Page:English Historical Review Volume 37.djvu/143

1922

work is primarily an account of the nature and practical working of democratic institutions in France, Switzerland, the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, with shorter studies of the city-states of ancient Greece and of the South American republics. Democracy itself is defined as 'the rule of the whole people expressing their sovereign will by their votes', and more briefly as 'the rule of the majority'. To a comparative study of democratic ideas in different countries, Lord Bryce adds general conclusions as to their merits and their evolution, and as to the new problems which the modern world has to face.

The theme is thus more definitely constitutional than that of Lecky's Democracy and Liberty, which ranged widely over the political, social, and economic controversies of the nineteenth century, and, on the whole, it is more closely knit. It is also treated, if possible, with even more complete detachment. Lord Bryce's impartiality is, in fact, austere. This quality may come the more easily because we are so clearly on the threshold of a new age that much of the history here recorded is the history of past problems and of dead hopes. Moreover, the centre of gravity in our political thought has ceased to be an interest in institutions. In his final judgement Lord Bryce struggles gallantly towards optimism, and prays that the 'mystic faith in the people'—'the vital impulse of democracy'—may survive the disillusionment of to-day. He recognizes that democracy has not purified politics; nor yet cultivated the sense of human brotherhood among the nations; nor induced contentment among the masses of the people; nor adequately enlisted in the service of the state the best capacity of each country. His conception of democracy as being simply a phase in the march of man, entered into under the pressure of actual grievances, and not as an inspiration arising from the abstract doctrine of natural rights, shows how far he has travelled from early Victorian liberalism. Indeed practically all Dean Inge's indictments of democracy—the abstinence of able men from public life; slavery to catchwords; antipathy to reform; liability to bribery; want of moral courage—are here admitted, although little or no allusion is made to the charge that democracy fosters undue interference with individual liberty. On the other hand, Lord Bryce truly argues that education and knowledge are often no preventives against error, and that the broad common sense of the average man has repeatedly proved a sound practical guide in forming national judgements. With all its faults, there is nothing in the recent history of democracy to tempt the good citizen into a preference for that 'direct action' which Lord Bryce perceives to be the antithesis to popular government, and the greatest menace of our day.

It is difficult to quarrel with conclusions which are always evenly balanced, or with arguments which are invariably temperate. It is, I think, questionable whether the suggestion, made by every successive generation as it looks back upon a long life spent in public service and again put forward here by Lord Bryce, that the quality of the house of commons has declined, is really well founded. The only criticism that one dares