TRIUMPHANT DEMOCRACY.

Auckland Star, Volume XXI, Issue 163, 12 July 1890, Page 2 (Supplement)

TRIUMPHANT DEMOCRACY.

Mr Samuel Laing, an Englishman of muchv distinction, who is a member of Parliament! and has been Finance Minister of India, a member of the Board of Trade and the managing director of several great railway and commercial companies, and whose ; opinions command general respect, has contributed an article to the current number of the" ' Contemporary Review,' entitled ' Aristocracy or Democracy, , and his language concerning the United States is weir; worth quoting. Jv = ' ■ Mr Laing says: • I will refer firet to-the United States, for here the problem of democracy has been tried on the largest scale and to the fullest extent. Prior bo the great war and the Presidency of Abraham Lincoln the Selections of the captains and officers to navigate the American state had been made, for many years, practically by a seleeb; aristocracy, the Southern planters. Since then the " loblolly-boys," as I suppose Professor Huxley would call them—that is, tha great democratic mass of the community,, on the one-man-one-vote principle —■ have had it all their own way. What has been the result ? Nothing has impressed me more than the exceeding wisdom and sobriety with which all really important matters have been dealt with by ; this democratic community. Take the most important act of their political life, the quadrennial election of- Presidents. They have elected an uninterrupted succession of highly fib men; in some cases, like that of Lincoln, their greatest man; in all, tnen of high character and sound judgment, untainted by any suspicion of loose morality or of extravagant demogogisro*— men who were fair, or rather excellent representatives of the best traits of the national character. . . . Take the management of foreign affairs, which is, perhaps, the best test of wise statesmanship, and that in which the opponents of democracy have predicted the worsb consesequences from the transfer of political power from the classes to the masses. Tbafc of the United Statee has been uniformly wise and successful. In no single case can it be said that the foreign policy, and diplomacy of the United Statee have been unwise or meb with a rebuffi >i

•And'in great domestic questions, where demagogic incitements were not wanting, the came wise and provident policy has been equally conspicuous. # : ,'A.t> the conclusion of the war the nation found ibeelf loaded with an enormous debt and an inflated currency. Most of this.debb had been incurred in paper depreciated far below its gold value. Surely here was : n case.if ever, where the "loblolly boys" and; common sailors might have been expected; to listen to the seductions ot demagogues,j who were not wanting, telling them that, they ought not to submit to taxation in order to pay in full in gold ther cormorant capitalists who had advanced; their loans in paper. Bub no ! the maximi that " honestyjis the best policy" was soin-i grained in the nature of the American! masses that they submitted cheerfully to >.% load of taxation which converted the United! States from one of the cheapest into one of the dearest) countries in the world, and the demagogues, instead of riding into power on popular prejudice,, found themselves; simply ostracised from public life. Space] forbids my pursuing the subjecb farther,; and it is sufficient to Bay that I challenge: any dispassionate observer to say democracy has been a failure in America. , ;