A PRE-ELECTION HOMILY

Evening Star, Issue 20020, 10 November 1928, Page 2

A PRE-ELECTION HOMILY

“It is sair work flittin’ the Kings,” so said tho Highland boatman as ho was piloting Prince Charlie over some of tho Scotch lochs. That is to be the business of the dominion next week. But tho electors are not taking their duties sadly. They are in quite a jovial mood over it. Tho only ones who appear at all auxious arc those who may have to do the “flittin’.” Something of what we propose to say now wc once urged many years ago. The revolving cycle has brought a now generation on the stage, and stale truf . may very well servo new men and women. Platitudes aro never useless .until they become second nature, and those that wc may now sot forth can shelter themselves under the apology that they have not yet become current coin in popular estimation. We may begin by reminding ourselves that tho word “ King ” etymologically means “able-man.” Carlyle, in his essay on tho ‘ Hero As King.’ tells ns that the finding of the King—the able-man—and getting him invested with .Hie symbols of ability, dignity, royalty, or whatever wo may call it, is “ the business, well or ill accomplished, of all social procedure in tlys worldBusting.- speeches, parliamentary motions, Reform Bills, French Revolutions—ail mean at heart this or else nothing.” And ho goes on to say that it is a fearful business having to got this able-man, and not knowing bow to set about it. This is tho world’s sad predicament to-day. Let us think for a moment of how it has tried to find its King—its able-man. It has been a long, toilsome, and terrible journey. “ Curious,” says Proudhon, “ how vou find theology at tho bottom of everything.” Theology was the starting point from which the oldest races set out to find and enthrone their King or able-man. Thus in India its Hindu theology teaches that different classes of people are born from different parts of Brahma. Some come from tho mouth, some from the arras, some from the feet. etc. Hence caste. Hence this theology issued in mo of the most terrible forms of despotisms the world has ever seen. The same causes which produced caste in the Southern Aryan produced slaverv in his western brethren. Multiplying his cods and grading them in rank, they deduced nobles and heroes from one hierarchy, artisans and slaves from another. Tho duty of the one was oternallv to rule, of the other eternally to serve. They were born superiors and inferiors. So b.v Nature’s ordinance they must ever remain. They were inherently and essentially different, and, while tho higher had the rights of mastership, the lower had no rights at all. They were only chattels, and to be used accordingly. And so that whole ancient world rested on the back of slavery. Its able-man was found in tho priest or tho wielder of tho sword. Slavery was the first stage in industrial evolution

» » * » About the time that Plato was dreaming of his ideal Republic, another thinker of a quite different race was elaborating a theology and a political constitution that was to revolutionise the whole western world. In, the first great labour strike which history records there came up from Egypt a colony of slaves who were to play a singular part in the development of humanity. They were not to bo firstin art or commerce. They were not to bo the builders of great cities like Babylon, or send their fleets over distant seas like Phoenicia or Rome. They were to do a nobler work. They were to lay the foundation of modern liberty. Though they were not to be great in art or science, in trade or commerce, they were to create the atmosphere in which only these could live and move and have their being. There is no more remarkable people than the Jews. There is no more wonderful code of laws than the Hebrew. The economic and social provisions of the Mosaic code anticipate much of the advanced legislation of to-day. It is not to our purpose now to interpret these laws. We wish to refer to only one of them—that relating to their King, their ablcman. It appears that for a long time “there was no King in Israel.” He was granted to them only because they wanted to be like the other nations, the very thing which their Pounder — their God—wanted them not to be. But He yielded to them because of the “ hardness of their hearts,” and granted their request. Ho was hedged round, however, with laws and conditions that would make him not so much the ruler as the servant of his people. In the main there were three outstanding oßes _(l) The King was to realise that he was chosen by Jehovah, derived authority from Him, and was responsible solely, in the last resort, to Him. (2) Ho was to deny himself to the lust of conquest, to tho voluptuous pleasures of the flesh, to the most devouring lust of all—the love of money. (3) And chiefly ho was to acknowledge his equality with the poorest of the people in the sight of God. Could there he even yet, says Principal Harper in his exposition of tho Book of Deuteronomy, “a nobler ideal set before the Kings of this world than this? , . . Many who have disregarded these rules have done great things for the world, but wo are only the more sure, alter two thousand live-hundred years, that on these lines alono can the ruler attain his highest and purest eminence.” That was tho Hebrew conception of their King, their able-man. But our Kings of to-day have for the most part gone into tho scrap-heap. They are not even in Buckingham Palace or Rome. They arc in factories and workshops, washing floors, or gossiping at the street corners. How have they attained to that dignity? That brings us to the next stage in regal evolution. * v- « -. * Christianity took over this conception of kingship, but it broadened it and gave it a , new setting. So there emerged what was called in the Latin tongue tho Book—in ours the Bible. This book with these ideals became in time the special perquisite of the AngloSaxon heritage. As Dr Lyman Abbott, in his ‘Spirit of Democracy,’ points out, they made their way . into the life of the . English people. Inspired by, them, Simon Do Montfort led the movement that culminated- in the House of Commons. The Preaching Friars sowed their teaching! in the hearts of the people. They made “ Wycliffo a social reformer before Socialism, a democrat before democracy, and a Protestant before Protestantism. The movement thus inaugurated J went forward with Varying fortunes till it culminated in. the despotism of the Stuarts. Then the Puritans appeared upon the field. [When

they did the ruling classes had gone back practically to Paganism. They wore contending that power to ride belonged by divine right to tho King, or the priest, or tho church, or to a limited group that had education or understood and signed a certain theological formula. ft was maintained that these only stood in direct relation to God Hence government naturally and necessarily belonged to them. That led inevitably to government by one or few over the many. The lieformation broke the back of this theory. The Puritans, largely drawing their inspiration from Hebrew sources, &ct out from the hypothesis that every man had, through Christ, the right of access. ,fo Cod; therefore divide disclosures and tho laws that should govern a nation were not confined only to Pope, priest, presbyter, or King. They wore open to every man. As a Hebrew poet, had sung; “ Tho secret of the Lord is with them that, fear Him, and Ho will show them His covenant.” And such persons aro more likely to .be found among the classes to which the Son of God Himself belonged thin among those whom the world reckoned great or wise or prudent. The ultimate goal of these principles was inevitably universal suffrage—democracy. It followed necessarily that it. was not only safe, but right, that all should share in the government of the State. This was tho genesis of Anglo-Saxon democracy. U*' # - We say Anglo-Saxon because there, was also a democracy—of a sort -that took its origin in European countries, France in particular. This had a quite different, genesis and a more sinister issue. The Bourbon dynasties forced its hand. They inherited and exercised tho principles of Imperial Rome. For a long time the church wielded a beneficent sway and tempered the autocracy of the rulers. But by the latter half of the eighteenth century its influence was largely gone, at least, in the groat cities. France siP its own veins and lost much of its best blood when it expelled-the Huguenots. Volt. riddled existing religion with shafts of ridicule. But it was the vices of the aristocracy that finally precipitated the Great Revolution. Out of this was carved tho Jacobean democracy of Franco, whose prophet was Jean J. Rousseau. Ho argued that in a State —tho ideal State —every man is freo to live out his own life. Every impediment to this is an injury bo him and to humanity. Therefore the less government tho better. Government depends on the consent of the governed. This is the basis of all authority. The people’s voice is the voice of God—if there bo a God; and whether or not makes no difference. The voice of tho people is final. A just Government is one in accordance with tho will of tho majority; an unjust Government one not in accordance with that will. Out of tho meeting streams of these two diverse conceptions of democracy have emerged the democracy of to-day. The Anglo-Saxon democracy, as we have seen, was tho child of Hebrew and Puritan ancestry. It has oast away its cradle, and in a large degree shows signs of abandoning the principle that created it. Pure democracy, indeed. as also all free institutions, it has been said, are threatened by two foes—plutocracy and mobocracy'j lawless wealth and lawless passion. ' are the twin serpents that have always come out of the sea to strangle liberty. Thev destroyed the ancient empires. They destroyed Greece and Rome, and’they will destroy every nation that docs not destroy them. There are ominous signs abroad that wc need to lie on our guard. Seventy years ago Macaulay wrote to an American publicist that “institutions purely democratic must, sooner or later, destroy liberty or civilisation or both.” And many of the best Americans tear that Macaulay has been too true a prophet Among ourselves there are not wanting those■ who aro losing faith in democracy. Wc may nut go to the extreme 6f our “ Gloomy Dean ” when he speaks of “ this ridiculous and silly fetish, grinning in our faces, while the whole nation burns incenso before it.” But when wo find a sane and experienced politicians like the Hon. Mr Birroll tolling ns that in “a democratic system u Primo Minister no longer feels himself responsible for good government, but awaits a ‘ mandate ’ from a mob who arc watching a football match.” it is time to take heed to our ways. There is, of course, no going back, unless it be hack to first and eternal principles. And in the end of the day it will probably be found that those which wc have indicated as given sonw 3,000 years ago to a race which, more than any other, has made history cannot bo bettered by us in our search for our able men.