The Dominion. SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 1912. POLITICS AND THE AVERAGE MAN.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1372, 24 February 1912, Page 6

The Dominion. SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 1912. POLITICS AND THE AVERAGE MAN.

The average man is not at bottom a party man. He may not interest himself much in politics, and may as often as not, in normal circumstances, vote in the wrong way. He is very much at the mercy of phrases and fallacies; he will laugh in the face of anybody who tries to convince him that water will run up-hill, but his heart, which is generally a more active organ than his head, is an easy prey for tho demagogues who peddle showy political absurdities. The average man has little time to cultivate a sharp political understanding, and so, since the honest and patriotic men amongst those who are ablo to influenco the mass of mankind (and we may observe here that folly is as common amongst tho rich and exclusive as amongstthe poor, no class having anything like a monopoly of any fault or any virtue)— since these are in a minority, there is great difficulty in normal times in keeping Bocioty on a safo path. But though this is all true (and we do not regret it, because wo should lose far more than wo should gain if men became less human by becoming moro political) there is always one point at which the average man becomes poworfully political. He does not really believe that politics is usually a smudgy g_amo, because he has not thought seriously about it, but ho is sensible onongh to realiso that a Parliament cannot be a templo of truth. Still there are some things that he cannot bear, things that fill him with an obstinate disgust. One of these is tho deliberate and defiant breach by a politician of a pledge solemnly given to the people. Such an act strikes hira exactly in the same place, and inthe same way, as a gross breach of faith by a friend or acquaintance It is really ciuito likely that the "Liberal" politicians who applauded Mr. Payne on Thursday nignt, and who have been feverish!? arranging excuses for other members to break thoir pledges, have left the average man out of their calculations. It is far more likely, however, that they know what the average man will think, and are merely anxious to play their own game nt any cost to tho members whom they have sought to Boduco. Thoy do know this, that thore is np constituency in Now Zealand in vhM Ma. Pajtm gouid iuo-

ceed again. Mr. Payne probably also knows this. Such a violation of an election pledge is beyond the hope of casuistry to defend' it. The average man, if he were to explain his inability to see any defence for the reversal of an election pledge given on a supreme and vital issue, would put it this way: "Nobody can release a member from such a pledge. Release can only come from tho electorate as a whole, and the only perfect way to obtain the electorate's corporate opinion is for the member to resign and resubmit himself." And no amount of argument can shake that simple statement of the truth. A too-much-ncglected fact of politics is the fact, that in the end of all, at the last of all, it is the common man who counts, the common man who rules. "The world," said Disraeli, in one of his novels, "is wearied of statesmen whom democracy has degraded into politicians." Democracy does possess this power to degrade, but it retains the power to elevate and uplift also, to strike sometimes a smashing and terrible blow for righteousness. It can drag down; it is full of vices and tendencies to the bad side; but, like many a reckless and sinful man, it has in it a spark of nobility that circumstances can blow into a flame of noble sacrifice or noble anger. "In the last resort," as a recent anonymous writer has put it, "we are not governed by votes or laws, or Constitutions; we are governed by men." A little extension will carry this truth deeper still: in the last resort we are governed by ourselves—by the average man. It is not often, of course that the average man asserts his power in our democracy—not that he has not the opportunity of asserting himself, but because only amongst the greater grossneßsos lie those crossnesses which sting him like foul odours. It it his indifference to anything but what actually chafes him or else offends his simple conceptions of right and wrong, his indifference to the less superficial problems with which the foes of rhisgovernment must busy themselves, it is this that enables dishonest Governments to hold power for long periods. It is that samo indifference in normal times that makes so many politicians ready to adopt as a working theory that cynical view of duty which Lord Mdrley rebuked in his Rousseau : "Those who treat politics and morality apart will never understand the one or the other." That such people do not understand morality truly is of course clear; what gives Lord Morley's saying its special shrewdness is its implication that men who leave morality out of their politics are bad practical politicians. Briefly, "cheats never prosper," in politics as in anything else. For behind all politics in a democratic community stands the average man. And those who have been tempting or urging members of Parliament to break solemn pledges solemnly given will find very quickly indeed what the average man can do when he sees his politicians violating one of tin! fundamental and essential principles upon which Society rests, and, with Society, its politics, its industry, and its daily life. The breaking of pledges is one of the roots of anarchy. Against anarchy, and, therefore, against the breaking of pledges and its moral and practical treason, thero rises up in the averago man that very social instinct which has made men live in .communities. "The. social instinct sends the thieves to prison in civil life; in the time of war it ranges the spv before the firing party. And I!" social instinct is the mind of the average man. When the occasion arises, he will deal politically wit! the political cheat as'men deal with the wclsher and as the law deals with the man who swears falsely.