Page:National Life and Character.djvu/121

 Socialism. It is not contended for a moment that democracy may not be, or indeed is not likely to be, a temporary form of political growth. What, however, does democracy mean? Not necessarily the extinction of hereditary kingship, for a sovereign, and even a line of sovereigns, may be approved the best possible exponents of the popular will. Not necessarily, or perhaps conceivably, the destruction of social inequality, for even if a House of Lords be swept away, men who are pre-eminent by practical ability or by wealth will always make their superiority felt, and if they use their power wisely may count upon a generous recognition. What democracy seems really to mean is the vesting of power in the people in such way that their changes of purpose may have instantaneous effect given to them. It is this approval of mutability which statesmen dread. It may mean that a w r ar will be declared wantonly, and given up disgracefully; that an alliance of long standing will suddenly be discarded; that ruinous expenditure will be incurred; that a national debt will be repudiated, or property confiscated to relieve temporary pressure; that inexperienced men will be put at the public helm in virtue of a certain talent of voluble speech, and a fertility in plausible expedients. Perhaps all these dangers have been exaggerated. The most real of all seems to be the risk of profuse expenditure; and even in this respect it would be difficult for a democracy to transcend the extravagance of the old military monarchies. At any rate, it seems likely that two great causes will so far modify the democratic unrest as to make political society in the rather distant future more stable, more wary, and more compactly cemented than it is now. In the first place, the growth of new military powers, such as China, or the augmen-