As for the growing numbers of the disaffected, they show their loss of faith in so-called representative government, and their sense of helplessness, by a practice of non-co-operation which is none the less real because it is spontaneous and unorganized. The number of qualified voters who abstain from using the ballot grows with every election; and this is not surprising, since every voter of any intelligence knows precisely what interests control government, and precisely what measure of self-determination his apparent choice between rival candidates involves. Even the old faith in Liberalism, or the belief that the masses may get some voice in government through “putting good men in office,” is not what it once was. Liberalism displayed its true colours during the war, and since the war it has not been able to fool a great many of the people even part of the time. It is worthy of note that every war-Government of 1914 was a Liberal Government except Russia’s. Mr. Wilson was a Liberal if there ever was one; and Mr. Wilson’s Administration led the American people into a costly war which was of practical moment to only an infinitesimal minority of our population, and used the opportunity created by war-hysteria to perpetrate the most high-handed outrages against dissenters from his war-policy. Mr. Wilson may have been sincerely insincere, as one clever critic put it; but whether he was so or not, he gave the American people a thorough, high-priced lesson in the essential hypocrisy of Liberalism. Mr. Wilson, and his fellow-Liberals of Europe, showed the world that the real interests of Liberalism and those of Toryism are identical, and that when those interests are endangered it is impossible to distinguish between Liberal and Tory behaviour.