Page:Democracy, theoretical and practical (IA democracytheoret00hendrich).pdf/14

 city. How much more ridiculous is this notion of popular government in a nation of millions of people!)

Think of Great Britain and the Empire in the past five years. What share have the mass of the people had in the administration of affairs compared with the members of the British Cabinet? Is it not infinitesimal? And is it not true of all those countries which we call democratic that it is the few who govern, and that all the people do is to select and control them? Of course if those ministers do not retain the confidence of the majority of the people's representatives in Parliament they will have to resign and give way to another ministry that will rule in accordance with the will of the people. But that does not mean that the people govern, it only means that the Cabinet, which is the chief executive instrument of democratic countries, is appointed and dismissed by the people. As a form of national government theoretical democracy does not exist, and never has.

The history of industrial democracy confirms what I have said of political democracy. Turn to the history of trades union government in England, and you will see how, in spite of the plainest facts to the contrary, the authors of paper constitutions have clung to the conviction that democracy is government by the people. Sidney and Beatrice Webb have written one of the most authoritative works on the subject. On pages 28-32 of the first volume they discuss the government of the Shipbuilders' and Boilermakers' Society, as it is in theory and in fact.

In the formal constitution of that Society provision was made for all the devices usually adopted by those