UTOPIA AN AUTOCRACY

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXIV, 5 August 1931, Page 8

UTOPIA AN AUTOCRACY

RESTRAINT OP THE RANK AND FILE ‘There is nothing more pleasant than |,o be a Utopian, to indulge in this high attempt tf building the ideal State," gays Mr 1\ M. Oliver, a member of the British House of Commons, in an essay on democracy. "Vet like all ambition if demands restraint. Rut the restraint is not the restraint of the Utopian. The restraint that is demanded by Utopia is the restraint of the rank and file, who with mute forbearance and despite their many angles must lit themselves into the logic of the scheme. 'The Utopian builds his ideal State for other men to live in, not. for himself. If he li\es in it at all', he lives in it as king. Ilis mind’s eye never sees himself among ihe rank and file. . . ■ Vet deep in the mind of every man lies somewhere hidden his Utopia. The kingdom of Heaven is within us. We seldom note it, and then only in a flash. When we. are young and Utopia lies before us, we see visions. When we are old and Utopia lies behind us, we dream dreams. Rut the visions that wc sec and the dreams that we dream would be nightmares to our neighbour. For every man’s Utopia differs from every other’s. It is devised after his own soul, and the range of human soul is infinite. Thus it follows that, democracy is no seed-ground for Utopia. Utopia; will come, if it, come at all, from Ihe brain and with the power of an autocrat!” DANGERS TO DEMOCRACY ‘ The true leaders of democracy will be those \vlio think more than you do, though possibly they have hut few opinions,” Mr Oliver adds. “The false leaders, those who will try to force themselves into power, browbeat or induce you into subservience, and destroy once and for all your democracy, are in the first place those that think less than you do (these are the demagogues), and in the second place those who have more opinions (these are the doctrinaires). It is in the growing power of these two men that democracy has to face one of the gravest of her dangers. The doctrinaire tries to he the schoolmaster of grown men, and in his schoolmast.ery he will imitate the pedagogue, who drives your children rather than draws out what is best within ‘ them. The true leader of democracy is a guide of men and not a driver of sheep. He seeks to educate the people, not to impose himself upon thoip. The demogogue, who is to be found not only at the Street corner. but sometimes in the scat of power, has none of the unpleasantness of the' doctrinaire. He is, therefore, the more dangerous. He appeals, not to thought, but to passion. And as the more elemental passions, greed, envy and hatred, are often tho strongest, it is these passions that lie principally evokes., Often himself a man of much sincerity, lie is carried forward by his own exuberance until he, is swept from his leet, bv the passions which he has aroused. Ho is driven helplessly on, whither and how lie knows not, aghast at the ruin he has let loose.”