmen from Philip's time down to our own have spoken to the like effect. So long as private property exists, there will be rich men ready to corrupt, and other men, rich as well as poor, ready to be corrupted, for “the love of money is the root of all evil.” This has been so under all forms of government alike. The House of Commons in the days when Walpole, looking round its benches, observed, “All these men have their price,” was no worse than were most of the Jacobin leaders among the French revolutionaries, and the fact that Robespierre's influence rested largely on his epithet “the Incorruptible” tells its own tale. Two absolute monarchies, Russia under the Tsars and China under the Manchu Emperors, were the countries in which corruption was seen in its most shameless luxuriance in our own time. The power money can exert upon Governments is to be specially feared in countries where two conditions, naturally connected, coincide, the existence both of large fortunes and of opportunities for making fortunes which the State, through its various organs, can grant or can withhold. Of many forms in which money can exert its power, corruption is only one, but as it is the most palpable and direct, it may come first in a summing up of the results which the survey of modern democratic governments contained in previous chapters has provided. “Corruption” may be taken to include those modes of employing money to attain private ends by political means which are criminal or at least illegal, because they induce persons charged with a public duty to transgress that duty and misuse the functions assigned to them.

Four classes of persons owing a duty to the public may be thus led astray, viz. (a) Electors, (b) Members of a Legislature, (c) Administrative Officials, (d) Judicial Officials.

(a) Electors.— The bribery of voters is a practice from which few countries have been exempt. To-day it is hardly discoverable in Switzerland, in Australia, and in New Zealand. Uncommon in France, not extinct in Belgium and Holland, and found also in Italy, it is pretty frequent in parts of Canada and of the Northern United States, where even well-to-do farmers are not ashamed to take a few dollars for their vote, sometimes excusing themselves on the ground that they ought to be paid for the time they spend in going to the poll; and it is also reported from the cities, chiefly among negro voters. The practice was a flagrant scandal in England till the enlargement of constituencies and a stringent law (passed in 1884) reduced it to a few towns in the southern counties. In Spanish America it was scarcely needed, because the Governments of most of the republics have been accustomed to take charge of the elections and secure such results as they desire, while in the cities of ancient Greece, it appeared chiefly in the bribing of orators to influence the general assembly of the citizens. But at Rome it became in the later days of the Republic so gross as to be one of the causes of the Republic's fall. Rich men bought consulships and praetorships from the lower class of citizens whose votes in the Comitia conferred these offices and more than reimbursed themselves for what they had spent in bribes by the spoils of the provinces which they were sent in due course to govern.

(b) Members of a Legislature.— Legislative power necessarily includes the power to pass measures, general or special, which involve some pecuniary gain or loss to individuals. A customs tariff, especially if designed to protect domestic industries, may enrich one man or impoverish another. The grant of what is called in America a franchise, e.g. the right to construct a railroad or tramway, may have vast possibilities of gain. A vote for the making of some public work may so raise the price of landed property in a particular spot as to make it well worth the while of the owner of such property to persuade the legislature to pass the vote. Where a member of a legislature has influence with administrative officials, as, for instance, with those who have contracts at their disposal, or who administer State possessions in a Colony, the member may be bribed to exert his influence. In these and other ways members of the legislature hold in their gift benefits sufficient to expose them to temptations from rich men willing to pay high. As on a rocky sea-shore one can tell how far the tide has fallen by observing how many limpets adhering to the rocks are to be seen above the level of the water, so the healthiness of public life may be judged by seeing how many rich men or their agents are found slipping into the halls of a legislature and approaching persons who can bring political influence to bear.

Bills affecting particular localities or persons have been, in American legislatures, and especially in those of the more populous States, a source of corruption surpassed only by the prostitution of their legislative functions by the members of municipal councils. In one such State the question “What sort of a legislature have you got?” elicited the reply “As good a one as money can buy.” In France such abuses have arisen chiefly over contracts or business operations in connection with public undertakings, sometimes in the colonies; and in Canada some of the Provincial assemblies are similarly suspected, but the adoption, in the self-governing Dominions, of British Parliamentary rules enacted seventy years ago regarding the treatment of private bills, have generally protected their legislatures from exposure to temptation.

(c) Administrative Officials.— An examination of the Civil Service in France, the United States, Switzerland, Australia, and New Zealand shows that in all these countries the highest ranks of this service maintain a good standard of honesty, though lower down, where salaries are small and the corporate tradition of purity is less strong, the seductions of wealth may sometimes prevail, especially where a secret commission is offered upon a naval or military contract.

Fifty years ago some Cabinet Ministers in the United States were compromised in scandals, as have been more recently some Canadian Ministers, especially in the Provinces. In neither country are the municipal officials of some large cities spotless. A frequent form of corruption is seen in those American municipalities where business firms bribe the police to wink at breaches of municipal regulations. Payments so made to escape prosecution have been in New York no inconsiderable source of emolument to officers in the police force and to the great political club of which most of those officers are honoured members.

(d) Judicial Officials.— Of all kinds of corruption that of the judiciary is the most odious, being one of the commonest ways in which the rich man gets the better of the poor. In the countries hereinbefore described one hears no charge of venality brought against the higher National judges. Frenchmen, however, do not seem to place implicit trust in their lower Courts; and in some States of the American Union the Bench is now and then discredited by the presence of men known to have been elected by the influence of great incorporated companies, or to be under the control of powerful politicians; and there are cities where some lawyers have made a reputation for “fixing a jury.”1 Neither are judges trusted in most countries of Portuguese or Spanish America, though there it is a family or personal friendship rather than money that is apt to pervert justice. In the British self-governing Dominions the traditions of purity brought from the mother country have been carefully preserved.

The means by which corruption is effected have, with the march of civilization, become in most countries more delicately elusive. Many are the devices available, many the cases that can be imagined in which there may be strong grounds for suspicion while the proof of a corrupt inducement is too weak to warrant prosecution. No coin, nor always even paper, need pass. Were Philip now seeking to capture a city council instead of a city, he would not load the ass with gold, but would intimate that shares in a company being formed to work a copper mine were to be allotted below par to some good friends and would certainly go to a premium in a few weeks. In Russia under the Tsars a Minister, who was asked by some one from Western Europe for official sanction to a perfectly legitimate enterprise calculated to benefit the country, was accustomed, while inventing one objection after another, to rattle a drawer containing some loose roubles until the hint was taken; but in democratic countries, where a higher standard of purity is expected and the press as well as political opponents are prompt to detect and expose those who fall below it, more subtle methods are needed. Such methods often succeed.

From distinctly illegal modes of employing money in politics we may pass to others which are for any reason undesirable, as calculated to warp the spontaneous action of the citizens' minds and wills, or as giving to rich men an advantage which is undue, because derived from wealth and not from any superior fitness to serve the community. Some classes of such cases the law can reach; others it leaves untouched, perhaps because the motive that prompted the act may have been doubtful, perhaps because legal intervention would do more harm than good. A few illustrations may be given, beginning with cases wherewith the law has sought to deal.

Election Expenses.—In countries where power is conferred by the votes of the people the efforts of parties and candidates are chiefly directed to the winning of elections. Now Elections cost money. Money may legitimately be spent on them, but if it is spent lavishly, an advantage is given to the rich candidates and to the party which has the larger campaign fund. Hence, though there is nothing intrinsically wrong in flooding a constituency with canvassers, circulating an immense mass of printed matter intended to influence the electors, and spending money in conveying electors to the polls,1 British legislation restricts the total expenditure which a candidate may incur, the amount being determined by the number of electors in a constituency. Similar statutes have been passed in the United States also as respects Federal elections, and in some States for State elections; and in the United States the political parties have also been required to furnish statements of their total National campaign funds. These funds had often received large contributions from great manufacturing or trading companies, usually because such companies had an interest in the provisions of the protective tariff and expected the party to whose fund they subscribed to repay the service by giving them the kind of tariff they desired. Such practices come pretty near to bribing, not indeed the voters, but a political organization which might be able to “deliver the goods,” so they have now been forbidden by law.

These laws relate to elections. But golden seed intended to bear fruit may be sown at other times also. In England, and to a less extent in Scotland, a habit has grown up and spread widely of expecting members of Parliament to subscribe to local purposes, and not only to charitable purposes, such as hospitals, but also to all sorts of associations formed for amusement, such as football and cricket and swimming clubs. Rich men have been known to spend many hundreds of pounds annually in such subscriptions, and prospective candidates have also begun to do so, the practice being called “nursing the constituency.” It would be difficult to forbid these things, for if the member or candidate resides within the constituency, he would naturally subscribe to some of these objects in his quality of a resident, while if non-residents only were forbidden so to do, this might be held to give an advantage to residents. The practice, however, tends to demoralize the electorate and the candidate, and to deter men of limited means from offering themselves.

Another regrettable habit visible at present only in the United States, because it is only there that party organizations exercise a practically controlling influence on the selection of candidates for any post, is the use of pecuniary inducements to influence a Boss, or any leading wire-pullers, in the selection as candidate for office of an aspirant whom the party that selected him is bound to support with its solid vote. Here no offence is committed because a Boss, having no legal position, has no statutory duty and responsibility, being merely a private citizen to whose counsels other private citizens are wont to defer. American legislation, though it provides penalties for bribery or other misfeasance in the conduct of nominating meetings, can hardly go so far as to recognize a Boss and surround his action, influential as it is, with safeguards, not to add that it would seldom be possible to pry into the dark corners where the spider spins his web.

The practice of “Lobbying,” i.e. besetting and worrying members of legislatures with persuasions to vote for or against a bill which promises gain or threatens loss to some business enterprise, while occasionally discernible in France, and perhaps not unknown in some British countries, attains dangerous dimensions only in the precincts of American legislatures. When the lobbyist bribes he is of course punishable, but the employment of a crowd of professional agents, though it secures advantages for those who can afford to employ them, cannot well be forbidden. There is nothing wrong in persuasion per se; and who shall fix the limits of reasonable persuasion?1 Lobbyists might, however, be recognized as a sort of profession and subjected, like parliamentary agents in England, to disciplinary rules.

The granting by railway companies of free passes over their lines, a practice formerly common in the United States, was in itself legitimate and often well employed. Ministers of religion, and sometimes others also whose journeys seemed useful for the community, such as University professors, received this privilege, which was, however, so much abused by the companies as a means of propitiating influential persons, especially members of legislatures, that it was forbidden by law.

These various forms in which the power of wealth has been felt and to some extent curbed, count for less than another which appears to defy all regulation. This is the manufacture of public opinion. A group of rich men who have a special business project or class interest, be it legitimate or deleterious, may combine to start a press propaganda on behalf of their interest or project, partly by pamphlets or books, partly by influencing or capturing journals, so as to deluge the public with facts and arguments advocating their schemes or helping a party whose chiefs are secretly committed to the support of those schemes. Such a group may, by its control of a large part of the press, succeed in impressing its views on a public easily misled because one side only of the case has been constantly and ably presented to them while the opposing arguments are ignored or decried. The aim may be unobjectionable, but even if it be sordid, even if the facts be garbled and the arguments fallacious, how can such a propaganda be arrested? The only remedy, in a free country, is to disprove the facts and refute the fallacies. But it may not be worth anybody's while to incur the expense of a press opposition.

The great firms that manufacture munitions of war have been frequently accused of using their revenues to foster a warlike spirit and thereby dispose nations and their legislatures to spend immense sums in military preparations. I know of no evidence to show that this has happened in France or the United States or England, but it is generally believed to have happened in Germany, and might no doubt happen anywhere. There have certainly been cases in which unscrupulous men have, from selfish motives, used the press to push a nation into war.

The methods here enumerated are only some among the ways in which wealth can make itself felt in politics. It commands social influences. It can put politicians under personal obligations. It can by subscriptions to party funds obtain, as has often happened in England, titles of rank, which carried, till they began to be lavishly distributed, some social influence. Large sums may be expended for purposes sinister but not illegal, and where these tactics succeed, a bad precedent is set and the standard of honour is lowered. The most conspicuous example of a State demoralized and brought to ruin by the power of money is afforded by the history of the later Roman Republic. The saying of the Numidian Jugurtha was prophetic: “The City is up for sale, and will perish if some day it finds a purchaser.”

Among modern democracies the two which have been the purest, the best administered, and the most truly popular in spirit have been Switzerland and the Orange Free State as it was in 1895 before the South African War.1 They were those in which there were no rich men. On the other hand, those free countries in which wealth has been most powerful are the United States, France, and Canada. In the United States the swift growth of prodigious fortunes, and the opportunities for increasing them by obtaining favours from the governments of States and cities, had coincided with the building up of party organizations through whose help these favours could be obtained. The influence of what is called “Big Business,” wealth concentrated in a few hands and finding its tools in politicians and party organizations, was for many years a fruitful source of mischief, exploiting the resources of the country for its selfish purposes. These abuses provoked a reaction. “Big Business” began to be bitted and bridled, and though it still shows fight, can hardly recover the dominance it enjoyed thirty years ago, for public opinion has grown more sensitive and vigilant.

To estimate the harm done in France by the power of finance is more difficult, because the breezes of publicity do not blow so freely as in America over the field of politics, and where the facts are seldom ascertainable, rumour and suspicion are all the more active. It is, however, beyond doubt that Frenchmen believe the hidden influence of the heads of some great undertakings, industrial and financial, to be a potent force, manipulating the press, raising or depressing the fortunes of statesmen, and by one device or another turning the machinery of government to serve private ends. I speak not as knowing but only as reporting what is believed.

In Canada there have been fewer charges and complaints, but the close contact between finance, especially railway finance, and the political parties has caused disquietude. In Australia the rich are supposed to support party funds, but so far as I could learn, from political rather than directly personal motives.

In England it has thrice happened that a group of men who had made great fortunes abroad tried to use that wealth for political ends. The first instance was that of the so-called Nabobs, men who had brought back wealth from the East in the days of King George III. They bought electorates, and formed a group which, after rousing hostility by its prominence for some years, had vanished long before the Reform Act of 1832 abolished pocket-boroughs. The two other instances are too near our own times to be fit subjects for comment here. They did not permanently injure political life, but they disclosed some of the weak spots which wealth may assail. Apart from these passing, and in two instances pernicious, manifestations of the insidious influence money can bring to bear on the formation of opinion, England has not suffered from the malady since 1832, which never thereafter, not even while electoral corruption was frequent, seriously threatened its vital organ, the House of Commons. Were the centre of vital force to pass from the House of Commons to the press, there would be ground for anxiety. In every country unscrupulous wealth can, by artificially “making opinion,” mislead and beguile the people more easily and with less chance of detection than in any other way.

Democracy has no more persistent or insidious foe than the money power, to which it may say, as Dante said when he reached in his journey through hell the dwelling of the God of Riches,1 “Here we found Wealth, the great enemy.” That enemy is formidable because he works secretly, by persuasion or by deceit, rather than by force, and so takes men unawares. He is a danger to good government everywhere, no more active, no more mischievous in popular than he is in other governments. Why then are we more shocked when we find him active and successful in a democracy? Is it because we are prepared to expect selfishness in monarchies and oligarchies, but not in States which live by public spirit and where the common good is the common aim? The hope that public spirit will guarantee purity is one which, however often disappointed, no one would like to lose. Yet why should it be supposed that the ordinary failings of mankind will be materially lessened by the form of government any men live under? Can democracy do more than provide restraints and impose penalties less liable to be evaded than those tried elsewhere? Has not experience shown that safeguards may be more easily evaded where authority is vested in the multitude, for it is likely to be less vigilant, less prompt in detection and punishment, than is a well-organized bureaucracy?

The truth seems to be that democracy has only one marked advantage over other governments in defending itself against the submarine warfare which wealth can wage, viz. Publicity and the force of Public Opinion. So long as ministers can be interrogated in an assembly, so long as the press is free to call attention to alleged scandals and require explanations from persons suspected of an improper use of money or an improper submission to its influences, so long will the people be at least warned of the dangers that threaten them. If they refuse to take the warning, they are already untrue to the duties freedom prescribes.

The two safeguards on which democracy must rely are law and opinion. Laws, though they cannot cover all the cases in which the power of wealth is exerted against the public interest, and though strict proof may be wanting where the offence admits of little doubt, always render a service in providing a test and setting a standard by which men can recognize a temptation when it is presented to them. They help to keep the conscience of the people at a high level.

Public opinion is, however, even more important than law, since more flexible and able to reach cases not amenable to legal process. Opinion forms in public life that atmosphere which we call Tone and on whose purity the honour and worth of public life depend. Opinion is sometimes strangely lenient, with a standard purely conventional. The England of a century ago smiled at the candidate who gave a bribe, but despised the elector who took it. The habit was an old one, but so was the habit of duelling, so was the habit of intoxication, neither condemned by the code of custom. Those who conduct the affairs of a nation ought to be held to a standard of honour in some points higher and more delicate than any which law can set. Tone can decline as it declined at Rome, but it can also rise, as it rose among English politicians in the days of Chatham; and so has it also risen in the United States since 1890, where modes of gaining and using wealth once taken as part of the game are now under the ban of opinion. Money will always have power, because the rich man has something to give which others are glad to receive, so Power cannot be dissevered from wealth so long as wealth exists. All that democracy can do is to watch its action with ceaseless attention, restraining its predatory habits, respecting its possessor only so far as he devotes it to purposes beneficial to the community, and regarding as “undesirable citizens” those who use it to gain something from the public for their own benefit.

CHAPTER LXX

responsibility

Popular Government rests upon the principle that it is every citizen's business to see that the community is well governed. Each man, rich or poor, learned or ignorant, is alike bound to discharge his duty as a voter, or a representative, or an official, or a juryman, according to the measure of his powers. In this concentration of all the disinterested activity and wisdom the community possesses the strength of democracy was expected to lie.

Its weakness was long ago noted in the saying that What is everybody's business is nobody's business. In an oligarchy or a monarchy the few rulers have, because few, a comparatively strong and direct interest in seeing that State affairs are efficiently managed. The personal interest of an individual may sometimes override that of the privileged class, but the share of each member of that comparatively small class in whatever weal or woe befalls the community is larger than that of the citizen in a democracy. “Where there are a hundred shareholders in a company each has more interest in the dividend than each has where there are a thousand. The citizen in a democracy of millions is prone to measure his own duty by his neighbour's, reducing his own obligations down to the level of the less conscientious, rather than raising them to the level of the most conscientious among his fellows. “Why,” he thinks, “should I take more trouble about public affairs than I see my next-door neighbour do? He minds his own business and prospers; so will I. Let somebody else with more time to spare work for the public. The office-holders are paid to do it. I am not.” He forgets that among those who profess to work for the public, officeholders and others, there will be many working for their personal interests only, perhaps to his detriment and that of the community.

The first and nearest duty of a citizen is to bear his part in selecting good men, honest and capable, to do the work needed by the community, and to make sure that they do it. In a small community like a little Swiss Canton or a New England Town this was a simple matter, because everybody knew everybody else and could see whether the work was being done or neglected, and if an officer neglected his work he was dismissed. A century ago the Town of Concord in Massachusetts met once a year, chose its Treasurer to gather and keep the scanty revenue, and its Road Superintendent, and its Hog Reeve — an office which local tradition says was discharged by Ralph Waldo Emerson. But when the work to be done for the State of Massachusetts or for the National Government of the United States had to be provided for, it became necessary to delegate the selection of officials and the supervision of their conduct to persons chosen for that purpose, i.e. representatives in an assembly, and these representatives again might have to delegate both selection and supervision to persons whom they appointed for those functions. Direct oversight by the citizens in Concord and the other Towns being impossible, there was constructed for the purpose machinery of securing wise choice and efficient oversight, a system of what is called a Frame of Government, representative and administrative, and one of its prime objects was to provide for all the citizens, as the ultimate rulers of the State, full means of knowing and judging how each part of the State's work was being done, carefully or negligently. Since they cannot personally oversee the work, they must know whether it is duly overseen by the persons appointed to this function, and whether these persons are in their turn watched and judged by those others placed above them, either official administrators or representatives, to whom has been entrusted the duty of overseeing the first set of overseers. There is thus created a chain of responsibility connecting every State employee of lower or higher rank with the People as the ultimate sovereign. If any link in this chain is weak, the right of the people to see that their work is duly carried out is infringed, and their power to secure efficient administration is reduced or destroyed. This is what we call the Principle of Responsibility, everywhere indispensable to good government. Each State servant, from a stoker at the furnace of a battleship up to the Secretary of the Navy, has his job, and is accountable to his immediate superior, who is in turn accountable to his superior, and so on. If his work, be it manual labour or direction and supervision, is done well, he is praised and continued or promoted. If it is ill done, he is warned or dismissed. Experience has shown that this principle, on which every private business is conducted, is the only guarantee of efficiency, for it relies on and uses motives common to all men. There are persons who work hard from a sense of duty. There are others who work hard because they like their job, and have an intellectual pleasure in seeing things well done. But far more numerous are those whose motives are chiefly self-regarding. They fear dismissal, they desire continuance or promotion. Fear, as well as whatever sense of duty they may have, helps them to resist temptation. Most people work better for the hope of some reward: everybody works better for knowing that he is watched and may suffer for default, for as an American philosopher has observed: True as it is that the wicked fleeth when no man pursueth, he makes better time when he knows that some one is after him. So let each State employee have his job. Let him be watched at his job. Let the watcher be himself watched to make sure that the watching is duly done, and let there be thus a line of responsibility all the way from the Minister at the one end to the weekly wage-earner at the other, so that when any fault is alleged to have been committed, there shall always be some one whose business it is to meet the charge, and the people shall always have some one to blame if the fault be proved.

In olden days the autocrat secured responsibility by Fear, which Montesquieu calls “the principle of Despotism,” a sentiment echoed by a member of the French Convention when he said: “By Responsibility I mean Death.” The people stand in the place of the monarch and must, in such a world as the present, rely upon Fear as well as Conscience to enforce Responsibility.1

All this is common sense and common practice in commercial and industrial life, and so it is also inside any properly organized department of public administration. Every Frame of Government contemplates and purports to recognize it, but some Frames have failed to apply it thoroughly, and with unfortunate results. To understand these failures let us compare the arrangements already described (Chapter LXVII.), which exist in France and in the United States.

In France, as in England and in the British self-governing Dominions whose constitutions reproduce that of England, every member of the civil administration is responsible for the proper discharge of his duties to some superior in that department and ultimately to the Minister at the head of the department. The Minister is responsible to the legislative assembly, in which he sits and where he can be questioned in any matter relating to his department. If the explanation or defence he tenders for his own conduct or that of any of his subordinates is unsatisfactory, the assembly may express its disapproval, or demand an enquiry. If the matter is one of some consequence, and the Minister is censured, he resigns: if it is very serious and the Ministry as a whole support him, they will as a Cabinet resign.1 This they will also do if their collective policy on any important subject is disapproved of by the Chamber of Deputies, since to it the Cabinet is responsible. The system works well inside each department, and pretty well as regards the relations between the Administration and the Legislature, though it sometimes happens that an error goes uncensured because nobody in the Chamber calls attention to it at the time, or because the majority in that body is unwilling to weaken the Ministry which it desires to keep in office,2 and in that case the Chamber, by supporting the Administration, assumes a part of their responsibility. But the legislature is a large body, and the majority includes so many members that the share of each is small. Responsibility accordingly practically falls only to a small extent upon the members of the majority, and more fully on the Cabinet who are the leaders of the party. If the nation is displeased, it is primarily the Cabinet and secondarily its supporters in the Chamber that are the persons to be blamed.

To whom is the Chamber responsible? Only to the electors; and this responsibility can be enforced only at a general election. It is therefore possible for laws to be passed or executive action sanctioned by a vote of the representative assembly which the majority of the people would disapprove if they could be consulted. But as general elections cannot be ordered whenever a question as to the real wish of the people arises, this is an inevitable evil, the only remedy for which would be the taking of a Referendum as in Switzerland, or the Recall of members of the Legislature, as in some American States.1

Turn now to the United States. In its National or Federal Government the President is not responsible to the legislature, and his only responsibility to the people consists in the general approval or disapproval which his action evokes. Their favour is of course what every President strives to win for his party as well as for himself. But he cannot be practically deemed accountable for the incompetence or errors of his official subordinates, not even of that comparatively small number who belong to the higher grades, unless he has made so many unfortunate appointments as to discredit his capacity for selection. Nor are his Ministers responsible, for they are merely his servants, and do not sit in the Legislature. Committees of Congress may be appointed to investigate their conduct, but dismissal rests with the President only, and Congress cannot compel it. In many branches of his duties he needs the help which Congress can render by legislation and by votes of money, but these he may be unable to obtain, for in one or other house of Congress the party opposed to him may hold a majority. Thus when things go wrong and the people complain, it is not clear who is at fault, for the President can throw the blame on Congress, and Congress on the President. Furthermore, the equality in legislative power of the two houses of Congress may make it difficult to fix upon either responsibility for the failure to legislate, since one party may hold a majority in the Senate while the other party holds it in the House. Add to this that the fate of most bills is decided in committees whose proceedings are not public, and it will be seen how hard it may be to apportion blame. Broadly speaking, and regarding only comparatively large issues, it is the political parties on whom responsibility can be most easily fixed. They can be punished by losing votes and seats at the next election, but individual culpability may escape any penalty except that which public displeasure inflicts on prominent figures.

Here the defect to be noted is the subdividing of responsibility till it almost disappears. In the several States of the Union another defect is visible. The chief officials of each State are, including the judges, not appointed by the Governor, as the Federal Ministers and judges are by the President. The wish to make these officials responsible dictated the assignment of their election to the people's vote, choosing them, as the Governor is chosen, for short terms, so that they may not forget their dependence on the people. They are not responsible either to the Governor or to the State Legislature, but to the people only, and in this sense only, that they may be rejected if they offer themselves for another term of office. This constitutional arrangement, adopted in order to recognize the sovereignty of the people and make the officials feel themselves directly accountable to the citizens, has had the exactly opposite effect. The people, having neither the knowledge requited to select nor the time and knowledge needed to supervise these officials, have left the nomination of them to the party Organizations; each organization repays by a nomination those of its adherents who have worked for it, and the candidates whom their party carry at the elections owe their posts and their obedience to it and not to the people. So far as they safely can, they work for the party, looking to it for renomination or some other favour, and the party, so long as they are loyal, stands by them if attacked. Thus the plan which was meant to create responsibility to the citizens has made such responsibility a sham, while creating a real responsibility to the secret and non-legal authority, the Organization or “Party Machine,” which can reward or punish. Inside that non-legal organization Responsibility is strictly enforced by a system of rewards and punishments, so obedience and efficiency are secured.

The enforcement of Responsibility is a comparatively easy thing in the sphere of administration where individual men are concerned, and each has his specified work to do. As in a great manufacturing industry the foreman supervises the workmen, and the head of each department supervises the foremen, and the General Manager supervises the heads of departments, and the Board of Directors, or proprietor, supervises the General Manager, so in a government department the Minister, aided by the permanent secretary, can keep everybody up to the mark by punishing default and rewarding merit. It is when bodies of men are concerned that difficulties emerge. A mob is dangerous because each man in it feels that his own responsibility for a breach of the law is lessened by the participation of many others. A representative assembly in which most men wait for some one else to give a lead, each feeling that he will be blamed no more than others for indolence or timidity, does not enforce accountability on offenders so well as can an individual Minister, who knows that others are looking to him, and this is especially true of the Minister in a monarchy or oligarchy who has usually a freer hand as well as a more direct liability to censure than any politician holding power by the favour of an assembly can have. Still more difficult is it to enforce the responsibility of a representative assembly to the people. The members are many; who can fix blame upon any in particular? The people is a vast indeterminate body; who can speak for it or get it to speak for itself? This explains why the trend of opinion in the United States has latterly been to vest larger and larger powers in a State Governor and in the Mayor of a city or a very small Board. The citizens can watch him or them; they cannot so well watch a set of elected officials, or the aldermen in a municipal council. Like considerations have made thinking men tolerate party organizations, with all their defects. The Party is usually the only power that can be relied on to induce the people to inflict by their votes a penalty for misdoing, and upon the Parties some measure of responsibility can be fixed, for each has a motive for enforcing responsibility upon its opponents, and makes itself to some extent responsible if it fails in that enforcement. A “party in power” has a motive for avoiding gross scandals and maintaining a tolerable standard of competence in administration, because if offences are too flagrant, the people will rise and turn it out. A “party in opposition” has at least as strong a motive for detecting and exposing all the offences of the party in power whose fall will install it in office. Thus, whatever be the motives, the public interest is not wholly neglected, and abuses which might escape notice under a careless monarch or be hushed up by a selfish oligarchy have a chance of being corrected.

It remains true, nevertheless, that the enforcement of accountability on those appointed to serve the State is one of the abiding difficulties of democracy. Attempts have been made to control the member who represents a constituency in an assembly by exacting pledges and fettering him by instructions. Such a plan involves evils greater than those it could remove. Some American States have tried the experiment of giving to the citizens a power of ejecting from office, before the expiry of his term, an official or a representative, but reasons have already been given which dissuade this device of the so-called Recall. Experience has so far pointed out only one path worth following, that of making the way plain and simple by laying on the ordinary citizen only such tasks as he can be expected to perform. He cannot give much of his thought and attention to public affairs which for him come only in the third or fourth or fifth rank of his interests in life. To ask from him too much is to get from him too little. He can, however, concentrate his thoughts upon the election of a few men to do public work, and may try to watch these few, making each of them feel that he is being held responsible whether it be for what he does himself or for what he does in watching and directing others. Keep the searchlight steadily playing upon the few conspicuous figures, be it in a larger or a smaller area of government, in city or county, in State or nation, so that each person charged with public duties shall never forget that he has an account to render.

I have dwelt on this subject, familiar as it is, because the neglect to fix responsibility has been one of the most fertile sources of trouble in popular governments. There is no better test of the value of institutions than the provisions they contain for fixing and enforcing it upon every one who serves the State.

CHAPTER LXXI

democracy and the backward races

Three causes have in our time set a new problem for Democracy by raising the question of its applicability to backward peoples. We see attempts made to create among races which, whether we call them civilized or semi-civilized, have had no practical experience of any but autocratic control, some form of popular government. Democracy which has been a natural growth in the civilized countries that now enjoy it, will in these despotically ruled countries be an artificial creation, built upon ideas brought in from outside, unfamiliar to all but the educated few, unintelligible to the masses.

The first of these causes is the contact, closer than ever before, which now exists between the more Advanced and the more Backward families of mankind.

The second is the immense influence and authority exercised by the Advanced Races over the minds of the Backward, an influence chiefly due to the development among the former of the sciences of nature in their application both to war and to the economic needs of life.

The third is the passion for Equality, civil and political, economic and social, which, having grown strong among the Advanced peoples, has not only spread among the more educated part — everywhere a tiny part — of the Backward peoples, but has disposed the Advanced to favour its sudden extension to the Backward through the creation of institutions similar to those which had slowly developed themselves among the Advanced. This love of equality is not found in Europeans who live among coloured races, who, so far from treating the latter as equals, generally contemn and exploit them. But human equality has become a dogma, almost a faith, with a majority of those who, dwelling in Europe, have no direct knowledge of the races to whom their theoretic sympathy goes out.

The subject has recently acquired a new and possibly disquieting significance. That military as well as intellectual predominance which the nations of Europe have held in the world since the battle of Salamis1 may be threatened. The fierce rivalries of these nations, culminating in the war of 1914, and the internal strife by which each of them is now torn, have so reduced both the resources and the prestige of Europe as to disturb the balance between it and the Backward peoples of the Old World. Should the latter succeed in appropriating and learning to use the forces which scientific discovery places at the disposal of all peoples alike, Europe may one day have reason to rejoice that so many of her children have occupied the Western hemisphere. Thus it is now something more than speculative curiosity that leads us to consider what political developments may be in store for those Asiatics whom the Advanced races have been wont to regard with disdain. The problem has taken different forms in different countries. India has been governed by the British on lines necessarily despotic, though the despotism has long been more well meaning and disinterested than any one people had ever before exercised over others. Despotism would probably have continued but for the desire expressed by that extremely small section of the Indian population which has been instructed in British principles of government to see those principles applied in their own country, and to be permitted to share in its administration. This wish Britain has now set itself to meet. In the Southern States of the North American Union the extinction of negro slavery was followed by the over hasty grant of full political as well as private civil rights to the emancipated slaves. The suffrage has been gradually withdrawn from the large majority of the coloured people of the South, but a minority are still permitted to vote, and much controversy has arisen as to their moral claim and their fitness. In the Philippine Islands the United States Government, after conquering them from Spain in 1898–99, was faced with the difficulty of reconciling its rule with the doctrines of the Declaration of Independence. In Egypt a demand is heard for the creation of self-governing institutions under the sultanate set up by European arms. In Central and South America the colonial subjects of Spain, when they threw off her yoke a century ago, formed republics in whose constitutions legal distinctions as respects political rights have not been generally made between the Europeans and Mestizos (the mixed race) on the one hand, and the aboriginal races on the other, although the latter, who in most of these States constituted the large majority, were entirely devoid of the knowledge and the experience required for the exercise of the suffrage. In these last-mentioned cases supreme control has practically remained with the educated class of European (or, to a less extent, of mixed) stock, so the institutions set up have continued to work, however imperfectly. But to-day we see other cases which raise the problem on a vaster scale and in a novel way. Not to speak of the farcical attempts to create parliamentary government in Turkey, or of the similar attempt in Persia, which has fared little better, two vast countries have proclaimed republican governments, intended to be something more than shams, among populations which foreign observers had assumed to be absolutely unfitted for any but an autocratic government. In China the Manchu dynasty was overthrown by a few students, educated at American or Japanese universities, who, profiting by the incapacity of the Central imperial government and its failure to quell local insurrections, set up a republic, there being no person fit to mount the vacant throne. A republic has continued to exist in name, not because the nation desired it, but because the old dynasty had lost its hold, and no man arose strong enough to obtain general obedience over an enormous territory.1 In Russia the contempt aroused among the educated classes by the folly and feebleness of the Tsardom and the turpitude of its Ministers led to its sudden collapse; and control passed, after some months of ineffectual struggles by the moderate reformers, into the hands of self-appointed revolutionary Committees, while the millions of ignorant peasants were left in a welter of anarchy, soon superseded by a ruthless tyranny.

All these eases, otherwise widely dissimilar, have one common feature. Each is an attempt to plant institutions, more or less democratic, in a soil not prepared for them either by education in political principles or by the habits of constitutional government. The races or nations summoned to work those institutions did not understand them in theory, and had never tried them in practice. Everywhere else the self-governing institutions that have grown up among the peoples now using them are suited to their ideas and habits, while in these backward countries they were thrust upon men, the vast majority of whom, ceasing to care for the old things, neither knew nor cared anything about the new.1

Here is the real difficulty. It is said, with truth, that knowledge and experience as well as intelligence are needed to fit a people for free self-government. But a still graver defect than the want of experience is the want of the desire for self-government in the mass of the nation. When a people allow an old-established government like that of the Tsars or the Manchus to be overthrown, it is because they resent its oppressions or despise its incompetence. But this does not mean that they wish to govern themselves. As a rule, that which the mass of any people desires is not to govern itself but to be well governed. So when free institutions are forced on a people who have not spontaneously called for them, they come as something not only unfamiliar but artificial. They do not naturally and promptly engage popular interest and sympathy but are regarded with an indifference which lets them fall into the hands of those who seek to use the machinery of government for their own purposes. It is as if one should set a child to drive a motor car. Wherever self-government has worked well, it is because men have fought for it and valued it as a thing they had won for themselves, feeling it to be the true remedy for misgovernment.

Some of the experiments that are now being tried might have been better left untried. But as they are being tried, let us consider what are the conditions and what the methods that will give them the best chance of success. Something depends on local facts, something on racial quality. It is easier to set up self-governing institutions in a country no larger than Switzerland or Bulgaria than in a huge country like Russia or China, where the people of one region know nothing about the leading men of another, and few know more than the names even of the most prominent national figures. Social structure is an important factor. Where men are divided by language, or by religion, or by caste distinctions grounded on race or on occupation, there are grounds for mutual distrust and animosity which make it hard for them to act together or for each section to recognize equal rights in the other. Homogeneity, though it may not avert class wars, helps each class of the community to understand the mind of the others, and can create a general opinion in a nation. A population of a bold and self-reliant character is more fitted to work free institutions than is one long accustomed to passive and unreasoning obedience. Men cool of temper, slow and solid in their way of thinking, are better than those who are hasty, impressionable, passionate; for the habit of resorting to violence is one of the prime difficulties in the orderly working of political institutions, as any one will admit who recalls the sanguine expectations entertained half a century ago, and compares them with the facts of to-day in nearly every free country. Swift wits and a lively imagination are not necessarily an advantage in this sphere. Education, that is to say the education given by schools and books, signifies less than we like to think. Native shrewdness and the willingness to make a compromise instead of yielding to impulses and pushing claims of right to extremes are more profitable.

The glib talk, common in our time, which suggests that education will solve the problems of China and Russia, of Mexico and Persia misleads us by its overestimate of the value of reading and writing for the purposes of politics. Illiterate peoples have before now worked free institutions, or at any rate institutions which, being conformable to their wishes, were not oppressive, successfully enough to secure tolerable order and contentment, to enforce the rule of customary law and maintain both the solidarity of the community against external attack and a fair measure of domestic contentment. The small self-governing groups of Norway and of Iceland in the tenth century had a kind of free government which perfectly suited them, with a strong or rich prominent man and a popular assembly for the central authority of each. In the islands of the South Pacific Ocean, at the other end of the world, the chiefs were leaders in war and administered a rude justice, but their rule was controlled by public opinion almost as effectively as if there had been an assembly. The people were satisfied. All went well, because wants were few, the conditions of life simple, the areas so small that every one was virtually responsible to his neighbours, even the chief to his tribesmen. The Basutos of South Africa are almost as much below the Tahitians as the Tahitians were below the Norsemen of Iceland, yet the Basutos have public assemblies which exercise some control over the chiefs and express the will of the nation.

So much for general considerations. Let us, however, turn back to history, our only guide, and see what light on the prospects of self-government in Backward races can be derived from a study of the process by which popular governments have been developed in the past among the European peoples whose forefathers stood once where those races stand now.

The process has been a slow one, except in those few spots where small communities, protected from conquest or absorption by the inaccessibility of their dwelling-place, were able to retain a primitive equality and independence.1 Elsewhere there has been, usually with much fighting, a gradual wresting of freedom from the hands of local magnates, feudal lords, or bishops, or city oligarchies. It was the desire to escape from tangible grievances that prompted the struggle. Abstract doctrine and the love of independence for its own sake came later, when personal injuries and insults, or oppressive imposts, or the attempt to compel religious observances, had already roused the spirit of resistance. If the ruler, whether a monarch or an oligarchic group, had the prudence to abate the grievances, trouble would generally subside till some fresh abuses arose. Men who had been accustomed to be tolerably governed were willing to go on being governed in the same way, until new exactions enforced or new hardships suffered provoked them to claim for themselves a power whose abuse by others they were beginning to resent. The outburst which overthrew a tyranny did not necessarily create the love of self-government, which is by no means a natural growth in all soils, but was rather a child of circumstance, appearing spontaneously in small and isolated communities, and in others growing up because economic changes sapped the power of a ruling class. There must be also a sense that it is only self-government which can permanently cure the ills complained of. Revolts were usually led by persons prominent by their social position or their restless spirit, who, feeling insult or oppression more keenly, had something to gain by upsetting the powers that be, while the average man, too much occupied with making his daily livelihood to care about what did not directly concern him, desired to get back to his accustomed round of life as soon as the grievances were reduced. That which all insurgents had in common was to establish the primary right of the subject to security of life and property and be relieved from harsh exactions.

The first stage towards freedom was marked by the concession of these rights. The next was to provide means for their defence against any return of oppression. This meant self-government; and the effort to win it, unsuccessful in some countries, succeeded best in populations where the habit of joint action already existed; because groups linked to gether, either by economic interests or religious feeling or tribal relationship, were better fitted for political freedom than others where the individual man, leading his own life in his own way, had little sense of obligation to his fellows. Self-government rests on the habit of co-operation, which implies the finding of capable and trustworthy leaders. Political leadership naturally grew out of social leadership, but the social importance of rank or wealth or any other kind of power (such as ecclesiastical office) was qualified or supplemented by the personal talent and energy of men without these advantages who sprang from the humbler class, and thus the ascendancy of rank was broken, another step towards freedom, and a means of bringing different strata of the people into closer touch with one another. Thus there came into being both a Frame, at first rudimentary, of constitutional government together with a set of persons fit to work it, and as the Frame developed, the extension of a share in government to the masses became only a question of time.

Let us see what help a consideration of these facts can afford to those who seek to create some kind of free self-government in peoples hitherto without it. Nature must be the guide, for it is by following or imitating the natural processes whereby the peoples now free obtained their freedom that the peoples hitherto unfree can hope to advance most steadily.

History, the record of these processes, suggests that one of the first things to be done is to secure for every man the primary right of protection against arbitrary power. His life, his personal safety, his property must be secured, the imposts laid on him must not be excessive nor arbitrary. When co-operation in the work of protecting and managing the affairs of the community is being organized, every actually existing kind of local self-government, however small its range, ought to be turned to account. Every social or economic grouping, every bond which gathers men into a community helps to form the habit of joint action and that sense of a duty to others which is the primal bond of civic life. If any existing local or social unit is fit to be turned into an organ of local self-government it ought to be so used. If there is none such, then such an organ must be created and entrusted with some control of those matters in which a neighbourhood has a common interest.

Small areas are better than large areas, because in the former men can know one another, learn to trust one another, reach a sound judgment on the affairs that directly concern them, fix responsibility and enforce it Even family jealousies and religious enmities may subside when the questions touch the pecuniary interests of the neighbourhood. The older rural Cantons of Switzerland show what self-government in a small community can do for forming political aptitude, and the same lesson is taught by the tithings and hundreds of early England and by the Towns of early Massachusetts and Connecticut. The examples of these three countries suggest the value of primary meetings of the people in these small areas. The Folk Mot of Old England, the Town meeting of New England, the Thing of the Norsemen were the beginning of freedom.

Political institutions ought to be framed with careful regard to social conditions, for much depends on the relations of the more educated class with the masses, and the influence they can exert on the choice of representatives.1 The people must have due means for choosing as leaders, be they officials or representatives, those they can trust; but if these posts go by free popular choice to the “natural leaders” in any community, small or large, so much the better, for they have more of a character to lose than has the average man. Leaders who have their own aims to serve may misrepresent mass sentiment, or may call for self-government only because they desire to make their own profit out of it. The more ignorant and inexperienced is the multitude, so much the more will power fall to a few, and the main aim must be to see that the latter are prevented from abusing it for personal or class purposes, and turning an attempted democracy into a selfish oligarchy.

The question of the suffrage by which persons are to be chosen for public functions, local or national, must depend on the conditions of each country. Those who hold the right of suffrage to be a Natural Right, inherent in every human being, may feel bound to grant universal suffrage everywhere, but they can hardly expect that with the gift the power to use it wisely will descend by some supernatural grace upon the hill tribes of India, the Yakuts of Siberia, and the Zapotecs of Mexico. Nature does not teach the methods of constitutional government to an Egyptian fellah, any more than it teaches a Tuareg of the Sahara to swim when he first sees the Nile. Common sense does indeed suggest to him that he should vote for some one he knows and respects personally, but if the electoral area be large there will probably be none such among the candidates. As a wide suffrage gives advantages to the rich man and the demagogue, while a limited suffrage means the rule of a class, some have suggested the plan of allowing a local organ of self-government, whose members have been elected on a comparatively wide suffrage in a small area, to send its delegate to an assembly for a larger area, which will thus consist of persons of presumably superior competence.

Any frame of government must secure the responsibility of legislators and officials to the people, but responsibility presupposes publicity, and how is publicity as respects the conduct of officials and legislators to be secured in countries like China or Russia? Difficulties arise where there are differences of religion, especially if ecclesiastics have power at their command, but it so happens that this sort of power does not count for much in serious affairs among Hindus, Buddhists, or Muslims, though fanaticism is sometimes a source of danger. Political parties when they arise will doubtless make it their business to note and denounce every error of their opponents, but how can the multitude judge the truth of partisan charges as it could in times when the functions of government were few and the areas of self-government comparatively small? The populations of the countries we are considering are enormous, while to break them up into manageable political areas would run counter to those forces which have tended to unify and improve administration and to facilitate the intercourse of members of the same nation for commerce, for education, and for other kinds of intellectual and moral development. Liberty and self-government grew up in comparatively small and homogeneous populations. India, China, and Siberia are vast countries inhabited by diverse races in very different stages of civilization.

Among the dangers against which the institutions to be created among peoples devoid of constitutional experience must provide, three specially need to be guarded against.

One is the aggression of ambitious neighbour States. Could a Chinese republic, which has so far been able to assert only a precarious and intermittent authority in the Southern and Western provinces, defend itself against Japan, or a Russian republic defend itself against an intriguing neighbour? International guarantees would seem needed, but these have sometimes proved to be broken reeds. The new League of Nations may perhaps prove more effective.

Another is the maintenance of internal order. The old monarchies, though they had regular armies and the prestige of long-established authority, often failed to do this, and the difficulty will be greater in a people which, told to govern itself, has not yet learned that the constitutional scheme adopted must be supported. A government which has not stood long enough to inspire fear or acquire respect needs a strong army at its back, yet an army is a temptation to the Executive that commands it. Internal troubles subside when constitutional methods have become rooted in the minds of the people, but the process of subsidence may take centuries.

A third peril is the exploitation of the poorer classes by the stronger. If a restricted suffrage confines political power to the wealthier and more educated part of the people, because the ignorant are confessedly unfit to exercise it, the ruling section is likely to legislate and administer for their own benefit and oppress those beneath them. Were India governed by assemblies in the hands of the landowning and monied sections the ryots would be worse off than under the oversight of British officials, and similarly the native peons of Mexico would fare ill if left at the mercy of the landowners.

A fourth evil would be the corrupt abuse of their functions by officials and legislators, an evil frequent in many countries, but specially formidable where it has long permeated the ruling class.1 In China that class was intellectually able, thanks largely to the peculiar institution of a mandarinate recruited from the ranks of those who had, under the old system, won their spurs at the examinations in verse-composition, but peculation and “the squeeze” had pervaded it under the successive dynasties which have reigned for uncounted ages. Not dissimilar are the phenomena of Russia and the risks that await her. Under the autocracy of the Tsars talent sometimes rose, but seldom had the masses the means of learning to recognize and honour either talent or virtue. When the Tsardom collapsed few men whom the nation could follow were ready to take its place, and the official class in which low standards of honour and public spirit had prevailed, shared the discredit into which the autocracy had fallen.

To give more concrete reality to these general observations, let us look more closely at the particular countries concerned, and see what foundations exist in each of them on which self-government could be built.

Europe has been wont to think of the Chinese as semi-civilized. It might be truer to say that they are highly civilized in some respects and barely civilized in others. They are orderly and intelligent. They have admirable artistic gifts. Many possess great literary talent, many observe a moral standard as high as that of the ancient Stoics. On the other hand, they set a low value on human life; their punishments are extremely cruel; corruption is general among officials, the most primitive superstitions govern the conduct of the immense majority. Diviners determine the exact spot in which a house ought to be built so as to enjoy the best influences proceeding from the unseen world, for a child born in a dwelling favourably located will be likely to become a mandarin, while another situation will give him a chance of winning fame as a poet. Walls or wooden screens are placed opposite a door or gate so as to prevent malign spirits from entering the house, because these beings can fly only in a straight line, making neither curve nor zigzag. Such a juxtaposition of highly cultivated minds with beliefs that elsewhere linger only in savage races is among the strangest of the phenomena that startle a traveller in China. But in some ways China furnishes no unpromising field for an experiment in popular government. Its people have five sterling qualities — Industry, independence of character, a respect for settled order, a sense of what moral duty means, a deference to intellectual eminence. They have the power of working together; they can restrain their feelings and impulses; they are highly intelligent and amenable to reason. Weak as they have seemed to be in international affairs, they have plenty of national pride and a sort of patriotism, though it does not flow into military channels. What one may call the raw material for popular government is not wanting, but unfortunately there have existed few institutions that can be turned to account for the purpose. The smallest unit is the village, ruled by the heads of the chief families, usually with one Headman, to whom any orders of government are addressed. So late as 1913 there was no larger rural area possessing any self-government, and the cities were ruled by officials appointed by the Governor of the province, who is himself appointed by Peking. More recently Provincial Assemblies consisting of popularly elected delegates from the districts have been created in some Provinces. These bodies advise the provincial Governor, who has hitherto been appointed by the central government, and been responsible to it only.1 Thus a beginning, promising so far as it goes, has been made. It is for those who know China intimately to judge how far the system can be applied to cities and minor rural areas. One can imagine councils in cities, and a district council for a large subdivision of a province, which might be composed of delegates from the villages. The constitution-makers have assumed a Central Parliament for the whole country. But whoever considers the immense size of China, and the differences in language and custom between the provinces, and the strength of provincial feeling, may think that what is wanted is a sort of federal system, most of the functions of government being assigned to provincial assemblies and officials, with those only reserved to the Central Parliament which must be uniform in their action for the whole country, and provide for its common interests as respects commerce and national defence. It is an evidence of the practical sense and law-abiding quality1 of the Chinese that though there has been a sort of intermittent civil war, more or less acute in different regions, ever since the fall of the Manchu dynasty in 1911, and though robber bands have sometimes ravaged the Western provinces, there was comparatively little disorder over the country as a whole. Internal trade continued, the steamers plied on the rivers, trains ran much as usual, the customs and salt-tax were collected under European supervision and the proceeds remitted to the capital.

A monarchy would probably suit China better than a republic, because the traditional habit of obeying the sacred autocrat has been hallowed by long tradition, and the veneration paid to him, which was paid to his Office, not to the dynasty, might have been passed over to a new hereditary constitutional sovereign. The only reason why there is a republic is because the tiny group of revolutionaries who, taking advantage of local risings, upset the Manchu throne, had learnt in American and Japanese Universities to deem the name Republic to be the badge of freedom, the latest word in political progress. At present obedience is enforceable only by the sword, because there is no power on which the mantle of reverence that clothed the old Empire has descended.

The prospects for popular government in Persia and in Mexico are dark.

Persia, with a long and brilliant record of literary achievement, and with the power of still producing remarkable religious leaders, is now, if not a decadent, yet a disordered and even disorganized nation, where there seems to be no firm soil on which to erect any constitutional government. The representative assembly created at the revolution of 1906 failed to work, and soon fell into contempt, while the Executive was hopelessly weak, tossed on the waves of turbulence and intrigue. Left to itself, the country would probably fall to pieces, or pass under the power of some leader of one of the warlike-tribes, fit to replace the enfeebled Kajar dynasty. Had Russia been the only foreign power concerned, she might well have virtually annexed the country before 1914. At present it furnishes a striking instance of the impossibility of establishing democratic institutions where there is no Executive strong enough to guide, or carry out the will of a popular Assembly. Were it possible to find any foreign power willing to set up and direct such an Executive in a disinterested spirit1 such an expedient would offer the best prospect of rescuing an ancient and famous people.

In Mexico, of which I have spoken in a previous chapter,2 an economic and social regeneration is called for as the necessary preparation for any kind of stable free government. Porfirio Diaz, a statesman as well as a soldier, maintained order and did much for economic development, but for educational and moral progress and for the welfare of the aborigines, nearly all of whom are either agricultural serfs or semi-civilized tribes, little was attempted, while the very small educated class, the so-called “Cientificos,” were too few, too much occupied with their own interests, and too little in touch with the masses, to exert a reforming or enlightening influence. The examples of Argentina and Uruguay show that had a rule like his lasted for another half century the country might have become rich enough to make settled government possible, because a large class, interested in the development of industry and commerce, would have arisen. As things are now, a democratic constitution would probably prove just as unworkable in practice as any of the constitutions that have been enacted during the century of independence. When elections were held under Diaz, ballot-boxes were placed in the public squares, but so few voters appeared to drop ballots into them that the local Colonel usually sent a squad of soldiers towards evening with orders to cast into the boxes the voting-papers which had been served out to them. This indifference was due not merely to the sense that the President was a dictator, but to the total want of interest in the whole matter on the part of the population, who desired nothing except tranquillity and amusements. For such a country the choice is at present — of the future one need not despair — a choice between oligarchy and a succession of short anarchies, each ending in a tyranny.

Of India I will not speak, because an experiment of the utmost interest is now being tried there under an Act of the British Parliament passed in 1920, the results of which may before long throw much light on the problem it is meant to solve. Under the guiding hand of the British Government, to which some departments of administration have been prudently reserved, good hopes for at least a partial solution may be formed. In Egypt there is a prospect that a somewhat similar effort will be made to create self-governing institutions, with the advantage that the population is fairly homogeneous and has learnt, since the deposition of the Khedive Ismail, to realize the value of an honest administration and impartial Courts of Justice. As to Russia, the events of the last few years have given evidence, if indeed evidence was needed, that a vast multitude of ignorant peasants is ill fitted to work the complicated machinery of a democratic government; but as the recollections of the system by which the Village Community managed its land have not yet vanished, there may be a chance of creating a scheme of local self-government in small rural areas and reconstructing the Zemstvos in larger areas to form a basis on which representative institutions may be erected, so soon as a strong Central Executive which the people can trust has replaced the present irresponsible tyranny.

The vital fact to be noted in all these cases is that in none of them has the demand for free institutions come from the masses of the people, though it is by them that those institutions would have to be worked, or even from any considerable section of those masses. The principles of democracy may be brought from the United States or Europe and scattered like seed, but it is only in soil already fertilized by European influences that they will take root; and even the few who understand them lack the skill to apply them. The group of Marxian Communists who seized control of the revolutionary movement in Russia, and the republican theorists who compose what is still called the Parliament of China have in neither country had more than a trifling following of convinced supporters.1 The success which the former attained was due not to the good will of the peasants but to their war weariness and their desire to appropriate the land. The latter, once the Manchu dynasty was gone, lost control of events. That passed to those who could get money to pay the troops.

Let me now try to state the substance of views given to me by experienced observers in the countries above referred to, together with those of students of history whose opinions on the problem I have sought, men who, while they feel that change must come, and are not hopeful of its results, counsel wariness and patience in every effort to apply democratic principles among peoples hitherto ruled by arbitrary governments. I will summarize their views in a statement of the case for doubt and caution:

“Eighteenth-century philosophers who drew from the reports of travellers the material for their speculations upon the natural capacities of man did not greatly overestimate the possibilities of free government among unsophisticated men in small communities, where wants were few and conditions nearly equal. What is needed for the success of such government is the co-existence of a sense of personal independence with a spirit of intelligent co-operation in common affairs, the latter implying a willingness to obey the generally accepted authority, be it that of the chieftain or of the public gathering. Public opinion is strong in such a community, and gives a security for the rights of its members. There is not much for government to do except settle disputes (including blood fines), summon men to follow the leader in war, and manage the common land, pasture or forest. This is possible for administrative purposes where life is simple and social groups are small, possible also in a semi-nomad tribal system in which each community has little to do with any other except by way of tribal wars. Most of Arabia and Mesopotamia are in this condition, and civilized Powers might do well to leave the Sheiks alone, and let them raid one another, since that is the life they enjoy. When the question is of a population as large as was that of ancient Egypt or Assyria, still more as that of modern China (or even a province of China) or Russia, everything is different. To break up vast populations into manageable political areas would be to run counter to those forces which have been tending to unify peoples industrially and facilitate intercourse not only for commercial purposes but for those also of education and various forms of intellectual development. Civilization has created countless needs and tasks of legislation and administration. Large revenues are needed, much science, many officials. Moreover, money is to be made out of government work as well as spent upon it. Many prizes bring many temptations. Few of the people have any means of knowing personally the officials or representatives who conduct their business. To watch them so as to gauge their ability and honesty, and to evaluate the technical side of their work needs a capacity and experience beyond that of the average citizen. In India the difficulty may be reduced, for there the guiding power of the British Government, as in the Philippines that of the American Government, can retain (at least for a time) those branches of administration which require most technical skill or afford the largest opportunities for malversation, and it can see that the work is properly done. But how can the ability to watch and judge be expected from an untutored multitude in Russia or Egypt? They must be guided by leaders belonging to the small educated class who have interests of their own to serve: how are they to judge which of these leaders they should trust, that being the judgment democracy expects from those to whom it commits the power of ruling by their votes, though the only judgment they are qualified to form is whether their own grievances are being redressed and their own desires satisfied? In old days, as the body of the people slowly gained control of government in a country like England, they grew up to its tasks. Of them it could then be said, ‘As thy day is, so shall thy strength be.’ Political institutions were the machinery they made for themselves; and in making it they learnt how to work it. It became more and more complex; but increasing experience taught them how to handle it. How different is the plight of inexperienced masses suddenly called upon to work the vast and elaborate organization of a great modern State, and that, too, without the help of the officials who used to administer it, because these may, as in Russia, be distrusted and rejected! It is like delivering up an ocean steamer to be navigated by cabin boys through the fogs and icebergs of the Atlantic. In such circumstances may not the attempt to create democracy end in the creation of an oligarchy unredeemed by the traditions and sense of social responsibility which imposed some check on the oppressions often practised by European aristocracies in former centuries?

“What then is the use of giving democratic institutions to those who neither desire the gift nor know how to use it? Better let the people have what they understand, a national monarchy or even an oligarchy under the name of a monarchy. In China, Persia, Mexico, and Russia, apparently even in Egypt, there exists a genuine national sentiment. Respect it and let no foreign government dominate the country. There are practical grievances, among them monstrous corruption in China, flagrant disorder as well as corruption in Persia and Mexico. Provide means whereby the people can state and press for the removal of their grievances. If the educated class desire opportunities for their careers, let these be afforded. This much can well be attempted without the complicated machinery of a representative democracy, machinery which is sure to be perverted, because the people have no means of restraining those who will seek to turn it to their own ends. You cannot build upon shifting sand, nor effect by a single sudden stroke what in other countries it has taken centuries of struggle and training to accomplish. Neither individual men nor nations change their natures at one swoop. In the moral sphere there are doubtless such things as Conversions, when some one, repenting of and confessing his sins, renounces them under the influence of a strong religious impulse. Emotion can accomplish that So, too, emotion may string up a sluggish people to a forceful if only momentary activity. But it can enable neither a man nor a people to assimilate knowledge, to form new habits of thinking, to work the complicated machinery of institutions. Precious for the battlefield and for religious propaganda, it is unprofitable for the labours of administration or legislation. By all means begin the work of fitting the multitudes for self-government, but do it by slow degrees, following as far as possible the process by which Nature worked during the centuries in which the free peoples of to-day made their gradual advance.”

The case for doubt or caution which I have here stated is, however, not the whole case. Other considerations have to be regarded. Though lions stand in the path which leads the Backward peoples towards democracy, the movement has begun, and dread of the lions will hardly arrest it. The advocates of change point to facts which in our time qualify the application of arguments drawn from the past. They point to Japan. They cite the Philippine Isles where American administration has started a sort of legislative body which has been giving good results. Grounds for hope may be found in the earlier examples set long ago by the peoples that are now free and civilized which overcame difficulties as great as those which we see in China or Egypt. True it is that example has not the value of experience; it is their own direct experience that counts for nations as for individual men; yet it is also true that whereas the teaching of experience often comes too late for the individual to profit by it, each generation of a people can in the long span of national life go on learning from the successes or errors of its own ancestors. Errors and misfortunes there are sure to be, but so long as a nation is not enslaved or absorbed by a stronger neighbour, failures are rarely irretrievable; and one of the values of self-government lies in the fact that misfortunes bring knowledge and knowledge helps to wisdom, whereas under even a benevolent autocracy, the education of a people proceeds slowly if it proceeds at all. This is why the ancients held Tyranny to be the worst kind of government. No gains compensate for the sufferings it inflicts. The only thing it creates is the will to destroy it and start afresh. To-day the nations we are considering are faced by accomplished facts. The ancient despotisms have fallen and as the social structure of which they were a part has decayed, it will be better to replace them, not by tyrannies resting on military force, but by governments possessing some kind of constitutional character out of which truly popular institutions may in the long course of time be developed.

It would be folly to set up full-blown democracy, but it may be possible to provide

• (a) Guarantees, enforceable by law, for the civil rights of the individual.
• (b) Full opportunities to the masses for stating their grievances.
• (c) Means for declaring the wishes of the masses upon questions falling within their own knowledge.
• (d) Protection by international agreement against aggression or exploitation by the civilized Powers.

Among modern conditions and under the stimulus of ideas proceeding from the more advanced peoples, intellectual development proceeds faster than ever before. The influences playing on the mind and habits even of a backward race are now unceasing and pervasive. There is more moving to and fro, more curiosity, more thinking and reading. Changes which it would have needed a century to effect may now come in three or four decades. Superstitions and all else that is rooted in religion hold out longest; but the habits of deference and obedience to earthly powers can crumble fast, and as they crumble self-reliance grows. Thus the capacity for self-government may be in our time more quickly acquired than experience in the past would give ground for expecting.

Moreover — and this is the practically decisive fact — there is a logic of events. In India or Egypt or the Philippines, for instance, when a government has, directly or implicitly, raised expectations and awakened impatience, misgivings as to the fitness to receive a gift may have to yield to the demand for it. There are countries in which, seeing that the break up of an old system of government and an old set of beliefs threatens the approach of chaos, an effort must be made to find some institutions, however crude, which will hold society together. There are moments when it is safer to go forward than to stand still, wiser to confer institutions even if they are liable to be misused than to foment discontent by withholding them.

CHAPTER LXXII

the relation of democracy to letters and arts

The question whether democratic government either favours or discourages the power of intellectual creation and the growth of a taste for letters, science, and art, lies rather outside the scope of this treatise, yet deserves to be considered by whoever attempts to estimate the value of democracy for the progress of mankind.

Two opposite theories have been advanced. The Liberal thinkers of the generation which saw the American and French Revolutions expected the democratic form of government to make for progress in the intellectual as well as in the moral sphere. In delivering men's minds from bondage and arousing their civic activities it would stimulate the free development of thought and give fuller play to individuality in philosophy and art. Every man and every type of opinion would be sure of a hearing. A public enlightened by freedom and delivered from caste prejudice would have a finer appreciation of truth and beauty. With the greater simplicity of manners and the independence of view which equality would bring, the moral standard would rise, and the honour formerly paid to rank be transferred to virtue, to intellectual eminence, and to disinterested service.

The other theory holds that political equality tends to depress individuality and originality, disparaging genius. Equality, making the will of the numerical majority supreme, produces uniformity, and uniformity produces monotony, and monotony ushers in a reign of dulness by bringing every one down to the level of the average man, whose beliefs and tastes impose the rules which few are bold enough to defy. If here and there a solitary voice is raised to challenge them, no one gives heed, because the principle that the majority is right, and whether right or wrong must be obeyed, has become an axiom. No tyranny is so crushing as the peaceful tyranny of a stolid and self-satisfied multitude, because against it there can be no insurrection. Grey and cheerless will be the world in which excellence excites suspicion, and the weight of numbers passes like a steam-roller over the souls of men.

Both of these doctrines suggest points of view for which much may be said, but they are à priori doctrines, based not on facts but on conjectures as to what may happen under certain political conditions which are assumed for the purposes of the argument to be the only conditions worth regarding. The sphere of speculation is boundless and conjectures worthless, because political conditions cannot be isolated from other influences at work. There is only one test applicable to speculations, that of setting them side by side with such facts as we possess, so if any positive conclusion is to be reached it must be by noting what history has to tell us about the influence which forms of government have in fact exerted on intellectual life, and especially on creative intellectual power.

The view that democracy develops mental activity seems drawn from the fact that such a development has often occurred in times of transition, when the old maxims and practices of arbitrary governments were being broken down. The apostles of liberty who assailed such governments were men of force and courage, eager and sanguine, inspired by their ideas, and living a life of strenuous enthusiasm, so they naturally supposed that the lively play of mind round all the subjects on which discussion, once prohibited, was now being opened to all, would continue. Freedom had won those blessings, freedom would retain them. It did not occur to them that combat is more inspiring than undisputed possession, and that the high ideals which have inspired one generation may, just because they have triumphed, lose their vivifying power for the next. A striking instance is afforded by comparing the heroes of the Italian Risorgimento (1820 to 1870) with the men of the succeeding generation. A reaction almost always follows on times of exaltation, human nature dropping back to its normal level with the discouragement of disappointed hopes.

Just as there is nothing to show that democracy has intensified intellectual life, neither are there facts to support the view expressed by Robert Lowe in a once famous speech that it is a “dull and level plain, in which every bush is a tree.” Plato, with all his moral censure for the government of his own democratic Athens, does not accuse it of inducing uniformity but rather of encouraging an undue license and irregularity in thought and manners. Travellers who visited the United States between 1820 and 1860 were struck by the universal devotion to material progress, and complained that only in a few Boston coteries could intellectual interests be discerned. This prosperous democracy, they remarked, even some years later, shows not only an overweening confidence in itself, but an overestimate of material success, with a corresponding indifference to the things of the mind. If the facts were so, the swift development of the country's natural resources, occupying nearly all its energy, furnished a sufficient explanation. America has now been a democracy for a second and longer period, yet she shows today a more vigorous and various intellectual life than was that of sixty years ago. The tyranny of the majority which disheartened Tocqueville in 1830 is not now visible except at times of unusual strain, when national safety is supposed to be endangered. In France, where democracy is only half a century old, social equality is older, and though both have alienated many men of fastidious taste, there are no signs of dreary monotony or an oppressive intolerance in the realm of thought. No one has been able to point to any instance in which equality in political rights and equality in social conditions, where they have come naturally and have not been imposed by State authority, display a tendency to induce uniformity of thought, or to prevent genius from making its way, irrespective of the accidents of birth. But if a popular government were to attempt to enforce economic and social equality by compulsory methods, and if this were carried out, as some have suggested, by allotting to each man, without regard to his own wishes and personal bent, his work and whatever remuneration for it the State authority might fix, individual initiative might wither away and thought be compelled to revolve in the limited circle which the State approved. Certain devotees of democracy have indeed argued that a democratic government must, when once installed in power, inculcate its principles not only through instruction in the schools but also by forbidding any other doctrines to seduce the minds of the citizens, an interesting return to the attitude of the Spanish Inquisition. Whoever is absolutely sure that he is right is only a step away from persecution. To make true doctrines prevail becomes for him a duty.

If we ask under what kinds of government letters and art and science have flourished, history answers, Under all kinds. Among the Greeks, the great philosophers and the lyric poets came from oligarchic as well as from democratic cities. Short was the age of Athenian glory in poetry, and it ended many years before free government was extinguished in the Hellenic world. The most illustrious Roman writers in verse and prose wrote within a period of seventy years covered by the lives of Julius Caesar and Augustus, during which republican institutions were disappearing;1 and of these only one was born in Rome. In mediaeval Europe, and especially in Italy, the thirteenth century stands out as that illumined by the largest number of famous names, and in the fourteenth and fifteenth Florence produced, in proportion to her population, far more than her share of the finest genius in literature as well as in art. The explanations that may be given of these phenomena cannot be drawn from political conditions. The same may be said of the age of Shakespeare and Bacon in England, and of the age of Louis Quatorze in France. Both were periods of exciting events, of growing enlightenment, and of great mental activity, but popular government had not been born. The group of poets that was the glory of England and Scotland during the last quarter of the eighteenth and the first quarter of the nineteenth century arose under an oligarchy, and were the harbingers rather than the harvest of political freedom. This holds true also of the German poets and scholars and philosophers from Goethe and Schiller, Lessing and Kant down to Heine, Ranke, and Mommsen. The merit credited to democracy of occasionally producing brilliant orators is counterbalanced by the flood of commonplace or turgid rhetoric which it lets loose. If we turn from literature to art it is still more evident that painting and sculpture have flourished alike under kings and in republics. Music, the most inscrutable of all the arts, seems to be quite out of relation to the other intellectual movements of the world, except possibly to those which feel the touch of religious emotion.1

The causes that determine the appearance of genius in any branch of intellectual or artistic creation have never been determined, and are perhaps beyond discovery, but though we cannot tell why persons of exceptional gifts have been born more frequently in particular times or at particular spots than at other times and in other places, there are some data for determining the conditions under which genius best ripens and produces the finest fruit. Into this fascinating enquiry I must not enter, for a long historical digression would be needed to render probable the theory I should have to propound. Enough to say that history does not prove the conditions aforesaid to have been sensibly affected by forms of government, except perhaps where rulers have (as in Spain after Charles V.) set themselves sternly and steadily during a long period of years to repress the expression of any opinions except those which they approved. The movements of intellectual and moral forces are so infinitely subtle and intricate that any explanation drawn from a few external facts is sure to be defective and likely to be misleading. It is a common habit to seek the solution of large social or historical problems in a single obvious cause. Any sciolist thinks he can explain the characters of individuals by saying that such and such a one has the Celtic, or the Slavonic, or it may be the Jewish strain: and similarly it is easy to attribute to their form of government the political and moral tendencies of a people. But just as the race factor, important as it is, cannot be Isolated from the whole environment of a race or an individual, so it is with forms of government. History finds much less than is commonly fancied to connect them either with the creative genius of individuals or with the innermost beliefs and mental habits of nations.

More than thirty years ago James Russell Lowell wrote: “Democracy must show a capacity for producing not an higher average man, but the highest possible types of manhood in all its manifold varieties or it is a failure. No matter what it does for the body, if it does not in some sort satisfy that inextinguishable passion of the soul for something that lifts life away from prose, it is a failure. Unless it knows how to make itself gracious and winning, it is a failure. Has it done this? Is it doing this? or trying to do it?”

Few will maintain that democracy has approached any nearer to Lowell's ideal since his words were written. But did he not ask more from democracy than any form of government can be expected to give? The causes that raise or depress the spirit of man lie deeper.

The citizens of a democracy do, however, show certain traits which, whether or no due to the form of government they live under, find full expression in it. One of these is the self-confidence of the man who, feeling himself, because he has an equal share in voting at elections, to be as good as any one else, is disposed to think that he and his neighbours of the same class are qualified for most public posts, and who, if himself imperfectly educated, underestimates the value of knowledge and technical skill. Equality tends not only to reduce the deference due to superior attainments, but also to the older forms of politeness and the respect which used to be paid to official rank. In the seventeenth century the Dutch and the Swiss were, as republicans, charged with rough manners by the French, but manners were no less rough among burghers and peasants in the monarchical states of Germany, the difference being that those classes did not in the latter come into official contact with French critics. Broadly speaking, one finds to-day no more rudeness in democracies than under other governments, though some races have by nature more tact and courtesy than others.

The manners which offended Dickens and other European travellers in Western America eighty years ago were the fruit of the conditions of a society in a country still raw, and no such criticisms could now be made.

The spirit of equality is alleged to have diminished the respect children owe to parents, and the young to the old. This was noted by Plato in Athens. But surely the family relations depend much more on the social structure and religious ideas of a race than on forms of government. In no countries do we see age so much respected and young children so kindly treated as in China and Japan: the passing traveller notes their gaiety and apparent happiness. May not this be connected with the conception of the Family implanted by the worship of ancestral spirits rather than with the nature of the government? Athenian women had a life less free than Roman women, but Athens was a democracy and Home was not.

More truth may be found in the view that democratic peoples carry indulgence to wrongdoers further than a regard for the safety of the community permits, because the disposition to let everybody go his own way and please himself, perhaps also in some countries the weakness of a directly elected Executive, induces leniency. The peccadilloes of public men are too quickly forgotten. Whether a tendency to self-indulgence and licence is any commoner than under other kinds of government it is impossible to say, for many other causes come into play. Divorce has become easier and divorces more frequent in all free Protestant countries, but this is a phenomenon observable in nearly every modern country, scarcely commoner in America, and not commoner in Switzerland than it is in Germany. Its frequency is, moreover, no test of the sexual immorality of a country: there have been countries where divorce was unpermitted, while the laxity of morals was notorious. In this as in many other matters it is what may be called the spirit of “modernism,” rather than the democratic influence of a form of government, that has been working a change in social usages and moral standards. The disappearance of the old theological conception of Sin, and the disposition to attribute a man's evil propensities to heredity or to surroundings for which he cannot be held accountable, have produced a tolerance more amiable than salutary, a reluctance to use severity where severity is the only means of repressing crime. This fault, though also a part of modernism, may not be specially frequent in democracies. It has not so far diminished their power of recognizing and admiring virtue. Shining examples of dignity, purity, and honour are to-day no less respected in the persons of men who have risen by their own merits than they were when exhibited by sovereigns or statesmen in the old days of inequality.

CHAPTER LXXIII

the results democratic government has given

To test democracy by its results as visible in the six countries examined, it will be convenient to consider how far in each of them the chief ends for which government exists have been attained, taking these ends to include whatever the collective action of men associated for the common good can do for the moral and material welfare of a community and the individual citizens who compose it, helping them to obtain the maximum that life can afford of enjoyment and to suffer the minimum life may bring of sorrow.

These ends may be summed up as follows:

Safety against attack on the community from without.

Order within the community — prevention of violence and creation of the consequent sense of security.

Justice, the punishment of offences and the impartial adjustment of disputes on principles approved by the community.

Efficient administration of common affairs, so as to obtain the largest possible results at the smallest possible cost.

Assistance to the citizens in their several occupations, as, for example, by the promotion of trade or the regulation of industry, in so far as this can be done without checking individual initiative or unduly restricting individual freedom.

These may be called the primary and generally recognized functions of government in a civilized country. Other results, needing a fuller explanation, will be presently adverted to. I take first the five ends above named.

• 1.Safety against External Attack.— In all the Six Democracies this end has been attained as fully as in most non-democratic governments, and in one respect better attained, because the necessary preparations for defence have not given reasonable ground to other nations to fear that armaments were being increased with a view to hostile aggression.
• 2. In most of the Six internal order has been well maintained, best perhaps in Switzerland, least perhaps in parts of the United States, where, although the Federal Government has done its duty faithfully, some State Governments have tolerated lynching and failed to check other breaches of the law. Rioting in connection with Labour disputes has occurred everywhere, but except in some Australian cases the constituted authorities have shown themselves able to deal with it.
• 3. Justice has been honestly and capably administered, quite as well as under other forms of government, in Switzerland, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, and in France also, though perhaps with not so full a confidence of the people in the perfect honour of all the Courts. In tile United States the Federal Courts are staffed (with few exceptions) by upright and capable men, and the same is true of certain States. In others, however, the Judiciary is below the level of its functions, and in a few it is not trusted, while criminal procedure is cumbrous and regrettably ineffective.
• 4. Civil administration has long been conducted with efficiency in France and Switzerland, and is now, since the partial abolition of the “Spoils System,” beginning to be so conducted in the United States Federal Government and in many of the State Governments. A similar improvement is visible in Canada. Australia and New Zealand have permanent services which are honest but as yet not more than fairly competent. Still possessed by the notion that one man is as good as another, the new democracies have not yet duly recognized the increased call for thorough knowledge and trained skill in handling the widened functions now imposed on governments, both in determining the principles of economic and social policy to be adopted and in carrying them out in a scientific spirit. That the management of national finances has, in every country except Switzerland, been lavish and frequently wasteful is the fault not of the civil services but of Ministers and legislatures who have spent vast sums in that form of electioneering bribery which consists in making grants of money to particular classes (as in the United States to those who professed to be Civil War Veterans), or to constituencies under the pretence of executing public works. This kind of bribery, like the indulgence extended to law-breakers whose displeasure can be shown at elections, is directly attributable to democracy.
• 5. What further services, beyond those already mentioned, Government may render to a community or to any class of its citizens by acquiring property to be used for the common benefit, or by embarking on industries or trading enterprises, or by aiding individuals to do so, is a question on which opinions differ so widely that no standard exists whereby to estimate the merits or defaults of governments. The only two countries that have gone far in this direction are New Zealand and Australia, with results (described already) which raise doubts whether democracy is a form of government fitted for such enterprises. Other matters, however, which are now generally deemed to fall within the sphere of legislation such as public health and the conditions of labour and the regulation of the means of transportation, have received in all the Six countries due attention, the newer democracies being in no wise behind their elder sisters.

Of the conduct of foreign policy, once deemed a department in which popular governments were inconstant and incompetent, nothing need be added to what has been said in a preceding chapter except that the errors of the peoples have been no greater than those committed by monarchs, or by oligarchies, or in democracies themselves by the small groups, or the individual Ministers, to whose charge foreign relations had been entrusted.

Outside and apart from these definite duties, legally assigned to and discharged by government, there is a sphere in which its action can be felt and in which both its form and its spirit tell upon the individual citizen. When political institutions call upon him to bear a part in their working, he is taken out of the narrow circle of his domestic or occupational activities, admitted to a larger life which opens wider horizons, associated in new ways with his fellows, forced to think of matters which are both his and theirs. Self-government in local and still more in national affairs becomes a stimulant and an education. These influences may be called a by-product of popular government, incidental, but precious. Whoever has grown up in a household where public affairs were followed with interest and constantly discussed by the elders and friends of the family knows how much the boy gains by listening, asking questions, trying to understand the answers given; and the gain to the budding mind is greatest when the differences of opinion he hears expressed are most frequent. In Britain and America every general Parliamentary or Presidential Election marked for many a boy an epoch in the development of his thought, leading him to reflect thenceforth on events as they followed one another. In the Six Democracies described this kind of education is always going on, and the process is continued in an even more profitable form where the citizen, when he has reached the voting age, is required to vote not only at elections, but also, as in Switzerland and some of the American States, on laws submitted to the people by Referendum and Initiative.

Could this examination be extended to six other European countries, Italy, Holland, Belgium, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, the results to be described would not differ materially from those set forth as attained in the Six countries examined in Part II. In none has justice or order or the efficiency of civil administration suffered in the process of democratization which all have undergone within the last ninety years, and in most these primary duties of government are better discharged. We may accordingly treat the results our enquiry has given for the Six as substantially true for European democracies in general.

Here, however, a wider question arises. Some one may say: “These attempts to estimate what government has done or failed to do for the citizen do not convey a definite impression of what is after all the thing of most worth, viz. the amount of satisfaction, be it greater or less, with life and in life which democracy has brought to the modern world. What has it done for human happiness? Is it discredited, as some argue, by the fact that, after its long and steady advance, those civilized peoples which had hoped so much from popular government, have seen in these latest years the most awful calamities which history records? Has it, if we think of the individual man, made him more or less disposed to say, taking the common test, ‘If I could, I would live my life over again,’ or does it leave him still in the frame of mind expressed twenty-three centuries ago by the Greek poet, who wrote, ‘the best thing for a man is never to have been born at all, and the next best to return swiftly to that darkness whence he came’?”1

Shall we say in the familiar lines of a later poet, that the question is idle, because governments have infinitesimally little to do with the matter?

What is Happiness? Nations as well as men have shown by their acts how differently they conceive it. Some, like Albanians and Afghans, cannot be happy without fighting, and the exploits of the heroes recorded in the Icelandic sagas as well as the feats of warlike prowess which fill the Iliad seem to show that the first European peoples to produce great literatures cherished the same ideals. Yet the ideals of peace also were never absent. Eris and At£, Strife, and Sin the parent of Strife, loom large in the Homeric poems as figures to be hated, because they are sources of misery. That impassioned little poem, the hundred and forty-fourth Psalm, begins with the stern joy of battle in the verses:

Blessed be Jehovah my Strength who teacheth my hands to war and my fingers to fight.

My goodness and my fortress, my high tower and my deliverer, my shield and he in whom I trust.

And ends with a prayer for the blessedness of peaceful prosperity which the Almighty bestows:

That our sons may grow up like young plants and our daughters be as the polished corners of the temple:

That our garners may be full affording all manner of stores:

That our oxen may be strong to labour, that there may be no breaking in nor going out, that there be no complaining in our streets.

Happy is the people that is in such a case; happy the people whose God is Jehovah.

So peace is for Dante the supreme good, which the government of an Emperor commissioned from on high is to confer upon an Italy distracted by internal strife, leading men to the practice on earth of active virtue in this world, according to the precepts of philosophy, as the successor of Peter is to lead them to celestial felicity in the world to come. The Greek philosophers, however, and the Eastern mystics and the Christian theologians agree in regarding Happiness as a thing which governments can neither make nor mar, since it is unaffected by the possession or the lack of earthly goods. From this exalted view there is a long downward scale, for the pleasures of sense must not be forgotten: many Europeans would deem Happiness unattainable in a land where alcoholic stimulants were unprocurable; and among the various ideals of different modern countries there is that of the maximum of amusement with the minimum of toil, high wages and leisure for bull-fights or horse races and athletic sports, in which many, and that not in Spain or Australia only, place their Summum bonum.

Of Democracy and Happiness can more be said than this, that whatever governments can do to increase the joy of life is so slight in comparison with the other factors that tell on life for good and evil as to make the question not worth discussing on its positive side? With the Negative side it is otherwise. The establishment of popular freedom has removed or at least diminished sources of fear or suffering which existed under more arbitrary forms of government. France has never returned to the oppressions and injustices, even the religious persecutions which had lasted down to the days of Louis XV. In England, under the dawning light of popular power, the Slave Trade and the pillory and the cruel penal code and the oppressive restrictions on industry had begun to disappear even before the peaceful revolution of 1832; and slavery in every British dominion fell at once thereafter. In Germany, Switzerland,1 and Spain torture-chambers had remained till the advent of the armies of republican France. Russia is the only country in which the overthrow of an old-established tyranny has not been followed by the extinction of administrative cruelty. Freedom of thought and speech, if not everywhere the gift of popular government, has found its best guarantee in democratic institutions.

It remains to see which among the things expected from it by its sanguine apostles of a century ago, Democracy has so far failed to bestow upon the peoples. To Mazzini and his disciples, as to Jefferson and many another fifty years before, Democracy was a Religion, or the natural companion of a religion, or a substitute for religion, from which effects on morals and life were hoped similar to those which tie preachers of new creeds have so often seen with the eyes of faith.

What, then, has democracy failed to accomplish? It has brought no nearer friendly feeling and the sense of human brotherhood among the peoples of the world towards one another. Freedom has not been a reconciler.

Neither has it created goodwill and a sense of unity and civic fellowship within each of these peoples. Though in earlier days strife between classes had arisen, it is only in these later days that what is called Class War has become recognized as a serious menace to the peace of States, and in some countries the dominant factor in political and economic conflicts. Liberty and Equality have not been followed by Fraternity. Not even far off do we see her coming shine.

It has not enlisted in the service of the State nearly so much of the best practical capacity as each country possesses and every country needs for dealing with the domestic and international questions of the present age.

It has not purified or dignified politics, nor escaped the pernicious influence which the Money Power can exert. In some states corruption has been rife, and the tone of public life no better than it was under the monarchies or oligarchies of the eighteenth century.

Lastly, Democracy has not induced that satisfaction and contentment with itself as the best form of government which was expected, and has not exorcised the spirit that seeks to attain its aims by revolution. One of the strongest arguments used to recommend Universal Suffrage was that as it gave supreme power to the numerical majority, every section of the people would bow to that majority, realizing that their aims must be sought by constitutional methods, since a resort to violence would be treason against the People and their legal sovereignty. Nevertheless, in many a country revolutionary methods are now being either applied or threatened just as they were in the old days of tyrannical kings or oligarchies. If democracy is flouted, what remains? There was a Greek proverb, “If water chokes, what can one drink to stop choking?”1 If the light of Democracy be turned to darkness, how great is that darkness!

Any one can see that these things which have not been attained ought not to have been expected. No form of government, nothing less than a change in tendencies of human nature long known and recognized as permanent, could have accomplished what philosophies and religions and the spread of knowledge and progress in all the arts of life had failed to accomplish. Christianity — a far more powerful force than any political ideas or political institutions, since it works on the inmost heart of man — has produced nearly all the moral progress that has been achieved since it first appeared, and can in individual men transmute lead into gold, yet Christianity has not done these things for peoples, because, checked or perverted by the worse propensities of human nature, it has never been applied in practice. It has not abolished oppression and corruption in governments, nor extinguished international hatreds and wars, has not even prevented the return of hideous cruelties in war which were believed to have been long extinct.

Yet the right way to judge democracy is to try it by a concrete standard, setting it side by side with other governments. If we look back from the world of to-day to the world of the sixteenth century, comfort can be found in seeing how many sources of misery have been reduced under the rule of the people and the recognition of the equal rights of all. If it has not brought all the blessings that were expected, it has in some countries destroyed, in others materially diminished, many of the cruelties and terrors, injustices and oppressions that had darkened the souls of men for many generations.

CHAPTER LXXIV

democracy compared with other forms of government

As everything in human affairs is relative, so also the merit of any set of institutions can be tested and judged only by comparison with other sets created for similar purposes. All institutions being imperfect, the practical question is which of those that are directed to like ends show the fewest imperfections and best secure the general aim of every political system — the welfare of the nation which lives under it. That form of government is to be preferred which gives the better tendencies of human nature the fullest scope and the most constant stimulus, permitting to the worse tendencies the fewest opportunities for mischief.

Accordingly, to judge democracy aright it must be compared with the two other forms of government to which it was in the ancient world and is still the alternative, Monarchy and Oligarchy. By Monarchy I understand the Thing, not the Name, i.e. not any State the head of which is called King or Emperor, but one in which the personal will of the monarch is a constantly effective, and in the last resort predominant, factor in government. Thus, while such a monarchy as that of Norway is really a Crowned Republic, and indeed a democratic republic, monarchy was in Russia before 1917, and in Turkey before 1905, and to a less degree in Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy till 1918, an appreciable force in the conduct of affairs.

The merits claimed for Monarchy as compared with Democracy are the following:

It is more stable, better able to pursue, especially in foreign relations, a continuous and consistent policy.

It gives a more efficient domestic administration because it has a free hand in the selection of skilled officials and can enforce a stricter responsibility.

It enables all the services of the State to be well fitted into one another and made to work concurrently and harmoniously together, because the monarch is the single directing head whom all obey.

It makes for justice between social classes, because the monarch, being himself raised above all his subjects, is impartial, and probably sympathetic with the masses of the people whose attachment he desires to secure.

Of these claims, the first is not supported by history so far as foreign relations are concerned, for monarchies have been as variable as democracies, and on the whole more disposed to war and aggression.

Some weight may, however, be allowed to the claims made under the second and third heads, whenever the sovereign happens to be an exceptionally capable and industrious man, or has that gift for selecting first-rate administrators which sovereigns occasionally possess, as did Henry IV., Louis XIV., and Napoleon in France, Frederick II. in Prussia, Peter the Great and Catherine II. in Russia. The seventeenth and eighteenth centuries saw many reforms in European countries which no force less than that of a strong monarchy could have carried through.

There have been a few kings whose action justified the fourth claim, but modern monarchs in general have chiefly relied on and favoured the aristocracy who formed their Courts, and have allowed the nobles to deal hardly with the humbler classes.

History, however, if it credits some kings with conspicuous services to progress, tells us that since the end of the fifteenth century, when the principle of hereditary succession had become well settled, the number of capable sovereigns who honestly laboured for the good of their subjects has been extremely small. Spain, for instance, during three centuries from the abdication of Charles V., had no reason to thank any of her kings, nor had Hungary, or Poland, or Naples. A ruler with the gifts of Augustus or Hadrian and the virtues of Trajan or Marcus Aurelius can be a godsend to a nation; and if there were any practicable way for finding such a ruler, he and public opinion working together might produce an excellent government. But how rarely do such monarchs appear! If a sovereign turns out to be dissolute or heedless or weak, power goes naturally to his ministers or his favourites, who become a secret and virtually irresponsible oligarchy. In most modern countries, moreover, the disposition to obedience and sense of personal loyalty which used to support a hereditary ruler who could win any sort of popularity, have waxed feeble, nor would it be easy to revive them. The fatal objection to autocracy is that it leaves the fortunes of a State to chance; and when one considers the conditions under which autocrats grow up, chance is likely to set on the throne a weakling or a fool rather than a hero or a sage.

Oligarchies deserve, both because they suffer less from the hereditary principle, and for another reason that will presently appear, more consideration than monarchies. There have been various types. The feudal magnates of mediaeval European countries ruled partly by armed force, partly by the respect felt for birth, partly because their tenant vassals had a like interest in keeping the peasants in subjection. In the virtually independent Italian and German cities of those ages the ruling few were sometimes, as in Bern and Venice, nobles drawing wealth from landed estates or from commerce, sometimes the heads of trading guilds which formed a strong civic organization.1 The conditions of those days are not likely to return in this age or the next, so that in order to compare modern oligarchies with modern democracies it is better to take such cases as the British and French aristocracies of the eighteenth century, or the nobility and bureaucracy of Prussia since Frederick the Great, the last king whose rule was personal in that country, or the groups of men who governed France under Louis Napoleon, and Russia since the Tsar Nicholas I., and Austria since Joseph II. In these countries real power rested with a small number of civil and military officials, the sovereign being practically in their hands. To such cases there may be added in our own time countries like Chile and Brazil, both republics but hardly democracies, for the real substance of power is in few hands. The difference between these last countries and the monarchical oligarchies 1 of Prussia, Austria, and Russia is that in the latter not only did the personal authority of the sovereign occasionally count for something, but that to the power of the civil officials and of the leading soldiers there was added the influence of the strongest men in the fields of commerce and industry, great bankers, heads of railroad and steamship companies and manufacturing undertakings, for the power of wealth, considerable even in the days when Edward III. borrowed money from the Peruzzi in Florence and Charles V. borrowed it from the Fuggers of Augsburg, is now greater than ever.2 Any oligarchy of the future will apparently have to be either a mixture of plutocracy and bureaucracy, or else composed of the leaders of labour or trade organizations; and the wider the extension of State functions, e.g. under a Communistic system, the greater will the power of the ruling few be likely to prove in practice. Being of all forms of government that best entitled to be called Natural, for it springs out of the natural inequality of human beings, it takes the particular form which the economic and social conditions of a community prescribe, military, commercial, or industrial, as the case may be; and however often it may be crushed, its roots remain in the soil and may sprout afresh.

Oligarchy has undeniable merits. It has often proved a very stable government, able to pursue a consistent policy and hold a persistent course in foreign affairs, paying little regard to moral principles. Rome could never have conquered the world without a Senate to direct her policy abroad. She escaped the inconstancies which belong to the rule of monarchs, one of whom may reverse the action of his predecessor, and of assemblies which are at one time passionate and aggressive, at another depressed by misfortune or undecided when promptitude is essential. Rome, and Venice in her best days were prudent as well as tenacious. The two great errors of the English oligarchy, its highhanded action towards the North American colonies in and after 1775 and its failure to pass Roman Catholic Emancipation concurrently with the Parliamentary Union of Ireland with Great Britain in 1800 were not its faults so much as those of King George III., to whom it weakly yielded.

Domestic government has been often efficient under an oligarchy, because the value of knowledge and skill was understood better than has yet been the case in democracies. Unsympathetic to the masses as it has usually been, it has sometimes seen the need for keeping them contented by caring for their material well-being. The Prussian oligarchy, following no doubt in the footsteps of Frederick the Great, settled a tangled land question in the days of Stein, put through many beneficial measures and built up a singularly capable civil service along with a wonderful military machine. Even the government of Louis Napoleon, whose blunders in foreign policy were as much his own as those of his advisers, for he had unluckily taken international relations for his province, did much for the economic progress of France, and left the peasantry contented.

These and other minor merits which oligarchies may claim have, however, been outweighed by its faults.

Class rule is essentially selfish and arrogant, perhaps even insolent, and the smaller the class is, so much the more arrogant. It judges questions from the point of view of its own interest, and seldom does more for the classes beneath it than it feels to be demanded by its own safety. Legislation is stained by this class colour, and administration is likely to suffer from the personal influence which members of the dominant group exert on behalf of their friends.

Oligarchies are apt to be divided into factions by the rivalries and jealousies of the leading families. Where these do not lead to violence, as they often did in ruder ages, they take the form of intrigues which weaken and distract the State, retarding legislation, perverting administration, sacrificing public to private interests.

The pervasive spirit of selfishness and absence of a sense of responsibility to the general opinion of the nation, as well as the secrecy with which business is conducted, gives opportunities for pecuniary corruption. England under Walpole suffered from this cause, so did France under Louis Napoleon, so did Austria, so, and to a greater extent, did Spain also and the Italian Principalities, not to speak of Russia and China, where venal bureaucracies worked the ruin of both countries, creating habits which it may take generations to cure, and destroying the respect of the nation for the sovereigns who tolerated it. England, in the years between 1770 and 1820, is almost the only case of a country in which this weed was quickly eradicated without a revolutionary change.

Lastly, where a people advancing in knowledge and prosperity finds itself ruled, even if efficiently ruled, by a class — and the example of Prussia shows that it may sometimes be so ruled — it is sure to grow restive, and troubles must be expected like those which England, and still more Scotland and Ireland, witnessed during the half century before the Reform Act of 1832. That these troubles did not culminate in civil war, was due to the traditions and good sense of the Whig section of the aristocracy which espoused the popular cause. When aristocracies are seriously divided the end of their dominion is near. It was a scion of one of the oldest patrician families of Rome who destroyed the rule of the Optimates, though for this a civil war all over the Roman world was needed. A people in which the springs of ancient reverence have run dry will trust no class with virtually irresponsible power.

There are points in which a democratic Government suffers by comparison with an oligarchic, for the latter is more likely to recognize the importance of skill in administration and of economy in the management of finance, since it is not tempted to spend money in satisfying the importunities of localities or of sections of the population. It draws as much ability as democracy into the service of the State, for although the upward path is not so open, more trouble is usually taken to discover and employ conspicuous talent; and it is less disposed to legislate in a recklessly vote-catching spirit. The executive vigour with which it is credited is, however, qualified by the fear of provoking resistance or disaffection by the use of force, just as in a democracy the Executive begins to shake and quiver when votes are in question. The selfishness of those old days, when Venice kept her Slav subjects ignorant lest they should be restless, and when the English landowners enclosed commons with little regard for the interests of the humbler commoners, began in later years to be corrected — as in Prussia — by the need felt for keeping the masses in good humour. In the matter of purity, there is, if we look at concrete cases, not much to choose. The German Governments maintained a higher standard of honour among their ministers than some of the Canadian Provinces have done, and among their judges than some of the American States have done. The fear of social censure proceeding from the members of a highly placed profession may be as powerful a deterrent in an oligarchy as is the fear of public displeasure in a democracy.

Crediting Oligarchy with all these merits, it nevertheless remains true that few who have lived under a democracy would exchange its rule for that of an oligarchy; few students of history would honour the memory of a great oligarch like Bismarck as they honour the memory of men like Cavour or Cobden or Abraham Lincoln. Individual liberty has a better chance — even if not a complete security — with the People than with a class. There is less room for the insolence of power.1 The sense of civic duty and the sense of human as well as civic sympathy are more likely to flourish. Government is more just and humane, not because it is wiser, for wisdom does not increase with numbers, but because the aim and purpose of popular government is the common good of all. An enlightened monarch, or even a generous and prudently observant aristocracy, may from time to time honestly strive to help and raise the masses, but wherever power rests with a man or a class, a scornful selfishness sooner or later creeps back and depraves the conduct of affairs. So long as democracy holds fast to the principle that it exists for the whole people and makes its officials truly responsible to the whole people it will deserve to prevail.

So far I have spoken of the Rule of the Few as being the rule of a Class. There is, however, another sense in which the Few may rule and do rule, which needs to be considered, for it is of wide import.

CHAPTER LXXV

oligarchies within democracies

No one can have had some years' experience of the conduct of affairs in a legislature or an administration without observing how extremely small is the number of persons by whom the world is governed. Oxenstierna's famous dictum, Quantula regitur mundus sapientia, finds its exemplification every day, but it is a criticism not of the flocks who follow but of the shepherds who lead. In all assemblies and groups and organized bodies of men, from a nation down to the committee of a club, direction and decisions rest in the hands of a small percentage, less and less in proportion to the larger and larger size of the body, till in a great population it becomes an infinitesimally small proportion of the whole number. This is and always has been true of all forms of government, though in different degrees. The fact is most obvious in an autocracy. The nominal autocrat, except in so far as the fear of assassination or rebellion obliges him to regard popular feeling, can be a real autocrat, exercising direct personal government, only in two cases, viz. in a small community which he can, like the Sicilian tyrant Agathocles or Chaka the Zulu king, rule directly, or in a wider area when he is, like Julius Caesar or Napoleon, a superman in intellect and energy. In all other cases his personal will plays a small part, and the vast bulk of the business is done by his Ministers, so that the important part of his function lies in selecting those who are to govern in his name, and trying, if he be capable of the duty, to see that both they and their personal entourage continue to deserve his confidence. In a Court like that of Louis XV. the powers of the State were, subject to such directions as that voluptuary might occasionally give, divided between “three or four high officials and the king's private favourites, with the reigning mistress or her favourites. The Ministers were themselves influenced by their secretaries and favourites, but the total number of persons who guided the destinies of France, exercising, say, nineteen-twentieths of the power over national as distinguished from local affairs, may have been less than twenty. Every Monarchy becomes in practice an Oligarchy.

British India furnishes an excellent example of an enlightened, hard-working, disinterested, very small official class ruling a vast country. Taking together the Central Government and the Governments of the Provinces, the traveller who has good opportunities for observation comes to the conclusion that the “persons who count” — that is, those from whom all the important decisions on policy proceed — do not exceed thirty or forty, including those private secretaries who may sometimes be quite as potent factors as their better-known chiefs. Within the large oligarchy of some hundreds of the higher British officials, this inner oligarchy rules, each member of it having an actual power which is often less or greater than that legally assigned to his office, his personal intelligence and industry making the difference. To take an example on a much smaller scale, that of a country which a democracy left to be governed practically by one man, though subject to the check imposed on him by the necessity of defending his acts in Parliament, and — when the matter was exceptionally important — of persuading his Cabinet colleagues that those acts were defensible, it may be said that the persons who aided and advised the Chief Secretary, and in that way bore a part in ruling Ireland, were, on an average, less than a dozen, viz. three or four of the most experienced officials, two or three of the popular leaders, and a very few private friends on whose advice the Chief Secretary set value,1 the power of each, i.e. the share of each man in the decisions taken, being proportioned to the value which the Minister set upon that man's opinion.2 In Germany and in Austria the determination of great issues, even the tremendous issues of war and peace which arose in July 1914. lay with seven or eight persons. In large democratic countries like England and France, and above all in the United States, the number of persons who count, swelled as it is by journalists and by the leaders of various organizations that can influence votes, is very much larger in proportion to the population, but that proportion is still infinitesimally small.

Conceive of Political Power as a Force supplied to a machine from a number of dynamos, some with a stronger, some with a weaker, current, and try to estimate the amount of that Force which proceeds from each dynamo. The force which comes from each dynamo that represents an individual man is capable of a rough evaluation, while that force which represented the mass of public opinion is not so evaluable, because it varies with the importance of the issue, which sometimes excites public opinion and sometimes fails to interest it. Whoever tries, in the case of any given decision on a political question, to estimate the amount of the force proceeding from the dynamos which represent the wills of individual men will be surprised to find how high a proportion that amount bears on the average to the whole volume, because in many cases public opinion, though recognized as the supreme arbiter, is faint or uncertain, so that in those cases decision falls to the few, and a decision little noted at the time may affect the course of the events that follow. This is plain enough in the case of the German decision of 1914. It is less evident in a democracy, for there public opinion is more active and outspoken, and when it speaks with a clear voice, omnipotent. But such cases are exceptional. Moreover, even in democracies opinion itself is in the last analysis made by a comparatively small percentage of the nation, the party chiefs being specially powerful among these. Public opinion is in ordinary times deferential to those who hold the reins of government, leaving to them all but the most important decisions.

The members of a representative legislature in a Parliamentary country are presumably men of exceptional ability, each being a sort of leader to his own constituents: yet within every legislature power is concentrated in a few, including the six or seven strongest men among the Ministers, five or six prominent leaders of the various Opposition groups and about ten per cent, of the rest, the others practically following the lead given to them, and not merely voting but also mostly thinking and feeling with their party. In the United States House of Representatives business was for many years directed by a very few persons. After the Speaker ceased to be a dictator, it passed to a small Committee, the exigencies of business as well as the interest of the dominant party prescribing this. The selection of the persons to be nominated by the two great parties as candidates for the Presidency of the United States at their national Conventions falls in practice into the hands of a small group of politicians, so the nation may be shut up to choose between two men whom few citizens would have selected, the attempt made to ascertain the popular will by the plan of “Presidential Primaries” having virtually failed. In a large popular Assembly, like that of a Greek republic, with hundreds of thousands listening to the speeches of orators, there was no party control, and every citizen voted as he pleased, but the contagion of numbers was powerful, and the dominant feeling swept men off their feet. No ruling assembly ever contained so many men who had intelligence to guide their wills coupled with freedom to express their wills by a vote, as did that of Athens, but that will was the will rather of the crowd than each man's own, and was in the last resort due to the persuasive force of the few strenuous spirits who impressed their views upon the mass. Even where the absolute equality of every voter was most complete, power inevitably drifted to the strong.

What has been said of governments and assemblies is equally true of non-legal organizations. The two great parties in the United States, counting their members by millions, have long been ruled by small cliques: and in every huge city the Organization has its Great General Staff or Ring of half a dozen wire-pullers, usually with a Boss as chief. The much less important party organizations in England are directed by two or three members of the Government and of the Opposition, with a few office-bearers of Conservative and Liberal Associations. But the most striking illustration of the law that the larger the body the fewer those who rule it is furnished by the great Labour Unions that now exist in all industrial countries. The power which the members of the Unions entrust to their delegates to Trade Congresses and the docility with which in some countries they follow whatever lead is given them by a strong will, can, as an able writer who has given special study to the subject remarks, be in those countries paralleled only by the religious veneration given to saints.1 Ferdinand Lassalle in Germany, Enrico Ferri in Italy, received a loyalty and adulation which hung upon every word. Millions of votes are controlled by perhaps a dozen leaders who have won confidence. This surrender of power by the Many to the Few is admitted by the leaders themselves, who, recognizing its abandonment of the principle of Equality, justify it by the needs of the case. A militant organization is an army which can conquer only as an army conquers, by Unity of Command. It may be said that after victory equality will return. Yes; but so will indifference. A party is most interested and excited when it is militant, and though the leaders may not be of the same type after the battle has been won, they will be still few and powerful.

We are thus driven to ask: Is a true Democracy possible? Has it ever existed?

If one finds everywhere the same phenomena they are evidently due to the same ubiquitous causes, causes that may be summed up as follows:

1. Organization is essential for the accomplishment of any purpose, and organization means that each must have his special function and duty, and that all who discharge their several functions must be so guided as to work together, and that this co-operation must be expressed in and secured by the direction of some few commanders whose function it is to overlook the whole field of action and issue their orders to the several sets of officers. To attempt to govern a country by the votes of masses left without control would be like attempting to manage a railroad by the votes of uninformed shareholders, or to lay the course of a sailing ship by the votes of the passengers. In a large country especially, the great and increasing complexity of government makes division, subordination, co-ordination, and the concentration of directing power more essential to efficiency than ever before.

2. The majority of citizens generally trouble themselves so little about public affairs that they willingly leave all but the most important to be dealt with by a few.1 The several kinds of interest which the average man feels in the various branches or sides of his individual life come in something like the following order:

First, the occupation by which he makes his living, which, whether he likes it or not, is a prime necessity.

Secondly, his domestic concerns, his family and relatives and friends.

Thirdly, but now only in some countries, his religious beliefs or observances.

Fourthly, his amusements and personal tastes, be they for sensual or for intellectual enjoyments.

Fifthly, his civic duty to the community.

The order of these five interests of course varies in different citizens: some men put the fourth above the second, some so neglect the first as to be a burden to others. But the one common feature is the low place which belongs to the fifth, which for more than half the citizens in certain countries scarcely exists at all. For nearly all — and this will obviously be most true where women possess the suffrage, because domestic cares necessarily come first in the mind and time of most of them — the fifth fills a very small place in the average citizen's thoughts and is allowed to claim a correspondingly small fraction of his time.

3. Even those citizens who do take some interest in the welfare of their community are prevented, some by indolence, some by a sense of their want of knowledge, from studying political questions. Those who think, those who quickly turn thought into action, inevitably guide the rest. The “common will” to which Rousseau attributes rule, must have begun as the will of two or three, and spread outwards from them.1

4. Inequality of Natural Capacity. Comparatively few men have the talent or possess the knowledge needed for thinking steadily on political questions; and of those so qualified, many are heedless or lazy, and leave politics alone, because they care so much more for other things that they confine themselves to delivering their vote at elections. Thus leadership naturally passes to the men of energy and boldness, especially if they possess also the power of persuasive speech. They become the Ruling Few. This sort of oligarchy is the natural and inevitable form of government. In a curious little collection of songs written to be sung by citizens during the First French Revolution there is a sort of hymn to Equality which begins, “O sweet and holy Equality, enfant chéri de la Nature.” But however sweet the child, Nature is not its parent. Monarchy was natural in some states of society: oligarchy in others, but the direct rule of all citizens equally and alike never has existed or can exist. The propensity to obey is at least as strong as the sense of independence, and much more generally diffused.2

As these things are of course familiar to any one who has either read a little history or seen a little of practical politics in any assembly down to a parish meeting, how then did the apostles of democracy come to talk as they did? Where is the Will of the People? 3 What becomes of the rule of the people by the people?

These enthusiasts were not the mere victims of illusions, but as they lived in times of revolt against the misgovernment of monarchies and oligarchies, governments of the Few who selfishly pursued their own class interests, they leapt to the conclusion that the one thing needful for good government was to place it in the hands of the Many, and that the Many, i.e. the whole mass of the citizens, would take the same interest in using it for the good of all as the oligarchs had taken in using it for their own class. They saw the people roused as they had not been roused since the religious conflicts of the sixteenth century, to take an eager interest in public affairs, and assumed that this interest would continue when the excitement had died down; and being themselves ardent politicians, they attributed to the mass a zeal like that which they felt themselves. The lapse of years has given us a fuller knowledge. It is time to face the facts and be done with fantasies. As Bishop Butler long ago observed: Things are what they are, and not some other things, and they assuredly are not what we like to believe them to be. The proportion of citizens who take a lively and constant interest in politics is so small, and likely to remain so small, that the direction of affairs inevitably passes to a few. The framers of institutions must recognize this fact, and see that their institutions correspond with the facts.

In one thing, however, the sanguine enthusiasts of whom I have spoken were entirely right. They saw that the chief fault of the bad governments they sought to overthrow lay in their being conducted for the benefit of a class. The aim and spirit were selfish: a government could be made to serve the people only by giving the people the right to prescribe the aims it should pursue. This was done by the overthrow of the oligarchs: and this is one great service democracy has rendered and is still trying, with more or less success, to render. It will have to go on trying, for Nature is always tending to throw Power into the hands of the Few, and the Few always tend by a like natural process to solidify into a Class, as the vapours rising from the earth gather into clouds. Fortunately the Class also, by a like process, is always tending to dissolve. The old Oligarchies of the Sword lasted longest, because in rude feudal times they had seized and anchored themselves to the land. The more recent Oligarchies of the Purse are less stable, because new men are always pressing in, and movable paper wealth may soon pass away from the descendants of those who acquired it. The Oligarchy of Intellect is still more fluid: talent easily enters it, and talent is not transmissible like the shares in a railroad. Philosophers who disliked the oligarchies of rank and feared the plutocracies that succeeded them have dreamed of an aristocracy of Intellect as the best kind of government, but though they knew that a State needs uprightness and public spirit as well as intellect in its rulers, they never succeeded in showing how the possessors of these qualities are to be found and chosen, and they forgot that to both sets of qualities there must be added another which only experience tests, that is, Strength, the power to move and control the minds and wills of men. “The Kingdom of Heaven is taken by violence, and the violent take it by force.”

Thus Free Government cannot but be, and has in reality always been, an Oligarchy within a Democracy. But it is Oligarchy not in the historical sense of the Rule of a Class, but rather in the original sense of the word, the rule of Few instead of Many individuals, to wit, those few whom neither birth nor wealth nor race distinguishes from the rest, but only Nature in having given to them qualities or opportunities she has denied to others.

What, then, becomes of Democracy? What remains to the Many? Three rights and functions; and they are the vital strength of free government. Though the people cannot choose and guide the Means administration employs, they can prescribe the Ends: and so although government may not be By the People, it may be For the People. The people declare the End of government to be the welfare of the whole community and not of any specially favoured section. They commit the Means for attaining that end to the citizens whom they select for the purpose. They watch those selected citizens to make sure that they do not misuse the authority entrusted to them. Popular powers, however, though they determine the character and scope of government, are in practice more frequently Negative or Deterrent than Positive. The people can more readily reject a course proposed to them than themselves suggest a better course. They can say, “We dislike this: we will not have it” on many an occasion when they cannot say what else they wish to have, i.e. in what form such general benefits as they desire ought to be given.

Of these three functions the most important and most difficult is that of choosing leaders, for though it seems simple to say that government must pursue the common good, the power to discern and decide in any given case what is that good, and what Means best conduce thereto, needs a wisdom and an unselfishness possessed by few. Since the people can seldom do this for themselves, their leaders must do it for them, and be held responsible for the consequences. A nation is tested and judged by the quality of those it chooses and supports as its leaders; and by their capacity it stands or falls.

To realize how much power does rest and must by a law of nature always rest with the few who guide the fortunes of any community, be it great or small, is to indicate the supreme importance of the choice which a free nation is called to make. The larger the nation the more difficult the choice, because opportunities for personal knowledge are slighter. And the choice is also more momentous, because the greater the body and the more numerous the various sections it contains, the more essential is it that strong leaders should be trusted with the powers needed to hold it together.

CHAPTER LXXVI

leadership in a democracy

We have seen that the quality of the leaders in a democracy is no less important than the quality of the people they lead. the conduct of affairs by the Few being a necessary condition in every government, no matter in whom State power is legally vested. The chief difference is that in an Oligarchy, where legal supremacy belongs to the Few, it is only they and those who are closest to them that guide the course of events, whereas where legal supremacy belongs to the multitude actual power is exerted not only by the persons to whom it delegates its legal authority, but by those also who can influence the multitude itself, inducing it to take one course or another, and to commit executive functions to particular persons. Whoever, accordingly, can sway the minds and wills of the sovereign people becomes a Leader, an effective factor in directing their action. Hence, while in a Monarchy or Oligarchy the ruling Few are to be looked for only in the small class in whom legislative and administrative functions are vested, one must in a democracy go further afield and regard not only ministers and legislators but also the men who are most listened to by the citizens, public speakers, journalists, writers of books and pamphlets, every one in fact who counts for something in the formation of public opinion.

In a Democracy every one has a chance — not of course an equal chance, for wealth and other adventitious advantages tell — of stepping out of the ranks to become a leader. The people are on the look out for men fit to be followed, and those who aspire to leadership are always trying to recommend themselves for the function.' What, then, are the qualities which fix the attention and win the favour of the people?

Two are of especial value. One is Initiative. Leadership consists above all things in the faculty of going before others instead of following after others; that is to say it is promptitude in seeing the next step to be taken and courage in taking it. It is the courage which does not merely stand firm to resist an approaching foe but heads the charge against him. Nothing so much disposes men to follow as the swift resolution of one who is ready to take risks, the courage which makes one captain take his ship out from a lee-shore, under full steam, against a hurricane, while other captains are hesitating and trying to calculate the danger.

The other quality is the power to comprehend exactly the forces that affect the mind of the people and to discern what they desire and will support. These two gifts are precious because they are rare: they bring a man to the front under all kinds of popular governments, and by them, if he possesses the more ordinary gifts of a ready and telling speech, as well as industry and honesty — or the reputation of it — he can usually hold the place he has won.

Eloquence in some forms of government counts for more than in others. Where popular assemblies have to be frequently addressed it is indispensable, as in the Greek republics and at Rome. It is valuable in countries like Trance, Italy, and England where unending battles go on in representative assemblies, and is needed not only in the form of set speeches on the greater occasions, but in cut-and-thrust debates where a sudden onslaught or a telling repartee makes a member valued as a party fighter. Where, as in the United States, the Administration does not hold office at the pleasure of the legislature, neither the arts of debate nor those which enable a parliamentarian to wriggle out of a difficulty and to play upon the personal proclivities of individual supporters or opponents, are so much needed, and it is enough if a leader can deliver a good set oration, even if he reads it from notes. Nevertheless, in all countries that genuine eloquence which can touch the imagination or fire the hearts of a popular audience has often brought its possessor to the front, endearing him to the people, and perhaps concealing a lack of steadfastness or wisdom. France and Australia are the countries in which debating power most frequently brings men forward, while in Switzerland and New Zealand plain clearheaded good sense has been sufficient.

It is an old reproach against democracies that they are readily moved by a plausible tongue, and are beguiled by those who have, ever since the republican days of Greece, been called Demagogues (leaders of the people), furnishing a term of abuse freely applied in many a modern struggle. In current usage the Demagogue is one who tries to lure the people by captivating speech, playing upon their passions, or promising to secure for them some benefit. Such persons must obviously be expected in all countries where power lies with the people; and they may spread their nets by the press as well as by the voice, reaching larger numbers by the former method, and dangerous because often irresponsible, raising expectations which they are seldom called on to find the means of gratifying. Why they should have been, as is sometimes said, more frequent in Germany, Italy, and England than in France or the United States is an interesting question into which I must not digress.

Self-confidence, if it does not pass into the vanity which offers an easy target to ridicule, helps a bold man to make his way. To speak with an air of positive assurance, especially to a half-educated crowd already predisposed to assent, is better than to reason with them. A prominent statesman of our time, on being asked by a member of his party what arguments he had better use on behalf of the cause they were advocating replied, “I sometimes think that assertion is the best kind of argument.”

There are other ways besides eloquence by which leadership is won. Journalism, a form of persuasive rhetoric which may be called oratory by the pen, has sometimes been an avenue to power in France and in the United States — even in Russia under the Tsars Katkoff was an effective force half a century ago. Benjamin Franklin exercised enormous influence by his writings, though he took little to do with the politics of his State. A book, coming at an opportune moment, may diffuse ideas which have their immediate reaction on popular opinion and so dispose sections of a nation to follow, perhaps for many years, the path it pointed out. Tolstoi, the latest of the prophets, told profoundly on the thoughts of his time, though how far he affected politics it is not yet easy to determine. Not to speak of Rousseau and Tom Paine, the writings of Karl Marx told upon a circle far wider than that of his associates in revolutionary agitation. Authorship gave to Henry George, the writer of Progress and Poverty, an influence which lasted through his life, though he never cared to enter either national or Californian politics. Deeds as well as words, and deeds in war even more than service rendered in peace, have shed on some figures unversed in statecraft a lustre which led them to the highest posts. Generals Andrew Jackson, Zachary Taylor, T. H. Harrison, and US. Grant all owed their Presidencies to their military fame. There are among American Presidents many instances, like that of Jefferson, to prove that a man may be a popular favourite without eloquence.

When any one has risen high enough to be trusted with administrative work, his capacity is put to a new test, since some measure of honesty, industry, tact, and temper is required, and if it is a first-rate position, carrying leadership with it, he must show himself capable of inspiring confidence and attaching men to himself.1 What, then, of that higher kind of wisdom which looks all round and looks forward also? It is not what the people chiefly seek for or often find: they and their representatives have generally to be contented with some one, be he forceful or seductive, who can meet the calls of the moment. The busy life of a modern statesman leaves no time for reflection, and the partisans whom he has to please think of high statesmanship in the terms of a party platform.

Taking the gifts aforesaid to be those which attract the people, by what means do their possessors win the people's praise and confidence? In Parliamentary countries the easiest way to prominence lies through the legislature, where influence is quickly won by effectiveness in debate, more slowly by a reputation for knowledge and diligence and judgment. The chiefs of parties come in these countries from the Chambers, and if there is a scarcity of first-rate talent among the party chiefs, it is because too little talent has found its way into the Chambers, as Talleyrand replied, when asked why the Generals of the time were not better: “Because they are chosen from the Colonels.”

In the United States and in Switzerland men may become known by their work in local government or in some high executive office, such as is, in America, the Mayoralty of a city or the Governorship of a State. But the most potent help to advancement in the earlier stages of a career is the Party. In America, where it nominates the candidates for every office as well as for seats in legislatures, it shows little wish to find and push men of talent, reserving its favour for those who have worked hard for the party and are sure to be “solid” with it; and all the more pleased when they are rich enough to contribute to election funds. This was also, mutatis mutandis, the attitude of the Central Office of the political parties in England from 1850 to 1900, for they seldom cared to bring into Parliament men who could serve the party by intellect, preferring the local wealthy man who, not liable to the aberrations of youth and originality, could be trusted to give a steady and, if possible, a silent vote. Even the Parliamentary heads of the British parties did less than might have been expected in this direction. The one merit of the otherwise grotesquely indefensible system of pocket boroughs lay in its bringing forward, now and then, new men of conspicuous promise like Canning and Gladstone. In Switzerland, Canada, and New Zealand party organizations have little to do with these matters, but in Australia the Labour candidate has usually earned his selection by the work he has done in his Union or in his Political Labour Leagues.

The newspaper press has become so effective an agency in helping politicians to get on and to stay in, that some one has well said that politics has in democracies become a branch of the science and art of Advertisement. In certain countries there have been persons, even among leading statesmen, who felt it so necessary to keep their names before the public that they not only cultivated the goodwill of editors and proprietors, but took pains to have their every daily act of life recorded, thinking, perhaps correctly, that the way to success is to fascinate everybody by making him believe that everybody else has been fascinated. Keep yourself at all hazards always before the public as if you were a patent medicine: on the principle of the painter who said to the newspaper critic, “If you cannot praise my picture, abuse it: silence is the only thing I fear.” These tactics succeed, though of course, like well-advertised brands of tobacco, only if the article has some merit. Great is the power of iteration.

That publicity which the press alone can confer may everywhere do much to harm a politician, and still more to push him forward, but its power is not everywhere the same. In a small country like Switzerland the people have a personal knowledge of their prominent figures which relegates the newspapers to a secondary place. In a vast country like the United States the abundance of newspapers, and the restriction to certain areas of even the most important, prevents the people from falling under the sway of any, and forms in them the habit of judging men not by the praise or blame of contending journals, but by their acts, so though some may get more and others less credit than they deserve, still in the large majority of cases justice is done.

He who asks whether democracies have shown discernment in their choice of leaders must remember how different are the qualities of nations. Gifts that would commend a man in Italy might be less attractive in Switzerland or Holland. Some are more fastidious than others in their moral judgments, though generally disposed to pardon any means by which success has been secured. Some put reason above amusement, some reverse the order, but crowds seem everywhere to relish high-flown moral platitudes. In the small city republics of antiquity and of the Middle Ages the opportunities for personal knowledge were so abundant that we are not surprised to find that while the conspicuous figures were always men of some sort of brilliance, yet those whose power was merely rhetorical were seldom trusted with high office and did not hold their influence for long together. In large modern countries, where the citizens have to form their opinion from what they see in print, the task is hard, so much is there of misconception as well as of deliberate misrepresentation. How seldom are men correctly judged even by those who have good opportunities for judging and are not heated partisans! Even in a popular assembly it may be only the most intimate colleagues who are in a position to form a correct estimate of a man's real character;1 who have learnt to appreciate and rely upon the honour and chivalry and goodness of heart and courage in emergencies of a man too modest or too proud to play for popularity; or who have to work with another colleague in whom they must tolerate self-ishnesses and self-deceptions, pettinesses and lapses from truth, and posings before the public. It has been well said that you never really know any one till you have been his partner in business, or his companion on a long journey through a wild country. The peoples, however, need not know all these things — some of them are best left unrecorded — and may be well content if they can judge ability, courage, and honesty. Taking the six democracies already described, those which judge most shrewdly are Switzerland and the United States, and next after these, Canada.1 The French are of course the keenest of critics, but the vehemence of partisanship is such as to make the estimate of a statesman's personal qualities unduly tinged by the attraction or repulsion of his opinions.

The charge of ingratitude so often brought against democracies finds little support in history.2 Even among the volatile Greeks, where popular assemblies were often swept by gusts of passion, we are more often struck by their adherence to those they had once trusted than by their occasional anger at a general who had failed. In the annals of the United States there is scarcely an instance of any statesman who lost his hold upon the people save by his own errors, and very few who did not even after those errors retain a fair measure of support. In Canada, Australia, and New Zealand what surprises the observer is the undue indulgence extended to men whose faults ought to have brought their public career to a close. Monarchs have been more ungrateful than free peoples.1 Compare the treatment of Benedek by the Hapsburg Court after the war of 1866 2 with the fine loyalty of the Southern men in America after the fall of the Confederacy not only to the noble figure of Robert E. Lee, but even to others who might well have been censured for mistakes.

It is often said that every country has the leaders, like the newspapers, which it deserves. This is not altogether true. Fortune takes a hand in the game, and takes it for evil as well as for good, sometimes sending, perhaps from an unexpected quarter, a man of gifts which quickly raise him to an eminence he may use or abuse with consequences fateful for the future. The people who welcome and follow an Alcibiades or an Aaron Burr cannot be expected to know his capacities for evil. The people who welcomed and trusted the rail-splitter from Illinois thanked Providence for the unlooked-for gift of one who was exactly fitted for the crisis and gave him their loyal trust thereafter. That which we call Chance — it is the only available word where causes are un-discoverable — has had more to do with the course of events than the builders of scientific history have generally liked to recognize.

Notwithstanding such an instance as that of Abraham Lincoln, the first man who had ever risen from such small beginnings to the headship of a nation, it must be admitted that universal suffrage and the growth of equality in opportunity have done less than was expected to bring to the service of the State men of statesmanlike ability. Those who have compared the public life of France from 1815 to 1875 with its public life from 1870 to 1920, and that of the United States of the years 1850–1900 with that of later years, seem disappointed with the results. Similar complaints are heard from those who in England set the generation of Burke, Pitt, and Fox, and that of Peel, Disraeli, and Gladstone beside the England of later years. If the alleged inferiority exists, it can be explained without attributing the paucity of brilliant figures to any deficient capacity of democracies for recognizing talent and virtue when they appear. The cause may lie rather in changed economic conditions, and in the indisposition of the class from which statesmen used to be chiefly drawn to throw themselves into public work in the spirit of their grandfathers. Still the fact is there.

The predominance of Party in democracies has made us, when we talk of leadership, think primarily of the militant function of the general who directs a political campaign and bears, like the champions in ancient warfare, the brunt of battle in his own person. But the best kind of leader has a duty to the whole people as well as to his party. If he is in power, he must think first of the national welfare; if he is in opposition he has nevertheless the responsibility of directing the minds and wills of a large section of the people, and of aiding or resisting the policy of the Administration. In both cases his actions, as well as his views and arguments and exhortations, have weight with the whole nation for good or for evil; and this, most conspicuously true of the head of a party, is true more or less of all those to whom the nation is accustomed to listen. It used to be said of the British House of Commons that its tone and taste rose or fell with the Prime Minister who was guiding its deliberations. This applies to the body of the people also. A great man may not only form a school who assimilate and propagate his ideas, but may do much to create a pattern for the people of what statesmanship ought to be. If his honour is unblemished, his ideals high, his temper large, tolerant, and sympathetic, his example is sure to tell. Others try to live up to it. He may, without being a Washington or a Lincoln, a Pitt or a Fox, not only deserve to be gratefully remembered as a light of his time, but may, like Lord Althorp and Peel in one way, Cobden and Bright in another, so influence his younger contemporaries as to strengthen the best traditions of public life and maintain its standard.

So much is in our own time spoken and written on all the great questions before civilized nations that leaders are not expected to become, and indeed cannot for want of leisure become, students or philosophers, creators of new ideas or schemes. It is enough if, availing themselves of what the students produce, they can apply their experience to discern which of the many doctrines and projects that are seething up all around like bubbles in a boiling spring are most fit to be made the basis of wise legislation. Their function is to commend the best of these to the people, not waiting for demands, not seeming to be bent merely on pleasing the people, but appealing to reason and creating the sense that the nation is not a mere aggregate of classes, each seeking its own interests, but a great organized whole with a life rooted in the past and stretching on into the illimitable future. A democracy is tested by the leaders whom it chooses, and it prospers by the power of discernment which directs its choice.

Leaders of this type stand in a wholesome and profitable relation with the average citizen, who, despite all the flattery he receives, is generally a sensible man, not conceited, willing to listen and learn. In Switzerland and America, though of course much influenced by his neighbours, he wishes to be independent and tries to form an opinion for himself. But independence is compatible with deference to the opinion of those who know more and have had a longer experience. Independence qualified by deference, an independence springing from the sense of personal responsibility, a deference rendered to moral as well as intellectual authority, creates the best relation between the leader whom it steadies and the citizen whom it guides.

As this chapter closes the comments to be made on the working of Governments in the Six Democratic countries described, I may here, before passing on to the present aspects of democracy over the world, sum up in a few propositions certain broad conclusions that may be drawn from a review of modern popular Governments. They are stated subject to certain exceptions, already mentioned, in the case of particular countries.

Democracy has belied the prophecies both of its friends and of its enemies. It has failed to give some benefits which the former expected, it has escaped some of the evils which the latter feared. If the optimists overvalued its moral influence, the pessimists undervalued its practical aptitudes. It has reproduced most of the evils which have belonged to other forms of government, though in different forms, and the few it has added are less serious than those evils of the older governments which it has escaped.

I. It has maintained public order while securing the liberty of the individual citizen.

II. It has given a civil administration as efficient as other forms of government have provided.

III. Its legislation has been more generally directed to the welfare of the poorer classes than has been that of other Governments.

IV. It has not been inconstant or ungrateful.

V. It has not weakened patriotism or courage.

VI. It has been often wasteful and usually extravagant.

VII. It has not produced general contentment in each nation.

VIII. It has done little to improve international relations and ensure peace, has not diminished class selfishness (witness Australia and New Zealand), has not fostered a cosmopolitan humanitarianism nor mitigated the dislike of men of a different colour.

IX. It has not extinguished corruption and the malign influences wealth can exert upon government.

X. It has not removed the fear of revolutions.

XI. It has not enlisted in the service of the State a sufficient number of the most honest and capable citizens.

XII. Nevertheless it has, taken all in all, given better practical results than either the Rule of One Man or the Rule of a Class, for it has at least extinguished many of the evils by which they were defaced.

On what is the most important question of all, whether democratic governments have been improving during the last half century in their practical working and in their moral and intellectual influence on the peoples who have established them, it is hard to reach a conclusion, for the conditions of the last few years have been abnormal. In 1914 there were signs of decline in some countries where decline was hardly to have been expected, and of improvement in other countries, but nothing to indicate in any country either a wish to abandon democracy or the slightest prospect that anything would be gained thereby. Disappointment is expressed, complaints are made, but no permanent substitute has been suggested.

CHAPTER LXXVII

the later phases of democracy

Those whose recollections carry them back over the last seventy years will be disposed to think that no other period of equal length in the world's annals — not even the years between 1453 and 1521, nor those between 1776 and 1848 — has seen so many profoundly significant changes in human life and thought. We are here concerned only with those which have affected popular government. But political changes are — apart from the action of some extraordinary individual — always due either to changes in the external conditions of man's life, economic and social, or to changes in man's thoughts and feelings, or to both combined. It is therefore worth while to glance at the influences of both these kinds which have had their repercussions in political ideas and political practice.

The swift advance in every department of physical science, enlarging our command of natural forces, has immensely enlarged the production of all sorts of commodities, and has, by providing quicker and cheaper modes of transport, brought food from one part of the earth to another in vastly increased quantity. Population has increased. Wealth has increased. The average duration of life has been lengthened. Many things which were luxuries have become indispensable comforts. Nations have been drawn closer to one another, and commerce has become a far more important element in their relations to one another. In the more prosperous nations new avenues to wealth have been opened, so that a large number of men sprung from what were the middle and poorer classes have accumulated great fortunes, while the ownership of land, once the chief source of wealth and social influence, has sunk into a second place. The “economic factor” has attained a new importance not only in international intercourse, but within each country, changing the relation of social classes, effacing the old distinctions of birth and rank, and not only placing the new rich almost on a level with the old families, but destroying the old ties between the employer and his workmen. The isolated hand-worker has become rare, the factories that have replaced him are filled by crowds of toilers who have little or no personal touch with the incorporated company that pays their wages. As the number of such workers grew, they learnt to organize themselves, so that presently their combinations as well as their numbers gave them a power and an independence previously unknown. Thus a process of equalization set in which not only placed the new rich on a level with the old rich, but raised and strengthened the hand-workers as a whole, the processes of levelling down and levelling up going on together. Knowledge was no longer confined to a small minority. Nearly everybody could read and write. Books and newspapers were accessible to all, so there was in the intellectual sphere also an equalization of opportunities and an emancipation of the masses from that sense of inferiority which had formerly made them accept as natural the predominance of the better born, the richer, and the more instructed.

These changes were directly or indirectly due to advances in the sciences of nature and in their application to practical ends, changes which, though they had been in process for more than a century, were immensely accelerated and extended in their operation within the lifetime of men still living. But the advances had moral as well as material effects. They changed what are called “the values.” Men became more and more occupied with the ascertainment and interpretation of facts, and especially of the phenomena of nature. Their thoughts turned to concrete facts. They questioned old ideas and long-established doctrines, demanding evidence of whatever they were asked to believe. Principles which had gone undisputed for centuries were discredited. Historical criticism of the Christian scriptures became more active and its results were disseminated widely. The habit of respect for tradition, together with such obedience to ecclesiastical authority as had remained, began to disappear, except in a small circle which the growing scepticism had affrighted, while the habit of looking to another world as one which would provide compensation for the injustices of this world declined.1 There was a general unsettlement of convictions, a disposition to get the most that was possible out of this present life, along with a feeling that every one ought to have a full chance for developing his own individuality and seeking happiness in his own way. This sense of human equality and of the right to untrammelled “self realization” found its most striking expression in what is called the feminist movement, an amazing departure from ancient and deeply rooted custom, with hardly a parallel in the history of society in respect of its extent, of the passion which inspired its advocates, and of the amount of sympathy it evoked in unexpected quarters.

Either of these two streams of tendency, the economic and the intellectual, was strong enough to effect great changes. Coinciding in their operation, they have produced what is a new world in the realm of what is called sociological thought as well as in the material conditions of life and the economic structure of society. Not a few views and proposals that were derided seventy years ago are now accepted and welcomed. Economic doctrines, which all sensible men then held are now treated as obsolete. What were fads or dreams have become axioms. What were axioms are now despised as fads or superstitions.

Such changes could not but affect the political movements already in progress, expanding their aims and quickening their march. Though the outburst of revolutionary fervour in 1848 spent its force before permanent results had been achieved, the forces that were making for democracy soon recovered their momentum, since they had behind them the assertion of human equality, the desire to break old shackles and secure for everybody his chance in life. The loss of respect for authority and for the persons who claimed it in the State and in the Church cleared away much that had barred the path of earlier reformers. The masses, now that education had spread among them, could no longer be treated as unfitted by ignorance for civiç rights, and while the organizations they had built up gave them the means of showing their strength, the growing demand for legislation designed to benefit them by providing better conditions of health and labour made it seem absurd to prevent those for whom these benefits were intended from directly expressing their own needs and wishes. So all over Europe, outside the despotisms of Russia and Turkey, power more and more passed to the people. The United States had been for many years a democracy. In England, which may be taken as fairly typical, because the changes it underwent were not revolutionary, but accomplished with a pretty general consensus of opinion, statutes of 1868 and 1885 made the wage-earners a majority in nearly every constituency; and an Act of 1918 extended the suffrage not only to all men but to all women over thirty years of age. To-day the masses are, or could be if they asserted themselves, masters of the political situation everywhere in Europe; though in some countries, such as Spain and Rumania, they have scarcely yet seemed to realize their power.

Mention ought here to be made of two sentiments which, playing on conservatively minded men as well as on Liberals, brought about these changes quietly in England, and to some extent in other countries also. One was the fear that if the constitutional demand for extensions of the suffrage were not granted, violent efforts to obtain it might follow. The other was a belief that only by giving more power to the workers would their real grievances receive due attention and, above all, prompt attention.

The results of this change were not at once visible. In Great Britain, for instance, little happened to show the difference. The English Tories, after their victory in the Election of 1874, applauded the prescience of their leader (Mr. Disraeli) who had divined that his party need not suffer from the extension of the electoral franchise he had carried, an extension wider than that which his opponents had proposed. I remember that when, in 1878, I remarked to a singularly acute observer, London correspondent of a German newspaper,1 that it was strange to see the English working men make so little use for their own benefit of the power they had come to possess, he replied that they did not yet know how great their power was. They must have time. Scarcely did they begin to know it till 1890, and not fully till 1905, by which year other changes had begun and a new spirit was at work.

The earlier victories of democracy in Europe, like its still earlier victory in America, had been won in the name of Liberty. Liberty meant the expulsion of tyrants, the admission of the bulk of a nation to a share in power, the full control of the people through their representative assembly, the abolition of privilege and hereditary rank, and the opening on-equal terms of every public career to every citizen. These would have been the main articles of a radical democrat's creed any time between 1830 and 1870, and many, at least in England and France, would have added to it the suppression of the State Establishment of religion, the curtailment of public expenditure, the public provision of education, free trade, the reduction of armies and the cultivation of peaceful relations with all foreign countries. Once these things had been attained everybody could sit down and be happy in his own way, the free play of economic forces ensuring peaceful progress and a steady amelioration of the conditions of life. There were of course already those, especially among the revolutionaries of the European continent, who looked further ahead. But, speaking generally, political liberty and political equality, both taken in the widest sense, satisfied the aspirations of the democrats of those days. These were the ideals of orators and thinkers from Charles James Fox and Jefferson down to Mazzini. These hopes inspired Wordsworth in his youthful prime and Schiller and Shelley and Victor Hugo. These were the doctrines which offended Goethe,1 and which repelled Carlyle in his later days.

When, however, political liberty and equality had been actually attained, or at least became certain of attainment, the leaders of the working classes, began to ask what did it profit them to have gained political power if they did not turn it to practical account for their own benefit. Legislation for the improvement of labour conditions had, no doubt, been stimulated by the extension of the suffrage, both in England and in other countries, notably in Germany, where government sought to hold at bay demands for political change by propitiating the wage-earners. But more was wanted. The chief things which the working classes desired were higher wages and shorter hours. These had been heretofore sought by strikes. But political action in the legislature provided an easier and surer way, while the State might be required to better the condition of the wage-earners by providing at the public cost other benefits such as gratuitous education, pensions, or houses, or employment on public works when other employment was slack. Some went further, insisting on the so-called Right to Work, i.e. the duty of the State to provide employment for every one who sought it.

The growing power of the Labour Unions and the area over which strikes had begun to extend, led the employers also to combine for resistance, and their combinations further solidified the Unions, so that employers and employed were more and more gathered into hostile camps. Meanwhile, in many countries the consolidation of many industrial enterprises that had formerly been in many hands into a few great undertakings — such as those called in America Trusts — some of which created a virtual monopoly in certain branches of production, struck at that faith in the power of free and open competition on which the older economists had relied, and evoked demands that in order to protect the consumer such combinations should be broken up and their undertakings taken over and managed by the State. The simultaneous tendency to throw on public authorities an increasing number of services needed in the interest of the community made the supersession of individual action more familiar, while State action became less distrusted the more the State itself was seen to be passing under popular control.

Thus there came a new orientation in politics as the struggle for political equality died down, its goal having been reached. The movement towards Economic Equality, already visible in many countries, forged to the front and gained strength with those who thought that progress towards it might be made by extending the action of the State, perhaps in some new form. Though its chief support naturally came from the working class, which it would admit to a larger share in the world's goods, it had some backing among members of the richer class whose sympathy went out to the poor, or who held that theoretical justice prescribed equal enjoyment, or equal opportunities for enjoyment, for all alike, and that those whose labour was the chief factor in the production of wealth were entitled to a far larger share, perhaps to the whole, of that which was produced. If Economic Equality was to be taken as the aim in view, how was it to be attained? A mere redistribution of property as it existed, to be effected by taking from the richer to give to the poorer, was obviously no remedy, for differences of wealth would soon reappear.1 It therefore became necessary to reconstruct society on a new basis so as to prevent inequalities from arising afresh. Thus various schemes were propounded by a host of thinkers in different countries, Frenchmen and Germans leading.2 Some of these schemes proposed to transfer all the means of production, distribution, and exchange to the State (or to administrative authorities — local or departmental — within the State), gradually transferring one industry after another from individuals to public management, and bringing the products of the transferred industries into the public treasury, but not altogether superseding private effort or forbidding those who had produced some kinds of things to retain the product.

More extreme theorists advocated the entire extinction of private property, with an allotment of every form of labour to some specific form of production and the application of the commodities produced to satisfy the needs of all alike. This full-blown Communism considers Capital as the enemy to be destroyed, root and branch, and seeks to extinguish classes altogether, making all the members of a nation consist only of one body, the so-called “proletariate.”

To describe even in outline the various types which the new doctrines have been taking, and the groups which in each country have embraced each type, would be beyond the scope of this book. Three observations may, however, be in place.

The movement, which had been originally democratic, took in its new phase a different course in different countries. Anarchism, seeking to extend individual liberty so widely as to get rid of laws altogether, might have seemed to be a more natural extension of democratic principles than is Socialism, and there are those who so regard it. But Socialists and Anarchists, despite their divergent theories, have in common their desire to overthrow existing institutions, the former in order to rebuild, the latter in order to leave the site bare for men to disport themselves thereon. Agreeing as they do in the first step, there has been a certain amount of co-operation, if not of real sympathy, between them. Communism throve best in France, Germany, Italy, and Spain, in some cities of which latter country Anarchism also was conspicuous. Each set of theorists hoped to find a field for the full practical development of their respective doctrines in Russia. In Australia and New Zealand, countries far less affected by abstract views, there were sustained efforts of the wage-earning class to secure higher wages, shorter hours, and various other benefits to be bestowed by the State, and these took shape in a well-compacted Labour party. This happened also in Britain, which followed in the wake of Australia. Many leaders of the Labour party held and hold socialistic principles, but these have not been generally inscribed on the Labour banner in any English-speaking land. In the United States, where democracy had been longest established, a Labour party arose much later, now counting millions of adherents, but not yet strong in the legislatures, while Socialism and Communism have found almost all their support among recent immigrants from Europe, who give them a considerable and apparently increasing vote in Presidential elections.1

In France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, and Russia the Socialist movement has always had a strong anti-religious colour. The Church has been an object of attack, being represented as an enemy of the people and of progress. This is much less true of Germany, and there is no definitely anti-Christian colour among English-speaking Socialists. The democratic movements of last century were everywhere concerned more with Destruction than with Construction. They sought to sweep away privileges and restrictions, establishing political equality by knocking down the old barriers. This work of abolition having been completed, there comes a call for institutions which shall give to the masses the positive benefits they desire by organizing Society on new lines. This is a Constructive work. Destruction is easy. Any fool can with one blow of his hammer destroy a statue it took Michael Angelo years to perfect. But to construct needs knowledge, thought, skill, and at least so much experience as enables a man to judge whether his plans can be put in practice. The leaders of the Socialist and Communist parties have not had the opportunities for acquiring such experience. There has been plenty of intellectual force among German and French Socialists, but they have been divided into many sects with divergent doctrines, and chiefly occupied in denouncing the existing state of society which no one defends, except indeed by pointing out that every form of social structure known to history has been indefensible.

Four methods of action have presented themselves to the leaders of the new movements. One is constitutional action through those representative legislatures in which a Labour or Socialist party is able to secure a majority, or at least an organized minority, strong enough to extort from an Administration in power the kind of legislation it desires. This has been successfully done in Australia and New Zealand, and to a less extent in Britain, in France, and in Germany. A second method is the old one of organizing strikes to compel employers to raise wages, or shorten hours of labour, or confine employment to the members of labour unions. This expedient is everywhere resorted to, but as it is costly it sometimes fails. A third plan is to organize a general or “sympathetic” strike, so as to put pressure on the whole community to yield to the demands of any particular body of workers demanding something either from private employers or from the State, if they are in State employment.1

A fourth method, itself a development of the third, is to apply either the general strike, or a strike of several associated bodies of workers, for the purpose of compelling the legislature and executive to adopt, or to desist from, some particular policy, possibly a foreign as well as a domestic policy, which they have adopted or are deemed likely to adopt. This is called the method of Direct Action. It is expected to prove specially effective if the strikers are employed in a form of industry essential to the welfare of the community at large, such as work on railroads or in coal mines, or in electric lighting and power, seeing that the suspension of railroad traffic, for instance, paralyzes all industries and inflicts the gravest inconveniences on the whole population.

These facts, familiar to us all, are here noted for the sake of observing that whereas the two first-named methods are entirely constitutional and legal, not transgressing the principles of democracy, the two latter are revolutionary and antidemocratic. Democracy was meant to secure that the will of the whole people, as constitutionally expressed on the last occasion of voting, shall prevail, i.e. it was designed to avert revolution by enabling the people to obtain by their votes all the justice that revolution had been previously used to gain, whereas a general strike, whether directed against the whole community, or meant to compel a Government to take a particular course, is an attempt to override the legal methods of the people's rule, just as is an armed insurrection. Such action is therefore a declaration that democracy has failed, and must be replaced by that very violence it was designed to avert. It may seem strange that this method should be at this time of day so lightly resorted to, for violence is a game at which every party can play, and history warns us that a victory won by such means has no promise of finality, since, besides creating a sense of insecurity, it inevitably tends to provoke further violence.

Lastly, in the new phase described the idea of Liberty has been, though not renounced, yet forgotten or ignored. This is not merely because political Liberty, in the sense of the exercise of power by the people, has been won and needs no further thought, but also because the rights of the individual man to lead his life in his own way, work at what he will, take his pleasure as he will, save and spend for himself, are no longer, and that by many persons in all classes, deemed to be a part of Liberty. Every increase of State control, every supersession of individual action by State action more or less reduces them. This may be — doubtless often is — for the general good; but it represents a profound change of attitude.1 Communism of course carries control furthest, for it prescribes to every citizen the work he shall do and the recompense he shall receive, and leaves him nothing he can call exclusively his own.2 Fraternity also, the old watchword of the revolutionist ever since 1789, has fallen out of sight. However little its spirit has ever ruled in France or elsewhere, it was respected as heralding a time when Liberty and Equality would bring friendliness and peace in their train. This kind of Idealism has disappeared; it is material benefits that hold that place in the minds of the most recent advocates of change which spiritual progress held in the earlier generation. There is more hatred than love in the apostles of the Class War and proletarian rule.

CHAPTER LXXVIII

present tendencies in democracies

Every one who tries to follow the march of events in these chaotic days of ours asks himself the question: In what direction are things moving? Is Democracy spreading more widely? Is it improving or degenerating? Is it gaining or losing the confidence of the peoples?

To describe the conditions of the moment would be as if one should try to paint a landscape over which lights and shadows were coining and going every moment under clouds driven before a gale. What can be done, however, is to indicate the tendencies visible when the storm of war burst in 1914, since which time the minds of men have been everywhere so far from normal — shall we say shell-shocked? — that it is impossible to predict what they will be five or ten years hence. Some of these tendencies have, however, continued operative, assuming a more formidable significance.

I. Democracy is spreading. Seven new States have sprung up in Europe since 1918: Czecho-Slovakia, Austria, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia (Lettland), Esthania, Finland.

Three new States have arisen in Western Asia: the republics of Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan, the latter specially interesting as the first attempt at republican government in a Mussulman country. The fate of Russia hangs and may continue for some time to hang in the balance. Hungary has not yet settled her form of government; nor has Poland nor has China.1

The ten new States aforesaid have given or are giving themselves democratic constitutions, as did Portugal in 1909, when she dethroned the Braganza dynasty. Thus the number of democracies in the world has been doubled within fifteen years.

II. In the form which it has almost everywhere taken, that of government by a representative assembly, democracy shows signs of decay; for the reputation and moral authority of elected legislatures, although these, being indispensable, must remain, have been declining in almost every country. In some they are deemed to have shown themselves unequal to their tasks, in others to have yielded to temptations, in others to be too subservient to party, while in all they have lost some part of the respect and social deference formerly accorded to them. Whither, then, has gone so much of the power as may have departed from them? In some countries it would seem to be passing to the Cabinet — England is often cited as an example — in others to the directly elected Head of the State, as for instance to the Governors in the several States of the American Union. In France, though there has been no definite change, calls are heard for a strong President, and in Argentina the President already overtops the Chambers. What is common to all these cases is the disposition to trust one man or a few led by one rather than an elected assembly.

III. Over against such cases stand those wherein power is taken for the citizen body to overrule the legislature by the Referendum or supersede it by the Initiative. This Swiss method, which grew up naturally in the States of the American Union also, can hardly be made a regular organ of government in large countries where the process of voting is costly, and in some at least of such countries — indeed wherever party or class organizations are powerful — it is likely to work less well than it has in the lands of its birth, but its conformability to the doctrine of Popular Sovereignty recommends it. The development of Local Government and transference to it of as many administrative functions as possible, though constantly preached by reformers, does not in fact advance. Very little has been done in this direction by France or Australia, or in Spanish America, while in England the small parish units have failed to enlist popular interest.

IV. That extension in many directions of the sphere of government which began in the United States some forty years ago, and has been carried furthest in New Zealand and Australia, has by increasing the tasks laid upon administration affected the character of democratic government itself, for it compels the creation of a great staff of officials, and so a sort of bureaucracy grows up, handling many kinds of business. This swells the volume of patronage lying in the gift of Ministers, and adds to the temptations which the exercise of patronage presents. Such developments make effective popular control more difficult, because so many branches of work lie beyond the knowledge and judgment of the citizens, or their representatives, that the discretionary powers of government inevitably grow, and responsibility is less easily secured. Moreover, the larger the number of State undertakings and State employees, the larger is the influence which the latter can exert through their votes. They become a powerful class, with personal pecuniary interests opposed to those of the community as a whole, and Ministers have in many countries found it hard to resist their demands.

The tendencies here described may probably advance, for they are not revolutionary but the natural result of slowly developing economic and social conditions, and if the development of these continues, political institutions will change, if not in form, yet in substance. The larger the mass of citizens becomes, the more do they tend to look to the Executive, and especially to its head. They follow a man or a small group rather than legislators whom it is hard to make responsible, and this of itself tends to make legislative offices desired chiefly by those who seek in them an avenue to executive power. That the plan of entrusting law-making, or the ultimate decision of a contested issue, to the direct action of the community is attractive, is shown not only by its spread in America, but also by its adoption in some recent constitutions, as for instance in that of Germany. Bureaucracy is denounced, but it grows.

V. Another influence insensibly modifying popular government must not pass unnoticed, viz. the shifting of population from the country to the city, and especially to the great city, which grows the faster the larger it grows. Australia and Argentina are dominated by their capitals. New York, Chicago, and Philadelphia contained in 1920 10,145,000 persons, nearly one-tenth of the whole population of the United States, and there are now six other cities with populations exceeding one million. It is not merely the problem of maintaining order in such populations, and that of feeding them in case a railway strike cuts off supplies from the country, that raise disquiet, it is also the influence upon character and the habits of life in centres of excitement and amusement; and when we consider all that this means, democracy may be given some credit for having averted disorders which the aggregation of such vast masses of human beings might have been expected to involve, creating perils never experienced in earlier ages. Can such immunity be expected to continue?

So far of changes in or affecting the working of the constitutional machinery of democratic government. Two other new facts are the appearance of forces which, coming from without, threaten, one of them the disintegration of democracy, the other its destruction.

I have already observed that the immensely increased scale of industrial undertakings, coupled with the desire of those employed therein to secure higher wages and better conditions of life as well as of labour, have led the workers in the more important of these industries to organize themselves in Unions, sometimes including an immense number of persons. Such Unions are in certain countries further associated for joint action in a general League, such as are the Confédération Général du Travail in France, the Labour Leagues in Australia, the American Federation of Labour in the United States, and the group formed in Great Britain by three enormous Unions (miners, railwaymen, and transport workers) called the Triple Alliance. These bodies, democracies within the national democracy, as in the Middle Ages the hierarchy was within the Civil State an Ecclesiastical State armed with tremendous spiritual authority, possess a double power, that of their votes as citizens and that of bringing industry and commerce to a standstill by ceasing to work. Such an exercise of the right of each individual to give or withhold his labour creates a difficult situation, for if the Government happens to be the employer there is no independent authority to arbitrate between it and the strikers, and if the employers are private persons the cessation from work may affect so seriously the welfare of the nation that the matter becomes a political one with which the Administration must deal. But how? It is a passive insurrection, harder to meet than is a rising in the army, and an insurrection directed against all the rest of the community which cannot meet it by physical force. This is a disintegration of democracy, for matters of the first importance to the whole community are discussed and decided by each of these bodies, or by their League, among themselves, while the rest of the population, which has no share in the decision, is faced by a threat operating in effect as a command.

The other new factor is the emergence of a doctrine primarily economic but in its consequences political, and embodying itself in the project of eliminating those sections of the community which either possess wealth or are earning it otherwise than by manual labour, so as to create and thenceforth maintain a uniformity of material conditions, perhaps along with the prohibition of private property.1 This idea is the child, a child whose birth was to be expected, of the passion for Equality and of the feeling of injustice which resents the absorption by others than the hand-worker of a disproportionate part of what his labour produces. In order to secure both Equality and the whole of this product, it becomes necessary to get rid of those who are deemed to have unjustly captured it; and this can be done only by giving to the community all the means of production and distribution, and securing to all an equal share in the products. Since the possessors of wealth cannot be expected to dispossess themselves, force is necessary, i.e. a Revolution to be carried through by the hand-workers or so-called “proletariate.” 2 The absolute power they must seize for this purpose is the “Dictatorship of the Proletariate,” which, inasmuch as revolution cannot be carried to success except by a few commanding spirits, means a supreme control, exerted not by a multitude of hand-workers but by an educated oligarchy of their leaders, necessarily small and invested with a wide discretion; for the larger the enterprise the more essential is a concentration of executive power. What form this dictatorship will take when, ceasing to be militant, it has been permanently established is a further question, on which some light is thrown by the creation in Russia of what is called the Republic of the Soviets, elective councils of workers and peasants from which all but proletarians are excluded.1 Democracy and the peaceful settlement of all issues by constitutional methods disappear, superseded by Revolution and Oligarchy. Writers of this school denounce the existing democracies, and especially their legislatures, as “bourgeois,” and propose to destroy them.

These two developments of the class spirit, one of which expresses itself in the proclamation of a Class War, have startled the wealthier and middle sections of the most advanced, and especially of the English-speaking nations. They did not understand why class sentiment should become so suddenly bitter, nor why, where constitutional means for redressing grievances exist, that sentiment should take a form which threatens the welfare of the whole people. Yet a little reflection suffices to show that the phenomena are not unprecedented. The resentment of the wage-earners at the appropriation by employers of what seems an inordinately large part of the product of labour, and the vehemence of this resentment against the present generation of the wealthier class, which has shown far more sympathy with the aspirations of the worker than the two preceding generations had done, is an instance to verify the old saying, “The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge.” Injustice always brings punishment in its train, but the spirit of revenge often grows with time, and is stronger in the descendants of those who have suffered than it was in the sufferers themselves; while the penalties fall not on those who did the wrong, but on their more innocent successors who are trying to atone for the past. The wretchedness of the toiling masses in some industrial countries from 1780 till far down in the nineteenth century left a legacy of bitterness which became actively conscious in their grandchildren, even as the oppressions borne by the peasantry and workers of France before 1780 gave birth to the passions that found vent in the ferocities of 1792.

Men are shocked to-day at the selfishness that threatens to paralyze all the industries of a country, and bring famine into the homes of the poor by a strike on railroads or in coal mines. But is not this only an extreme instance of the selfishness which springs up in every class accustomed to think first and think always of its own special interests? The feudal nobles of the Middle Ages oppressed the peasantry all over Europe. The manufacturing employers in some industrial countries recked little of the sufferings of their work-people down to our own time. The European conquerors and settlers among uncivilized races have from the time of the Spanish Conquistadores in America ruthlessly exploited the labour of those races and robbed them of their lands, so that even to-day it is hard to secure protection for African natives from the intruding whites. In all these cases there were among the oppressors many men kindly and reasonable in the other relations of life, but constant association with their own class and the sense of personal interest benumbed their natural human sympathy and made them forget that property and power have their duties as well as their rights. Public opinion restrains the selfishness of an individual, but the public opinion of a class possessed by the sense of a common interest confirms the individual in his selfishness and blinds him to his own injustice. Those who preach the Class War are in this respect, except indeed as regards the ferocity of the means they employ, in some countries, no worse than the leaders of other selfish classes have been before, as they are also certainly no better. Nevertheless, the doctrine of the Class War, which is to extinguish classes once for all, and the weapon of the General Strike, sound a new note of menace to the progress of mankind. They are not the result of Democracy. It has, indeed, failed to prevent them, but it has not induced them, for they have arisen not in any sense from its principles, but out of historical and economic causes, which would have been invoked more powerfully to produce discontent and insurrection under an autocratic or oligarchic Government, unless such a Government had possessed a military force strong enough to hold down a vast population. They are in reality an attack on Democracy, the heaviest blow ever directed against it, for they destroy the sense that a people is one moral and spiritual whole, bound together by spiritual ties, and their instrument is Revolution. The sort of revolution contemplated will not be a matter of this year or the next; it opens up a long vista of struggle by armed force, which would subject democratic governments to a strain heavier than they have ever yet had to bear. Strange and unexpected evolution! Democracy overthrows the despotism of the one man or the few who ruled by force, in order to transfer power to the People who are to rule by reason and the sense of their common interest in one another's welfare: and after two or three generations there arises from the bosom of the democracy an effort to overthrow it in turn by violence because it has failed to confer the expected benefits. The wheel has gone its full round; and the physical Force which was needed to establish democracy is now employed to destroy it.

NOTE

The accounts that have reached England of the structure of the Soviet Government do not altogether agree, and that structure itself does not seem to be uniform over all Russia. The main lines, however, upon which it is constituted would appear to be as follows. The basis of the organization is a primary assembly or Soviet of all the workers in a particular factory and of the cultivators in a particular village, representatives going from these primary meetings to higher Soviets. The scheme is described in a statement purporting to come from Mr. Zinoviev, and prepared on behalf of the Third International, and embodied in a document issued in January 1920. I quote from it as printed in the book of Mr. R. W. Postgate, entitled The Bolshevik Theory (Appendix IV.): “The city workers' Soviet consists of one delegate from each factory and more in proportion to the number of workers therein, together with delegates from each local union.

“For the peasants each village has its local Soviet which sends delegates to the Township Soviet, which in turn elects to the County Soviet, and this to the Provincial Soviet.

“Every six months the city and provincial Soviets send delegates to the All Russia Congress of Soviets, which is the supreme governing body of the country, and decides upon the policies which are to govern the country for the next six months. This Congress elects a Central Executive Committee of two hundred which is to carry out these policies, and also elects a Cabinet (the Council of Peoples' Commissars) who are the heads of Government Departments. These Commissars can be recalled at any time by the Central Executive Committee, as the members of all Soviets can also be very easily recalled by their constituents at any time.

“These Soviets are not only Legislative bodies but also Executive organs. In the intervals between the meetings of the All Russia Congresses of Soviets the Central Executive Committee is the supreme power. It meets at least every two months, and in the meantime the Council of Peoples' Commissars directs the country. … The workers are organized in industrial Unions; each factory is a local Union, and the Shop Committee elected by the workers is its Executive Committee. The All Russia Central Executive Committee of the federated Unions is elected by the Annual Trade Union Convention; a Scale Committee elected by it fixes the wages of all categories of workers. … The Unions are a branch of the Government, and this Government is the most highly centralized government that exists. It is also the most democratic government in history, for all the organs of Government are in constant touch with the worker masses, and constantly sensitive to their will. Moreover, the Local Soviets all over Russia have complete autonomy to manage their own local affairs, provided they carry out the national policies laid down by the Soviet Congress. Also the Soviet Government represents only the workers and cannot help but act in the workers' interests.”

It will be noted that whereas the City Soviets send their delegates directly to the All Russia Congress — there are few populous cities in Russia — the Peasants' or Village Soviets send their delegates to the Township Soviet, and it to the County Soviet, and it to the Provincial Soviet, which alone sends its delegates direct to the Congress. (The soldiers are also allowed to have delegates from their Soviets which seem to be military units resembling the old time regiments.) Moreover, the representation of the peasants is so arranged as to be much smaller in proportion to numbers than that of the city workers, the system having been framed upon the lines of manufacturing and not of agricultural industry, and the Provincial Congress containing delegates from the Town as well as the Village Soviets, so that the workers have a double representation. So far as appears, representation is not even in Workers' Soviets proportioned to the size of each Soviet, or in other words, it is not provided that constituencies should be approximately equal in numbers. It ought to be added that a well-informed authority, who obtained first-hand information from Communist leaders in Russia, states that the whole of this “constitutional machinery” is practically controlled by the separate organization of that comparatively small body, the Communist party (Dr. Haden Guest in the London Times, Sept. 1920).

This scheme of Government by a series of local bodies, primary assemblies both administrative and elective, sending delegates to bodies for larger areas, and these again to bodies for still larger areas up to the Supreme Congress for the whole country which appoints and supervises the small Supreme Administrative Council, is ingenious and interesting as a novel form of constitution. It is not necessarily connected with “Bolshevism” or any form of Communism, and deserves to be studied, apart from any doctrines, on its own merits. Nor need it necessarily be based on work in factories, for, so far as regards the agricultural population, it is apparently as much local as vocational. Professing to be, and being indeed on paper eminently democratic, it seems eminently likely to be worked as an oligarchy, for it gives every opportunity for intriguers to secure majorities in each of the bodies and control the whole power of what is really — though the name is repudiated — the old “State” in a slightly altered dress. If, however, we imagine such a constitution honestly worked, in an intelligent and educated people, by men desiring only the common weal, it would have two merits, the one that of helping the best talent of the nation to rise to the top, the other that of enabling the opinion of the whole nation to be promptly ascertained without the cost and delay of a General Referendum, for the same issue could be simultaneously propounded to all the local Soviets, and their answers forthwith transmitted to headquarters. It is a pity that the experiment of working this constitution did not have a fair trial, but it is admitted on all hands that the elections of delegates were practically farcical, being so managed by those in actual control as to secure the delegates they approved, and thereby make the composition of the Congress and Central Executive Committee just what they desired. This was of course to be expected, for revolutionaries rarely permit themselves to be stopped by scruples. If they do, they perish like the Girondins in 1793. Those to whom their aim is supremely sacred have in ecclesiastical as well as civil strife usually justified the means, whatever they may be, that promise to attain it.

CHAPTER LXXIX

democracy and the communist state

The age in which we live has seen a phenomenon without precedent in world history. The old relation of the richer and the poorer classes has been reversed. Heretofore, with a few transient exceptions in some small republics, the richer class have ruled, usually legally, always practically. Now, however, with the establishment of universal suffrage over nearly the whole civilized world, legal power has completely passed to the poorer strata of society, for, being everywhere the majority, they have the whole machinery of government at their disposal. Of the old problems, “Who shall share in power?” and “Under what constitutional forms shall power be exercised?” the former has been settled by giving equal voting power to all, and the latter has fallen into the background because it is now everywhere assumed that the best forms are those which secure to the multitude the most complete and direct control of legislation and administration. The new and live question which fills men's thoughts is, In what ways will the masses use the power they have obtained to improve their material condition? Already the range of governmental action intended to benefit them and to bring economic equality nearer by laying constantly increasing burdens on the rich has been extended. Many schemes are in the air for extending that action still more widely. Such schemes agree in proposing to assign many kinds of functions to public administrators which have hitherto been left to private enterprise, and for some at least of which the existing machinery of free governments seems unfitted. Even the present structure of government, the present organization of departments, the present methods of legislation may prove inadequate.

The most extreme form of these efforts to secure what is called Social Justice by a more equal distribution of worldly goods takes the form of what is sometimes called Communism or Collectivism, a vague term, as the term Socialism is also vague, for both are taken in different senses by different writers and party groups advocating all sorts of theories or schemes. Communism I understand as that type of scheme (whatever its details) which proposes to extinguish (or greatly restrict) private property, and to supersede the free action of individuals in commerce and productive industry by the action of the State. Some plans go much farther than others, and contemplate more drastic methods; some would change existing conditions gradually and by peaceful methods, others suddenly and completely by revolution. These distinctions need not here and now concern us. To state and discuss them would be an endless task; it is sufficient for my present purpose to enquire what effect the application to a democratic government of Communistic principles will have upon the working of such a government.

It seems to have been generally assumed that existing constitutions and methods might continue, for few proposals for any great changes in them were propounded or discussed until the Soviets were set up in Russia in 1917. Still it is worth while to enquire how far such democracies as we see in France, Australia, Britain, and the United States, created for functions much more restricted than those which Communism would assign to them, will prove qualified to discharge these new functions. To put it shortly, What will Democracy be in a Communist State? Need such a Communist State, once established, be a Republic? Might it not have at its head a monarch, or an oligarchy of highly trained officials, who could be trusted to administer its affairs, the permanence of the Communist arrangements being guaranteed by the will of the mass of the people, since they would of course approve and maintain a system which was conferring on them the long-expected benefits? Theoretically such an oligarchy, steadier than a democracy, but controlled by a watchful public opinion, is possible, and might do its work efficiently. Practically, however, we may safely assume that a government created by the masses and maintained to secure their interests and protect them against a return of Capitalism or any other kind of exploitation would, whatever it became when it got to work, be proposed and created under forms purporting to place it under popular control, i.e. to base it on universal suffrage, whether acting in a large area through a representative assembly or in a small area or areas by direct popular voting. Universal satisfaction will, it is presumed, make force needless for its support.

What sort of a Government, then, will a Communist State have, and in what respects will it differ in scope and nature from such democracies as the world has hitherto known? For the sake of clearness and simplicity let us regard it in its full development as a State in which private property has disappeared, every man working for the community only, while the community, allotting to him the particular work which he is to do, gives him in return a due provision of food, lodging, and clothing for the daily needs of himself and his family (if the Family is allowed to remain).1 To assume the extinction of private property is to go far. We need not argue whether the holding of property is a Natural Eight, as the Frenchmen of 1789 said, or Theft, as Proudhon said. Enough to note that not a few thinkers have advocated its extinction, and that in the only country in which these thinkers have gained control they propose to extinguish it, though at present they are only preparing for that step, and have not got so far as to persuade the peasants to relinquish their land. Some carry it less far, allowing the worker to retain for himself a certain amount of property wherewith to gratify his own tastes. Yet another school, that which is called Guild Socialism, proposes to assign all the greater industries not to the State, but to organized bodies of workers, each of which is to control the management and dispose of the products of its industry. For the purpose of our present enquiry, however, I must not attempt to examine either these differences or other schemes for turning the State to Communistic ends, or reconstructing it on a Communistic basis. Let us assume that in one full-blown form of reconstruction or another private property has disappeared. All are to work for the State, and the State is to provide for all. It thus becomes a sort of business corporation for the purposes of production and distribution, every citizen being a shareholder in this vast industrial company and receiving his dividend in the form either of money (if money remains) or of food and other necessaries or comforts of life.2

With the economic arguments advanced for and against the creation of such a State I have here nothing to do. Its advocates have the prima facie advantage of being able to denounce existing economic conditions to the top of their bent, for few defend those conditions, and the wish to better them receives much sympathy from all who feel that the good things of the world are and always have been unequally distributed, some getting more than they deserve (so far as any one can attempt to estimate deserts), others less, so that many readjustments are desirable, though, considering how much more the enjoyment of life is affected by such things as health, strength, and temper than it is by abundance of worldly goods, it will always be impossible to distribute happiness in any sort of equal measure. Assuming, however, that efforts must be made to reduce the inequalities due to Nature and Chance by creating the largest possible equality in material conditions, difficulties arise regarding the methods to be employed, and these lie as much in the spheres of ethics and psychology as in those of economic science. The critics of a Communistic system argue that it rests upon assumptions regarding the action of human motives and the possibility of raising the average moral level of human character which are discountenanced, or at least unverified, by experience. The Communist replies that under new conditions which will call out the best and reduce the worst impulses that level is sure to rise, and men will work as zealously for the Community as they have ever done for themselves.1 The critic rejoins that history records no such moral progress, steadily advancing during the last three thousand years, as to entitle us to expect that man will become more unselfish and altogether more virtuous.

When the critic further remarks that under Communism men will soon begin to regret the loss of free self-determination, and will rebel against the control of their acts and opinions by the power of the community exercised through officials presumably no better than themselves, the Communist answers that a new generation will quickly grow up which will not regret what it has never enjoyed, and will be so much more comfortable under the ordered paternalism into which it has been born than its ancestors were in their unchartered freedom, as to look back with pity and wonder on the Dark Ages of capitalist rule and selfish competition.

These questions belong to the study of Man as a social being, and the one test which can be profitably applied to all the schemes referred to is their conformity to the tendencies of Human Nature, for to political science, so far as it can be deemed a science, may be applied the maxim which Bacon applied to the physical sciences: Natura non nisi parendo vincitur. There is promise of good in any system which recognizes and turns to account the better tendencies in man and tries to repress the worse, and a prospect of failure for any system which ignores the latter. Some, we have reason to believe, are susceptible of improvement, but how far susceptible, no one can determine; and the maxim warns us that where any of them has the permanence and strength of that which we call a Law of Nature, it cannot be ignored. A Communist or an Anarchist who expects to reconstruct Society, each in his own way, must be an optimist, strung up to so high a tension as to believe that in the new world he seeks to create men will be renewed in the spirit of their minds and be themselves purer and nobler creatures. The fact that the conduct of such an one may lower instead of raising our hopes for human progress does not necessarily discredit his doctrines, nor do the violence and cruelty and perfidy which he or any other preacher of revolution may employ to reach his ends condemn those ends any more than the cruelties of the Inquisition condemn the religion in whose supposed interest they were perpetrated. Revolutionists intoxicated with their own aims recoil from no means needed to secure their ascendancy, because they have not learnt, in Cromwell's famous phrase, to believe it possible that they may be mistaken.

To see what kind of organization that huge Co-operative Company, the Communist State, will require, let us consider what functions its Government, once set a-going, will have to discharge. It will develop and manage all the natural sources of wealth, the land, the minerals, the water power. It will establish and direct all industries, works, electric power stations, factories, iron and chemical works, and so forth. It will administer all the means of communication by land, water, and air, including those with foreign countries. It will provide State physicians and hospitals, and will found and manage all educational institutions, from the elementary school up to the university, appointing and remunerating the teachers and directing the curricula. It will plan, execute, and maintain all public works, including dwellings for the citizens; will provide public amusements and means of enjoyment, including theatres, concerts, picture galleries and libraries; will undertake the dissemination of news, conducting and supervising newspapers and magazines, and printing books. Presumably — and the practice of the Russian Communists suggests this course, which indeed had the approval of Rousseau and of Bebel — it will exercise a censorship, at least to the extent of forbidding the publication of any literature impugning the system of government or tending to create discontent, and may therefore have to forbid religions likely to distract men from their allegiance to the State; while as the obligation to work is universal, priests will not be excused from discharging it. The State authorities will of course feed and clothe the citizen, possibly allowing him, or at least her, so much choice in the kind of garments to be worn as is compatible with the principle of equal treatment for all. They must also maintain public order by providing a police, for though theft will have disappeared with property (except as an offence against the State),1 offences against the person may continue, requiring the retention of penal laws and courts and prisons.

Whether an army and navy will be needed depends upon whether neighbouring or competing nations also have been converted to Communism. Such a conversion seems to be expected by Communistic thinkers generally, and is indeed almost essential to the success of the idea. If, however, there remain States which stand out, maintaining their old selfish and probably aggressive policies, this happy future cannot be expected, and defence will still have to be provided, with the incidental danger of creating military chiefs and an armed force dangerous to the system of government. Should Communism spread over the whole earth, not only will foreign policy be simplified, hut internal economic arrangements also will gain. No country can within itself have the means of providing for all its needs. Few European countries can do so even as regards food. The abolition of customs duties on imports, peace being assured and private property gone, would make life easier for every country by cheapening many articles.

Against the many new functions devolving on this gigantic bureaucracy which will have taken over all that was formerly done by individual action, there must be set some functions hitherto exercised by governments which it may drop. Little legislation will be called for. Property having gone, there will be no contracts, and consequently no courts to try civil suits and no lawyers to argue them, a loss to which many persons will reconcile themselves.1 No more family quarrels over wills, no calls by rate collectors to vex the householder! The house he inhabits will not be his own, but he will live rent and rate free, owing to the State nothing but his labour, which will, in the view of most Communists, be a light burden, cheerfully borne in an altruistic spirit.

In order to prepare the Communist State for these many tasks, its chiefs and guides must determine the principles on which work is to be allotted to each citizen, and what form his remuneration is to take. Equality and Justice are to rule. But how are Equality and Justice to be secured as between different classes of producers, hand-workers and brainworkers, the skilled and the unskilled, the strong and the weak, the industrious and the indolent? If the work assigned is more agreeable, shall it be remunerated on a lower scale? If it requires more skill, is the scale to be higher? or if the value of the work is to count, how is value to be estimated? A code of laws will be needed to settle these matters. Great will be the power of the officials who not only allot work but direct and superintend it, and select for the higher posts persons who have proved their superior fitness. Regulations must be enacted prescribing the modes of choosing officials, their terms of office, the method of superintending them, and the discipline to be applied to the workers of all grades, since not even the sanguine optimist can rely on the absence of “slackers.” But the most important matter of all will be to find means for securing the choice of the persons best fitted to manage the chief departments of the Company's work for the nation, and especially of the Board of Directors who provide for the proper correlation of these departments and select the departmental heads. Everything will depend upon the skill and judgment of this supreme Board of Control. Technical scientific knowledge would seem to be essential for its members as well as for heads of departments. Those who manage such vast branches of work as agriculture and mining, transportation and education, will be the real masters and mainstays of the nation, and it is for their capacity that they must be selected. Who is to judge capacity? If the Directing Board are to do so, they, as well as the managing heads, must possess not only the requisite mastery of applied science and administrative skill, but an unusual measure of discernment and honesty.

Similar questions arise with regard to the assignment of particular persons to particular kinds of work for which they seem to be, or represent themselves to be, specially qualified, intellectually or physically, for not every one who seeks the vocation of a cricketer or a metaphysician can expect his aspirations to be gratified; and such questions must arise also over promotions in the various branches of technical and administrative work. Efficiency can be secured only by promotion based upon merit. Excellence in the middle and lower grades of work can be judged only by those who in the higher grades know and can estimate the performances of their subordinates. As every one will be a worker, every citizen's career in life will depend upon the opinion formed of him by his superiors. In the civil services of Britain and Germany promotions have been generally made honestly, but in those countries the departments have been for many years kept apart from partisan, if not always from social influences. In a community where there is no property and all fare alike, no one will be able to obtain favour by giving good dinners, but can any barrier be erected capable of excluding feminine arts or the claims of relationship? How are officials to be prevented from putting their sons-in-law into “soft jobs,” probably by way of secret log-rolling with friends in other offices? The most solemnly respectable of Directors, the most capable head of a department, will want watching in the exercise of powers which determine the fortunes and may arouse the suspicions of those beneath them. One cannot help using the word “beneath.” It seems a relic of the old time when there were distinctions of rank. But although social rank will have vanished, there will still be, for there cannot but be, distinctions of official authority. There must always be some one to direct the work, others to perform it; and there must be, always and everywhere, some disciplinary enforcement of compliance, for if, in order to maintain equality, those elected to command are constantly changed, will not experience be lost and authority disappear? Nations which allow the soldiers to elect their officers find before long that the officers must be allowed to enforce stern discipline if the army is not to break down in face of the enemy. In a peaceful bureaucracy instant obedience is less supremely needed at a given moment, but obedience there must be, and unless human nature is quite transformed, it is unattainable without compulsion. Will not the Communist State have to choose between Efficiency and Equality?1

What, then, will be the relation of this kind of State to Democracy? In these new conditions, what will remain to those representative assemblies through which the people have declared their will? Although some extremist writers have denounced legislatures and democracy and the State itself as all “capitalistic,” the People can hardly mean, in becoming a body of workers officered by bureaucrats, to relinquish the sovereignty they exercise by universal suffrage.

Much of the work hitherto performed by representative assemblies will doubtless have disappeared, and the basis of representation may be no longer territorial, but perhaps vocational. On many subjects there will be little legislation, no taxation, since every one's contribution will be rendered in his labour, hardly any debates on foreign affairs (if Communism spreads over the world), nor any on military or naval affairs. Some administrative subjects will remain, on which the citizens may express their wishes to the reigning bureaucracy, such as the kind of drinks, alcoholic or not, to be supplied to the citizens, and the subjects to be taught in State schools. The questions now in controversy between the friends of the ancient classics and those of modern languages or physical science will probably have been ended by the extinction of the former subjects before Communism arrives, but conflicts between the advocates of cinemas, of the drama, and of concerts respectively, as pleasures to be provided for the people, may be more protracted; and if there is a surplus after providing for food, clothing, and housing, shall literature claim a share, the State, as being the only publisher, determining which poets shall be preferred? The main business will, however, be the supervision of the administrative departments, the examination of their accounts, reports on their work in production, a judgment of the wisdom of their policy in the appropriation of labour to competing demands for its application, and the way in which the powers of allotting work and bestowing promotions have been exercised. This last-mentioned topic will, if responsibility is to be enforced on the bureaucracy, be the most fertile field for criticism, for every member of the assembly as well as every one of his constituents will have a personal interest, all alike being servants of the country. Even if members of the legislature are exempted from any other work during their term of legislative service, it will be hard for them to criticize freely those who have been and may again be their official superiors. Will the same spirit of deference to authority come to pervade the soldiers of the Industrial Army as that which sapped the spirit of liberty in military Prussia?

What place will there be for political parties in the new Commonwealth, which will be not a State in the old sense, but a Co-operative Company for agricultural and manufacturing production and distribution, and on what issues will elections turn? If they be those of most consequence to every citizen, viz, the conditions of his own work and remuneration, are they to be settled by the people at elections or by their representatives in the legislature, or if the latter are to have the power of displacing officials whose exercise of their authority has displeased sections of the voters, who are, as workers, subject to that authority, how will discipline and the continuity of administrative policy be preserved?

Of the prizes offered in former days to ambition, only Power will remain, for wealth will be unattainable, while eminence in art and letters will depend upon the favour of official patrons who have been chosen for their scientific knowledge and executive capacity. Without their favour neither poet nor painter will be able to reach the people, for the press will of course be in the hands of the ruling officials, who will provide for the people the proper views as well as the proper news. Of Power there will apparently be one kind only, that attached to a high place in the official hierarchy, to be won, if the system is to work, not by rhetorical gifts or lavish promises to the masses, but by the talent of the administrator. Eloquence and the demagogic arts that have flourished under popular governments will be as much out of place in the bureaucracy as in a meeting of railway directors. The qualities by which a man will rise will be those which bring men to the top of the Treasury or Admiralty or Post Office in the permanent civil service of countries like France, Germany, or England; but the men may probably be still more remarkable, for the civil service, being the only career, will draw to itself, like a magnet, all the talent of the country. The legislative assembly will doubtless still offer an arena to debaters, but if it interferes with administration and pitchforks men into high posts because they are fluent in speech, the principles on which the system is based will be violated and efficiency must suffer.

These observations suggest that schemes of a Communistic nature contemplate a condition of political and economic life, the latter overshadowing the former, to which the familiar institutions of Democracy seem ill adapted. Democracy as it exists to-day and Communism as it is preached, agreeing with Democracy (as against some other forms of Socialistic doctrine) in regarding the nation as one homogeneous whole, differ in this, that Communism regards it as primarily an Economic whole existing for the purposes of production and distribution, while the apostles of Democracy regarded it as primarily a Moral and Intellectual whole, created for the sake of what the ancient philosophers called the Good Life. It was to be expected that the political institutions established with a view to the latter theory and aim should be ill suited to the former purposes.

How the present forms and mechanism of Democracy should be remodelled to do the work which Communist principles prescribe is a question to be answered by those who have formed for themselves a clear notion of what the Socialist or Communist State will be, a subject on which the different schools called Socialistic differ widely. I have here, for the sake of simplicity, taken for examination that particular form in which private property is not permitted, because it is well to see to what results a logical development of Equalitarian and Communistic principles will lead. Although some of the questions I have suggested as fit to be considered will not arise in States which allow property to survive, still in all communities where Government, or any authority created by the State, assumes the exclusive control of industry, problems of this kind cannot but emerge; and the nearer any form approaches to the extreme form here dealt with, the more need will there be for such a reshaping of existing institutions as will adapt them to the requirements of a State built on economic relations and making their adjustment on the principle of equality its primary aim.

CHAPTER LXXX

the future of democracy

A study of the various forms government has taken cannot but raise the question what ground there is for the assumption that democracy is its final form, an unwarranted assumption, for whatever else history teaches, it gives no ground for expecting finality in any human institution. All material things are in a perpetual flux. The most ancient heavens themselves, in which mankind has seen the changeless radiance of eternity, are subject to this law, moving towards some unknown destination, with new stars blazing forth from time to time only to vanish again into darkness; nor can we tell whether the substances which make up the Universe may not themselves be changing, so short has been the period during which we have observed them.

So, too, in human affairs the thing that hath been is not, and the thing that is can never return, because its having existed is a new fact added to the chain of causation; and therefore those Eastern cosmologies which tried to help men to conceive of infinity by imagining a succession of cycles endlessly repeating themselves, were obliged to make each cycle end with a destruction of all things in order that creation might start afresh, unaffected by what had gone before. That which the ancient poet said of the mind of man, that it changes with every returning sun,1 is true of nations also, whose thoughts and temper vary from year to year, and true also of the institutions men create, which are no sooner called into being than they disclose unexpected defects, and begin to decay in one part while still growing in another.

Within the century and a half of its existence in the modern world free government has passed through many phases, and seems now to stand like the traveller who on the verge of a great forest sees many paths diverging into its recesses and knows not whither one or other will lead him.

Whoever attempts to forecast the course systems of government will take must therefore begin from the two propositions that the only thing we know about the Future is that it will differ from the Past, and that the only data we have for conjecturing what the Future may possibly bring with it are drawn from observations of the Past, or, in other words, from that study of the tendencies of human nature which gives ground for expecting from men certain kinds of action in certain states of fact. We cannot refrain from conjecture. Yet to realize how vain conjectures are, let us imagine ourselves to be in the place of those who only three or four generations ago failed to forecast what the next following generation would see. Let us suppose Burke, Johnson, and Gibbon sitting together at a dinner of The Club in 1769, the year when Napoleon and Wellington were born, and the talk falling on the politics of the European Continent. Did they have any presage of the future? The causes whence the American Revolution and the French Revolution were to spring, and which would break the sleep of the peoples in Germany and Italy, might, one would think, have already been discerned by three such penetrating observers, but the only remarks most of us recall as made then and for some years afterwards to note symptoms of coming dangers were made by a French traveller, who said that the extinction of French power in Canada had weakened the tie between the American colonies and Great Britain, and by an English traveller who saw signs of rottenness in the French Monarchy. Men stood on the edge of stupendous changes, and had not a glimpse of even the outlines of those changes, not discerning the causes that were already in embryo beneath their feet, like seeds hidden under the snow of winter, which will shoot up under the April sunlight. How much more difficult has it now become to diagnose the symptoms of an age in which the interplay of economic forces, intellectual forces, moral and religious forces is more complex than ever heretofore, incomparably more complex than it had seemed to be before discovery had gone far in the spheres of chemistry, physics, and biology, before education had been diffused through all classes, before every part of the world had been drawn into relations with every other part so close that what affects one must affect the rest.

Nevertheless, since conjecture cannot be repressed, and the tendencies of human nature remain as a permanent factor, let us see whether men's behaviour in the past may not throw some glimmer of light upon the future. Frenchmen, Englishmen, and Americans find it so natural a thing that men should be interested in politics, that they assume men will always be so interested. But is it really true — so students of history will ask — that this interest can be counted on to last? For a thousand years, after the days of the last republicans of Rome, the most civilized peoples of Europe cared nothing for politics and left government in the hands of their kings or chiefs. Greek democracy had been destroyed by force more than a century earlier, and little regret was expressed at its extinction. The last blows struck for republican freedom in Rome were struck not by the people, but by a knot of oligarchs, most of whom had their personal reasons for slaying the great Dictator. No one thought of trying to revive free self-government in Italy or Greece or around the coasts of the Aegean, where hundreds of republics had bloomed and died. When the Italian cities shook off the yoke of local lords or bishops in the eleventh and twelfth centuries nearly all of these new republics passed before long under the sway of new despots, and few were the attempts made to recover freedom. The ancient doctrine that power issues from the people came to light when the study of the Roman Law was resumed, but nobody tried to apply it, not even under such teaching as came from Marsilius of Padua,1 when he used the tenet as a weapon in the great conflict between the Emperor and the Pope. Cities and nations seemed to reck little of their rights: a tyrant might now and then be overthrown, but there was no reviviscence of the love of liberty. Since the days of Augustus the lives of the mass of mankind had been filled by labour in field or mine or workshop; the pleasures and the interests they had in common were given to War, and still more to Religion, which like a stream, sometimes full and strong, sometimes half lost in the swamps of superstitition, bore down the relics of the old civilization. Without the stimulus which the ecclesiastica struggles of the sixteenth century gave to the sense of individual independence in the northern half of Europe, this stagnation of political life might have lasted longer than in fact it did. If it be said that the conditions of the Roman Empire and the Dark Ages can never recur, now that the sense of civic right has spread widely, now when political equality is guaranteed by the passion for social and economic equality, the answer is that although those particular conditions will indeed not recur, we can well imagine other conditions which might have a like effect. The thing did happen: and whatever has happened may happen again. Peoples that had known and prized political freedom resigned it, did not much regret it, and forgot it.

Can we, looking back over the nineteenth century, think of any causes or conditions that might once again bring about this indifference? We must not forget that the sense of civic right and passion for equality just referred to are nowhere felt by all the people, in many countries not even by a majority, in some only by a small minority. Is it possible that a nation, tired of politics and politicians, may be glad to be saved the trouble of voting? In France the peasantry and the educated bourgeoisie acquiesced in the despotism of Louis Napoleon, pleased to have the promise of a quiet life, as at Rome not only the multitude but the bulk of those who cultivated literature and philosophy had welcomed the rule of Augustus. In Prussia, after the military triumphs of 1866 and 1870 had made monarchy popular, the middle and professional classes allowed themselves to be militarized and monarchized in spirit, preferring commercial prosperity, efficient administration, and the growth of the nation's power to a continuance of the efforts their fathers had made against Bismarck's rule when taxes were levied without the consent of the Landtag and constitutional reforms were refused. So the forward movement passed into the hands of others who, desiring economic levelling rather than political liberty, sought the latter chiefly for the sake of the former, while the Freisinnige Partei, which represented the traditions of 1848–9, withered away, losing support in every class.

In Spain a republic, hastily set up in 1873, gained so little support that it was quickly followed by a restoration of the old monarchy; and when in 1890 universal suffrage was established the gift excited little interest and has made little practical difference to policies or to administration, though in a few of the Eastern seaports Socialist and Anarchist groups are occasionally enabled by it to return a few members of extreme opinions. Elsewhere constituencies are controlled and elections manipulated by local Bosses (commonly called Caciques1 ), whose rule, a source of profit to themselves, is acquiesced in by the bulk of the citizens. There could hardly be a more instructive refutation of the notion that a taste for the exercise of political rights is a natural characteristic of civilized man than this indifference to politics of an ancient nation which has produced wonderful explorers, conquerors, and statesmen, and made splendid contributions to literature, learning, and art.

In some countries we see to-day the richer class refusing to enter the legislatures, and voting only because they fear for their wealth, while in many the centre of gravity in political thought as well as in action has shifted from methods of government and legal reforms to economic issues. These last-named issues have, as already observed, come so to dominate the minds of large sections of certain peoples as to make them willing to sacrifice liberty itself, or at least the institutions which have hitherto safeguarded liberty, for the sake of that fundamental reconstruction of society which they desire. The revolution that is to effect this purpose is represented as a transient flood, needed to sweep away the barriers Capitalism has set up. But is the stream likely to return to its ancient channel? Will the forcible methods revolution uses be renounced?

Among the questions which men now ask about the Future none is more momentous than this: Will it be, as heretofore, a future of War, or — even if only in the middle distance — a future of Peace? If wars continue, the smaller free States may conceivably be vanquished and annexed or incorporated by their stronger neighbours. This was how the republics of ancient Greece and Italy perished; thus was freedom extinguished in Athens and Achaia; thus did the republic of Florence fall in the sixteenth century. In conquering Home herself it was the vast extension of her dominions that made monarchy inevitable.

One road only has in the Past led into democracy, viz. the wish to be rid of tangible evils, but the roads that have led or may lead out of democracy are many. Some few of them may be mentioned.

If wars continue, the direction of Foreign Policy, a function which was of supreme importance in the city republics of the ancient and mediaeval world, may again become so, especially among those small new States of Europe and Western Asia which have territorial or commercial disputes with their neighbours. Till the relations of European peoples with one another become more stable than they are to-day, the spirit of nationality, accentuated as we see it by rivalry and hatred, a spirit which breeds discontent in some countries and in others prompts aggression against rival States, may keep alert and acute the desire of these peoples to share in the conduct of their governments. But it is also possible that the lust of conquest or the need for defence may lead to a concentration of power in the Executive dangerous to the people, inducing them to sacrifice some of their liberty to preserve national independence or to secure military ascendancy. Such things have happened.

He who has acquired ascendancy by brilliant success against the enemy and has thereby fascinated the people might, in some countries, establish his power. Even our own time saw a mediocre adventurer, pushed forward by a faction possessing wealth and social influence, who proved able, since believed to have the army behind him, to threaten the liberties of France; and this although he had no victories standing to his credit.

Dangers may also arise from civil strife, when it reaches a point at which one party becomes willing to resign most of the people's rights for the sake of holding down the other faction. This often happened in the ancient and mediaeval republics, and might happen in any country distracted by racial or religious hatreds, or perhaps even by the sort of class war which was carried on in 1919 in Hungary. There are European countries to-day in which it is, if not probable, yet certainly not impossible.

Thirdly, the less educated part of a nation might become indifferent to politics, the most educated class throwing their minds into other things, such as poetry or art, to them more interesting than politics, and gradually leaving the conduct of State affairs to an intelligent bureaucracy capable of giving business men the sort of administration and legislation they desire, and keeping the multitude in good humour by providing comforts and amusements.1 The heads of such a bureaucracy would, if wise, do little to alter the constitution, content to exercise the reality of power under the old familiar forms. Such a change would scarcely happen so long as there were questions rousing class bitterness or involving the material well being of the masses; we must suppose a time in which controversies have ceased to be acute, and such a time seems distant. Free government is not likely to be suppressed in any country by a national army wielded by an ambitious chief. If any people loses its free self-government this will more probably happen with its own acquiescence. But oligarchy springs up everywhere as by a law of nature: and so many strange things have happened in our time that nothing can be pronounced impossible. Few are the free countries in which freedom seems safe for a century or two ahead.

Democracy has become, all over Europe and to some extent even in North America also, desired merely as a Means, not as an End, precious in itself because it was the embodiment of Liberty. It is now valued not for what it is, but for what it may be used to win for the masses. When the exercise of their civic rights has brought them that which they desire, and when they feel sure that what they have won will remain with them, may they not cease to care for the further use of those rights? The politicians, who in some countries have been more and more becoming a professional class, might continue to work the party machinery; but that will avail little if the nation turns its mind to other things. If the spiritual oxygen which has kept alive the attachment to Liberty and self-government in the minds of the people becomes exhausted, will not the flame burn low and perhaps flicker out? The older school of Liberals dwelt on the educative worth of self-government which Mazzini represented in its idealistic and Mill in its utilitarian aspects; but who would keep up the paraphernalia of public meetings and of elections and legislative debates merely for the sake of this by-product? Much will depend on what the issues of the near future are likely to be. If that which the masses really desire should turn out to be the extinction of private property or some sort of communistic system, and if in some countries such a system should ever be established, the whole character of government would be changed, and that which is now called Democracy would (as indicated in a previous chapter) become a different thing altogether, perhaps an industrial bureaucratic oligarchy. Even if some less far-reaching scheme of Economic Equality than that now presented to the wage-earners as the goal of their efforts be attained, or enter a period of experiment which would end in proving it to be unattainable, popular government cannot fail to be profoundly modified.

A wider, indeed an illimitable field of speculation is opened when we think of the possibilities of changes in the interests, tastes, and beliefs of the different families of mankind. In Human Nature there are, to borrow a term from mathematics, certain “Constants” — impulses always operative — ambition and indolence, jealousy and loyalty, selfishness and sympathy, love and hatred, gratitude and revenge. But the ideas, fancies, and habits of men change like their tastes in poetry and art, New forms of pleasure are invented: the old lose their relish: the moral as well as the intellectual values shift and vary. The balance between the idealistic and the realistic or material view of life is always oscillating. Humility, once revered in Christian and Buddhist countries, has been described in our time as a Dead Virtue. Even nations in which public life has been most active may relegate a political career to a place as low as soldiering has held in China and trading in Japan. The masses may let the reins slip from their hands into those of an oligarchy, so long as they do not fear for themselves either oppression, or social disparagement, or the loss of any material benefits they have been wont to enjoy. They may trust to the power of public opinion to deter a ruling group from any course which would displease the bulk of the nation, for the power of public opinion will survive political mutations so long as an intolerant majority does not impose its orthodoxy to fetter the play of thought. Such phases in the never-ceasing process of evolutionary change might well be transient, for oligarchies are naturally drawn to selfish ways, and selfishness usually passes into injustice, and injustice breeds discontent, and discontent ends in the overthrow of those who have abused their power, and so the World-spirit that plies at the roaring loom of Time discards one pattern and weaves another to be in turn discarded.

That physiological factor which we call Heredity must not be overlooked. In the most civilized peoples there is an evident tendency for those family stocks which are wealthy or of exceptional intellectual quality to die out, so that the perpetuation of the human species is left to be maintained by sections of the population in which self-restraint and the mental faculties are less fully developed. This phenomenon becomes more significant when we remember that sooner or later, though of course in a still distant future, the races of mankind will in some regions be inevitably so commingled as to efface many of the distinctions which now separate them. About the effect of such a fusion upon human character and the institutions which are the outgrowth of character plus experience, we cannot guess. Since some among the Backward races are both more numerous and more prolific than the Whites, the prospect thus opened may seem discouraging. Yet not all of these races are intellectually inferior to the European races, and may even have a freshness and vitality capable of renewing the energies of more advanced races whom luxury has enervated. In regions where fusion has come to pass, the “composite man” of the remote future may prove to be as well fitted for self-government as the more advanced races are to-day. But fusion, with the assimilation of language, ideas, and habits, though it may extinguish race-enmities, need not make for peace either in nations or between nations.

Whatever happens, such an institution as Popular Government will evidently take its colour from and will flourish or decline according to the moral and intellectual progress of mankind as a whole. Democracy is based on the expectation of certain virtues in the people, and on its tendency to foster and further develop those virtues. It assumes not merely intelligence, but an intelligence elevated by honour, purified by sympathy, stimulated by a sense of duty to the community. It relies on the people to discern these qualities and choose its leaders by them. Given the kind of communal spirit which Rousseau expected, given the kind of fraternally religious spirit which Mazzini and the enthusiasts of his time expected, self-government, having the moral forces behind it, would be a comparatively simple matter, living on by its unquestioned merits. With intelligence, sympathy, and the sense of duty everything would go smoothly; and a system which trained the citizen in these virtues would endure, because each successive generation would grow up in the practice of them. Thus the question of the permanence of democracy resolves itself into the question of whether mankind is growing in wisdom and virtue, and with that comes the question of what Religion will be in the future, since it has been for the finer and more sensitive spirits the motive power behind Morality. Governments that have ruled by Force and Fear have been able to live without moral sanctions, or to make their subjects believe that those sanctions consecrated them, but no free government has ever yet so lived and thriven, for it is by a reverence for the Powers Unseen and Eternal which impose those sanctions, that the powers of evil have been, however imperfectly, kept at bay and the fabric of society held together. The future of democracy is therefore a part of two larger branches of enquiry, the future of religion and the prospects of human progress.

The question, whether men will rise towards the higher standard which the prophets of democracy deemed possible, has been exercising every thoughtful mind since August 1914, and it will be answered less hopefully now than it would have been at any time in the hundred years preceding. That many millions of men should perish in a strife which brought disasters to the victors only less than those it brought to the vanquished is an event without parallel in the annals of the race. There has probably been since the fifth century no moment in history which has struck mankind with such terror and dismay as have the world-wide disasters which began in 1914, and have not yet passed away. The explanations of the facts are no more cheering than the facts themselves. Human passions have been little softened and refined by the veneer of civilization that covers them: human intelligence has not increased, and shows no sign of increasing, in proportion to the growing magnitude and complexity of human affairs. Knowledge has been accumulated, the methods and instruments of research have been improved, a wonderful mastery over the forces of Nature has been obtained, the world has become a more comfortable place to live in and offers a far greater variety of pleasures; but the mental powers of the individual man have remained stationary, no stronger, no wider in their range, than they were thousands of years ago, and the supremely great who are fit to grapple with the vast problems which the growth of population and the advances of science have created come no more frequently, and may fail to appear just when they are most needed.

This much, however, may be said regarding the question which directly concerns us here. It is not on democracy that the blame for these disasters ought to fall, nor have they darkened its prospect for the future, except in so far as they have disclosed faults in human nature, obstacles to human brotherhood, whose magnitude had not been realized. The seismic centre whence the successive earthquake shocks proceeded did not lie in any democratic country. The catastrophe was so tremendous, because due to the concurrent action of three explosive forces never before conjoined at the same moment—overweening military ambition, the passion of nationality and an outbreak of vengeful fanaticism from small but fiery sections of the industrial population. Such a conjunction of volcanic activities may not recur for ages.

Shaken out of that confident faith in progress which the achievements of scientific discovery had been fostering, mankind must resume its efforts towards improvement in a chastened mood, consoled by the reflection that it has taken only a few thousands of years to emerge from savagery, and less than half that time to rise above the shameless sensualities of the ancient world and the ruthless ferocity of the Dark Ages.

As respects progress in the science and art of free government, experience has established certain principles that were unknown to those who lived under despotisms, and has warned us of certain dangers unforeseen by those who first set up free governments; but when it comes to the application of these principles, and the means of escaping these dangers, the faults that belonged to human nature under previous forms of government have reappeared. Some gains there have been, but they have lain more in the way of destroying what was evil than in the creating of what is good: and the belief that the larger the number of those who share in governing the more will there be of wisdom, of self-control, of a fraternal and peace-loving spirit has been rudely shattered. Yet the rule of Many is safer than the rule of One,—as Cavour said that however faulty a legislative chamber may be an ante-chamber is worse—and the rule of the multitude is gentler than the rule of a class. However grave the indictment that may be brought against democracy, its friends can answer, “What better alternative do you offer?”

Encouragement may be found in the reflection that such moral progress as history records has been made chiefly in the way of raising the sentiments and standards of the average man. Whereas in the realms of abstract thought and in those of science and of art it is to the great intellects that the world looks, popular government lives and prospers more by the self-restraint and good sense and good will of the bulk of the nation than by the creative power of great intellects; and whoever looks back three or six or nine centuries cannot doubt that in the civilized communities as a whole men's habits and moral standards have risen. Outbursts of crime and sin recur from time to time, but they come less frequently and are visited with a sterner condemnation. That the knightly virtues of courage and honour have suffered no decline is evident. The spirit of the citizen soldiers who in 1914 came willingly to give their lives for a cause in which the fortunes of mankind as well as of their own countries seemed to be at stake shone forth with a light brighter than in any former war. In this some consolation for many sorrows may be found.

No government demands so much from the citizen as Democracy, and none gives so much back. Any free people that has responded to the call of duty and come out of a terrible ordeal unshaken in courage, undimmed in vision, with its vital force still fresh and strong, need not fear to face the future.

The statesmen and philosophers of antiquity did not dream of a government in which all men of every grade should bear a part: democracy was for them a superstructure erected upon a substructure of slavery. Modern reformers, bolder and more sanguine, called the multitude to power with the hope and in the faith that the gift of freedom and responsibility would kindle the spirit self-government requires. For them, as for Christian theologians, Hope was one of the Cardinal Virtues.

Less has been achieved than they expected, but nothing has happened to destroy the belief that among the citizens of free countries the sense of duty and the love of peace will grow steadily stronger. The experiment has not failed, for the world is after all a better place than it was under other kinds of government, and the faith that it may be made better still survives. Without Faith nothing is accomplished, and Hope is the mainspring of Faith. Throughout the course of history every winter of despondency has been followed by a joyous springtime of hope.

Hope, often disappointed but always renewed, is the anchor by which the ship that carries democracy and its fortunes will have to ride out this latest storm as it has ridden out many storms before. There is an Eastern story of a king with an uncertain temper who desired his astrologer to discover from the stars when his death would come. The astrologer, having cast the horoscope, replied that he could not find the date, but had ascertained only this that the king's death would follow immediately on his own. So may it be said that Democracy will never perish till after Hope has expired.

[1]Matthew Arnold.

[1]This point has been examined in the chapters on France, the United States, Canada, and Australia.

[1]Where, however, the undertaking extends over a wide area and has a national importance, national subventions may be unavoidable.

[1]Some remarks of the Lord Chancellor in the House of Lords, in March 1919, during a debate on Devolution, contain an instructive account of the methods practised in the House of Commons.

[1]In Britain proposals have been made for a scheme of federalization or devolution creating local assemblies to relieve Parliament.

[1]It is not yet possible to define the position in the Reichstag of 1920.

[1]In the United States, moreover, the elements of religious animosity are absent. See as to the causes which have prevented the new parties that have been launched in America from maintaining themselves against the old parties Chapters on the U.S.A. in Part II.

[2]See as to these phenomena in Australia Chapters on that country in Part II.

[1]Though in Tudor and early Stuart times the Crown, by giving the right of representation to many insignificant boroughs in which it could control the electors, tried to secure the presence of persons subservient to its will.

[1]In France, however, party discipline is rigid among the Socialists, who are the best organized party.

[1]It is particularly difficult in Australia for a Labour Government which is ruled by a caucus of representatives pledged to act together, and is largely controlled by an outside labour organization, to do all it might otherwise feel bound to do to prevent strikers from resorting to violence.

[1]Leniency to law-breakers is by no means confined to labour unions or radical democrats. It was observed in England on two recent occasions that the law-respecting spirit is only skin deep, once when during the South African war attacks by mobs upon the houses of persons believed to be opposed to that war were palliated by persons of high official standing, and again when between 1907 and 1912 the destruction of churches (including the exploding of a bomb in Westminster Abbey) and the setting fire to houses by militant suffragettes were defended or excused by many members of the “most respectable” classes.

[2]See Vol. II., Chap. XLIII. ante.

[1]No one can sit in a British Cabinet without being struck by the amount of time it spends in discussing parliamentary tactics, and especially how best to counter a hostile motion in the House of Commons. These things, small as they may seem, are urgent, for the life of the Cabinet may be involved, so the larger questions of legislation have to stand over, perhaps to be lost for the session.

[1]These phenomena may be studied in the history of British political parties in their dealings with Ireland, especially since the rise of the Irish Home Rule party in 1875–8.

[1]This chapter, composed before the Armistice of November 1918, has been left unmodified (save by the addition of the last sentence), because the time has not come either to draw a moral as to what is called “secret diplomacy” from the negotiations of 1919–20, or to comment freely in a treatise such as this on the recent action of Governments and peoples in their attempts to restore peace and order in the world; not to add that the extraordinary events of the four preceding years had so disturbed the balance and normal working of men's minds as to make it unsafe to treat many things that have happened as supplying a basis for general conclusions.

[1]Though secrecy in diplomacy is occasionally unavoidable, it has its perils. There was a case in our time in which a secret agreement was made which is now universally admitted to have been imprudent and has been condemned by its results, and which would not have been made had it been possible for public opinion to have been consulted and obtained regarding it. Publicity may cause some losses, but may avert some misfortunes.

[1]See above, Vol. I. Chap. XXIX., and cf. the book of M. Edouard Georg, Le Contrôle du Peuple sur la politique extérieure (Geneva, 1916). The question of Switzerland's entrance into the League of Nations was submitted to and affirmed by a popular vote in 1920.

[2]As happened during the European War of 1914–1918.

[1]See on this subject Mr. W. R. Thayer's Life of John Hay.

[1]See as to this Vol. I. pp. 89–91. The new constitution of Germany appears to leave to the Supreme Court the decision of legal questions arising between the Reich (the Federation) and the States within it, but not the decision of the question whether a law infringes the Constitution. The Constitution of Czecho-Slovakia provides (§ 102) that “judges in passing upon a legal question may examine the validity of an Ordinance; as to a Law they may enquire only whether it was duly promulgated.”

[2]See Vol. I. p. 305.

[1]The (recently enacted) Constitution of the Esthonian Republic vests the election of the State (Supreme) Court in the Assembly, and the appointment of lower judges in the State Court.

[1]See Vol. II. pp. 162–167, ante.

[1]See as to Athens, Vol. I. Chap. XVI., ante.

[1]Servare de coelo was the technical term.

[1]“The term veto” is not constitutionally correct as applied either to the Crown or the House of Lords. Both are technically parts of the same enacting authority, the “ Great Council of the Nation under the King in Parliament assembled.”

[1]See Vol. II. Chapters XLV. and LXV.

[1]Scotland had only one House in its Parliament before the Union, but a committee called the Lords of the Articles acted as a check on the whole body. See the work of Professors Dicey and Rait, Thoughts on the Union between England and Scotland, pp. 14 8qq.

[1]The Second Chambers in Canada, in Australia and its States, and in New Zealand have been described in the chapters relating to those countries. The British Second Chamber can now do no more than delay the passing of a bill (other than financial) till it has been passed in three successive sessions, and until a period of two years from its first passing in the House of Commons has elapsed. In financial bills it has no power at all.

[1]Boυλην δ∊ πρωτoν μ∊γαθυμων ιζ∊ γ∊ρoντων (Iliad ii. 53).

[2]De moribus Germanorum, chap. xi. “De maioribus rebus principes consultant: de minoribus omnes, ita tamen ut ea quoque quorum penes plebem arbitrium est apud principes praetractentur.” In the ancient world the functions of a “Second Chamber” seem to have generally been not to revise or further discuss the decisions of the popular Assembly, but to consider the topics that were to come before it, much as does a modern Cabinet. See as to the Athenian Council Vol. I. Chap. XVI.

[1]As usually happens, these dilemmas owe their point to the omission of other possibilities. A Second Chamber may do work involving neither agreement nor disagreement with the Other House, and it may, where it agrees in aims, suggest other and better means of attaining them. The Khalif's remark would begin to have force only if the Koran were an encyclopaedia containing all a Muslim needs to know. Probably he thought it was.

[2]Esthonia has, however, provided a check on its legislature by the adoption of the Referendum. I have been unable to ascertain how matters stand in Poland and Lithuania, and in the Georgian and Armenian Republics and that of Azerbaijan.

[1]The Dominion of Canada, a Federal State, has a Senate filled by the nominees of the Dominion Government, selected in certain proportions from the nine Provinces which make up the Federation and in so far representing those component communities, though not chosen by them Only two of the Provinces (Quebec and Nova Scotia) have a Second Chamber, and members of these are nominated for life by the Provincial Ministries.

[2]See Vol. II. p. 192, ante.

[1]It is really a sort of Committee of the Stor Thing or popular assembly.

[1]The Senate could pass resolutions of an executive character, which the Consuls were, in practice, obliged to regard as authoritative, but was not entitled to enact laws until custom invested it with that right when free government was expiring. One may say that whereas during the Republic a Senatus Consultum had not the force of a Lex, the doctrine expressed in the words Senatum ius facere posse non ambigitur (Dig. I. 3. 9) soon became recognized under the Empire.

[2]Though liable, in very exceptional cases, to be removed from the roil.

[1]See Vol. II. p. 389, ante.

[1]See as to this, Vol. II. Chapter LVIII., ante, where reasons are stated which deter or prevent many men of political capacity from entering the Popular Chamber.

[1]The method of renewing the Second Chamber from time to time by the retirement, at intervals of two years, of a part of the body gives satisfaction in the United States. In the Australian Commonwealth half retire every three years. It need hardly be said that the observations here made are all general, and that every scheme would need to be adjusted to the conditions of the country for which it wag being created.

[1]It has been argued on behalf of this suggestion that it would tend to keep the two Houses in friendly touch with one another, while at the same time the members of the Second Chamber, sitting for a longer period, would not be a mere reflection of the First Chamber.

[1]The confidence accorded to the Committees of Selection in the two Houses of the British Parliament, small bodies composed of members of all parties appointed to choose other members to sit on Committees with due regard to the representation thereon of all the chief parties or groups, encourages the hope that such a Selecting Commission as that mentioned in the text might be no less successful. The plan might be varied by allowing the Second Chamber, when once constituted, to fill up a certain number of the vacancies from time to time occurring in its own body.

[1]Between 1905 and 1919 a total number of 62 laws and decrees were passed by the National Assembly. In only three cases was a Referendum asked for, and in all three the law was accepted by the people.

[1]See Vol. I. Chap. XXIX. p. 420.

[1]This practice has almost effaced the distinction between Constitutional provisions and ordinary laws. See Vol. I. p. 427, and Vol. II. p. 156.

[2]President Lowell (Public Opinion and Popular Government, published in 1913) estimated the average percentage, in American States, of voters at Referenda and Initiatives to the whole number of qualified voters at about 60 per cent. It seems to be practically the same in Switzerland.

[1]The difference between the average citizen and the average member of a legislature is of course slighter in the United States than in European countries, so a law passed by a legislature carries a slighter presumption of being the product of superior intelligence and knowledge.

[2]See Vol. I. Chap. XXIX.

[1]The number of 30,000 was fixed in 1874 as required by a Referendum in the Swiss Confederation and 50,000 (in 1891) for an Initiative, but the population has so much increased since those dates (from 2,700,000 and 3,100,000 to over 4,000,000), that the collection of signatures has become much easier. Nevertheless Referenda have been fewer in recent years.

[1]This is provided by the Constitution of Oklahoma, which restricts every statement to two thousand words, divided between supporters and opponents.

[2]Another reason for having Bills proposed by Initiative carefully scrutinized is that in some of the American States attempts have been made to improve the prospects of the measure by putting in its forefront certain catching proposals, while hiding away, sometimes in words carefully chosen to conceal the effect, other proposals likely to rouse opposition, being of the kind called colloquially “jokers.”

[1]It has been objected to this suggestion that the opponents of a proposal intended to be submitted might, when they heard it was coming, hurry on ahead of it a number of other proposals which would take precedence and jostle it out of the way. There are, however, methods of preventing this artifice, for the discussion of which I cannot here find space.

[1]The interesting and well-drawn Constitution of the Republic of Czecho-Slovakia (a Rigid Constitution, since it can be altered only by a majority of three-fifths in each Chamber) enables (section 46) the Government, if unanimous, to submit to a Referendum a Bill presented by the Government which the Parliament has rejected.

[2]It may be thought in a popular voting many citizens of moderate views will, since they can do so safely because secretly, break away from their class and party. This would happen in Switzerland and America, but be less probable in most European countries. In Australia the strong organization of the Labour Unions has given the Labour Party no small advantage for the purpose of a popular vote.

[1]Exceptions are the United States and Canada, in which the opinion of the capital cities is practically that only of the legislatures and officials, and Australia, where the future political capital (Canberra) is still a mere village.

[1]The police of London are directed by the Central Government, but this is due partly to the immense size of that city, whose suburbs stretch far out into four counties, partly to its being the capital of the country.

[1]See Vol. II. p. 98.

[2]See Vol. II. p. 14.

[3]See Vol. I. p. 281.

[1]See as to French cities, Vol. I. p. 282.

[1]It may be suggested that some marks of honour might be bestowed on citizens who have rendered exceptionally good unpaid public service; but there are, unfortunately, few countries in which the National Government could be trusted to award such distinctions in a non-partisan spirit.

[1]I speak of France as it was in 1914, for the time that has passed since the Great War ended has been too short to judge what effect it has had upon politics.

[1]In Britain also the legislature, or, rather, the House of Commons, is legally supreme, but in practice it is much controlled by the Cabinet, who can dissolve it, and can appeal to the party organizations over the country to require members to render steady support. Though, as Bagehot observed, a committee of Parliament, they are a Ruling Committee.

[1]President Taft speaking at Chicago in 1909, quoted in Mr. Moor-field Storey's book, The Reform of Legal Procedure.

A full and careful examination of this subject may be found in the work of Mr. Raymond B. Fosdick, American Police Systems, published while these sheets were passing through the press in Nov., 1920. He remarks with truth that the inefficiency of the police in the United States as compared with Europe is largely due to the immense mass of foreign-born population; but this fact does not excuse the faults of criminal procedure.

[1]As to this distinction see Pericles as reported by Thucydides in Book II, chap. 40.

[1]In Chile the Ministers axe deemed to be responsible to the Legislature.

[2]A similar Frame of Government exists in all the States of the American Union with the difference that in nearly all the States there are, instead of a Cabinet appointed by the State Governor, various administrative officials elected by the people, and that in some States the people can legislate by Initiative and reject laws by Referendum.

[3]With this Swiss system may be compared a kind of government occasionally occurring in revolutionary times, that of a Legislature ruling through or along with an Executive Committee chosen from its own body. This was tried by the Long Parliament in England and by the French Convention in 1793 with the Committee of Public Safety, and later with the Directory overthrown by Bonaparte in 1799

[1]Other interesting types of free constitutional government existed in the Orange Free State and the South African Republic (Transvaal) before the South African War of 1899. In these the President, Head of the Executive, was elected by the citizens, could be removed by the Legislature, could and constantly did address it, but had no vote in it, and was assisted by a small Council elected by the Legislature. The scheme worked extremely well in the Free State, which had a small population of intelligent landowners scattered over a wide area. A description of these Constitutions may be found in the Author's Studies in History and Jurisprudence, published in 1901.

[1]See as to France Vol. I. Chap. XX. In Australia Ministries have been singularly unstable, Vol. II. Chap. XLVII.

[2]The custom has been not to exert this power in the case of Cabinet Ministers, but it is applied to all other officers (including ambassadors and judges), and used to put pressure upon the President in matters of general policy. The reader need hardly be reminded that the President has against Congress the formidable power of veto.

[1]This happened recently in the United States when Congress neglected to pass the legislation required to give effect to a treaty for regulating the fisheries in the Great Lakes which had been accepted by the Senate and which promised real benefits to the United States as well as to Canada.

[2]The American tradition which forbade a person to be chosen President more than twice seems to have recently lost nearly all its influence.

[1]See as to this the figures as to voting collected by Mr. Lawrence Lowell from the records of divisions in the House of Commons and the House of Representatives respectively, in his Government of England, vol. ii. pp. 76–89.

[2]That the demagogic bacillus seems to be less rife or less harmful in the United States than in some European countries may be partly due to the fact that the American people (omitting recent immigrants) have by their experience of more than a century become more “immune” than are the European masses.

[1]Says Mr. Lawrence Lowell: “In countries where power is divided among a number of bodies, or hidden away in Committees, responsibility is intangible. Every one can throw it off his shoulders and it may become the subject of a game of hide-and-seek” (Government of England, vol. ii. p. 532).

[1]The method of Nomination by party caucuses in Congress was tried and abandoned, but the attempt to make nominations truly popular has not succeeded.

[2]One risk incident to an election by the nation instead of by an Assembly appeared in the United States in 1876 when a controversy arose over the results of the voting in several States which there was no authority capable of deciding. The American system of counting all the votes of a State for the candidate who obtains a majority, however small, in that State tends to concentrate the efforts of a party on those States in which parties are nearly equally divided, and makes a resort to illegal methods of influencing the electors or harvesting the results more likely.

[3]Election by a vote of the people had been discredited there by the two “plebiscites” taken under universal suffrage, which created in 1852 and renewed in 1870 the Empire of Louis Napoleon: yet it must be remembered that in both those cases no alternative was presented to the people; they had to choose between confirming the existing ruler and an entirely uncertain future which might have been one of civil war.

[4]The British Cabinet has inherited the old powers of the feudal king; the American President was created on the model of the English Executive, as it stood in the days of George III, modified by being made not hereditary but elective for a short term of years; the statesmen who framed the American Constitution not having realized how far effective power had been even by 1787 transferred from the Crown to the Cabinet. They did not see, says Bagehot, that the Sovereign had become “a cog in the mechanism of the British Constitution.”

[1]The territories that now form the Swiss Confederation were all parts of the old Romano-Germanic Empire, but neither the Cantons nor the Confederation trace their origin to government of the Emperor or any other monarch.

[1]See Chaps. LIX and LXV.

[1]That we hear little or nothing about the bribing of Athenian juries may be attributed to the great size of these bodies (see Vol. I. Chap. XVI). But the numbers of the juries who sat in the Roman indicia publica to try criminal cases did not prevent bribery. It was, as we gather from Cicero, practised on a magnificent scale. and sometimes enabled notorious offenders to escape.

[1]In Britain the conveyance of voters in vehicles hired for the purpose is prohibited, but as the conveyance in vehicles belonging to the candidate or his friends is still permitted, the possession by him of a large number of sympathisers who own and will lend motor cars is supposed to improve his chances.

[1]A like difficulty has been found in distinguishing “peaceful picketing” in a strike of workmen from a picketing which becomes coercion.

[1]It is now a part of the self-governing Dominion called the Union of South Africa.

[1]“Quivi trovammo Pluto il gran nemico,” Inf. Canto VI. 1. 115. There can be little doubt that Pluto is to be here taken to mean Plutua the Roman God of Wealth, but perhaps his name was confused with that of Pluto, the king of the nether world, who represents in Roman mythology the Homeric ´νaξ ∊ν∊ρων 'Aïδων∊υs. H. F. Tozer's note in his eminently judicious Commentary on the Divina Commedia inclines to this view, which is also that of Mr. Paget Toynbee.

[1]I quote this from a valuable little book by the late Mr. Arthur Sedgwick entitled The Democratic Mistake.

[1]They may in Britain and the self-governing Dominions dissolve Parliament, but this course is infrequent and in France very rare.

[2]Upon one point there has been some difference of opinion and practice in the British House of Commons. Is it the duty of the Ministry to oppose bills brought in by private members of which they disapprove? In 1880 that duty was generally recognized. The House was deemed to be entitled to the advice of a Minister, and it was only he who could be relied on to see that if it was a bad bill it should not go through because there was not enough resistance from non-official members to defeat it. Nowadays private members' bills have little chance of passing, so the question seldom arises, but it would seem that Ministries are less disposed to recognize and discharge their responsibility for stopping such bills if mischievous.

[1]As to Swiss administration and the position of the Federal Council, which, though responsible to the Chambers, differs otherwise from administrations in France and England, see Vol. I., chapters on Switzerland.

[1]With a few brief interruptions, the latest nearly four centuries ago.

[1]Yuan Shi Kai's attempt to make himself Emperor seems to have failed because as a new man he was unable to command the sort of religious awe which had consecrated the throne till its weakness forfeited respect.

[1]The four new monarchies of South-Eastern Europe formed between 1829 and 1878 (for Montenegro was already independent) out of the ruins of the Turkish Empire in Europe are also instances in which constitutional self-government was bestowed upon peoples just delivered from a barbarous despotism. But in all of them the mass of the people, unprepared as each was to work a constitution, had at least actively desired freedom and had made efforts to gain it from rulers who were incapable and corrupt, as well as alien in race, faith, and speech.

[1]The Valley of Andorra in the Pyrenees, where a little rural republic called officially the “Vallées et Suzeraintés,” has existed since the days of Charlemagne, is a familiar example. Like San Marino and some of the oldest Swiss Cantons, it is a survival of the many small self-governing communities that once existed in Southern and Western Europe, itself a league of five tiny communes. Visiting it in 1873 I found the head of the State, a stalwart old peasant, in a red flannel shirt, thrashing out his corn.

[1]The “Intelligentsia” in Russia, the “Cientificos” in Mexico were too few to exert this influence. Even apart from their other deficiencies, there were not enough of them to form a public opinion, enabling them to hold their ground without an armed force.

[1]This malady is said to have already broken out in a virulent form in some of the new States recently established in Europe.

[1]I learn from Sir John Jordan, late British Minister at Peking, and probably the highest living European authority on Chinese politics and character, that when he visited the Provisional Council in the province of Shan Si in 1918 he was favourably impressed by its working and by the useful relations between it and the Governor.

[1]It might be more correct to say “custom-abiding,” for there is very little law, in the European sense of the word, in China, though well-established authority is usually obeyed, and well-settled usage almost always followed. Collections of Ordinances exist, but seem to be seldom used.

[1]As for instance under a mandate from the League of Nations.

[2]See Vol. I. Chap. XVII.

[1]I do not mean to disparage the intellectual quality of the Parliament of China, which seemed, when I saw it at work in 1913, to contain many alert and earnest young men, but it had no power at its command and no hold on the people.

[1]Lucretius, Catullus, Horace, Virgil, Ovid, Propertius, Tibullus, Cicero, Sallust, Livy. After an interval, a second period of fifty years covers Seneca, Lucan, Statius, Tacitus, Juvenal, Martial.

[1]Palestrina, coming in the days of the Catholic revival, ie usually taken as the typical instance.

[1]Sophocles, Oed. Colon. 1. 1225.

[1]One is still shown to travellers in Appenzell.

[1]Eι υδωρ πνιγ∊ι, τι δ∊ι ∊πιπιν∊ιν;

[1]It is greatly to be wished that we should possess in English a history or histories of mediaeval city oligarchies based on a comparison of the civic institutions of Italy and those of Germany, not without references to those of France, Spain, and England in which there was less independence because royal power was more effective. Separate studies on a considerable scale of the history of such cities as Bern and Geneva, Siena and Genoa, Lübeck, Hamburg, Ghent, and Augsburg are also wanting in our language, though they might be made both instructive and interesting. Such books exist for Venice and Florence.

[1]German writers used to speak of Prussia as a Constitutional Monarchy — so Dr. Hasbach throughout his book, Moderne Demokratie — but in actual working it was, down till 1918, more oligarchic than monarchical; and only a superman could have made it a real monarchy.

[2]This element was least powerful in Russia because it contained fewer men of great wealth, and in particular very few who combined wealth with such intellectual capacity as distinguished the German plutocrats.

[1]The satiety that comes of great wealth breeds insolence (Tικτ∊ι γàρ κoρòs υβριν πoλυs óλβos ∊πηται), says a Greek poet who knew oligarchs.

[1]Parliament governed Ireland in the sense that its wishes, or what were conjectured as likely to be its wishes, could not be defied, and that where legislation was needed, its consent to that legislation must be obtained, but the majority that gave general support to the Cabinet was Usually so disposed to vote as the Cabinet wished that an extremely wide field was left open for the volition of the Irish Government and this volition was the work of the responsible Minister and the handful whom he thought it worth while to consult.

[2]The less the Chief Secretary happens to know of Ireland before he is sent there, the smaller will usually be the number of those whom he consults and the greater their influence on decisions.

The view stated in the text is based on the experience I acquired when, many years ago, responsible for the government of Ireland.

[1]The views stated in the text which I had reached by other paths are confirmed by an able writer who has given special study to the subject, R. Michiels, in his book entitled Political Parties, pp. 68–74. I may add that his description of the Socialist parties in Germany is well worth reading. He remarks that the Socialist leaders come mostly (as did Marx) from the bourgeoise, and are often idealists, led by their convictions, not by ambition,— though of course they, like all leaders, come to love power,— and maintaining an intellectual standard equal to that of German politicians generally. Some have been very striking figures.

[1]As to the small minorities by which important questions are decided at votings on Socialist or Labour affairs, see Michiels, pp. 55–58, op. cit.

[1]Rousseau wrote in the Contrat Social: “A prendre le terme dans la rigueur de l'acception il n'a jamais existé de véritable déimocratie, et il n'en existera jamais. Il est contre l'ordre naturel que le grand nombre gouverne et que le petit soit gouverné.”

[2]Proudhon observed: “L'espèce humaine veut être gouvernée, elle le sera. J'ai honte de mon espèce.” Quoted by Michiels, p. 421.

[3]The phrase “Will of the People” seems to involve two fallacies, or rather perhaps two implications which induce fallacies, and they spring from the habit of conceiving of the People as One. The first is that the Will of the Majority is apt to be thought of as if it were the Will of All. The second is that as it comes from many it is thought of as issuing alike and equally from many, whereas in fact it originates in few and is accepted by many.

[1]Mazzini described democracy as “the progress of all through all under the leading of the best and wisest.” “Authority,” he says elsewhere, “is sacred when consecrated by Genius and Virtue.”

[1]There are, of course, cases in which the sterling qualities do win due recognition and secure for their possessor an unhesitating confidence. Mr. Gladstone was fond of telling how during the passing of the Reform Bill of 1832 a debate arose regarding the disfranchisement of a particular “rotten borough.” Many speeches were delivered making so strong a case for sparing it that the House of Commons was on the point of omitting it from the schedule of disfranchisements, when Lord Althorp, who was then leading the Ministerial majority, rose and said that he had unluckily forgotten to bring with him the evidence supplied to him against the borough, but that this evidence was so conclusive that he felt sure it would have convinced the House. The House trusted him so implicitly that the borough was forthwith disfranchised. I may perhaps be permitted to add that the qualities which distinguished Lord Althorp reappeared in his nephew, the late Lord Spencer, one of the most admirable figures in the public life of his time.

[1]An interesting discussion of the causes which affect leadership in democratic countries may be found in an address by Mr. James A. Beck in vol. vi. pp. 1–23 of the American Journal of the National Institute of Social Sciences. He finds in the United States an excessive tendency to standardization.

[2]This was the view of Machiavelli, who had good opportunities for observing both. He remarks (The Prince, chap, vi.) that the charges brought against the multitude might be equally well brought against all men and especially against princes. Similar deliverances are quoted from the Discorsi by Mr. Burd in his edition of The Prince. Machiavelli observes, “ Un popolo è piu prudente, piu stabile e di miglior giudizio che un principe.”

R. Michiels, in his book published in English under the title of Political Parties, dwells upon the fidelity which the German Socialists have usually shown to their leaders through a long series of years.

[1]The critics of democracy have often drawn examples of its vices from the violence of city mobs which, like those of mediaeval Constantinople. turned furiously against dethroned sovereigns whom it had formerly treated like a god, but these cases furnish no evidence against democracy, because such mobs were composed of persons who had never shared the responsibilities of free self-government.

[2]As described in Mr. Wickam Steed's book The Hapsburg Monarchy. Queen Elizabeth, like her father, behaved very ill to some of the Ministers who had served her faithfully.

[1]Even so far back as 1884 I remember to have heard two distinguished Americans, James Russell Lowell and Charles Eliot Norton, express to another the surprise they felt at finding that, on returning to London after many years, one could say whatever one liked about religious as well as political matters without the risk of exciting horror.

[1]Mr. Max Schlesinger, whom those who lived in London then will remember as one of the foreigners who best understood English thoughts and ways.

[1]Alle Freiheits Apostel, sie waren mir immer zuwider, Willkur suchte doch ein jeder am Ende für sich; Willst du viele befreien, so wag' es viele zu dienen; Wie gefährlich das sei, willst du es wissen, versuch's.

[1]As a Western American remarked, if a wooden city was burnt down to secure equality between poor and rich, some smart man would make his pile by buying up the ashes for potash.

[2]Modern Socialism was just heard of and no more in the first French Revolution, but in the second (1830) it came to the front, and in 1848 its votaries took up arms against the Republic, though it made no figure in the simultaneous revolutions in Hungary, Germany, and Italy.

[1]The causes which have retarded the spread of Socialism in America have been indicated in the chapters on that country.

[1]Some remarks on this method will be further found in the following chapter.

[1]It may of course be argued — indeed it is argued — that a society in Which men are dependent upon others for the means of subsistence is Servitude rather than Liberty, for what does it avail a workman to be uncontrolled if he will starve without work, and is thus driven to take work on the terms which the employer prescribes? Thus any such laws as secure him both livelihood and a fair measure of leisure extend his freedom; and whatever restrictions may be imposed on the individual, there will be, after striking the balance, a credit to the Liberty side of the account. Though it is necessary to call attention to this argument, it is impossible to attempt to discuss it in these pages.

[2]One of the leaders of the Soviet Government in Russia, L. Trotsky, has recently officially defended the system of compulsory labour enforced there, declaring that the Workers' State has the right to send the worker to any place where his labour is needed, and to lay hands on any one who refuses to carry out his labour orders, as also to punish any worker who “destroys the solidarity of labour,” and justifies this by the argument that such compulsion is inevitable, and no worse than that which exists under the hiring system of the bourgeoisie. He approves the payment of wages proportioned to work, in addition to the supply of the necessaries of life, as for the present required to increase production, but looks forward to a time when the motive of a voluntary wish to serve the community will be a sufficient stimulus.

[1]The present constitution of China is provisional.

[1]Some of the advocates of this doctrine have been driven by necessity to recognize and use “brain-workers,” but these seem to be regarded as exceptional cases, and it does not yet appear how they are to be dealt with.

[2]This vague term, drawn from the proletarii in the early Roman Constitution ascribed to Servius Tullius, is most conveniently rendered by the term “hand-workers,” as they are the class usually in the minds of the writers who employ it.

[1]See note at end of this chapter.

[1]Some few Communistic theorists from the days of Plato have suggested its disappearance.

[2]I take this as the extreme form, and though the present rulers of Russia have shrunk from carrying it out, it seems to be the form they approve. But whether this be so or not, the principles and methods involved in any form which a complete governmental control of industry may take, need to be considered as respects their compatibility with existing democratic institutions.

[1]If men do not so work in Australia for the Government, the explanation given is that this happens because a capitalistic Government does not command their loyalty.

[1]A man might of course steal articles belonging to the State, but as he could not, under the conditions which will then prevail, make much use of what he stole, there would be little temptation.

[1]Whether actions for tort “sounding in damages” will remain when civil damages have been abolished with the extinction of private property is a question which, however interesting, can stand over.

[1]An interesting examination of the difficulties that may arise in the management of industries by the State may be found in a book published anonymously in England some years ago entitled Vox Clamantis.

[1]Toιos γàρ νóos ∊ςτιν ∊πιχθoνιων aνθρωπων oιoν ∊π 'ημaρ áγηςι πατηρ ανδρων τ∊ θ∊ων τ∊ (Odyss. xviii. 136).

[1]In his extraordinary book the Defensor Pacis, published in 1327.

[1]A term from the name of a chief among American aborigines.

[1]The passion for pleasure and amusement, as contrasted with the taste for intellectual enjoyments, is often said to be growing with the growth of civilization. There certainly have been ages in which the “things of the mind” were more and others in which they were less cared for by the more leisured class, but men's judgment of the time they live in is apt to be affected by personal bias, especially in those who miss what they valued in their youth.