Page:The League of Nations and the democratic idea.djvu/17

 clean record in this matter. That is because the working classes, like most other large groups, are led not by their average men but by their idealists. No one can attend many Socialist conferences or Trade Union Congresses, or Workers' Educational gatherings, or other meetings of the elite of the working class in Great Britain without feeling the strong idealism of the atmosphere. And I believe it is much the same in most other civilized nations. The audiences at such meetings will be duly interested, no doubt, in plans for raising their own wages and shortening their hours of work, but they are not roused or swept into enthusiasm except by an appeal to some great cause or ideal. Indeed, unless my insight is at fault, I should say that, in a meeting of working men, even when the discussion appears on the surface to be concerned merely with material subjects, the hearts of the audience are generally set on something quite different. They are not thinking of ' bread and circuses '; they are thinking, however crudely, of the building of the New Jerusalem. And, together with other great causes, they believe intensely in Freedom and in Peace. But that is in part because the societies that I speak of, the Socialist bodies, the Trades Unions, the workmen's Liberal and Radical Associations, have, in all the democratic nations alike, an idealist atmosphere. They tend to be led by the best minds of their class, who agree in most matters with the best minds of other classes. No doubt the