June 7, 191: 
LAND & WATER 
American and British Democracy 
By Principal L. P. Jacks 
f 
IF a friendly visitor should come to our shores at the 
])resent moment it would be almost literally true to inform 
nim tliat the British nation is " not at home." The pitli 
of it, or rather the flower of it, is abroad, figliting our 
battles and defending our liberties. The number of tho.se 
who are tluis engaged, if the attendant services are counted 
in, is almost equal to that of the British electorate, and being 
what they are, in quality as well as in number, they may be 
said t(j " represent " the nation, for they are the best it can 
jiroduce. If. therefore, the object of our visitor were to study 
British democracy in being, he would see that his proper 
course was to wait until these men returned to civil hfe. In the 
meantime he might employ his leisure in studying the spirit 
of this vast army of absentees, and in asking himself what 
difference that spirit would make if, when the war is over, it 
were to be brought back with the returning hosts, and were 
to become a factor in our domestic politics. 
Nothing tlie war jias produced is more remarkable than 
1 he good temper of the men who compose the fighting forces 
oi Britain.' That so many millions of men. belonging to all 
classes in society, should suddenly find themselves on the 
best of terms with one another, consciously bound together in 
tlie fellowship of a sacred cause, may surely be reckoned a por- 
tentous social phenomenon. It forms a striking contrast to 
tile eminent bad temper which characterized our civil life 
u]) to the moment when war broke out. Our splendid soldiers 
and sailors can do more for us than win the war. They can 
bring back into civil life, into politics and into social reform, 
a breath of that spirit of comradeship, of high spirits, of un- 
complaining give-and-take, which every observer who has 
visited the figliting fronts has been quick to note and to feel. 
That spirit is needed for the work of peace as much as for the 
work of war, nay, more needed ; and the need of it will be 
ispccially great when we come to face the tremendous and 
exasperating problems which await us after the' war.j 
Evil of Bad Temper 
Of all the obstacles to human progress I reckon bad temper 
the chief. Its symptoms and effects in national, and inter- 
national, life are precisely the same as those with which 
\ye ourselves are so familiar in individual men and women, 
perhaps in ourselves. When a man loses his temper he loses 
liis head and becomes an unreasonable being ; sees everything 
in false proportions ; does the wrong thing almost infallibly ; 
])roduces Ins worst work ; talks nonsense ; and generally 
makes liimself ridiculous. Groups, parties, whole nations 
which have lost their temper, betray the same symptoms 
with the same effects. 
Bad temper is one of the peculiar products of domestic 
])olitirs, as they are pursued in the democratic countries of 
iuirop?, especially in our own. By some ill chance, or mis- 
carriage, democracy in our part of the world has egregiously 
failed m what might reasonably be regarded as the main part 
of its mission — that of keeping all parties, classes, groups and 
individuals on good terms one with another. This, I venture 
to say, is the final test by which the success o^ de nocracy should 
be judged. Its greatest triumphs will not be achieved until 
it has permanently sweetened the temper of the community, 
filling the air with the spirit of good fellowship, of camaraderie, 
like that which now prevails in the British Army. Unless it 
does that, all its achievements in the way of legislation will 
not count for very much as factors in the progress of mankind. 
And it is just here that British democracy, up to date, seems 
to me to have missed its mark. It may well be doubted if 
the world ever contained a worse-tempered household than 
that represented by the population of these islands in the 
early summer of 1914. Ideally, we were making ourselves 
ridiculous. It is hardly too "much to say that tlie main 
part of our political energies and intelhgence — at least, so 
much of our intelligence as the vile temper of the time had 
not eclipsed — were being spent in quarrelling. A score of 
needed reforms, which calm common sense could easily have 
jjrovided, were held in suspense or permanently blocked by 
the bad temper of the parties concerned. Our public life 
was all in a rage, andfif a breath of sweet reasonableness was 
wanted it was only in private life that it could be enjoyed, 
and with difficulty even there. 
The thing had gone so far that the two sexes were at 
loggerheads ; we were actually threatened with a war of 
the sexes ; and the women were especially nasty. I saw a 
riot in which they took part, and for sheer atrocity of temper 
on both sides I have never .seen a more disgusting nor a more 
disquieting spectacle. In spite of the assurances that were 
given us — most of them quite hollow — that society was making 
progress, and that everything would presently be mended by 
Act of Parliament, the human part of us was being outraged 
every day, and many of us could not hel]) the feeling that 
hfe was becoming quite intolerable -thanks to the abomin- 
able humours that were active everywhere. 
Democracy, we need to remember, has a human side dis- 
tinct from that which appeals to the constitutional lawyer, 
the politician, or even to the ardent promoter of social reform. 
Tiiese have their own measure of progress ; they prove it by 
statistics which no doubt have their relevance. The human 
side, though vastly more important than the statistical, is 
not so easily dealt with. There is no yard- stick by which you 
can measure the growing contentment, neighbourliness, mutual 
respect, friendly co-operation and intelligent good humour 
of a great people. Yet these are the things that really count 
when human welfare is in 'question, and which democracy 
must promote, along with its other achievements, before it 
can claim to be on the road to success. Statistics being here 
unavailable, I cm only appeal to those who vividly remember 
the state of public life in Britain before the war to ask them- 
selves, quite candidly, whether these qualities were increasing 
or the reverse. I say they were on the wane. The increase 
was in their contraries. 
Now it is in respect to this, the human side of democracy, 
that the widest difference exists between the American variety 
and our own. The American democracy is the best tempered 
in the world. I do not say that its temper is perfect, a state- 
ment that any American who reads the words would at once 
recognise as nonsense. But on the whole it is better than 
ours and better than the French ; which is as much as to say 
it is good enough to be an example to the rest of us. It is on 
the.se lines that we may expect it to exercise a great influence 
on the other democracies with which it is now so happily as- 
sociated in defending the public liberties of mankind. 
In the political Hfe of America there is indeed abundant 
gnashing of teeth, as everyone knows who is familiar with its 
Press. But I have yet to meet an intelhgent American who 
takes the gnashing quite seriously, or believes, as some Britons 
believe, that the fate of his country depends on which side 
can gnash the hardest. In nothing does the pohtical good 
sense of the American show itself so plainly as in his capacity 
for rating these things at their proper worth — I had almost 
said, in his readiness to laugh at them. He treats them as a 
side-show, on the whole an amusing side-show, to matters oi 
infinitely greater importance. It has been said of the 
Enghsh that they take their pleasures seriously. It might 
be added that we take our politics seriously too, which in 
the abstract is a good thing ; but never do we take them so 
seriously as when we have least reason for taking them 
seriously at all, that is, when we are all making ourselves 
ridiculous under the malign influence of bad temper. That 
is not a good thing. 
The American takes neither his pleasures nor his politics 
as seriously as we do. So far as politics are concerned 
this no doubt has some disadvantages, as every American 
is fully aware ; but inasmuch as politics, of all things in 
the world, are the most susceptible to the infection of bad 
temper, and to the absurdities thence arising, the' balance 
works out on the side of gain. The gain is that in the daily 
life of the American paople common sense, kind feeling, and 
good manners are real guarantees for the decent behaviour 
of the average ' citizen. These qualities are the true 
police of the country, and though they are not alVvays to be 
counted on, and may sometimes take a ■wrong turn, yet on 
the whole they wotk eft'ectively and good-humouredly, and 
are justly to be counted a political force of the first magnitude. 
The temper of the American nation in peace is not unlike 
that of the British army in war. 
Many years ago when I was a student at Harvard, I had a 
conversation about these things vrith the late Edward 
Everett Hale, the famous author and divine and Chaplain to 
the House of Representatives. In those days — it was in the 
late eighties — I shared the common opinion of the young men 
of the time that the social millennium was not far off. I 
thought that one or two sweeping Acts of Parliament, if only 
I and my friends had the framing of them, would suffice to 
establish society on a basis satisfactory to everybody. These 
views I presented to Dr. Hale, no doubt with a good deal ol 
assurance. 
I informed him, that in my judgment, the fiolden 
.-\ge would never dawn in America so long as the " best 
])eople " of the country kept aloof from politics. 
" My dear young man," he replied, "we want our best 
