power of the political organizer, which they aim to defeat. Any
complication increases the need and the power of organization. It is
possible to believe--the writer believes--that with all this burthen of
shortcomings, the democratic election system is still, on the whole,
better than a system of hereditary privilege, but that is no reason for
concealing how defective and disappointing its practical outcome has
been, nor for resting contented with it in its present form. [Footnote:
The statement of the case is not complete unless we mention that, to
the method of rule by hereditary rulers and the appointment of
officials by noble patrons on the one hand, and of rule by politicians
exercising patronage on the other, there is added in the British system
the Chinese method of selecting officials by competitive examination.
Within its limits this has worked as a most admirable corrective to
patronage; it is one of the chief factors in the cleanhandedness of
British politicians, and it is continually importing fresh young men
from outside to keep officialdom in touch with the general educated
world. But it does not apply, and it does not seem applicable, to the
broader issues of politics, to the appointment and endorsement of
responsible rulers and legislators, where a score of qualities are of
more importance than those an examination can gauge.]

Is polling really essential to the democratic idea? That is the
question now very earnestly put to the reader. We are so terribly under
the spell of established conditions, we are all so obsessed by the
persuasion that the only conceivable way in which a man can be
expressed politically is by himself voting in person, that we do all of
us habitually overlook a possibility, a third choice, that lies ready
to our hands. There is a way by means of which the indisputable evils
of democratic government may be very greatly diminished, without
destroying or even diminishing--indeed, rather enhancing--that