December 4, 1915. 
LAND AND WATER. 
THE FORUM. 
A Commentary on Present-day Problems. 
THOUGHTFUL democrats in pacific America 
are not merely examining their military 
defences. They are asking how far de- 
mocracy is in the future to be in peril 
from the ruthlessly organised autocracy. An 
article entitled " For A Disciphned Patriotism " 
in the Neu' Republic, a progressive and responsible 
New York weekly journal, which naturally is able 
to discuss the matter with greater detachment than 
we can at present afford, provides us with an apt 
text for comment on the problems and responsi- 
bilities of democratic citizenship. The writer of 
the article in question is indeed a little overawed 
by the German achievement ; and the growth of 
such an attitude whether from fear, or genuine, if 
qualified, admiration, is a danger which we have 
to be on our guard against. But let the thoughtful 
American speak. 
"If military autocracy survives this wa-r, the 
only way in which western ^freedom can compete 
with it is by a moral mobilisation under freedom 
equal to the moral mobilisation under autocracy. 
It is an extraordinary disgrace that precisely in 
those lands where freedom in a political sense is 
greatest, individualistic disregai'd of the public 
consequences of conduct, and political disregard 
of the effects upon the individual of social and 
economic policies, should also be greatest. 
"Germany, 'steering by the lode-star of national 
integrity and national effectiveness, has made 
every effort to create a public-minded ' attitude 
in every subject, and to that end has seen to it 
that life is made tolerable for every subject, as 
witness her forehanded enterprises of social in- 
surance. The Anglo-Saxon nations, on the other 
hand, steering toward the goal of freedom, have 
permitted their citizens to drift into the illusion 
that life belongs only to the individual, who both 
morally and politically ought to be left unrestrained. 
Only war is conceived to necessitate the subordina- 
tion of .private inclinations to public interests. 
Under the inspiration of such a popular philosophy, 
government has naturally concerned itself with 
furthering the most vociferous of individual in- 
clinations, at least until within about a decade, 
rather than with systematically creating a close- 
knit and serviceable attitude of social co-operation 
to national ends. 
" Our patriotism has been a good deal like that 
diffuse and conventional type of religion which 
is chiefly utilised for the opening of public meetings 
and for facing death", but in the intervals between 
ceremony and crisis ■ receives scant attention- 
indeed." • / • 
Germany, he goes on to say, is the only nation 
that has consciously used the developments of 
science for heroic state-building, while England 
(and we must suppose America and France) have 
slumbered. Disciplined loyalty has been her 
weapon (a two-edged weapon we need not forget). 
Is such a loyalty possible in a free state ? Yes, 
says the writer, through education and co-operation, 
as, for instance, Denmark's progress suggests. 
Rightly believing government to be our creature, 
not our master, we have \'et lost sight of the 
" complementary doctrine . . . that the in- 
dividual is of the state, is protected solelj'^ by the 
state, and ought to live in constant and voluntary 
subordination of his personal inclinations to the 
good of the state." 
Perhaps these last words cover more than the 
robust upholder of English liberties might be 
disposed to allow. We are, however, forced to 
allow that as the true art of all common life, 
life of the family or club or regiment, consists in 
the abandonment of personal habits and preferences 
where these are hurtful to others, so healthy politi- 
cal life must be established on a basis essentially 
the same. Analogies are notoriously misleading. 
The illustration of the club is perhaps the aptest ; 
in that members of equal standing elect representa- 
tives to administer their affairs by regulation, 
without surrendering the responsibility of overseeing 
those representatives and revising, through them 
or through others elected in their place, the rules 
of their common life. 
If in the autocratic state it is loyalty which 
is the pre-eminent virtue ; in the democratic, the 
paramount quality is the sense of responsibility. 
But whereas loyalty in autocracy carries only very 
limited implications of responsibility, responsi- 
bility in a democracy demands a very difficult 
loyalty from its constituent members. Autocracy 
is a simple, symmetrical, forthright method; 
democracy a complex, clumsy and hesitating. 
It is immeasurably easier to be a good loyalist than 
a good democrat ; easier to accept uncritically an 
^ authority, especially if it possess some picturesque 
' virtues, than laboriously to create an authority 
worthy of obedience as is democracy's heroic and 
almost paradoxical task. It is, however, of the 
nature of responsibility, dutifully assumed, to 
beget loyalty ; responsibility is the primary quality. 
An. irresponsible democracy' is little Jpetter than an 
irresponsible king. " 
It suits us who are of the goodly fellowship of 
reasonably well-cut coats to assume that irrespon- 
sibility • is an attribute only of the ill-dressed 
classes. Yet the ignoring of parish, civic, national 
and imperial issues, that incredible middle class 
detachment which leaves politics to relatively 
small organised bodies of party folk, or to horny- 
handed and vegetarian socialism, is a manifestation 
of irresponsibility which has not the excuse of 
ignorance. It is irresponsible to lay the hand on 
the heart and declare politics to be too cori'upt for 
one's fastidious taste. Corruption has always 
been the enemy^of absolute monarchies as of free 
democracies. In the latter it is less secret and 
perhaps less picturesque. Alertness, knowledge 
and patient criticism in the honest many is the 
only real guarantee against corruption by the 
adroit few. It is a task not certainly made easier 
by the superior incorruptibles standing aloof. The 
herded voter — brass banded, over-canvassed and 
obligingly conveyed to the polls — is only one type 
of irresponsibility. The abstaining voter is dis- 
tinctly another. One may question whether such 
abstinence is not sometimes an effect of pride in 
people who in their ordinary way of life are 
(Continned on ;(i;e {.) 
