and universal suffrage will tell
you what that is. On the other hand we must pay heed, serious heed to
every cry of pain, and here too universal suffrage will come to our aid.
Universal suffrage is necessary to a monarchy as a source of
information."

This, I am told, is Louis XIV's present opinion on the subject.

As far as legislation therefore is concerned, the attempt to secure
competence by 'collation' is an absurdity. Yet it is an inverted sort
of competence useful for indicating the state of a nation's temper. From
this it follows that this system is as mischievous in a republic as it
would be wholesome in a monarchy. It is not therefore altogether bad.

The democracy which we have in view, after having been governed by the
representatives of its representatives for ten years, submitted for the
next fifteen years to the rule of one representative and took no
particular advantage therefrom.

Then for thirty years it adopted a scheme which aimed at a certain
measure of efficiency. It assumed that the electors of the legislature
ought not to be nominated, but marked out by their social position, that
is their fortune. Those who possessed so many drachmas were to be
electors.

What sort of a basis for efficiency is this? It is a basis but certainly
a somewhat narrow one.

It is a basis, first, because a man who owns a certain fortune has a
greater interest than others in a sound management of public business,
and self-interest opens and quickens the eye; and again a man who has
money and does not lose it cannot be altogether a fool.

On the other hand it is a narrow basis, because the possession of money
is of itself no guarantee of political ability, and the system leads to
the very questionable proposition that every rich man is a competent
social reformer. It is, however, a sort of competence, but a competence
very precariously established and on a very narrow basis.

This system disappeared and our democracy, after a short interregnum,
repeated its previous experiment and submitted for eighteen years to the
rule of one delegate with no great cause to congratulate itself on the
result.

It then adopted democracy in a form almost pure and simple. I say
almost, for the democratic system pure and simple involves the direct
government of the people without any intervening representatives, by
means of a continuous plebiscite. Our democracy then set up and still
maintains a democratic system almost pure and