4.—Politics from Within

   To avoid all error as to the point of view, let me say
in commencing that I am a Liberal Conservative, or, if
you will, a Conservative Liberal with a strong dash of
sympathy with the Socialist idea, a friend of Labour,
and a believer in Progressive Radicalism. I do not desire
office but would take a seat in the Canadian Senate at
five minutes notice.

   I believe there are ever so many people of exactly this
way of thinking.

   Let me say further than in writing of "politics" I am
only dealing with the lights and shadows that flicker
over the surface, and am not trying to discuss, still
less to decry, the deep and vital issues that lie below.

   Yet I will say that vital though the issues may be below
the surface, there is more clap-trap, insincerity and
humbug on the surface of politics than over any equal
area on the face of any institution.

   The candidate, as such, is a humbug. The voters, as
voters—not as fathers, brothers or sons—are humbugs.
The committees are humbugs. And the speeches to the extent
of about ninety per cent are pure buncombe. But, oddly
enough, out of the silly babel of talk that accompanies
popular government, we get, after all, pretty good
government—infinitely better than the government of an
autocratic king. Between democracy and despotic kingship
lies all the difference between genial humbug and black
sin.

   For the candidate for popular office I have nothing but
sympathy and sorrow. It has been my fortune to walk round
at the heels of half a dozen of them in different little
Canadian towns, watching the candidate try in vain to
brighten up his face at the glad sight of a party voter.

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