Evening Post. THURSDAY, APRIL 5, 1923. TIRED OF LIBERALISM

Evening Post, Volume CV, Issue 81, 5 April 1923, Page 6

Evening Post. THURSDAY, APRIL 5, 1923. TIRED OF LIBERALISM

Signor •Mussolini in Italy and MrJ Bernard Shaw in England have proclaimed that men are tired of democracy, and no doubt both regard their statements as final and conclusive. The people themselves may not have realised what was wrong. Some may have been under the delusion that the war had something to do with the chaos; but these two publicists have given a name to the disease, and one of them has put the patient under appropriate treatment. In considering whether the diagnosis is correct it may assist to examine just briefly -the personality of the men who have made it. Signor /Mussolini was a fire-breathing Socialist until be became a fire-breathing Fascist. The essential fact in his career is that he has never been a mild man. Against him there can be no charge brought that he is of the community of the Laodiceans and neither cold nor hot. He has proclaimed his opinions loudly, and from the centre of the stage. Mr. Bernard Shaw also has loved the limelight, and all his life has had it Veil in 'mind that it is better for a public man to be fought than forgotten. Signor Mussolini and Mr. Bernard 'Shaw are much alike in this: that whatever they say is striking, and whatever they do is unusual. They dress for effect, Signor Mussolini in a black shirt and Mr. Shaw in Bohemian garb. But do they represent the great body of the people, or even understand those people?

"Russia and Italy," Signor Mussolini declares, "have shown that one can govern without Liberalism." If Mussolini counts the present Fascisti Government as part of his proof he may well be charged with having spoken too soon. So far as Russia is concerned, she has certainly shown that Liberalism is not essential for government, provided one is not particular about the kind of government, or its permanence. The very worst forms of autocracy and o'Mgarchy were Governmelnts, in that they imposed their will on the people for a time; but as they maintained authority by force, so they were displaced by greater force. It is the great claim of democratic rule not that it is always better than autocratic or oligarchic, but that if it is bad it can be'changed more easily. The Russian people would possibly have changed before now if they had known how to; and Signor Mussolini has no guarantee that the Italian people will not change— though he may do his best to make it difficult. "History," says Mussolini, "has no example of a Government . exclusivelyl based on the will of the people and renouncing the use of force." In a sense that may be true, but the Government which is based mainly on the will of tha people uses force more sparingly than the Government which is based on force and opposed to popular will. Under democratip rule the people themselves decide in whose hands the power of' en forcement shall be placed, and if they see that power misused they can take it away.

Calm consideration of the Italian and Russian examples, however, suggests that they are not the best fields for a test of democratic efficiency. The great mass of the Russian people were illiterate, and unfitted for democratic rule. They could not be prepared for it in the brief interregnum between Tsarism and the "dictatorhip of the proletariat" (meaning the dictatorship of the inner Soviet circle). Italy was at one time the most advanced State of Europe in the examples it afforded of democratic government but those examples were upon a small scale, and their lessons were almost forgotten when the Parliamentary institution was created for the whole of Italy. There was no gradual advance by educational process to democratic rule. Democracy, it may be said, was transplanted ; it did not grow. Signor Mussolini is apparently resolved to root it out, instead of pruning it and training it 3 growth to suit the Italian climate. But'if we seek the truth of the prospects of democracy we are not likely to obtain it from men of the Mussolini pr Shaw type, who have by their writing and living shown their preference for the spectacular. A bettor judge is such a man as Lord Grey of Falloden. He, in a recent address, affirmed his unshaken faith in the principle of democratic government. He admitted that democracy had lost prestige in the last few years; had been abandoned in Italy and had not been tried in Russia; and was nowhere the unquestioned ideal that it was before the war. But the remedy he saw was better democracy, not less; and the way to obtain this was by education which would make public opinion more statesmanlike. This may not be a simple remedy to apply, but it is much safer than the drastic surgical treatment which has been attempted in Italy and Russia—with disastrous results at least for the Russian patient. Democracy has its imperfections, because the people are not perfect and do not always select perfect rulers; but perfection will not come by killing democracy. As "The Nation" wrote in commenting on Lord Grey's speech: "There is nothing in the history of our tim:*s to encourage the view that short cuts and arbitrary methods lead to justice or to happiness."