The two-party system of Great Britain, and in the United States, may in time be replaced by the group system as it prevails on the continent of Europe.[[31]] The group system is subject to the evils and the disadvantages attending the two-party system; but it has the distinct advantage of making possible a larger range and variety of criticism. Nevertheless, whether under the two-party or group conditions, it is doubtful whether the present territorial arrangement of representation can ever secure a truly democratic government. The territorial arrangement is derived from a period which long antedates the railroad; and improved means of communication have created national groups with specialised but ultra-local interests, and for the purposes of democratic government the Labour Union (for instance) is as important a unit as the county. It is absurd that the only way in which the specific interests of organised labour can be represented in the House of Commons is by putting Labour candidates in competition with Liberals and Conservatives in mixed constituencies. Some alleviation of this anomaly may be found in the plan of proportional representation; but this does not fully provide for the necessity of securing direct and adequate representation of functional and cultural associations in the councils of the nation. It is an anachronism that to-day the mind of the nation should be gathered solely on a geographical basis, when the actual living mind of the nation increasingly resides in the various groups into which men form themselves on the basis of interests that are no longer determined by local considerations. The representation of non-territorial constituencies in the councils of the nation raises the question of the nature of the state which must be considered separately.
[31]. The results of the last General Election in England seem to bear out this anticipation.
Freedom and fulness of discussion is the very breath of life to popular institutions, and wheresoever any problem or range of problems is withdrawn from public discussion, there is a virtual denial of the democratic principle. When, for instance, and in particular, foreign policy is conducted behind closed doors, a control over the destinies of the people is vested in individuals or in a class of individuals which is as real and as monstrous as that of an autocrat; and democracy is denied in its most sensitive and critical part. It is true that the practice of secret diplomacy has survived because nations have been too little concerned about their external affairs; and no plausible arguments about “delicate situations” and the like could resist for a moment the insistence of an intelligent democracy upon the management of its own affairs. If democracy is to survive at all, it must make up its mind speedily that the principle of its inner life shall not be denied in its outer. But if democracy is to have a mind at all, it must learn to use the mind it has; and the chief stimulus to this end would be the multiplication of centres of discussion. This would be materially helped if government departments were required to produce not only ponderous blue-books which only bewilder the common man, and official documents intelligible only to the expert, but popular accounts, published regularly, of their proceedings. The press should be used far more extensively for this purpose; and even the children of the public schools should be provided with appropriate graded summaries of the acts of the national government. Then on the basis of this material for discussion, the social debating society, the reading circle, the Forum and all such groups would become the living and increasing springs of democracy.
In speaking of education we are far too apt to confine the word to the education of children; but what may be done in the education of adults and at the same time in the stimulation of fellowship in thought, is well shown by the achievement of the Workers’ Educational Association in England. The education of the working class is an idea which dates back to the social and political ferment of the early nineteenth century—the earliest expression being the Mechanics’ Institute movement. This was followed by the Working Men’s College movement under Frederick Denison Maurice and his friends. Then came the educational experiments, first of the Rochdale Pioneers in 1840, and then of the Co-operative Societies, out of which grew ultimately the University Extension movement. The existing Worker’s Educational Association originated in an alliance of the educational activities of the Co-operative, Trade Union and University Extension movements. It was based upon “the vital principle that there could be no complete education of working people unless it was a result of the combination of working men and women and scholars, respectively experts in demand and supply.” It is certain—and the war has provided many instances of it—that this alliance of worker and scholar has done much to break down the partition wall of class prejudice; and the “tutorial class” has in particular been a very fruitful agent of fellowship and education. “The days of the W.E.A.” (as it is called) says Mr. Alfred Mansbridge, its devoted and able secretary, “have been few so far; but it has already demonstrated the soundness of its theories—to take one instance alone—by the development of the University Tutorial Class movement which conforms in method to that of Plato so far as question and answer developed in discussion are concerned. In England alone over eight thousand men and women have passed through these courses which are organised in connection with every University and University College. If it were not for the clear demonstration of experience, it would seem fatuous to expect that men and women who have undergone no educational training other than that provided in the few years of attendance at the elementary school would be willing to attend classes for three years, and in some cases for as many as seven or eight years. It must be remembered that the discipline of the class though self-imposed is severe. No absence is allowed for other than unavoidable causes. Moreover, their purpose is the acquisition of knowledge as assisting the fulfilment of an educational ideal which is conceived not in the interests of the individual but in the interests of citizenship. The level of intellectual achievement testified to by many eminent educationists is such as to warrant the Board of Education in making a regulation to the effect that ‘the instruction must aim at reaching within the limits of the subject covered, the standard of University work in honours.’”[[32]] While the emphasis in this account is laid chiefly upon the educational aspects of the movement those who are acquainted with its working lay much stress upon the part which the practice and realisation of fellowship play in it.[[33]] The sense of common quest is at once a source and a result of the movement: and it is not open to any question that the W.E.A. is one of the most powerful organs of the new democracy now existing. Alongside the W.E.A. in Great Britain is also the Adult School movement, which chiefly under the auspices of the Society of Friends is doing much similar, though not so severe work. It gathers together every Sunday morning in all parts of the country thousands of working men and women in its many hundred schools to study not only “the principles of the life and teaching of Jesus, but the manifold and perplexing problems of national and international life.” In such fruitful activities as these will the mind and the temper of the coming democracy be created. These men and women are learning the practice of freedom and fellowship in thought, which is the fundamental democratic method.
[32]. Contemporary Review, June, 1918.
[33]. An interesting sign of where the members of the W.E.A. themselves feel the essence of the movement to lie is seen in the inscription on a memorial cross erected in the Parish Church of Lambeth, London, in memory of three tutors of the W.E.A.:
“In memory of
Philip Anthony Brown, 1886-1915.
Alfred Edward Bland, 1881-1916.
Arthur Charleswood Turner, 1881-1918.