The Waikato Argus GEORGE EDGECUMBE Proprietor. TUESDAY, JANUARY 4, 1898.

Waikato Argus, Volume IV, Issue 230, 4 January 1898, Page 2

The Waikato Argus GEORGE EDGECUMBE Proprietor. TUESDAY, JANUARY 4, 1898.

The last session of Parliament and events in other parts of the world are giving matter for much serious consideration, not only by those who are opposed to legislative experiments in the direction of extreme Democracy 'and Socialism, but also by those who believe in the systems. The London Echo, which is perhaps the most able exponent of Socialism soliiiquiscs, as follows on the result of the New York Mayoral election : " Has democracy come a century too soon 1 Did the millions, here and in France and in America, need another hundred years of education before taking their part in public affairs. Many people have asked themselves these questions lately—when the British people put in a Tory Government three years ago for instance, or when a great municipality like New York surrenders itself to the thieves ivho had held it captive for so many years. Dozens of cities in Germany, where you must not crack a joke at the expense of Young Ajax, or you will find yourself in prison, are yet infinitely' better governed, municipally, though bureaucratically, than most American and some English cities. What is the corollary 1 Shall we go back to a limited suffrage and the days of pocket boroughs or abolish Parliamentary and municipal institutions altogether, and tty and find angels for dictators.'' The results or democracy which the writer depicts above he tries to find a remedy for, and in the same article says : " People who despise the so-called evils of democracy are nearly always those who neglect to take their own proper part in its work. They have been so content themselves in the past to be governed and provided for—and sometimes they have themselves so unworthily prtfitetl by this self-abnegation — that it is just their abstention that produced the evils they complain of. When the great London merchants began to despise the municipal honour:? and offices of their d\.y, the corporation soon sank into the nest of corruption it is. In America, where it is the byast of every man of culture that he never touches politics, the carpet-bagger and the scala-

wag have joyfully taken advantpge of his cowardly -abdication of his first July. This indifference is the real danger of democracy. The masses have so long been used to the tact that their rulers only took up the ta.sk of governing them because there was something to be made by it, that they languidly copy the sloth of the better off who decline lo be bothered. It is the imperative duty of the better-in-formed or more leisured classes to set a better example. If they are blind to their responsibilities, the class of politician that seeks power simply to increase or protect his wealth is not. Ho knows how the crowd is to be caught, and spreads the bait accordingly.''' The above is a tolerably accurate statement of the position in this colony. It is perfectly true that the great majority of the educated classes abstain fiom politics. It is not because they are indifferent to the interests of the colony, but they recognise that they would completely lose their self-respect were, they to condescend to spread the " bait " which the crowd will swallow. Unfortunately, now (hat we have given votes to all .who have attained the age of "21, there is a vast number of inexperienced fish ready to, swallow the first tempting looking bait that offers, regardless of the hook it conceals. Trie bait tempts their cupidity, and they are unable to resist. The inexperienced fish are in the majority, and in consequence the country has been governed of late by ignorance led for the most part by men capable of dressing a gaudy fly, or it would be more correct to write, of casting a fly constructed by men with more brains than they. Is the truth not in the first suggestion of the Echo ? " That the millions need another hundred years of education before taking their part in public affairs." All but the silly fish rejoice when Parliament is prorogued for the reason that during the recess there is no danger of wild-cat legislation, there is then only the danger to be faced of administrative corruption, which seems to be inherent in every body, whether Parliamentary or municipal, which is subject to election,