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Show 12 THE CITIZEN i.'iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiimiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiniiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiuiiiiiiiiiiiiiminiiiitiiiiiiiiuiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiimiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiib By James Bryce (Viscount Bryce). 2 vols.f pp. MODERN DEMOCRACIES. Published by the Macmillan Company, New York. 508, 676. Viscount Bryce has spent many years in the study of government especially of democratic government. In this field his authority is great and his mastery of detail is uncontested. He is a believer in democracy. In British politics he has been an advanced Liberal. But in his books he has avoided dogmatism and turned away generally from the theory of democracy to con- sider its practice. In his two latest volumes he adheres to his former point of view. He is an observer rather than a partisan. He wants to see democracy tested by its works. The democratic system came in with high hopes, encouraged by the theorists and philosophers of the eighteenth century. Many of these idealistic hopes have not been realized, because they didnt take into account the fixity and rigidity of human nature. The author is sensible enough of the divergence between the golden dreams of Rousseau and Jefferson and the actual operation of the democratic experiment to eschew anything like radiant optimism. He says in his preface that he has sought to repress the pessimism of experience, for it is not really helpful to the younger generation, whatever relief it may give to the reminiscent mind. Perhaps a certain pessimism remains, due to the consciousness of a changed attitude toward democracy in very recent times. A generation or two ago, when the tide of democracy wras rising. Viscount Bryce points out, mens minds were occupied almost exclusively with the Now problems of free government. they have been drawn more toward ideas of economic and social reconstruction. They are inclined to test democracy by its capacity to promote that reconstruction rather than by its success in promoting civil, political and individual liberty. It has sometimes seemed to the author, he confesses, that in writing this book he was addressing himself to the last generation rather than to the present one. These questions, however, are lightly touched on. The two volumes are descriptive, not argumentative. Viscount Bryce seeks to picture the institutions and workings of the Democratic scheme of government in the modern democratic states. He selects six: France, Switzerland, the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. He takes brief note of the republics, which are democracies only in name, and of some of the ancient democracies. He excludes Great Britain because he feels that he cannot discuss British politics and administration with the necessary impartiality. The study of the institutions of these six states is minute and compre Latin-America- n hensive. It will doubtless remain a standard contribution to political science, as The American Commonwealth has long been. It would be impossible within the limits of this review to follow the author in his survey. What he says about the United States, covering 164 pages, will interest Americans most. He still finds the two especial weaknesses of American government to lie in an inadequate system of justice and in municipal maladministration. The municipal failure he attributes largely to the excessive alien element in the big cities and to the survival there of the rule of low grade party bosses. He thinks that the election of judges has a great deal to do with the piesent discontent with the shortcomings of justice. Most Americans will be inclined, however, to attribute it rather to the retention of archaic court procedure and, in the criminal branch of the law, to an absurd habit of over- protecting the accused and extending to him even after conviction all sorts of legal indulgences. The author recognizes, however, the great advance in civic consciousness and the long strides made here in the last thirty years toward improving the public service, repressing political corruption and eliminating manifold political abuses tolerated by the generation which followed the war. Of the American awakening since 1890 he says in conclusion: No Englishman who remembers American politics as they were half a century ago and who, having lived in the United States, has formed an affection as well as an admiration for its people (what Englishman who lives there can do otherwise?) will fail to rejoice at the many signs that the sense of public duty has grown stronger, that the standards of public life are steadily rising, that democracy is more and more showing itself a force making for ordered progress, true to the principles of liberty and equality from which it sprang. In the conclusions, which he draws from his study of modern democratwo cies, Viscount Bryce refutes charges commonly brought against them. One is that a democracy cannot maintain a consistent foreign policy. This is easily disproved in the case of France since 1870 and in the case of the United States. Public opinion in the United States, he shows, has tended to become wiser and more moderate on questions of foreign policy, and also juster and more pacific. The second charge is that efficiency of administration is not as high in democracies as it is in monarchies. In the authors view only Germany outranked the democratic countries of the world in administrative efficiency. But the Germans paid a price for that distinction which free people cannot afford to pay. Summing up the case for and against modern democracy the author says: 1. It has maintained public order while securing the liberty of the individual citizen. 2. It has given a civil administra tion as efficient as the other forms of government have provided. 3. Its legislation has been more generally directed to the welfare of the poorer classes than has been that of other governments. 4. It has not been inconstant or ungrateful. 5. It has not weakened patriotism or courage. 6. It has often been wasteful and usually extravagant. 7. It has not produced general contentment in each nation. 8. It has done little to improve international relations and insure peace; has not diminished class selfishness (witness Australia and New Zealand); has not fostered a cosmopolitan humanitarianism or mitigated the dislike of men of a different color. 9. It has not extinguished corruption and the malign influences wealth can exert upon government. 10. It has not removed the fear of revolutions. 11. It has not enlisted in the service of the tate a sufficient number of the most honest and capable citizens. 12. Nevertheless, it has, taken all in all, given better practical results than either the rule of one man or the rule of a class, for it has at least extinguished many of the evils by which they were defaced. Viscount Bryce didnt carry his observations beyond 1914. He didnt study the democracy in war. It is regrettable that he did not, for in the great war the modern democracies proved their true quality. France, Great Britain, the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand met the supreme test of unity and sacrifice, while the great empires of Europe melted away. Ludendorff was a stiff monarchist. But he lamented bitterly in his book that whereas France could produce a Clemenceau and Great Britain a Lloyd George both temporary democratic dictators Germany was tied down to the feeble leadership of the Kaiser and weakened by cumbersome and inelastic governmental machinery. Democracies are more unyielding and tenacious in modem war and are capable of a higher patriotism than are peoples under a monarchial form of government. For to millions of men and women in Germany, as in Russia or the war presented itself partly as an opportunity to extort greater freedom from domestic oppression. The monarchy could survive Austria-Hungar- y, In Germany and Austria-Hungaronly if it won a military victory. But in the democracies no one thought, in victory or defeat, of inviting in a monarch. Democracies correct their worst peace faults in time of war. They are y terrible in battle because then at last they nut into practice in its highest form their underlying principle of equality in responsibility and duty, as well as in opportunity and privilege. A GREAT LITERARY HOAX, Next Tuesday evening, the one hm dred and third anniversary 0f birth of Feodor Vladimir Larrovit the great genius of Russian literatus will be held the first meeting 0f new society organized in his honor be called the Larrovitch FellowgK The meeting will be held around dinner table of a well known Bro way chophouse and it seems destinec to do things and to say things will make the literary world open eyes and its ears. Hearing the plans and objects offy Fellowship one would suspect it im diately of being a group of serin h thinkers, poseurs or brows, taking their dose of culture with overzeal and intensity, and seel ing to force an unwilling public to 4 the same. If you think this you art mistaken, for it is the getting together of some of the brightest, keenest ai: livest minds in New York, men prom: nent in the literary, artistic, musical journalistic and professional life oftt; ft; so-call- ed city. These kindred souls are engaged t the perpetuation, along many lines, the maddest, merriest, most audacioc: and impudent bit of humor, the mos delicious fooling this world has known in many months. world needs more fresh bubblic; laughter and the Larrovitch Fello? ship should do valiant service meetfe the need. It is the greatest literary lioaxn record, with endless possibilities of e tertainment and cleverness. It oft nated four years ago at the Author club in spontaneous inspiration whit mystified while it as well enlighten; a group of members in the smokfc room. It captivated their imaginatte appealed to their sense of humor at stimulated their invention. Since the the hoax has grown in its inspiratic and strengthened in its details, rest ing finally in the Larrovitch Felloe . d care-burde- n T1 ship. The Larrevitch centenayr on Apt 26, 1918, was observed with appi: priate ceremony by the members t the Authors club and its guests, all whom left the meeting delighted at charmed with the many sidelights, ft erfc graphic, literary, anecdotal and cal, thrown on the great man thus hot! ored, but unknowing that the subjtf of their enthusiasm had never exists It was an evening never to be for ten by those privileged to hi preset The papers read at the were later published in a volume t the Authors club and sold .o the t creasing horde of Larrovitch disciple Those who might yet be so fortuna as to be able to obtain a cop: ' fr0 club are assured of an ext. iordiw It 1 literary treat. Read without theh to the stupendous hoax, or. brills chapter after chapter of a KB1 biography with intense inter ing the basic facts of the imp fabrication, there is a t uckl every paragraph, as one marvel the naturalness, the unity, tho ate details, the simple, hum;' touch the humor, the convincing n:U,W,f U |