The Press. MONDAY, JANUARY 28, 1895. MODERN DEMOCRACY AND CLASS DISTINCTIONS.

Press, Volume LII, Issue 9013, 28 January 1895, Page 4

The Press. MONDAY, JANUARY 28, 1895. MODERN DEMOCRACY AND CLASS DISTINCTIONS.

Our readers may remember that not long ago we endeavoured to point out some of the mistakes of modern democracy. We then implied that the greatest of these mistakes has been to perpetuate that class distinction which democracy came to destroy. Modern democracy has done this by identifying " the people" with a particular kind of working class instead of with the whole nation. As we then remarked democracy might have identi&ed itself with the whole nation. Indeed if democracy is ever to be successful it must identify itself with nothing less. If it be not the people, the whole people, and •'. nothing but the people it is false to itself.; it is a bastard usurping the place of a legitimate ruler. In this way only can it hope to destroy aristocracy, not by cutting itself off from so-called aristocrats, but; by insisting that dukes and princes and crowned heads too are as much a part of "the people" as the man who works for daily wages. But modern democracy has not done this. It has deliberately chosen to represent a class—the class which subsist*} by manual labour and by the lees skilful arts'—as being "the people." It has tacitly excluded from "the people" the minority of ability and of capital. But this is not all. Not content with thus excluding those whose capital gives them the power to utilise the brains of ability by employing the

bands of the manual labourer, modern Democrats have done their best to play the tyrant and oppressor over this minority. Their contention, however skilfully concealed, simply comes to this, that the wages of ability should be no greater, and what we may call the wages of capital should be no greater than the wages of mere muscle and sinew, but that if there are any losses capital and ability must bear them all. JSiow in acting thus we maintain that modern democracy has not only been false to its principles, but it has also been stupidly blind to the signs Of the times aud to the circumstances to which it* must adapt itself if it wiuhes to survive. For if there is one tendency more charac-

teristic of the nineteenth century than another .it is the tendency of true democracy to justice, that

is, as applied to politics, or to put it tv another way it is this, that class privilege or class tyranny in politics is doomed, whether that tyranny be, the tyranny of the rich or of the poor, of the capitalist or of the 'working man, of' ttift men of ability or the brute majority; any form of government or that does not adapt itself to tendency to true ! democracy is doomed also. Bub j any form of government) and , any class which is intelligent enough to read the aign»pf the times, and to adapt itself to this tendency honestly , will survive. Ji king who reigns constitutionally /Jr a representative assembly, e 1 ; v - if composed entirely of rich men which governs justly, is far more truly democratic, and far more aafe from overthrow than a " Liberal" (Government whose chief exacts written pledges of blind obedience from other members who owe obedience to those who elected them; whose Treasurer takes advantage of his position to desert) his post at a critical period, and utterly refuses to give an account of his actions to those who pay him the wages of his supposed ability ;■ whose Minister of Education when he gets wind of a political den of thieves hastens to consent unto them by declaring himself a straight-out socialist; a Government whose policy consist? in maintaining the divine right of the majority to do wrong aud to be well paid tor doing it, aud whose claim to the title of " Liberal" is only a bit of that political caut so well exposed by Lord Salisbury when he said <( If we find three men sitting on two men and picking their pockets it is an abuse of language to describe them as a community of five who are. enjoying the blessings of self-government."

But) the ' work which Modem Dβ. mocraoy has neglected is being done rapidly by the \ small minority of capital and ability of which we spoke. This party, which the "Liberals " once christened the stupid party, and wbioh demagogues are fond of calling the aristocracy, qualified by various adjectives, has seen- the signs of the times and is : fast learning to adapt itself to the new circumstances and tendencies/* We quote once more from the words of an impartial foreigner, a keen observer of English politics, and aafardenb Republican. ." This so-called kristbcracy has shown itself a patteru of patieuea aud selJfcontroL it has, gained, the right to say to the democracy as the Koman nobility to the Koman plebs.—' Yicti nog aequiore aaimd quievimas guam vos victores. , 'We have shown greater self-control in defeat than you in victory.' But it- has done more. It has studied the needs of its opponents, and has admitted some of their claims, and constituted itself the ohampion of their claims. , Ie has learnt many things and forgotten some things. It no longer wishes to make the years return on their footsteps/ for it has leanmhe profound meaning of the story of Lot's wife, chat those who look back become mere statues. Bab ie seeks and finds for itself a special function in this new phase of society, and this function is to represent that capital so hardly acquired of„ which modem demagogues speak so slightingly, to defend the soil of its fatherland by uniting in one indomitable solidarity. those who possess and those who cultivate that .soil,'and at the same time to. discourage, the startling and monstrous development of reoklese speculation, which produces a fiotitious capital that the breath of. revolution can sweep away in a single flight." I ; '

A 80-callfid "ariatooraqyV* whioh appears to a keen and cool observer, from a purely external standpoint, to have acted in such ' a spirit, may truly lay claim to have done more to destroy class-privi-lege and class-diatinotion than all the political adventurers and lamp post demagogues that ever fell down and grovelled before the feet of the w working men," saying, " Put mc, I pray thee, into one of the Parliament offices that I may eat a piece of bread," or cadged for the votes of the electors and £240 a yeai, " paid regular," by promising the poor the plunder of the rich. One truth this new " aristocracy " has helped to make plaiu at all events, a, truth which is taking fast hold of men's minds, and it is this, that we are aU " working men" now just as we are all Democrats. The terms " Democracy " and " working classes" are not the monopoly of the manual labourer. There is but one class, aud that is the working class, and thac again is the whole people now, though modern demagogues would fain divide it against itself by sowing enmity between those. who work with their brains and earn the wages of ability and those who work with their muscles. Whereas there does exist between them such au identity of interests that each is necessary to the other. And tlie new working "aristocracy" has aUo pretty well knocked the bottom out of that piece of time-dishonoured demagogic cant that "one man is as good as another." One man is as "good" as another in the seuse that he has

equal political rights, but the man of ability is as much superior to the mere manual labourer as the honest labourer is to the loafer under the lamp post. A democracy which should seriously maintain the equality of its individual units would be as Lord Sherbrooke said, a sort of crowded omnibus in which the passengers were all trying to knock the driver off the box and drive themselves.