lly
workmen who have grasped the principles of Socialism, are always in
the minority; they may address themselves with success to the
sympathies of the masses and gain their confidence; but the dry
details of the legislative and administrative steps by which they,
move towards their goal can never be made interesting or intelligible
to the ordinary voter. For these reasons the referendum, in theory the
most democratic of popular institutions, is in practice the most
reactionary."[603]

Other Socialists are in favour of a reformed Parliament which is to be
a glorified trade union congress. "Each industry would have adequate
representation in the Parliament of Industry, and this Parliament
would connect and harmonise the affairs of the whole. In the future
society the descendant of the union of to-day will be the centre of
social life and the administration of things. Let 'workers of all
trades unite.'"[604] Others, again, call for a Parliament of a frankly
revolutionary type which is characteristically called a "National
Convention." "What is the use of the suffrage? It has but one use--to
enable the workers, as a class, to take peaceful possession of the
power of the State, so as to use that power for social purposes. But
to do this you must have paid delegates from your own class, not
timeserving unpaid representatives from the classes which rob you; you
must put your servants, not your masters, at Westminster; you must
have a National Convention of the People, not a House of the
Confiscating Classes."[605] Readers will no doubt remember the French
National Convention and its reign of terror and crime which culminated
in the execution of Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette.

Many Socialists, like most Anarchists, are utterly opposed to
Parliamentary government and majority rule, preferring rule by
violence to rule by argument. "What has hitherto been called the will
of the people, or the will of the majority as manifested in the modern
constitutional State, does not express any act of will at all, but the
absence of will. It is not the will but the apathy of the majority
that is represented."[606] "The preaching of the _cultus_ of the
majority in the modern State is an absurdity which can only for a
moment go down with the Parliamentary Radical who is wallowing in the
superstitions of exploded Whiggery."[607] "The Socialist has a
distinct aim in view. If he can carry the initial stages towards its
realisation by means o