December 4, 1915. 
L A N D A N D \V A T E R 
{Continued from parte 3.1 
accustomed to not a little consideration and authority 
and iind themselves as voters reduced to lowest 
terms. The ballot is indeed a levelling institution" ; 
something analogous to that \vhim5ical effect im- 
agined by Carlyle in Sartor — pompous and authorita- 
tive humanity stripped of its clothes. 
There is but one fair argument of the detached 
abstainer, and it is a serious one, though to deserve 
acquittal on the charge of irresponsibility he must 
be able to plead an amount of personal interest and 
investigation not common in the type under 
anah'sis. Behold his argument. "' The problems 
submitted to me are too vast, the issues too con- 
fused ; there are such cross-currents. I want 
drastic industrial reconstruction but I am no 
Little-Englander. Or : I want an open democratic 
foreign policy but am not content to ally myself 
with the wreckers. Or : I distrust theoretic 
Radicalism iDut acknowledge the line idealism of 
it, and am desperately afraid of the business Tory. 
Or; here in my constituency the man of character 
and honour is standing for the part\; w.hichon the 
whole seems to me to be heading in -the^wrong 
direction. How on earth then can I cast my vote 
intelligently and conscientiously?" And ^if for 
these problems there are no ready solutions, 
despairing indifference will obviously be alwaNs.the 
least helpful course. Whoe\er believes in the 
future of democracy — and there is no future for 
anything else — must address himself resolutely to 
the task of repairing the machinery of representa- 
tion and administration. To cheapen elections ; 
to mitigate the e\'ils of canvassing ; to cripple the 
power of the caucus ; to give independence and 
diginity to the individual judgment ; these are 
simple problems at the circumference of our task. 
At the centre, it is our business, recognising the 
desperate futility of the administration of a quarter 
of the globe's territory and peoples by an un- 
wieldy six hundred or so, elected on national or 
even parochial issues, to provide a machinery that 
has some fair chance of working efficiency. And 
in the after-war years of difficulty it will be wise 
to cast votes for men rather than for parties. 
But there is a less ambitious and readier way 
into real politics in the sense which the word bears 
in these columns. Let our citizen decentralise his 
own vision and set himself to the problems of his 
own environment — city, borough, and ward rather 
than Empire. Let him go even nearer home than 
that and consider relations which he necessarily 
lias with his fellows. He is an employer perhap.s. 
It doesn't always occur to him that before sending 
his subscription to the hospital he needs to see 
that his clerks are not working in unventilited 
rooms. A prosaic conception of imperialism this, 
but vital. Or an even less conspicuous citizen may 
visualise his charwoman as one who after doing 
his modest doorstep, goes back to a mean house, 
which is a home, wherein there are certain human 
problems always in process of being solved — or 
unsolved. Indeed, the parable of the charwoman 
and her son will serve to make the case for the 
assumption of the duties of primary citizenship. 
It wasn't at first ol^vious that the charwoman 
had any particular son ; children in general no 
doubt. A reticent industrious body, quietlj- 
coming and as quietly going after her well-done 
work. Our citizen, requires a messenger. Does 
she know of one ? Her eldest bo\- ... An 
intelligent, well-fed, liealthy, well-mannered, well- 
dressed boy, too. That mean^ astonishingly good 
parents when the weekly wage of ..the family is 
considered. The charwoman is seen suddenly in 
* a new ligTit. . . . The boy's message accom- 
• plished, the citizen asks questioris. . What is he 
going to be ? Well, he is leaving school in a few- 
months. He'd like to be an engineer, but his 
father says they can't afford it — this with obviously 
single-minded candour. Follows a questioning 
of the mother (a mother now, formerl}- a mere 
charwoman). Yes, the boy had set his heart on 
engineering. Alw•a^•s making things and asking 
questions. But it costs much more money to be 
apprenticed than can be saved. The schoolmaster 
independently reports an excellent boy, result 
of an admirable home. . . Finally, to cut a 
long parable short, our citizen finds a reputable 
, firm willing to bind the boy apprentice, premium 
, to be duly paid by tiny instalments out of wages, 
if the citizen will stand sponsor. No money asked 
or given has tainted this transaction. The boy 
is being kept clear of some stupid blind alley 
occupation and put on the way to useful citizen- 
ship. It was not poverty merely, but that in- 
evitable ignorance as to how things iare clone, that 
tongue-tied helplessness that so handicaps this 
kind of a family and excuses the impertinence of 
interference on their behalf. For the citizen him- 
self, such . an adventure might w'ell be the little 
wicket-gate that leads into wider regions of political 
, interest and endeavour, and the serious taking up 
of his share of the business of government. 
We set out then from high ground with general 
abstract questions ' as to, the basis of democratic 
efficiency and the creation of abiding democratic 
loyalties. We have come down, not without 
deliberation, to the little concrete problem of the 
charwoman and her son. , For such little things as 
this contain the real answer to the question posed 
by our. New .Republican. 
The sacrifices necessary for the attainment of 
democratic efficiency can only be based on a great 
and general loyalty to a noble human ideal of the 
State, similar to that loyalty on which the auto- 
cratic state places its hopes. The state is a some- 
what qold term suggesting only matters of high 
policy and administration. It is a less inspiring 
thing than the hero worship which adroit auto- 
cracy can still command. But loyalty is a thing 
of ardours and emotion. Express the idea of the 
democratic state in terms of fellowship and the 
thing takes on a different colour. Fellowship 
involves sympathies, understandings, tolerances. 
Fellowship on the gi'eat scale of the State may 
indeed be a thing of empty, re\erberating phrases 
if it be not understood in terms of the charwoman 
and her son. The world had not to wait for Karl 
Marx and the International to hear " Ye are 
members one of another." Mocking words to 
(juote in this da\- of all days -but they are the 
seed of the resurrection of a broken world. We are 
not going back upon our ideal of fellowship and 
liberty for any threat from tlie efficiency of highly 
organised servitude. Democracy for all its im- 
perfections and betrayals is the expression of the 
belief in the essential worthiness, which is the 
essential lovableness of every man. Whatever 
the wise views of whips, agents, organisers and 
canvassers may be as to the essentials of politics, 
it is clear to "the unclouded vision that deeper 
down there stand these things Faith and Hope. 
And a greater than these. 
