istocracy of labor."

The Fabian Society's "Report on Fabian Policy" says that the referendum,
"in theory the most democratic of popular institutions, is in practice
the most reactionary."[119] Mr. MacDonald refers to it as a "crude
Eighteenth Century idea of democracy," "a form of Village Community
government."[120] At the Conference of the Labour Party at Leicester in
1911 he declared that it was "anti-democratic" and that if the
government were to accept it, the Labour Party "would have to fight them
tooth and nail at every step of that policy." As opposed to any plans
for a more direct and more popular government, he defends the "dignity
and authority" of Parliament and bespeaks the "reverence and deference"
that the people ought to observe toward it.

Contrast with these views Mr. Hobson's presentation of the non-Socialist
Radical doctrine. "Under a professed and real enthusiasm for a
representative system," as opposed to direct government, Mr. Hobson
finds that there is concealed "a deep-seated distrust of democracy." He
acknowledges "that the natural conservatism of the masses of the people
might be sufficient to retard some reforms." "But this is safer and
better for democracy," he says, "than the alternative 'faking' of
progress by pushing legislation ahead of the popular will. It is upon
the whole far more profitable for reformers to be compelled to educate
the people to a genuine acceptance of their reform than to 'work it' by
some 'pull' or 'deal' inside a party machine."[121]

Mr. MacDonald not only puts a high value on British conservatism and a
low one on the French Revolution and the Declaration of Independence,
but declares that no change whatever in the mere structure of government
can aid idealists and reformers in any way, and expects politics and
parties to be much the same in the future as they are at the present
moment. It is this attitude that Mr. Hobson has in mind when he protests
that "the false pretense that democracy exists" in Great Britain has
proved "the subtlest defense of privilege"--and that this has been the
greatest cause of the waste of reform energy not only in England but
also in France and in the United States.[122] Mr. MacDonald says
explicitly, "The modern state in most civilized countries is
democratic," and adds impatiently that "the remaining anomalies and
imperfections" cannot prevent the people from obtaining their will.[123]
To dismiss in so few words the monarchy, the