HEREDITY AND POLITICS 151 



thousandfold a certain injury to unborn generations. 

 Such a class of electors would fall an easy prey to the 

 alluring genius of the typical political "boss." To 

 create such an electorate is to create a suitable environ- 

 ment in which political corruption may take root and 

 flourish. Its establishment would lead to a further 

 degradation of the citizenship of the working man, a 

 degradation which is often attributed to the influence of 

 party caucuses, themselves brought into being by the 

 necessity of manipulating a large body of voters who 

 have neither the instinct, the tradition nor the educa- 

 tion to fit them for their responsibilities. 



From the point of view of racial welfare, therefore, 

 it seems as though, in an elected chamber, democratic 

 representation of any section of the community, who, 

 in the interests of the majority and especially of 

 the future of the State, cannot be trusted with the 

 management of their own affairs and the direction 

 of their own problems of education, hygiene and sub- 

 sistence, is a serious error of political philosophy. It 

 may even be said to constitute a distinct dereliction of 

 duty and throwing up of responsibility on the part of the 

 citizens whose abilities have created the modern state 

 and marked them out to be the conscious directors of 

 national policy. The position of the negro and half- 

 caste voter in the United States of America, and of 

 the unenfranchised native population of South Africa, 

 affords an instructive commentary on this portion of 

 our subject. We believe that the " colour " line masks 

 and conceals differences of more fundamental im- 

 portance, and that these instances of political inequality 

 illustrate a principle of far more extended application. 



