,
flags, and badges, of the two colours. One crowd would sing, "Keep the
Red Flag Flying," and the other, "The Wearing of the Green." But when
the last effort had been made and the last moment come, when two
crowds were waiting in the dark outside the public building to hear the
declaration of the poll, then both sides alike would say that it was now
for democracy to do exactly what it chose. England herself, lifting her
head in awful loneliness and liberty, must speak and pronounce judgment.
Yet this might not be exactly true. England herself, lifting her head in
awful loneliness and liberty, might really wish Mr. Asquith to be pale
blue. The democracy of England in the abstract, if it had been allowed
to make up a policy for itself, might have desired him to be black
with pink spots. It might even have liked him as he is now. But a huge
apparatus of wealth, power, and printed matter has made it practically
impossible for them to bring home these other proposals, even if they
would really prefer them. No candidates will stand in the spotted
interest; for candidates commonly have to produce money either from
their own pockets or the party's; and in such circles spots are not
worn. No man in the social position of a Cabinet Minister, perhaps,
will commit himself to the pale-blue theory of Mr. Asquith; therefore it
cannot be a Government measure, therefore it cannot pass.

Nearly all the great newspapers, both pompous and frivolous, will
declare dogmatically day after day, until every one half believes
it, that red and green are the only two colours in the paint-box. THE
OBSERVER will say: "No one who knows the solid framework of politics or
the emphatic first principles of an Imperial people can suppose for
a moment that there is any possible compromise to be made in such a
matter; we must either fulfil our manifest racial destiny and crown the
edifice of ages with the august figure of a Green Premier, or we must
abandon our heritage, break our promise to the Empire, fling ourselves
into final anarchy, and allow the flaming and demoniac image of a Red
Premier to hover over our dissolution and our doom." The DAILY MAIL
would say: "There is no halfway house in this matter; it must be green
or red. We wish to see every honest Englishman one colour or the other."
And then some funny man in the popular Press would star the sentence
with a pun, and say that the DAILY MAIL liked its readers to be green
and its paper to be read.