will break out into war sooner or later causes each state to generate the maximum amount of warlike power and economic control. It may be that nationalisation is an unconscious step in the development of the warlike state. The national power for offence in turn is used to enable the nationals (or is it the internationals?) of each state to appropriate the real wealth of undeveloped countries to the exclusion of all others of a different nationality, and even its own less fortunate nationals. We are living in an age of mercantilism in the old narrow and exclusive sense, despite our lip deference to free trade and freedom of expansion, a mercantilism supported by armed and legal power, never before exercised to so great a degree.

This is not the conception of the state as held by the juristic historian, but it is one which is very much closer to the facts of to-day. The state has become the incarnation of unlimited power, power exercised by a small governing class, with the economic, military and legal resources of the nation at call. We cannot administer justice in a nation of great inequalities, as the very conception of justice assumes equality, for colour, property or culture bars are themselves injustices. Law does not enable good men to live amongst bad men, but rich men amongst poor men. No doubt the state ought to administer justice between equals and serve the public good, but it does not. That is what the necessary state will do when the historical state is shorn of much of its present activity, and when it is shown its duties where at present it merely demands so-called rights. We may hope, but not for a very early realisation of our hope. If we do not blind ourselves to the development of the past, we will know that great difficulties lie in the path in the future, one of which is the great sentimental appeal of a false patriotism when the state conceives itself to be in danger.

It may be asked what significance lies in theorising about the origins and purposes of the state, as we must take each individual state as we find it, with its mixed character of exploiter and policeman. The theory of the state is important in the creation of a functional democracy, because we must understand clearly what functions are proper to the state and can be performed

by it with efficiency, and what work should be done by other functional organisations in society. We have to realise that the social struggles of the future are not likely to be simple contests of will for the establishment of democracy. Democracy in its simplest terms has to all intents and purposes been achieved in the series of revolutions between the middle of the 17th century and to-day. The revolutions of the future will be less concerned with the general principles of liberty, equality and fraternity than with the practical content of those terms and with the elaboration of the details of functional democracy. The struggles will be for practical and detailed control and rights. It is this that will distinguish labour from radical movements.

To understand thoroughly the implication of functional democracy it is necessary to distinguish between the necessary state and the historical state, the latter of which has been primarily designed for economic exploitations, either of one nation by another, or of one class by another in the same nation. Indeed, the alignment of struggling forces in the future seems to be along a class division, an exploiting and an exploited class, the fundamental axiom of most socialist theorists, who have been concerned with something more than the trappings of power. This theory realises that the struggle of the future will take place on the economic field, although, by a confusion of ideas, it is somehow expected to solve that struggle in favour of the labouring classes by political means chiefly. The political solution, however, will leave the economic riddle where it was, and by increasing the power and prestige of the state will possibly make the problem less soluble than ever, because it will inevitably develop the state on lines of force and increased militarism. We are inclined in our social theorising, perhaps, to think too much in terms of warfare, and too little in terms of business organisation and social welfare. The problems of the future will be problems concerning efficient production, a just distribution of wealth, detailed government in industry and how to allow the labourer the opportunity of self-expression in craftsmanship and in the government of his own industry.

The word democracy has been a rallying cry throughVol. 248.-No. 491.

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out the ages from the day of Pericles to that of the Chartists, a cry with a great tradition that one would not treat lightly. Where the borders of freedom have been most enlarged, the cry for freedom and justice has been most insistent. But even with the establishment of political democracy, freedom and justice have often seemed far off in the modern prevalence of squalor and luxury, great inequalities of wealth and opportunity. We have suffered the never-ending audacity of elected persons, whether state or municipal servants, or even those of the more democratic trade unions. The price of freedom is eternal vigilance; but vigilance has to be exercised in thinking out the principles upon which society is built, and adapting that society to a quickly changing world, rather than in spying and watching with jealousy, elected representatives. It is jealousy for freedom and for self-expression which is to be cultivated, not jealousy for office, for it must always be difficult to distinguish in many cases between public spirit and keenness in affairs and the simple audacity of office. It must be admitted that sometimes the elected person reads his mandate too amply and plays his part too narrowly; whilst the elector on his part fails to make any allowance for time and circumstance, as well as for human frailty. So long as we think in general terms, so long will the obstinate questionings of insurgent and suspicious democracy be heard.

Modern democracy is a new thing, however, and we can no longer face our problems as the men of the past did, for their use of the word and ours connote a different group of ideas. The Russian revolution is some evidence of this fact, and certainly those who have directed the storm there have shown considerable disregard for both theoretical and practical democracy as commonly understood. The scale and circumstances of the revolution, doubtless, made this necessary. The ideology of revolution during the last fifty or sixty years had stressed other elements more strongly than that of political democracy which was undoubtedly the aim of previous middle-class revolutions. It has been seen that democracy in the old sense was impossible of achievement and that its approximation, the representative system, did not and could not give the results

anticipated from its adoption. Consequently, a whole series of new problems has arisen, which did not exist for the ancients and yet whose correct solution is all important for the society of the future.

It is, therefore, important to understand what we mean by democracy and also to distinguish between the condition under which a democracy in a city state like ancient Athens functioned, and the conditions under which democracy must function in a great modern national state. In those ancient days the citizens made their voice heard directly in public assembly. Numbers were comparatively few and distances negligible, whilst there was a general insistence that every qualified citizen should perform some public service and in certain cases there was a compulsory rotation of office. The consequence was that each man had the opportunity of becoming skilled in public affairs; whilst the extreme differences of cultural level between the thinker and statesman on the one hand, and the labouring artisan on the other, did not exist, as they exist to-day. Men like Eschylus and Euripides, no less than Pericles or Alcibiades, were public characters, whose achievements were known and whose values were assessed by a wide public opinion. The arts of reading and writing did not set classes apart, and cause colleges to be specially endowed for wealthy patrons, whilst the poor picked up crumbs of a cheap learning as they might. These democracies existed before the superfine distinctions and fictions of the law had divided the nation into castes and categories, apart from that of master and slave, whose bounds it was impossible to transcend. In other words, the ancient Athenian might readily be at the same time, poet, politician, merchant and soldier, and his importance and position in society did not depend, at least to the same extent as it does in England to-day, on the possession of a satisfactory bank balance or its equivalent.

It must be obvious to all that this simple form of democracy is inapplicable to the conditions of a large modern state. Indeed it is inapplicable to the municipal government of a moderately-sized town. We have been compelled to adopt the principle of sending representatives to parliament and to council; representatives

moreover to a large extent only known to the electorate imperfectly for a short time during contests, and seldom seen by their constituents at other times. The representative principle assumes an average mind, to be interpreted by the representative in legislative action. That being so, excuses for actions, or for failure to take action, are readily forthcoming on the score of what the constituency does or does not want. This leads to a certain amount of timidity on the part of the representatives, whose policies are sometimes those of the time-server for the sake of office. There are other points which may be noted, one the fact that a good deal of legislation, which really serves private purposes, can be pushed through and little noticed; the other, that a mass of highly complex and technical problems are discussed and settled by a heterogeneous mass of representatives, uninstructed in the technical details of the subject under discussion, and liable to make the most gross mistakes, unless they leave themselves unreservedly in the hands of the permanent officials of government departments. Moreover, there is a tendency to add the functions of the merchant and business house to state activities, a government of detailed industry by a responsible representative assisted by part of the civil service. This tendency will grow with the development of collectivism, and is one which complicates the whole issue of democracy. It will remove control to a very remote point from the operative, whereas we should endeavour to arrange that the hungry cry of the market shall be distinctly audible in the august assembly of the controllers, and this can only be done when the centre of each control is in the market itself.

There is one aspect of democracy which calls for a few words. Recognising the drawbacks of representation, as commonly understood, a refinement has been made on the idea, by the method of choosing and instructing delegates to the assembly or conference. This system prevails mostly in trade union affairs, although it is by no manner of means universal there. It may be satisfactory for certain purposes, but to extend the principle to public elected assemblies would be disastrous. It puts a premium upon the pull of interests rather than upon consideration and debate.