Chapter V: Democracy

“_Government of the people--by the people--for the people._”

(_President Abraham Lincoln at Gettysburg, 1863._)

Some time ago the Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge University presided at a lecture on Democracy given at Cambridge by the Professor of History at Chicago (A. C. McLaughlin). I gather that he implied that Democracy is helpless in the game of secret diplomacy and secret treaties. Democracy now all depends upon the purpose and desire of the English-speaking people.

It’s an opportune moment to repeat John Bright’s very famous speech on a great federation of the nations that speak the Anglo-Saxon tongue.

The speech was given me when crossing the Atlantic by a splendid citizen of the United States, where I had just been receiving boundless hospitality and a wonderful welcome, and had realised the truth about a prophet when not in his own country, and had been asked to “stump the Middle West” to advocate the cause of friendship amongst all those who speak our incomparable tongue, and to establish a Great Commonwealth of Free Nations. There can be no secret treaties and no secret diplomacy when the Government is of the People, by the People, for the People.

This is John Bright’s speech:

“Now what can one say of the future of our race and of our
kinsmen? Is that merely a dream? By no means.... Look where we
are now?...

“In this country, in Canada, and in the United States there
are, or soon will be, one hundred and fifty millions of
population, nearly all of whom owe their birth and origin to
the comparatively small country in which we live. It is a fact
that is not paralleled in any past history, and what may come
in the future to compare with it or excel it, it is not for
us to speak of, or even with any show of reason to imagine;
but we have in all these millions the same language, the same
literature, mainly the same laws and the institutions of
freedom. May we not hope for the highest and noblest federation
to be established among us? That is a question to which I would
ask your special and sympathetic attention. The noblest kind
of federation among us, under different Governments it may be,
but united by race, by sympathy, by freedom of industry, by
communion of interests and by a perpetual peace, we may help to
lead the world to that better time which we long for and which
we believe in, though it may not be permitted to our mortal
eyes to behold it.”

That was said by John Bright.

The time has now come for this great federation which he desired--for this great Commonwealth of Free Nations.

There is only one type of treaty which is effective--“Community of Interests.”

All other treaties are “Scraps of Paper.”

It is maintained by eminent men that the late appalling and disastrous war, in which so many millions of human beings have been massacred or maimed, would never have occurred _had there been a real Democracy in power in England_. They say, as a small instance, that the great Mutiny at the Nore and other mutinies were brought about by trampling on Democracy.

This is what pure and unadulterated Democracy is, and we have not got it in England:--

“EQUAL OPPORTUNITY FOR ALL.”

For instance, no parent with less than nearly a £1000 a year can now send his boy into the Navy as an Officer!

Nature is no respecter of birth or money power when she lavishes her mental and physical gifts.

_We fight God when our Social System dooms the brilliant clever
child of the poor man to the same level as his father._

Therefore, we must have such State provision and such State education as will enable the very poorest in the land to let their eligible children rise to Admirals, Generals, Ambassadors, and Statesmen.

Can it be conceived that a real Democracy would have permitted secret treaties such as have been divulged to us, or have scouted the terms of Peace which were allowed only to be seen by Kings and Prime Ministers; or would a real Democracy have flouted the Russian Revolution in its first agonizing throes when gasping for help and recognition?

In a real Democracy, would true Labour leaders have waited on the doormat?

Would a real Democracy wave the red rag of “Empire” in front of these noble self-governing peoples all speaking our tongue in their own free Parliaments, and all of them praying for the hastening of the time when “England, the Mother of Free Parliaments, shall herself be free”?

But the Glorious Epoch is now fast approaching!

A Prime Minister once complimented me on a casual saying of mine at his luncheon table. I was accounting for part of my success against

“Many giants great and tall,”

and I ventured to state that:--

“The secret of successful administration was the intelligent
anticipation of agitation.”

_Anticipate the Revolution._ Do the thing yourself in your way before the agitators get in before you and do it in their way. Get rid of the present obsolete Forms and Antique Ceremonies which grate on the masses, and of Figureheads who are laughing-stocks, and of sinecures which are exasperating--and so anticipate another Cromwell, who is certainly now coming fast along to “Remove another Bauble!”

I forget what they did to the man who tried to import poisonous snakes into New Zealand (finding that happy island unblessed with this commodity). It was something quite drastic they did to _him_! They killed the snakes.

The Canadian House of Commons adopted by a majority of 33 a motion by Sir Robert Borden, on behalf of the Canadian Government, asking that no more hereditary titles should be bestowed in Canada, and declaring that the Canadian Government should make all recommendations for honours of any kind. This motion was a compromise designed to damp down the popular outcry against titles which has arisen in Canada. In one debate Sir Wilfrid Laurier offered to throw his own title on a common bonfire. He urged that all titles in Canada should be abolished.

Why should Great Britain lag behind Canada and the United States? Hereditary titles are ludicrously out of date in any modern democracy, and the sooner we sweep away all the gimcracks and gewgaws of snobbery the better. The fount of so-called honour has become a deluge, and the newspapers are hard put to it to find room for even the spray of the deluge.

The war has not begotten simplicity and austerity in this respect. On the contrary, it has made what used to be a comedy a screaming farce. There was a time when the Birthday Honours List could be printed on one day, but it is now a serial novel. The first chapter of the latest Birthday list was long, but the _Times_ warned us that it was only “the first of a series which already threatens to outlast the week--quite apart from the gigantic Order of the British Empire.”

Chicago’s great Professor of History, Mr. McLaughlin, made the statement at the Kingsway Hall, in his address to British teachers, that now the United States have over 100 millions of people, and fifty years from now they may well have 200 millions--a great Atlantic and Pacific Power. The Professor added that this great War was “_to protect Democracy against the greatest menace it has ever had_” (in the present rule of Kings and Secret Treaties, etc., etc.). Another points out as a striking example of present old-time conditions (so pernicious to freedom and efficiency) the positive fact now existing that our Military Leaders, by a class distinction, were only selected from one twenty-fifth of the ore which we have at our disposal though we had brought five million men under arms, as all our generals commanding armies, army corps, divisions, and in most cases brigades, were drawn from among the Regular Forces who handled our small pre-War Army of two hundred thousand men. And the writer adds:

“If considered purely from the standpoint of the law of
averages, one would expect to find more good brains if one
searched the entire Army than in merely looking for material in
one twenty-fifth of it.”

General Currie, who so ably commands all the Canadian Forces, was a Land Agent before the War. Neither Napoleon nor Wellington ever commanded a regiment. Marlborough never handled an army till he was fifty-two years of age. Clive was a Bank Clerk. Napoleon’s maxim was “_La carrière ouverte aux talents_.” Are we ever going to adopt it?

PEACE

This truth is (_and ever will be_) the fact that the only pact that ever holds, and the only treaty that ever lasts is:

“_COMMUNITY OF INTEREST!_”

and we can only have Community of Interest in the masses of a People always being on the side of Peace, because it’s the masses who are massacred, not the Kings and Generals and Politicians (they are plentifully fed and comfortably housed, and have the best white bread--_vide_ the American Dentist, Davies, when he stayed with the German Emperor).

Well! the only way the masses of the People can act effectively is by means of Republics. Because then no secret diplomacy ever answers, and no one man can make war, or no coterie of men. In a Republic we get “Government of the People, by the People, for the People.”

It’s a cheap sneer to ask how long the same Government ever exists in Republican France! Nevertheless, sooner millions of changes of Government and Peace than a stable Government with War! _A Republic is always Peace-loving!_ except when righteous fury in a gust of popular rage sweeps it into war, as lately in America; but it took four years to move them! The People pushed the President. We are going to have Bolshevism unless we foster these German Republics, and it will spread righteously to England.

These Leagues of Nations and Freedoms of the Seas and all the other items are all d--d nonsense! When War does come, then “Might is Right.” “La raison du plus fort est toujours la meilleure!” and every treaty is a Scrap of Paper!

The Essence of War is Violence.
Moderation in War is Imbecility.
You hit first, you hit hard, and keep on hitting.
You have to be Ruthless, Relentless and Remorseless.
It’s perfect rot to talk about “Civilised Warfare!”
You might as well talk about a “Heavenly Hell!”

FROM LORD FISHER TO A FRIEND.

MY DEAR ----,

I wrote to a distinguished friend to note (but not to
congratulate him) that he had been made “a Companion of
Honour” (what that is I don’t know!), and told him one of the
disadvantages of even a “Limited Monarchy” was the making
of us all into Christmas Trees to hang Decorations upon! He
replied he had declined it, as he did not wish “to be regarded
as a dab of paint to camouflage this new Order instituted for
Labour Leaders!” Haven’t I always told you we are a Nation of
Snobs, and that even the Labour Leaders don’t resent being kept
hanging about on the door mat?

My dear friend adds: “I feel sure your conception of Democracy
will be realised.” (I had sent him my Paper on Democracy that
you didn’t like!) “_Liberty means a Country where every man or
woman has an equal chance._”

“The race of Life in a civilised Country is a race carried
out under a system of handicaps, and the people who do the
handicapping are the people of the least brains.

“The prophecy you send me is wonderful.”

I think the words of this my friend will interest you, _though
perhaps not convince you_!

Yours till death,
F.
9/6/18.

THE BATTLE HYMN OF THE REPUBLIC.

I have been sitting this morning under a Presbyterian Minister, Dr. Hugh Black, whose eloquence so moved the Prime Minister, Mr. Lloyd George (who kindly gave me a seat in his pew, on the other side of me being President Wilson, at the Presbyterian Church in Paris on May 25th, 1919), that the moment the service was ended the Prime Minister went straight to him in the pulpit and told him it was one of the best sermons he had ever heard. And it probably was. One word Dr. Black used was very descriptive. He described us all, except those homeless ones for whom the Saviour pleaded in Dr. Black’s text, as the “sheltered” classes. I think also our feelings in the congregation (not that I wish to derogate from the sermon) had been intensely moved by the magnificent singing on the part of the great congregation (mostly American Citizens) of the Battle Hymn of the American Republic, composed by Julia Ward Howe. The tune (“John Brown’s Body”), as Mr. Sankey said, no doubt has much to do with the glorious emphasis of the chorus; but certainly the words are magnificent:--

BATTLE HYMN OF THE REPUBLIC.

Mine eyes have seen the Glory of the Coming of the Lord;
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored;
He hath loosed the fatal lightning of His terrible swift sword,
His truth is marching on.

Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! His truth is marching on.

I have seen Him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps;
They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and damps;
I can read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps,
His day is marching on.

Glory, etc.

I have read a fiery gospel writ in burnished rows of steel;
“As ye deal with my contemners, so with you my grace shall deal”
Let the Hero born of woman crush the serpent with His heel,
Since God is marching on.

Glory, etc.

He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat;
He is sifting out the hearts of men before His Judgment seat;
Oh, be swift, my soul, to answer Him! be jubilant, my feet!
Our God is marching on.

Glory, etc.

In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea;
With the glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me;
As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free,
While God is marching on.

Glory, etc.

It reminded me of the 76th Psalm, sung by those old Covenanters when they vanquished Claverhouse at Drumclog. We see the Battle Field of Drumclog from the room where we are now talking.

“In Judah’s land God is well known,
His name’s in Isr’l great.”

I began a letter (but diffidence made me stop it) to Sir William Watson the poet, to ask him if he couldn’t give us some such great Hymn for the Nation.

“God Save the King” is worn out. We don’t individualise now. It is as worn out as knee breeches for Court Functions or Gold Lace Coats for Sea Officers.