THE COMMONWEALTH ELECTIONS.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR."] SIR,—The result of the Commonwealth. elections should give pause to those " advanced " politicians in this country who daily with Socialism. It must be a shock to individualist s to see the strongest political personality in Australia, Mr. G. H. Reid, practically defeated after a strenuous campaign in which the case against State Socialism was put with an unequalled directness and force. It seems certain that as Mr. Deakin
cannot command a majority, be will ally himself with the Socialist Party, which gains strength at every Election. Adult suffrage has doubled the Socialist vote, for the wives and daughters of the manual labourers in Australia follow their relatives in politics, and it is obvious that political economy, neglected even by so-called educated people, is little known • amongst those who have no leisure for serious political study. When we see with what a light heart politicians are ready to rush into political experiments, it is as well to recall the words of the late W. E. H. Lecky, written forty years since, but never more pregnant than to-day:-
" The influence political economy exercises in uniting different communities by the bond of a common interest is also felt in the relations between the different classes of the same community. It is indeed no exaggeration to say that a wide diffusion of the principles of the science is absolutely essential if democracy is to be other than a fearful evil. For when the masses of the poor emerge from the torpor of ignorance, and begin keenly to examine their position in the gradations of society, property is almost certain to strike them as an anomaly and an injustice. From the notion that all men are born free and equal, they will very speedily pass to the conviction that all men are born with the same title to the goods that are in the world. Paley may have been wrong in regarding general utility as the ultimate basis of the rights of property, but most assuredly no other will obtain the respect of those who, themselves struggling with poverty, have obtained a supreme authority in the State Political economy, and political economy alone, can remedy the evil."
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