Outspoken Essays | Page 5

account of to themselves,
tells them how far this will go; that multitudes, utterly unable to weigh
the arguments on one side or the other, will yet be receptive of the
influences which these words are evermore, however imperceptibly,
diffusing. By argument they might hope to gain over the reason of a
few, but by help of these nicknames the prejudices and passions of the
many.
The chief instrument of this base art is no longer the public speech but
the newspaper.
The psychology of the crowd has been much studied lately, by Le Bon
and other writers in France, by Mr. Graham Wallas in England. I think
that Le Bon is in danger of making The Crowd a mystical, superhuman
entity. Of course, a crowd is made up of individuals, who remain
individuals still. We must not accept the stuffed idol of Rousseau and
the socialists, 'The General Will,' and turn it into an evil spirit. There is
no General Will. All we have a right to say is that individuals are
occasionally guided by reason, crowds never.
3. Several critics of democracy have accused it not only of rash
iconoclasm, but of obstinate conservatism and obstructiveness. It seems
unreasonable to charge the same persons with two opposite faults; but
it is true that where the popular emotions are not touched, the masses
will cling to old abuses from mere force of habit. As Maine says,
universal suffrage would have prohibited the spinning-jenny and the
power-loom, the threshing-machine and the Gregorian calendar; and it
would have restored the Stuarts. The theory of democracy--vox populi
vox dei--is a pure superstition, a belief in a divine or natural sanction
which does not exist. And superstition is usually obstructive. 'We erect
the temporary watchwords of evanescent politics into eternal truths;

and having accepted as platitudes the paradoxes of our fathers, we
perpetuate them as obstacles to the progress of our children.'[1]
4. A more serious danger is that of vexatious and inquisitive tyranny.
This is exercised partly through public opinion, a vulgar, impertinent,
anonymous tyrant who deliberately makes life unpleasant for anyone
who is not content to be the average man. But partly it is seen in
constant interference with the legislature and the executive. No one can
govern who cannot afford to be unpopular, and no democratic official
can afford to be unpopular. Sometimes he has to wink at flagrant
injustice and oppression; at other times a fanatical agitation compels
him to pass laws which forbid the citizen to indulge perfectly harmless
tastes, or tax him to contribute to the pleasures of the majority. In many
ways a Russian under the Tsars was far less interfered with than an
Englishman or American or Australian.
5. But the two diseases which are likely to be fatal to democracy are
anarchy and corruption. A democratic government is almost necessarily
weak and timid. A democracy cannot tolerate a strong executive for
fear of seeing the control pass out of the hands of the mob. The
executive must be unarmed and defenceless. The result is that it is at
the mercy of any violent and anti-social faction. No civilised
government has ever given a more ludicrous and humiliating
object-lesson than the Cabinet and House of Commons in the years
before the war, in face of the outrages committed by a small gang of
female anarchists. The legalisation of terrorism by the trade-unions was
too tragic a surrender to be ludicrous, but it was even more disgraceful.
None could be surprised when, during the war, the Government shrank
from dealing with treasonable conspiracy in the same quarter.
The Times for May 24, 1917, contained a noteworthy example of
justice influenced by pressure, and therefore applied with flagrant
inequality. In parallel columns appeared reports of 'sugar-sellers fined'
and 'strike leaders released.' The former paid the full penalty of their
misdeeds because no body of outside opinion maintained them. The
latter, who were stated to have committed offences for which the
maximum penalty was penal servitude for life, got off scot-free because

they were members of a powerful organisation which was able to bring
immense weight to bear on the Government.[2]
The 'immense weight' was, of course, the threat of virtually betraying
the country to the Germans. The country is at this moment at the mercy
of any lawless faction which may choose either to hold the community
to ransom by paralysing our trade and channels of supply, or by
organised violence against life and property. Democracy is powerless
against sectional anarchism; and when such movements break out there
is no remedy except by substituting for democracy a government of a
very different type.
Democracy is, in fact, a disintegrating force. It is strong in destruction,
and tends to fall to pieces when the work of demolition (which may of