required in the interests of the band. On the one hand, a leader is
lavishly panegyrised for his highmindedness, in suffering himself to be
driven into his convictions by his party. On the other, a party is
extolled for its political tact, in suffering itself to be forced out of
its convictions by its leader. It is hard to decide which is the more
discreditable and demoralising sight. The education of chiefs by
followers, and of followers by chiefs, into the abandonment in a month
of the traditions of centuries or the principles of a lifetime may
conduce to the rapid and easy working of the machine. It certainly marks
a triumph of the political spirit which the author of _The Prince_ might
have admired. It is assuredly mortal to habits of intellectual
self-respect in the society which allows itself to be amused by the
cajolery and legerdemain and self-sophistication of its rulers.

Of course there are excellent reasons why a statesman immersed in the
actual conduct of affairs, should confine his attention to the work
which his hands find to do. But the fact that leading statesmen are of
necessity so absorbed in the tasks of the hour furnishes all the better
reason why as many other people as possible should busy themselves in
helping to prepare opinion for the practical application of unfamiliar
but weighty and promising suggestions, by constant and ready discussion
of them upon their merits. As a matter of fact it is not the men most
occupied who are usually most deaf to new ideas. It is the loungers of
politics, the quidnuncs, gossips, bustling idlers, who are most
industrious in stifling discussion by protests against the waste of
time and the loss of force involved in talking about proposals which are
not exactly ready to be voted on. As it is, everybody knows that
questions are inadequately discussed, or often not discussed at all, on
the ground that the time is not yet come for their solution. Then when
some unforeseen perturbation, or the natural course of things, forces on