It has to meet the requirements of vast empires and mighty confederations of states, and to fulfil the wants of small republics and parish councils.
What but democracy can answer to the call for political liberty that sounds from so many lands and in so many varying tongues?
Did any other form of government devised by the wit of man make such universal appeal?
And when all is said and done--what does this democracy, this government by popular representatives, mean, but government by the consent of the governed--the only form of government tolerable to civilised mankind in the twentieth century?
Given a fairly good standard of common honesty in the ordinary dealings of life, and the honesty of our public life, whether in Parliament or in the Civil Service, in executive or administration, will serve.

If the private and commercial life is corroded with dishonesty, then democracy will be bitten by knaves and rascals.

For our chosen rulers have a way of faithfully reflecting the morality of their electors, and are not free to indulge their fancies, as kings of old were.
Politics are not, and never will be, or ought to be, the chief interest and concern of the mass of people in a healthy community where slavery is extinct.

And democracy makes no demand that would involve such interest and concern.

The choice of honest representatives, persons of goodwill, and reasonable intelligence, is no tremendous task in a community where honesty, goodwill, and intelligence prevail.