CHAPTER XXV
THE MEANING OF POLITICS
We may learn from games a good deal of the nature of politics.
We know that the better the game is organized, the better it will be played. In many games, there are two sides, two captains, and an equal number of players on each side. Captains have duties, players have duties. Captains should be able to think quickly, understand quickly, make quick decisions, and not make mistakes any oftener than they can help. They should understand other boys. Or if the game is played by girls, the girl who is captain should understand other girls. Players ought to be willing to obey the captain's word. Some day, the player may be the captain; perhaps he has been a captain already. The whole team, players and captain, should be loyal. A game cannot be altogether successful unless it is played with good feeling, generosity, keenness, sportsmanship and honour on both sides. Each side should be on good terms with the other side and behave with courtesy. These things are true in games. They are true also in politics, although, possibly, not quite in the same way.
As soon as people began to live together in communities, some of the people wanted the community properly organized and governed. They {174} thought everything belonging to the place in which they lived should be carried on in the best, most comfortable way, with justice for everybody. But, unfortunately, there have always been some people who want the best only for themselves, and are not willing to be just to other people. In our own natures, many of us find a conflict between desiring to be just to others, and yet wishing a great deal for ourselves.
We can imagine what a long, long story, or history there is in politics.
Politics have to do with the government of communities, towns and cities and nations, and finally all nations, since all nations are beginning to be willing to agree among themselves.
For a very long time, perhaps always, people have dreamed of perfect organization and perfect government.
One of the most famous books ever written on the subject of this hoped-for perfect government is the work of the Greek philosopher Plato who had been taught by Socrates. The book is called _The Republic of Plato_ and it contains the teaching of Socrates.
You may read in the last sentences of the ninth book of _The Republic of Plato_, a description of the perfect city. Socrates had been explaining to his pupils that the man of understanding will take part in everything which will make him a better man, and will shun what may make him less good. So he will take part in politics. _The Republic_ is written in the form of question and answer. Finally Socrates says that the pattern of the perfect city is perhaps laid up in heaven, but that, {175} as far as he can, the man of understanding will follow its practices.
It would scarcely be possible to make a complete list of famous men who have been statesmen or politicians, because the list would be so long. But in this chapter we can choose a few names of men who have been political leaders in Great Britain, Canada, and the British Empire.
A political leader generally is a speaker or orator. Nothing, possibly, is more thrilling than to listen to a great speech. Read carefully the few political sentences which follow here, and see if you do not experience a thrill, a sense that here is something that belongs to you.
The first sentences quoted were spoken by William Pitt, Earl of Chatham, in the House of Lords, 1770. Pitt, before he became a member of the British House of Commons, had been a soldier.
"I am now suspected of coming forward, in the decline of life, in the anxious pursuit of wealth and power, which it is impossible for me to enjoy. Be it so; there is one ambition at least which I ever will acknowledge, which I will not renounce but with my life--it is the ambition of delivering to my posterity those rights of freedom which I have received from my ancestors. I am not now pleading the cause of an individual, but of every freeholder in England."
Edmund Burke, an Irishman, was a great orator. He laid down and taught principles of government which have a great deal to do with the way in which government in the British {176} Empire is organized to-day. Here is one sentence which he spoke in the British House of Commons in 1780.
"The service of the public is a thing which cannot be put to auction, and struck down to those who will agree to execute it the cheapest."
Richard Cobden was an economist. He was the son of a farmer, and was himself a manufacturer. His speeches are for the most part plain and simple, and deal generally with the change in Great Britain from protection to free trade. The following sentences were spoken in the British House of Commons in 1845. The second half of the last sentence contains teaching which is memorable.
"This is a new era. It is the age of improvement, it is the age of social advancement, not the age for war or for feudal sports. You live in a mercantile age, when the whole wealth of the world is poured into your lap. You cannot have the advantages of commercial rents and feudal privileges; but you may be what you always have been, if you will identify yourselves with the spirit of the age."
D'Arcy McGee, a Canadian statesman, was born and educated in Ireland. He spoke and laboured for the confederation of the Provinces which was consummated in the Dominion of Canada in 1867. The sentences that follow belong to a speech given before the Legislative Assembly of Upper and Lower Canada in 1865:
"The principle of Federation is a generous one. It is a principle that gives men local duties to discharge, and invests them at the same time {177} with general supervision, that excites a healthy sense of responsibility and comprehension."
When we read over these sentences, we may obtain a sense of the meaning of government, and of the greatness of politics. Notice that the men who speak are in earnest. Their sentences are practical and simple. Great politics and great statesmen, almost invariably, are characterized by earnestness and sincerity; and great political sayings, as a rule, are practical. Countless numbers of men have devoted themselves to political government, not for their own gain, but for the service of their country, and eventually of the world. There are those who go into politics for their own gain solely, but we do not call them patriots. The study of such sentences as are quoted in this chapter will help us to understand something of the government and history of Canada, Great Britain and the Empire. Boys and girls and young people should be interested in government, for every country needs the help of the younger generations in its political affairs.
The greatest political sentence ever spoken is,--"Love your enemies."
Some day you should plan to visit a great library and ask to be shown facsimiles of a few of the famous Acts by which liberties have been won and our government has been assured. One of the greatest Acts in the history of the English-speaking world is the Great Charter obtained in King John's time, 1215, and signed by him and many of the barons. Be sure to see a facsimile of this, if you can, and read especially clause 40.
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"To no one will we sell, to no one will we refuse, or delay right or justice."
The Confederation Act of the Dominion of Canada, or the British North America Act, as it is properly called, is dated 1867. Its plainness, simplicity and scrupulous fairness make it worthy of admiration.
In Charlottetown, the capital of the Province of Prince Edward Island, set in the assembly hall of the Parliament Buildings, is a tablet to mark the place where the Fathers of Confederation met and deliberated. These are the words which you may read on the tablet, as well as the names of the men who resolved that there should be a Dominion of Canada:
In the Hearts and Minds of the Delegates who Assembled In this Room, Sept. 1st, 1864 Was born the Dominion of Canada. ------ Providence being Their Guide They Builded Better than they Knew.
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