used to obtain in politics and the individual tendencies and rivalries of rulers which do not count; while on the contrary, the voice of the masses has become preponderant. It is this voice that dictates their conduct to kings, whose endeavor is to take note of its utterances. The destinies of nations are elaborated at present in the heart of the masses, and no longer in the councils of princes."-Gustave Le Bon.

"We are to bethink us that men cannot now be bound to men by brass collars-not at all; that this brass-collar method, in all figures of it, has vanished out of Europe forevermore. Huge De

Slowly but steadily, like the emergence of some great rock, as floods subside, rises the law of averages as having been the controlling, though little recognized, factor in our social evolution, as being the dimly seen and weakly grasped tremendous implement of modern progress, as to be the dominant law around which the glorious civilization of the future will be built. Obey it and it becomes your servant more powerful than the genii of Aladdin's lamp. Disobey it and the march of progress leaves you far in the

rear.

All prophets, whether of Israel of old or of our modern times, have, either instinctively or with careful study, applied this law of averages to their knowledge of national charcteristics and have foretold, never exact facts, but the destinies of nations, and foretold them correctly.

"Individuals vary, but percentages remain constant." Great businesses are built

up on this law. While neither you nor I, nor any other living man can tell when he will die, yet if you ask an insurance actuary how many men of a large number of a given age and condition of living will die in a year or five years, he can foretell with almost absolute certainty. While no one knows where the lightning will strike, or tornado uproot, or fire start, the fire insurance expert can tell you so closely as to be absolutely accurate for all practical purposes how many of these casualties will happen in the United States in a year. The insurance business, wherever found and of whatever kind, is built up on this great law of averages.

The passenger agent of a great railway system cannot tell how many people will ride between two stations on his road tomorrow, but if he knows his business he

mocracy, walking the streets everywhere in its sack coat, has asserted so much; irrevocably, brooking no reply! No man is, or can henceforth be, the brass-collar thrall of any man; you will have to bind him by other and far nobler and cunninger methods. Once for all, he is loose of the brass-collar, to have a scope as wide as his faculties now are. Will he not be usefuller to you in that new state? Let him go abroad as a trusted one, as a free one; and return home to you with rich earnings at night! Gurth could only tend pigs; this one will build cities, conquer waste worlds."-Thomas Carlyle.

can make an accurate statement of how many will ride on an average each day of the year. On this knowledge is based the rates of fare to be charged and the number of trains to be run. The same is true of the proper fixing of freight rates. Because in this line of business, the law of averages is only partially obeyed, there is a great social waste. But it is obeyed.

The newspaper manager cannot tell whether you or I will buy his paper to-morrow morning, but he can tell how many of the people in his district will buy, and on this knowledge he prints a certain number of papers. His business is based on this law of averages.

By this law statisticians can foretell how many bankruptcies there'll be, how many people will marry at a certain age, how many children they'll have, the average rainfall and temperature and a thousand other things. The larger the field from which the figures are gathered, the more sure the results. To-day almost all businesses are established on this law of averages to a greater or less extent, but in the future the obedience to it will reach a finer and closer degree, and as it does, the rewards from a better correlation of industry, an accurate meeting of supply and demand, a more average distribution will produce results in human happiness and development never dreamed of.

"Individuals vary but percentages remain constant." Governmental methods are witnessing a closer application of this law of averages. The world has turned away from government by individuals because individuals vary. It is turning toward government by the mass because percentages remain constant. It seeks stability, constancy. The

Three testimonies of how individual government is subsiding and percentage government rising are given at the head of this article. And Gustave Le Bon, Thomas Carlyle and Sir Thomas Erskine May were not democrats at heart. But they have read the signs of the times and have prophesied of the inevitable. They have seen, as Le Bon says, that "the last surviving sovereign force" is the government by percentages, that "all other sources of authority" are "tottering and disappearing," while the power of the people is increasing, that "the destinies of nations are elaborated in the heart of the masses." Carlyle has seen, "Huge Democracy walking the street everywhere in its sack coat," and he prophecies that it will "build cities and conquer worlds." Sir May says that "states which have not felt its power will feel it, and states already under its partial influence must be prepared for its increasing force and activity."

The larger the field, the more sure the percentage. The law of averages, when applied to businesses, will produce great returns, but when applied to the state, it will produce far greater results, because the field is so much larger. It will bring a greater surety, a greater certainty, a greater accuracy.

"Individuals vary, but percentages remain constant." Society is turning ever to this more stable and constant government, and it finds this in a percentage government and does not find it in an individual government. This explains the persistent and continually increasing activity of the direct legislation advocates. This activity is almost always unselfish and self-sacrificing. But it is in accord with the spirit of the times-it is the spirit of the times.

Direct legislation is very simple. It is only a fuller, finer, stronger application of the law of averages to the making of the laws which govern. It means that percentages of the whole people shall be applied either actually or tacitly to the enacting of every law by which the people are to be governed. In communities too large for all the voters to assemble and pass on the laws to govern them, as is done in the town meet

tions in what is known as the initiative and referendum. Under the first, a reasonable minority by a petition may start a law which after discussion shall be passed on by the people. Under the latter, a reasonable minority of the voters, by a petition, may call for the reference to the whole people of any law passed by the legislature. Thus these two actually apply the law of averages, the percentages which remain constant, to the direct making of the laws. The representative system is indirect, and with the spread of bribery, either of the open, rotten kind, or the more subtle, insidious and hence dangerous forms of social and other influences, it is becoming more and more indirect. It is the sport now of this, now of that individual and corporate influence. It is becoming more and more the individual government which varies. It is of the past. The to-be has judged it.

And why will this government, by percentages, by the mass of the people, by direct legislation, be better than government by the best people, whether selected by heredity or at stated occasions by the people themselves? In other words, why will a purely democratic government be better than an aristocratic government, whether hereditary aristocratic or representative aristocratic? It is a government by the best, and surely that must be better than a government by the average? There are two rea

sons.

1. It is not a government by the best. Hereditary aristocracies are continually degenerating and dying out and always have to be reinforced from below by a stream of democratic blood. An hereditary aristocratic system secures culture, training, breeding-a polishing up of the material, but the material itself becomes rotten or weak. A representative aristocracy or a selection of the best by representation secures aldermen, common councilors, legislators, politicians. Are not these very names enough of an argument? Its highest product is the boss, the man who can weave the cunningest nets, who can manipulate other men, who can juggle with words to seem to give and really not to give, who can best serve corporate influences. That is what a representative aristocracy produces. It is

not a government by the best. Both forms in time sink below the average.

2. Even if a government by the best was possible, it would not be the best government for the people. The best, supposing they could be selected, would be stronger, better trained, they would know better how to secure an end than the average people, but they would not know the ends to be secured as well as the people. They would think they knew them better, but really they'd not know them as well. An ex-President of the Swiss people has recently said that while he was in office the people defeated some things which he then thought were for their good, and he then thought they had made mistakes, but as the years passed and he got a proper perspective, he found they were right every time.

What I or you or some one else honestly thinks is best for the community, may not be best for it; yet I can never believe that after a clear statement and a full discussion, what a majority of the people think is best for them, would really be injurious for them. Their decision might not be a wise one if applied a score of years in the past. It might not be a wise one to apply a score of years in the future. But at the time it was decided, it would be a wise one. It might not be a wise one if they were better educated or more intelligent or if some other conditions were changed. But under the conditions at the time, it would be a wise one. It might be reversed by the people very soon afterward. But then a short period under that law was necessary to prepare them to adopt something else. Hence the besttrained, ablest and best-intentioned individual or group of individuals would often impose injurious measures on the whole people because they did not and could not know all their needs and conditions, but the whole people, when they have the opportunity to clearly and definitely decide, will not impose on themselves any measures which at that time and under those conditions will injure themselves.

A democratic government may be uncertain, slow and tumultuous in its methods, because of the lack of experience and training among the people, but in its knowledge of needs and in its ai I will be as sure

and certain as the pole star. An aristocratic government, whether hereditary or representative, may be smoother working in its methods, but its aim will be vacillating and the uncertainty of aim will in time create a vacillation of methods so that it will become both weak and slow as our representative aristocracy has become. And the sure knowledge of needs and absolute steadiness of aim in a purely democratic government will in time develop a smoothness and certitude in methods. The reason is the law of averages. "Individuals vary, but percentages remain constant."

A severe critic of democracy has said that the people "display a singularly inferior mentality, yet there are other acts in which they appear to be guided by those mysterious forces which the ancients denominate destiny, nature or providence, which we call the voices of the dead, and whose power it is impossible to overlook, although we ignore their essence. It would seem, at times, as if there were latent forces in the inner being of nations which serve to guide them." He is right; there are inner forces. It is explained by this law of averages.

The voice of an individual may seem as wise as the stars of a winter night, as profound as the unfathomed sea, as fresh and glorious as the summer sunrise on upland meadows. Yet listen to the voice of the people, the voice of the race, the voice of the nation obscured at times by the wild clamor of bigots, the confused clash of contending partisans and even by the words of good men, yet listen to it and you will find that in constancy of good intentions it is more serenely sure than the stars of the night, in a full knowledge of needs and conditions it is more profound than the unfathomable ocean, in the wisdom which acts, often, without talking, it guides the destinies of nations, it holds the to-be in its enfolding care and opens it on fresher sunrises than this weary world has seen. Verily, it more truly utters the voice of God than any other known mouthpiece here below. Let us clear away by direct legislation the obstructions which stifle the voice of the people, which hinder the law of averages from producing the best results in our governmental methods.

Rt. Hon. Sir Wilfred Laurier, G. C. M. G., head of Liberal party, Premier and President Privy Council of Canada:

Acts speak louder than words. Here is Sir Laurier's record, compiled for The New Time by Mr. George Wrigley, of Toronto:

Mr. Laurier has never avowed himself directly in favor of a direct legislation law, but the Liberal party, to which he belongs, committed itself to that principle when its platform was framed in 1893 at Ottawa by the adoption of plank 10, which reads:

"That whereas public attention is at present much directed to the consideration of the admittedly great evils of intemperance, it is desirable that the minds of the people

should be clearly ascertained on the question of prohibition by means of a Dominion plebiscite."

On Sept. 6, 1894, Sir Wilfred Laurier pledged his honor as a man that when the Liberals came into power they would take a vote on prohibition.

The liquor men then desired to complicate the question by having another question asked concerning revenue. (In Canada the revenue on liquors is about $8,000,000, the amount consumed being about $40,000,000.) But early in 1896 Sir Wilfred said "he deemed it wiser to separate this question from all other considerations and test public feeling in the matter."

On June 26, 1896, the Liberals secured power, and Sir Wilfred said on Sept. 3, following: "It is the intention of the Liberal party to carry out to the letter every article of its platform."

The session of 1897 was cut short on account of the approaching jubilee celebration in England, and no action was then taken; but in the latter part of April of this session. a bill was introduced most fully carrying out this program.

EARL OF ROSEBERY.

Earl of Rosebery, member House of Lords, ex-Premier of Great Britain, First Lord of the Treasury, and leader of Liberal party:

The will of the people is the supreme court of appeal. It will be for the nation to decide between the House of Lords and between its own responsible representatives, and therefore what we shall be practically asking you is this-for a direct popular reference, such as in other countries is called a referendum.

Speech at Bradford in 1895.

Rt. Hon. George Houston Reid, Premier, Treasurer and Minister for Railways of New South Wales:

We can sum up the history of England to-day as one which is magnificent proof of the fact that the more power is transferred from the few to the many the more enlightened and progressive the laws of the country were made, the more stable and sound and honest were the conditions, the power and progress of the country. I sometimes feel it necessary to deal with a subject in that way because I know that in this country to-day there are thousands of people who to-morrow would vote against the referendum because they believe it is a new departure, and simply because it is a thing they are not accustomed to; and it is necessary to show how every stage of reform has been opposed in that way, and how every stage of reform has been accompanied not by the uprooting of public morals, not by great licentiousness of public character, not by selfish exactions of the many upon the wealth of the rich, but, on the contrary, by a more enlightened public conscience, by a more just and generous code of laws, all these things being accompanied by a large measure of additional, substantial progress and grand prosperity to all classes of people.

The general election of the British constitution, and of the constitutions of British colonies, is in itself a clumsy method of applying the principle of the referendum. When the House of Commons and the House of Lords cannot agree upon a large measure of public policy, what is the step that must be taken to secure legislation? An appeal to the electors. The object of that appeal is to get the decision of the electors upon the measure in dispute. But how unsatisfactory is the method! In the first place, while the immediate subject of quarrel between the two houses may be a particular measure, it is impossible that any general election can be conducted solely with reference to that issue. When the great political parties of England prepare for a contest of that sort, they try to collect candidates who personally would be the most popular in the electorates, and the more successful a party is in picking out popular candidates, the more successful it