most unbearable hardships will induce our statesmen to move so
long as the victims submit sheepishly, though when they take the
remedy into their own hands an inquiry is soon begun. But what is
now making some action in the matter imperative is neither the
sufferings of those who are tied for life to criminals, drunkards,
physically unsound and dangerous mates, and worthless and
unamiable people generally, nor the immorality of the couples
condemned to celibacy by separation orders which do not annul
their marriages, but the fall in the birth rate. Public opinion
will not help us out of this difficulty: on the contrary, it will,
if it be allowed, punish anybody who mentions it. When Zola tried
to repopulate France by writing a novel in praise of parentage,
the only comment made here was that the book could not possibly be
translated into English, as its subject was too improper.


THE LIMITS OF DEMOCRACY

Now if England had been governed in the past by statesmen willing
to be ruled by such public opinion as that, she would have been
wiped off the political map long ago. The modern notion that
democracy means governing a country according to the ignorance of
its majorities is never more disastrous than when there is some
question of sexual morals to be dealt with. The business of a
democratic statesman is not, as some of us seem to think, to
convince the voters that he knows no better than they as to the
methods of attaining their common ends, but on the contrary to
convince them that he knows much better than they do, and
therefore differs from them on every possible question of method.
The voter's duty is to take care that the Government consists of