PRESENT POLITICS 191 



under. These sunken rocks will wreck many a politician's bark in the 

 next few years. Until the change has become definite and the new coast 

 has been charted there will be no safety on political seas. The present 

 confusion of mind makes it difficult for constituents and representatives 

 to understand each other. Chance and whim will determine more than 

 a few public careers before the transition is gone through. 



The story of this phase of our economic activity can be compressed 

 into a few sentences. An energetic people possessed with the spirit of 

 equality, and working on an undeveloped domain, flourished forth in a 

 democratic era of acquisition, exploiting natural resources and each 

 other. Now that the natural wealth has been so largely appropriated, 

 it is no longer possible for the majority of the people to continue their 

 former practises, and they have been demanding through a few of their 

 representatives that the minority also cease. This was insurgency. 



When the new spirit began to possess the people they endeavored to 

 enact legislation or repeal laws and reorganize administration with a 

 view to abolishing the antiquated institutions and practises that had be- 

 come odious. They found, however, that the specialization of function 

 had gone so far that there had grown up a governing class of politicians, 

 office holders and administrators fairly distinct from the mass of the 

 citizens. This caste removed from the pressure of new conditions that 

 were changing the lives and thinking of the people in general is domi- 

 nated by the traditions, customs and practises of an earlier period. The 

 code of ethics of the era of acquisition still obtains among the govern- 

 ing group because the members of this group have not been exposed to 

 the influences to which the common people have been subjected. The 

 representatives of the people now in office represent the people of earlier 

 generations — not their contemporaries. The leaders are in the rear, 

 and persist in staying there. This inability to catch step, this moral 

 inertia, is leading an increasing number of people to doubt the workable- 

 ness of representative government. When a candidate is elected he 

 enters into the governing group : the atmosphere he breathes is fifty 

 years old : he is soon behind the times. He does what was formerly 

 acceptable, but is no longer so. He does not represent his constit- 

 uents, for the simple reason that they do not look upon the public 

 affairs as their fathers did. The constituents have changed — the repre- 

 sentatives have remained the same. 



The extreme difficulty of bringing up to date the machinery of gov- 

 ernment as at present operated is what is behind the movement for the 

 initiative and referendum that has enrolled within its ranks great num- 

 bers of men who have hitherto regarded the proposals of direct legis- 

 lation as impracticable, cumbersome and out of the question in political 

 units of any great size. Their old objections are as valid as ever they 

 were for a situation in which the people and their representatives are 



