FLATTERED DEMOCRACY

Evening Post, Volume CXV, Issue 119, 23 May 1933, Page 6

FLATTERED DEMOCRACY

Is human nature entitled to all the bouquets that have been thrown to it ever since manhood (and later womanhood) suffrage set up the people as the choosers of Parliament—choosers who "must be courted" by the! political applicant? On the principle that nothing succeeds like flattery, political addresses have consisted mainly of a monotonous reiteration of the people's virtues* and the democracy has been asked to believe everything good about itself. And yet this kind of adulation, even if it is regarded merely as a calculated means of securing the personal preferment of the vote-hunter, may have been defeating its own purpose, for Mr. George Bernard Shaw goes to the United States, tells the people how vile they are, and they flock to hear him. And they do not merely go to a free show—they pay high prices to hear how contemptible they are, the "New York Times" gives him six columns, nation-wide microphones hang upon his lips, and the whole continent* is his. Our American representative's story in yesterday's issue of the breathlessness with which Americans heard about their, own imbecility is touching. Bankers, on learning that they are 95 per cent, lunatic, exchanged smiles. After several generations of democracy and courtship and humbug, the American public seem to be as pleased as a child with the self-reve-lation offered by this new wise man from the East. Some people may dismiss the incident as a mere Shavian stunt. But that conclusion may be hasty. Is a weary people ripe and ready for a set of no-humbug speakers who will call things by their proper names?