Besetting Dangers of a Democracy.

There were three dangers which beset every democracy:—(1.) The danger of war. (2.) The danger of the absorption of power into the hands of one man or set of men. (3.) The danger of the wealth, which should belong to the State, being absorbed into the hands of a few. These three dangers had beset every form of government the world had ever seen and they must not suppose that they were free from them, but it was their duty to lay down broad lines of policy, on which the people and statesmen of New Zealand should so conduct their actions as to make this a great nation with a stong and stable democratic Government.