involved; in the latter the veto also rests with one man, but this man is, in practice, guided by the advice of the India Council, a body of from ten to fourteen men, sitting in London, composed as to the majority, of ex-Indian officials of long service and varied administrative experience.” We are not lacking in material in America; we have the best in the world; energetic, honest, upright, clear-headed, healthy, vigorous, disinterested, patriotic, well-educated men; noble fellows, plenty of them; eager for work; but they are not in politics and never will be there under the present vile régime. It is just because they prize honor and reputation that they stay out of politics. Bryce truly says that “the American system does not succeed in bringing the best men to the top. Yet in Democracy more perhaps than in other governments, seeing it is the most delicate and difficult of governments, it is essential that the best men should come to the top.” What prevents our best men from coming to the top? What prevents our having in this country the purity and efficiency witnessed by Mr. Ireland in ten different jurisdictions? Principally, our political spoils system, whose source and support are manhood suffrage and the controllable vote. Secondarily, our failure to recognize formally and actually the principle of efficiency as the prime essential in government. Such recognition will neither be genuine nor effective unless it begins with requiring an efficient electorate. After that what remains to be done will be comparatively easy and natural. Without it, the cause of substantial reform is practically hopeless. CHAPTER XVIII WEAKNESS AND INEFFICIENCY OF OUR MANHOOD SUFFRAGE GOVERNMENT IN ITS FOREIGN RELATIONS The qualities which render a government popular or successful at home do not always work for efficiency in foreign relations. In home matters the nation discusses, divides, and experiments; in its foreign relations it must act as one man and present to the other nations the same single attitude as would be offered by a dictatorship. Therefore it has been often said that a democracy is apt to be weak in its foreign policy, because it has to reconcile so many opinions before it can effectually act. But this weakness is not inherent in every conceivable democracy; it is possible for a democratic electorate if sufficiently intelligent to select one man or a small group of men to represent it in foreign affairs with firmness and ability. This, however, cannot be expected from an unintelligent constituency such as manhood suffrage provides, much less from an organization for spoils such as it has developed and placed in power in the United States.