ill
generally prefer an ambitious windbag to a man who desires the public
good without possessing a ready tongue. And the ambitious windbag, as
soon as he has become a power by the enthusiasm he has aroused, will
sell his influence to the governing clique, sometimes openly,
sometimes by the more subtle method of intentionally failing at a
crisis. This is part of the normal working of democracy as embodied
in representative institutions. Yet a cure must be found if democracy
is not to remain a farce.

One of the sources of evil in modern large democracies is the fact
that most of the electorate have no direct or vital interest in most
of the questions that arise. Should Welsh children be allowed the use
of the Welsh language in schools? Should gipsies be compelled to
abandon their nomadic life at the bidding of the education
authorities? Should miners have an eight-hour day? Should Christian
Scientists be compelled to call in doctors in case of serious illness?
These are matters of passionate interest to certain sections of the
community, but of very little interest to the great majority. If they
are decided according to the wishes of the numerical majority, the
intense desires of a minority will be overborne by the very slight and
uninformed whims of the indifferent remainder. If the minority are
geographically concentrated, so that they can decide elections in a
certain number of constituencies, like the Welsh and the miners, they
have a good chance of getting their way, by the wholly beneficent
process which its enemies describe as log-rolling. But if they are
scattered and politically feeble, like the gipsies and the Christian
Scientists, they stand a very poor chance against the prejudices of
the majority. Even when they are geographically concentrated, like
the Irish, they may fail to obtain their wishes, because they arouse
some hostility or some instinct of domination in the majority. Such a
state of affairs is the negation of all democratic principles.

The tyranny of the majority is a very real danger. It is a mistake to
suppose that the majority is necessarily right. On every new question
the majority is always wrong at first. In matters where the state
must act as a whole, such as tariffs, for example, decision by
majorities is probably the best method that can be devised. But there
are a great many questions in which there is no need of a uniform
decision. Religion is recognized as one of