that controls the elections in the State. It is only when the government is strong, the rulership determined and independent of the people, that an unbiased judgment and administration can be rendered. Those who then dispute this imperial authority do so at their peril. At the same time, the imperial authority holds its own in maintenance of the original statutes, which prohibit the citizens plundering each other either by fraud or force. This maintenance is done by force.

Force is elevated as a barrier against Fraud after the original compact of social cohesion has been settled. Overthrow this force in the government or make it subservient to faction take away its imperial authority and Fraud is at once triumphant.

These two deities are mutually exclusive. One or the other must rule. The battle is between them alone. When Force commands, Fraud flies away; and Fraud is tolerated in power only when Force cannot drive it out.

law.

An imperious and successful commander relies on the complete subordination and discipline of those beneath him. He enforces obedience by the The virtues spring up-for loyalty is by him rewarded, treachery is punished as a crime. Honesty and ability in his service are recognized; dishonesty is severely condemned with horrid cruelty, and to be unable is almost criminal. The cowardly fear to be fraudulent. Those who attempt it die the death. Those who are ambitious for honourable distinction know there is but one road to it, and the means of attainment are in loyal service, bravely and ably performed.

Thus, according to Hobbes, from the well-ordered premises of his memory, founded on historic facts, and in belief in the underground savagery of human nature, despotism is the purest government, the one best calculated for the welfare of the people. then, keeps Fraud at bay.

Force,

The statutes of the realm being framed to keep the people in obedience and from plundering and distressing each other, if these things happen col

lectively by faction, or individually by influence at the court, the imperial authority is broken; the despotism insulted in its stronghold yields to the disentergrading influence until it, decentralized, discoördinated, is lost finally in the convulsions of anarchic democracy.

It is the consolidation of power in the hands of an independent ruler that prevents the exhibition of abnormal instincts in the community.

"There was a time," says Cicero, "when men wandered in the fields like brutes, feeding on prey like wild beasts; when the blind, unrestrained passions ruled tyrannically in the midst of error and ignorance."

"When men first began to crawl," says Horace (Satir. lib. L. Sat. 3), "they were only like a herd of brutes and speechless animals, contending with their nails or their fists for a few acorns or a den. They afterwards contended with sticks and such arms as experience taught them to invent. length they discovered the use of swords to express their thoughts. Gradually they became weary of fighting, and built cities and made laws to prevent theft, robbery and adultery. If you consult the origin of things you will acknowledge that laws have been made in apprehension of injustice."

The majority of mankind is wicked. Although the single ruler also may be wicked, yet he is responsible. A majority whose members constantly are shifting is not responsible; the responsibility can not be laid definitely to any particular group. Therefore, allowing that the single ruler is equally as wicked as a majority, he is checked by the direct responsibility of his acts. The majority is unchecked, unrestrained.

Perhaps the most illustrious precepts which have been prompted by this sentiment of universal suspicion are presented by Machiavelli in his "Instruction to the Prince": "A private individual may attain sovereignty by the favour of his fellow-citizens and without violence or treason. This is called a civil principality, and is not to be acquired either by merit or

fortune alone, but by a lucky sort of craft."

"A struggle between the rich and poor must always end in establishing either a principality, or a free government, or in downright licentiousness."

"Men are more inclined to submit to him who makes himself dreaded than to one who merely strives to make himself beloved. Such a character will be useful to him by keeping his troops in obedience and by preventing every species of faction.

"A prudent prince cannot, and ought not, keep his word, except when he can do it without injury to himself, or when the circumstances under which he contracted the government still exist. I would be cautious in inculcating such a precept if all men were good. But the generality of men are wicked, and ever ready to break their words."

"The Prince" for whom these instructions were honestly meant for sound advice was the celebrated Lorenzo di Medici of Florence, who lived in the 15th century. Machiavelli counsels the prince to choose good, faithful and able ministers; to cherish them as rare gems unexpectedly found in the midst of a multitude of cheap and fraudulent imitation.

The formation of the government of the United States was on a line with Hobbes. In the formula of 1787: "Individuals entering into society must give up a share of liberty in order to preserve the rest." In the Virginia In the Virginia convention of 1788, Mr. Madison said: "On a candid examination of history we shall find that turbulence, violence and abuse of power by the majority tramping on the rights of the minority, have produced faction and commotion, which, in republics, have more frequently than any other cause produced despotism. If we go over the whole history of ancient and modern republics we shall find their destruction to have generally resulted from these

causes.

In the Federalist, No. X., it is written: "When a majority is included in a faction the form of popular government enables it to sacrifice to its ruling

passion, or interest, both the public good and the rights of other citizens."

In Elliott's Debates, Vol. VIII., p. 109, Mr. Madison is accredited with the following: Perhaps it will appear that the only possible remedy for these evils and means of protecting the principles of republicanism will be found in the very system which is now exclaimed against as the parent of despotism."

"The majority in the United States," says de Tocqueville, "exercises a prodigious actual authority, and a moral influence which is scarcely less preponderant. No obstacle exists which can impede or so much as retard its progress, or which can induce it to heed the complaints of those whom it crushes on its path."

In the Constitutional convention of 1787, George Mason of Virginia said: "I go on a principle often advocated, and in which I concur, that a majority, when interested, will oppress a minority." Mr. Grayson of Virginia, of the same convention, added: "We ought to be wise enough to guard against the abuse of such a government. Republics, in fact, oppress more than monarchies."

Jefferson set himself to work, being influenced by an underground suspicion of the integrity of human nature, to devise "checks," "constitutional checks" to factions, demagogues and intrigues in the republic. But anything beyond the strong arm of the responsible imperator has ever been found valueless. Even that has failed at times, when in the imperator's government there has been permitted a liberty to fraud, which had previously weakened the power of the imperator, and crushed him afterwards beneath the responsibility.

There is really no example in history of a government upheld entirely by the suspicion of its members. In Russia, a type of the despotism, a great number of the people call the Czar their "Great Father." They believe that what God and the Czar ordain is for their good, future if not present. They believe that any irregularity or hard

ship is due, not to the fault of the Czar, but to the wickedness and cruelty of his officers, and if the great father only knew of these bad doings he would correct them with vigorous authority.

It is the same in Turkey, where the Sultan, in the eyes of the faithful, is the official representative of Mahomet. Indeed, in all governments of regal description it is said: "The king can do no wrong."

In history the form of government which approaches nearest to this theory of suspicion is the republican, wherein unchained ambition and unrestrained appetite prompt their possessors to think the most evil of their fellows, and to be constantly on guard against the pretensions of rivalry. But even here the abstract sovereignty of State furn

BOSTON, MASS.

ishes a theme for patriotism, for those who are young and inexperienced. After experience and knowledge of the manner of living under such a form became universal there grows up a contempt for that patriotism, which is founded on a substance so shadowy as an abstract sovereignty. The age then craves a real sovereign-one who can with vigour repress demagogues and prop himself with men of merit. The recommendation for a sovereign such as this is for the imperious upholding of the law. If this craving is not listened to in those who feel the natural want, the State goes on disintegrating through the growth of suspicion in its members, until anarchy finally ends in the total destruction of the civil community.

De Fronsac.

DIM

Minas Basin.

Theodore H. Rand.

THE

HE recent crisis through which the United States people have passed is a subject well worthy the attention of all thinking Canadians. This last chapter in the history of democracy should stimulate thoughtful men, who have the interests of free institutions and sound government at heart, to examine carefully the phenomena revealed in the campaign which culminated on the 3rd of November last. To Canadians it should be instructive, as similar phenomena may ere long present themselves for the consideration of Canadian statesmen.

In watching the progress of democracy, the Canadian people are favourably situated, for their political status brings them into close touch with the United Kingdom-the mother country -on the one hand, while their geographical position is one of immediate contact with the United States-onetime sister colonies-on the other.

Canada may therefore be said to occupy a high vantage ground from which to observe the phenomena of nineteenth century democracy in the two great centres of Anglo-Saxon civilization.

Some time ago, while listening to a lecture by a prominent Englishman, these words attracted my attention: “We in England have been thinking for some time whether there is not a limit to democracy." This remark impressed me at the time, and that impression has been deepened by the events of the recent campaign, and the lessons which they teach.

I.

Like so many words in popular use, the term "democracy" signifies something quite different from the hazy and indefinite meanings given to it by the ever-increasing host of ultra-radicals,

and something far enough removed from the ideas of socialism and nihilism which, in its name, are promulgated among the masses by demagogues and factious agitators. Democracy is a principle which has been disclosing its true nature through many ages, and almost countless mutations of time and circumstance. As a principle, it has been said to entitle each citizen, in common with every other, to an equal interest in the State. Many of the so-called evils of democracy are not those which inhere in the principle itself, but are due to the attempt to apply it to a society essentially unfitted for popular institutions— whether through insufficient development, as in the case of India, or the ignorant and irresponsible character of the commonality, as in many other

communities.

The principle, as such, must therefore be carefully distinguished from the governmental machinery devised at various times, and by various peoples, to carry the principle into effect.

Democracy presupposes certain conditions for its successful application, and among these are right reason, education, independence, honesty, sincerity, general integrity of character and citizenly qualities in every individual upon whom its powers and privileges are conferred. If the citizen has not faith in the integrity of his fellowcitizens, and if they be not such as to inspire and justify that faith, you will look in vain for a successful democracy under those conditions.

Again, the principle is said to confer upon all, and to recognize as the rights of all, "liberty" and and "equality." These words, too, have been tortured into impossible meanings and, strange as it may seem, assertions are not wanting of the belief that, roughly speaking, "one man is as good as an

other." All men are not born equal; nature has not endowed men equally; and history is ever repeating the story of the greatness and the littleness of its personages the inequality of men.

But though men are wont to use these terms-liberty and equality-with glibness of tongue, they are strangely reticent when called upon to define what they mean by these words, and when they attempt it they usually find they do not know. The attempt, however, develops this fact, that these words cannot be taken in their full extension-they must be restricted. has been wisely said that the "liberty" which the true Democrat desires is the liberty to do right, and the "equality" which he claims is the equality of opportunity.

It

Nor is democracy revolution, as the radical imagines. It is but "the level of every-day habit, the level of good national experiences, and lies far below the elevations of ecstacy to which the revolutionist climbs."() Perhaps no better illustration of this fact can be found than in the contrast between the healthful and gradual growth of the principle in English government and the unnatural, abrupt, and spasmodic attempts to establish it by revolution, which constitute so large a chapter in the history of modern France.

At the outset let it not be supposed that the American Constitution is "a type of an experiment in advanced democracy," for, so far from being that, it is very evident from the writings of Hamilton, Jay, and Madison (2) and other prominent thinkers of their time, that it was "simply the adaptation of English constitutional government "(3) to the conditions of the new republic by men who so far distrusted the competency of the people the community

-as to expect, from this quarter, a danger requiring a constitutional safeguard. Against this danger they did attempt to provide by introducing into the constitution that mysterious body known as the "College of Electors,"

(1) Woodrow Wilson, An old Master and other Essays. (2) The Federalist.

(3) Woodrow Wilson, An old Master and other Essays.

the ostensible intention being to secure a body whose members should be characterized by superior judgment and intelligence, in order that through them greater wisdom might be ensured in the choice of the nation's chief magistrate the President. The process by which the College of Electors has degenerated to a mere body of delegates, subject to the instructions of their constituents, which they carry out mechanically and without the slightest exercise of independent judgment, is an interesting feature in the history of democracy as developed under the American Constitution.

Democracy, then, in the United States has been a growth. That it has been a rapid one is due to a variety of causes

the wonderful energy and progressive spirit of the people, the absence of an aristocracy, a great industrial prosperity and a more general and equal dissemination of wealth; while the mental attitude of the people has been powerfully influenced for democracy by the brilliant generalizations of Jefferson's philosophy of "life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness," the rights of the people, and other abstractions pervading the Declaration of Independence and his other writings, and by the ceaseless iteration of this theme in varying keys by the Henrys, Clays, and Websters during the age of oratory in the Republic. These extravagancies may well be excused when we remember that they proceeded from the enthusiasm of a youthful nation, and the intensity of that sovereign-worship which arose when the "Divine right of King George III." had been supplanted by the "Divine right of King Demos"-the sovereign people. All the influences at work pointed with unerring aim to democracy as the Utopia of their political future.

The democracy of the United States is not the creature of the constitution builders; nor is it the creature of revolution, as that resulting from the French Revolution, which Burke so aptly described as a "deviation from the highroad of nature." It is an orderly and gradual evolution in obedience to the