And the People Were Fools

enough to go and fight. The Barons won, and afterwards shook hands with the King. Then the two took sides against the Squires, and the Squires said to the people, "Come and have a Parliament of your own," and the people were again fools enough to fight. Then the people of the middle classes said "We have to fight for our liberties, you come and fight our battles for us," and the people like lambs went up to be slaughtered with the King, and the Barons, and the Squires arrayed against them. That is practically the position again to-day. We have the horrors of the French Revolution flung in our teeth. But any man who has read the history of his country, or the history of any great nation, cannot point to a single revolution, cannot point to a single rebellion where the people themselves fomented it, where the people themselves led it, where the people themselves controlled it: and in every case where there has been