Page:Democracy, theoretical and practical (IA democracytheoret00hendrich).pdf/22



I sometimes think it is a pity that we have not a more suitable word to describe the form of government under which we live. "Democracy" means government by the people, and there is no part of the word to suggest the importance of the aristocratic element in our working Constitution. It is true in British communities that public opinion is the political sovereign; adult franchise has been conceded; but the executive, which is the most important part of government, is directed by the aristoi—not the aristoi of wealth or blood, but the best men available for carrying on the government in the interests of the people at large.

There is a combination of popular and aristocratic principles in our working Constitution, and both principles have been emphasized in the political development of the last century. Adult suffrage has made popular control more effective than ever it was, but the Cabinet has never been so powerful as it is to-day. "Aristo-democracy" is an awkward compound, but at least the word expresses more accurately the government under which we live than "democracy."

But if we choose to retain the more familiar term we ought to recognize that there is a clear distinction between its derivative and its applied meaning, and that in Great Britain and the self-governing Dominions the form of government which we call democracy is not government for the people by the people, but government for the people by a few selected men whom the people control through their representatives in Parliament. Theoretical democracy is a delusion and a snare, but the working constitution under which the people of the self-governing Dominions of the British Empire are living is, in its