The Dominion. TUESDAY, APRIL 16, 1012. DEMAGOGUES AND THEIR PHRASES.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1415, 16 April 1912, Page 6

The Dominion. TUESDAY, APRIL 16, 1012. DEMAGOGUES AND THEIR PHRASES.

If we have very frequently discussed the tendency of demagogic politics to fight with phrases as weapons, it is because demagogues do so fight and because the public of this generation has been rather easily misled by unctuous generalities. During the Easter holidays we all had quite a surfeit of these phrases from some of our Labour friends. They glittered not only in the "objects" of the Unity League, if that is its right name, but also in the speeches of tho Unifiers. And right upon the top of their proclamations of anxiety to uplift the people and make the political and economic worlds gay with fadeless gardens, there came a cable message (published last week) in which Mn. Roosevelt, the pledgebreaker, announced that he was the champion of "social justice." What is social justice'/ There may be such a thing, expansible in terms of society and of justice as men understand justice. But what is the thing in Mr. Roosevelt's mind that he calls social justice? A clover man's attempt on the ignorance of democracy, It is a trick at which the j demagogues have- become extremely ! expert in all democratic countries. We have those demagogues here—Mn. Laurensox, for example, is an _ expert in pious and rotund vacuities— and they are very noisy in England since Mr. Lloyd-George learned that tho Limohoußo mind is a v nry cotrrImon mind, Xhoj; are common eaougU.

in America, and there Mr. RooseVEI.t is now their chieftain.

The ex-President's persistent use of the phrase "social justice -,, at last provoked the Np.w York I'osl into exposing the hojlowncss of such loose language. The, phrase, the l'nsl said, cried aloud for definition. Undefined, it migh'c_ mean anything one pleased: "We can readily imagine what would be said of a' political leader who announced that he stood for the confiscation of property and the exploitation and intensifying of Class hatred, yet it might be found that be intended the precise thing which others describe as social justice." There is the fallacy of the demagogue's phrase in a sentence. The. demagogue does not define what lie. means by justice; still less does he attempt to. show how his practical proposals will lead to "social justice" or any other sort of justice. "Social justice" appears to him to be one of those excellent things that only requires to be mentioned in ordor to entrap the support and t.Vie enthusiasm of the sentimental and the ignorant; and the demagogue ■ knows that there is a large section of the community which takes its politics from demagogic headlines just as it takes its science from Tit-Bits or the twopenny illustrated magazines.. They want social justice, or what they in their minds define as social justice: we all do; but intelligent people like to know just how and why any political programme will produce that good result. As the New York paper puts

Ono hearing tho words "social justice" come trippingly from the tonguo of so many orators who use them as if they were" the solvent of all our ills, cannot help wishing that some of these glib gentlemen could be put through such a dialogue as Socrates applied to the confident Athenian in "The Kepublic." This reasoner, too, thought it sufficient to say

that ho stood for justice. It had never ocC'ivreil to him to go behind that sinooth- ' sounding word and ask what were its actual implications in definite instances. But Socrates continually pressed the. question upon.him, "What is justice?" and deftly led him from admission to admission until

it appeared that the just man could not bo told from a thief. Such an exercise of the wits would do a world of good to those in our own day who are so glibly assuring us that all wo need is a generous application of social justice—twice- a day, after meals, one is templed to add, so much like a quack medicine is the remedy made to appear.

In the long run, no doubt, the insincerity of the phrase-using demagogue finds him out. He obtains support as the professor of social justice ; he enacts many laws; and social justice appears to be a thing still as far off as is, say, good government and ordinary economic comfort after twenty years of "Liberal" rule. Then the quack has to face exposure and retribution. When Mn. T. Mackenzie and his strange Socialis-

tic bodfcllows declare that they have a burning desire to provide "good government in the interests of all," without saying a word as to how they are going to provide for it, and when our Labour friends appeal for recruits for the same great cause, also without any reasoning from programmes to results, they are simply playing the old game of leaning on the public's _ credulity. The politician who promises "social justice," or any other of the vague and alluring thjngs that slim demagogues do promise, can carry out his promises only through legislation. "Social justice," "good government," "peace and prosperity"— these- are things that must come through laws. When a man promises any of them he ought to be asked how he will go about it, and crossexamined as to whether the good things will flow from his specific proposals. "It should not be forgotten," says the New York Post, "that it can never become a question of voting a j law to do social justice, but only of doing particular justice, or injustice, to Bill Jones and Sarah Ferguson." The demagogue and his phrases have had a long innings; but the irony of facts, which is simple justice, is beginning to end their_ domination. Kelying upon the tactics of tickling the minds and |he inclinations of

the ignorant, the phraso-users have waked up the people. The people have begun to think, and being more concerned, after all, with concrete facts than with abstractions, they are

far less disposed than formerly to be hypnotised by a phrase. They arc far more inclined than formerly to meet the demagogue—whether ho is an American ex-President, a New Zealand Minister, or a Labour

leader—who talks about his consuming anxiety to secure "social justice," with a cold and alert "How 1" The attitu'de of mere negation of the demand for change, improvement, or advance is not to be defended; but every demand should be specific and every programme practical.