The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 2
Introduction
Introduction.
"The Gods have appointed it so; no Pitt nor body of Pitts, or mortal creatures, can appoint it otherwise. Democracy, sure enough, is here: the tramp of its million feet is on all streets and thoroughfares, the sound of its bewildered thousandfold voice is heard in all meetings and speakings, in all thinkings and modes and activities of men."
The United Kingdom has become, to a very great extent, a crowned Democracy.
Attitude of politicians in relation to this fact.
Two charges made against democracies.
Only one of them relevant to the present subject.
How the relevant charge is to be met.
The defects which are supposed to incapacitate a democracy for the management of international affairs are its fickleness, its ignorance, its liability to be carried away by gusts of passion. Now the whole of these defects have frequently been found, and found together, in the management of international affairs by a pure despotism; and if the first and last have been less often observed under an oligarchic government, the second has assuredly not been wanting. We must meet the accusation brought against democracy with a frank admission of its truth in the past.
page 7Democracies, putting aside the case of the United States, the circumstances of which are too unlike ours to make the example of much consequence in the present connection, have usually been fickle in the management of international affairs, have been ignorant, and have been liable to be carried away by gusts of passion.
The remedy threefold.
In order to do this successfully, three things are requisite.
1. |
The democracy must be led by chiefs in whom it confides. |
2. |
These chiefs must act upon a thoroughly well considered system of policy. |
3. |
They must not only be fully informed themselves, but must have the art of making the people see that they are so and of taking it with them. |