MODERN DEMOCRACIES.* Loan BRYCE has written a most valuable book
on Democracy at work. Only a practised veteran could have planned so large a work and executed it in such comprehensive detail, main- taining all the while the attitude of an impartial observer which made his American Commonwealth one of the ablest treatises ever written on any country. For years before the war Lord Bryce was travelling in the quest for exact information to supple- ment the innumerable printed authorities that he has used, and he has now set down his observations and conclusions in a book which, though very large—running to over twelve hundred pages—is extremely readable. He begins with general considera- tions on Democracy—the Rule of the Majority—its relation to Liberty, Equality, Education, the Press, and so on. Then he describes some Democracies, touching briefly on ancient Athens and on modem Spanish America and discussing at length, in a series of illuminating chapters, the modem governments of France, Switzerland, Canada, the United States, Australia and New Zealand. Finally, in the last half of the second volume, to which readers will be tempted to turn first of all, he examines critically the results of Democratic rule, on its institutions and on the character of the peoples, and he considers the possible outcome of the tendencies which are seen to be at work. It will be noticed that he has expressly omitted Great Britain from his survey because he thought that no one would credit him with impartiality in treating the institutions of his own country. We regret the omission, for Great Britain is unques- tionably one of the most democratic countries in the world and has served as a model for all the rest except perhaps Switzer- land. On the other hand, the introduction of domestic politico, even by Lord Bryoe, might have distracted the attention of some readers from the most instructive and dispassionate chapters on the Dominions and the sister-nations which the British public needs to know better. The book as it stands can offend no susceptibilities at horns. The author, as he says, has tried to record facts and to give explanations of facts rather than to propound theories or " the pessimism of experience " which leads him to wonder whether the present generation really cares about institutions at alL The salient quality of the book is its hopefulness. Democracy has many critics in these days, both on the Right and on the Extreme Left, but it is surely significant. that a shrewd and experienced student of politics and history like Lord Bryce
• stesmeoemeereer... By Isms Bryoo (Viscount Bryce). 2 vols. London: MacmIllan. [60s. net.]
should conclude not only that Democracy has not failed, but also that as a form of government it has achieved a greater measure of success than any other. He admits its defects candidly enough, and regrets in particular that the development of Democracy has not brought more able and unselfish men to the front. " Never was it clearer than it is to-day that Nature shows no disposition to produce men with a greatness propor- tioned to the scale of the problems that they have to solve "- a warning which the proposers of a World State would do well to consider. But we can only judge of a form of government by comparing it with other forms, and Lord Bryce reminds us that modern Oligarchies, as in Russia, Austria, or Germany, made a very poor showing in comparison with Western Demo- cracy when they were brought to the supreme test of war. Democracy assumes many shapes. It is not synonymous with Republicanism, for Great Britain is a Democracy, whereas many Republics are only military despotisms, like the so-called " Sciviet Republic." Lord Bryce analyses in a most instructive fashion the methods of his six selected Democracies and shows how widely they differ in various respects. He thinks, for instance, that Canada is in some ways more democratic than the United States ; of Australia with her Labour Governments he says :-
"Australia has got no nearer than has any other country to solving the problem of government by the whole people with fairness to the whole people, but has given one more proof of what needed no proving, that a class dominant as a class will always govern in its own interest."
New Zealand, with " a people placed on a fertile soil under
genial skies, protected by their remoteness from external attack, unhampered by the resentments of a troubled past and fitted by their intelligence and character to order life according to right reason," seemed destined to be the ideal Republic of Plato or the Utopia of More, but even there " the defects charac- teristic of popular governments in older countries have appeared." Again and again in his comparisons Lord Bryce comes back to Switzerland as the Democracy which has most nearly attained its ideals. There must be some connexion between this verdict
and the fact that Switzerland is by far the smallest of the States passed in review. But the ancient Swiss traditions of self- government and the excellence of the Swiss system of national education have a great deal more to do with the success of the Swiss Democracy. Lord Bryce is by no means a convinced admirer of the Referendum and the Initiative as practised in the United States, but he shows that these two methods have
been employed with discretion in Switzerland, and that the Referendum; especially, has proved of great benefit to the Swiss people.
Lord Bryce insists on the importance of inducing a larger proportion of the citizens to take an active interest in political affairs. Most of the defects of Democracy may be traced to the indifference of the people and the unwillingness of the educated class to mix themselves up in the irksome business of popular government. " No government demands so much from the citizen as Democracy, and none gives so much back."
Again :-
"Democracy is based on the expectation of certain virtues in the people and on its tendency to foster and further develop those virtues. It assumes not merely intelligence but an intelligence elevated by honour, purified by sympathy, stimu- lated by a sense of duty to the community. It relies on the people to discern these qualities and choose its leaders by them. Given the kind of communal spirit which Rousseau expected, given the kind of fraternally religious spirit which Mazzini and the enthusiasts of his time expected, self-government, having the moral forces behind it, would be a comparatively simple matter, living on by its unquestioned merits. . . . Thus the question of the permanence of Democracy resolves itself into the question of whether mankind is growing in wisdom and virtue, and with that comes the question of what Religion will be in the future, since it has been for the finer and more sensitive spirits the motive power behind Morality."
Lord Bryce is right in emphasizing the fact that popular self- government cannot be maintained save by eternal vigilance and by an incessant conflict with the baser human passions. He
remarks on the irony with which Democracy has no sooner achieved an apparent triumph than it is confronted by a bitter
enemy in Bolshevism, which seeks to overthrow it by " bloody civil war." He discusses in a few weighty but cautious pages the question whether Democracy can, as some think, be fin- planted in Asiatio and African peoples, whose traditions are alien to the demooratio idea and whose level of trained intelligence
is very low. He admits that changes are coming about more rapidly than would have seemed possible a century ago, but " it would be folly to set up full-blown Democracy." If the Western nations with all their knowledge and experience find it hard to practise popular self-government, how should the backward peoples be expected to do so ? This is no argument for maintaining despotism .n Russia or China, Persia or Turkey, but it is well to face the facts as Lord Bryce does. We have only touched on a few points in his remarkable book, which deserves close study and which will always be valued as a faithful picture of Democracy on the eve of the Great War. We cannot leave it without congratulating the venerable author on his mastery of facts, on his lucid arrangement of a mass of materials, and on the sagacity of his comments.
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