Page:The future of democracy.djvu/20

THE FUTURE OF DEMOCRACY are not brought into consultation, and although they do a great part in the conﬆruction, they feel they have no part in any organisation, but are juﬆ mechanically doing their job. The hour comes when they have to do this work, and it is no pleasure; the hour comes when they have to leave it, and that is a pleasure.

How can we get rid of that? Only by intereﬆing the people in their work.

We are coming to some speculative things now, and I want to impress them upon you. I think the firﬆ problem we have to deal with is, how to get rid of that ﬆate of things in which the workman feels himself merely like a machine; he seems to himself like a machine which has to do the same thing from morning to night. I have seen highly skilled workmen doing things that were, beyond doubt, very monotonous.

But if a man is doing a thing of which he has a thorough knowledge, and is thoroughly intereﬆed in it, and he has the tools and machinery which relieve him of doing what a machine should do and a human being should never do, well, then, it is rather easier. You will never get rid of monotony.

Let us compare workmen with Judges. I am a fairly busy man. I am, among other things, a Judge of the Supreme Tribunal of the Empire, and I sit there daily from half-paﬆ ten to four liﬆening to causes which are argued before us and on which we have to give judgments which are sometimes very difficult and laborious. Do you think there is no monotony in liﬆening to speeches from half-paﬆ ten to four o'clock? I confess to you that I am haunted by the monotony of it. If I could only keep the arguments to the points and follow them in my own way, I should get rid of a lot of the monotony. But the suitors would not, perhaps, feel wholly satisfied, and the advocates would probably think that their arguments had been neglected. That is only 12