ust
make remedies, but you should not stop at that. When you send out your
Red Cross doctors and nurses to pick up the mutilated bodies that your
science of war has maimed, they are doing noble work, and deserve our
love and gratitude, for the wounded must be nursed; but the man who
works for peace does more for the good of humanity than the Red Cross
doctors and nurses. And so also in the political world. You cannot
safely live "hand-to-mouth" in politics any more than in any other
department of human life. But how many are there in the political
parties who care for causes and not only for effects? That is the
criticism we should make. We see everywhere Democracy spreading; but
Democracy is on its trial, and unless it can evolve some method by
which the wise shall rule, and not merely the weight of ignorant
numbers, it will dig its own grave. So long as you leave your people
ignorant they are not fit to rule. The schools should come before the
vote, and knowledge before power. You are proud of your liberty; you
boast of a practically universal suffrage--leaving out, of course, one
half of humanity!--but taking your male suffrage as you have it, how
many of the voters who go to the poll know the principles of political
history, know anything of economics, know anything of all the
knowledge which is wanted for the guiding of the ship of the State
through troubled waters? You do not choose your captains out of people
who know nothing of navigation; but you choose the makers of your
rulers out of those who have not studied and do not know. That is not
wise. I do not deny it is a necessary stage in the evolution of man. I
know that the Spirit acts wisely, and guides the nations along roads
in which lessons are to be learned; and I hope that out of the
blunders, and the errors, and the crudities of present politics there
will evolve a saner method, in which the wise of the nation will have
power and guide its councils, and wisdom, not numbers, shall speak
the decisive word.

Now there is one criticism of politics that we often hear in these
days. It is said that behind politics lie economics. That is true. You
may go on playing at politics for ever and ever; but if your economic
foundation is rotten, no political remedies can build a happy and
prosperous nation. But while I agree that behind politics lie
economics, there is something that lies also behind economics, and of
that I hear little said. Behind economics lies cha