Chapter IV: The Sphere of National Service

The above statement of the ideal of the Democratic National State brings home to the mind a realization of the magnitude of the sphere which lies open to National Service in the broad sense of the term. Democracy is sovereign; although it is flouted by individuals, deluded and debauched by parties, and challenged by separatist syndicates. It must remain sovereign, and its sovereignty must be made a more real, more conscious, and more effective thing than it has ever been before. Rarely, however, has there been a sovereign less adequately equipped than democracy for its gigantic responsibilities. One of its most enthusiastic modern supporters, Professor John MacCunn, gravely admits that "Democracy, still raw to its work, whether in politics or industry, may blunder--may blunder fatally."[53] Long ago it was pointed out by Plato that democracy is the cult of incompetence. In more recent times Mill has emphasized the possibility that democracy may govern badly and oppressively; Maine has warned us that the dominance of the commonalty may end in the triumph of the mediocre, and a more than Chinese stagnation; Carlyle has denounced democracy as powerful for destruction, but impotent for building up, as helpless in the face of great emergencies, as incapable of choosing good leaders; Lecky has demonstrated the danger of the corruption of the democracy by evil politicians; Belloc has shown how it tends to develop, and then become a slave to, a bureaucracy; Graham Wallas has portrayed the psychological peril of its hypnotization by colours and claptrap. All the dangers thus enumerated are real and formidable. They have, however, to be faced and overcome by men of goodwill: for there is now no alternative to democracy but anarchy. Fortunately they may be faced in confidence and hope. For the British democracy--as the revealing crisis of this great war has shown--is sound at heart, is eager to be delivered from its betrayers, and is longing to learn. It calls pathetically for those who know to teach it, and for those who can to lead it. Here, then, is the sphere of National Service. Who will not come forward to help democracy to become conscious of its power and its dignity; to aid it in establishing its authority over all rebels and rivals; to teach it how to use its omnipotence gently, so as to leave to those beneath its sway the largest possible room for freedom consistent with the common good; to make it aware of its responsibilities for its vast dominions across the seas and their teeming populations; to awaken it to a realization of the extent to which the whole future of the human race rests upon the success of its experiment in government? It is in the service of such a sovereign as this, and in the pursuit of such an ideal, that faithful souls attain that self-realization which is perfect freedom.

FOOTNOTE:

[53] MacCunn. _Six Radical Thinkers_, p. 69.

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End of Project Gutenberg's Freedom In Service, by Fossey John Cobb Hearnshaw