ARISTOCRACY AND DEMOCRACY.

Bruce Herald, Volume XIX, Issue 1994, 7 September 1888, Page 4

ARISTOCRACY AND DEMOCRACY.

We take the following from " Puff " in the c Evening Press ' with hearty approval : — The Emperor William appeals to the nobility to help him in realising the ideal of a nation ! What is his ideal of a nation ? A people possessed of a high sense of honour, whose religion is based on true Christian principles, and whose moral standing is unimpeachable ! Good ! If he can make the Germans like that, he'll do well ! But I don't quite see how the nobility are going to help him ! I don't see why not ! If they do not help him, its pretty certain nobody else will ! They may have a high sense of honour, according to their own code of honour, but they are not particularly religious, are they ? And as for their moral standing, well perhaps the less said about that the better! Oh, you're quite wrong there ! The German nobility as a rule are a very fine race of people ! Their own code of honour is a very lofty one, and any people who live up to their own code of honour do well ! What degrades a people is to fall notoriously and shamelessly short of their own stand ard! Then, as to other matters, the German nobility are certainly governed by Christian principles, if they are not outwardly very devout, and their moral standing, if not unimpeachable, is very good on the whole ! The Emperor is quite right to appeal to them, because there is no country in the world where the example of the nobility is more powerful than in Germany ! What extraordinary notions you have to be sure ! I thought the aristocracy were played out everywhere, and the effete nobility were the most vicious of mankind !

! Bosh! You know better! That , sort of stufE does well .enough for ' demagogues and Socialist spouters ! !' But 1 there's no greater humbug on earth ' really ! Aristocracy, ' the cendancy ; of the best, is aa powerful ! a principle now as ever it; was, and wo 6 be' unto any country which habitually refuses to recognize it ! But look at the progress popular liberty has made even in our own time! Dear boy, that is nothing to the point ! The amplest private and public liberty is quite compatible with the aristocratic principle ! Some of the < most' aristocratic countries in the I world 'are also the freest, — Great Britain, for example! And some of the most democrat c countries are the most enslaved ! Well, there is not very much public or private liberty in Germany ! There is much more than there used to be, but not as much as there might be ! The mistake that German rulers and the German aristocracy make is in imagining that liberty and socialism ar,e identical or are at least akin ! The very contrary is nearer the truth ! Socialism is entirely antagonistic to liberty ! Wherever it has got the upper hand, it has proved the worst of tyranny ! but the more en ightened and the freer the world becomes, the less hold socialism has ! By socialism, do you mean democracy ? JN T ot at all ! A pure democracy, government by the people, carried out on sound principles is much the, same thing as aristocracy, government by the best ! In America, the "Democrats " are really the aristocratic party, aud when their principles gain the mastery, as they surely will, America will become an aristocratic country, and a very much freer one than it is now !