Page:James Ramsay MacDonald - The Socialist Movement.pdf/115

 Rh These differences do not depend upon some fixed differences in national characteristics, but upon political systems, and consequently the granting of real democratic liberty to the German parliament would bring the German Socialists face to face with exactly the same problems in political policy as the British Socialists have now to meet. The method of Socialism under democracy can never be cataclysmic, because changed opinions and outlooks will have a steady and uninterrupted influence on administration and legislation. What cannot be done at a ballot box in a democracy cannot be done at a barricade. Like cordite burning in the open, old conditions will be harmlessly transformed; they will not, like cordite burning in a confined place, become explosive. Social organisation will be changed here and there just as the makers of a fabric of elaborate pattern complete its design by adding this and that patch of colour in obedience to the complete artistic idea they are working out. Or perhaps an even better analogy for the change is that which takes place in an organism which is moving from one set of vital conditions to another. Its muscles, its digestive organs, its temperament alter in obedience to the subtile change of environment which is going on around it.

Every objection to Socialism based on the contention that no one can foresee all the