because they belong to the out-voted minority, can we reasonably speak of this vast minority as having secured their political freedom by their vote? But the case is in fact worse than this; for John Stuart Mill, that whole-hearted believer in “democracy,” has shown, not only that the minority in the land is bound to be unrepresented in every Parliament, [p92] but that it is also possible for the majority in the land to be unrepresented.[18] How then the promise even of political freedom, which is the only promise of freedom that an honest politician may make, can even appear to possess any reality, so long as it is dependent entirely upon the vote, it is difficult to discover. There is only one kind of freedom that bears any relation to reality, only one kind of freedom therefore that can be striven after, that can be realised; and that is the freedom to exchange a bondage incompatible with our strongest impulses for a bondage that harmonises with them. Nothing else has any meaning. The very success with which voluntary recruiting proceeded directly after the declaration of war against Germany in 1914 is one of the best demonstrations of the truth of this conclusion. For it was the opportunity to exchange an occupation incompatible with the strongest impulses of their being, for an occupation that harmonised with those strongest impulses, that led the majority of those young men to embark for the shambles in France. I mixed with them, so I ought to be able to speak with some knowledge of the subject. Now the fight for this freedom, for the freedom that, as we have seen, has some meaning, really is worth while. It is a noble fight, and a decent fight. But it is a fight with which no modern Government, Liberal, Socialist, or Bolshevik, can possibly have any sympathy. For Liberal policy has always meant commercial and industrial expansion; Socialist policy must, if it is honest, include in its programme, compulsory labour, whether compatible or incompatible with the strongest impulses of our being; and Bolshevik policy, as we have already seen, insists upon this kind of labour. It is, however, precisely the Liberals, the Socialists, and the Bolsheviks who have been loudest in their cries for freedom. If, therefore, this humble attempt at investigating the meaning and limitations of the idea of freedom has done nothing more than demonstrate the hollowness of this Liberal catchword, it cannot have been written or read in vain. [p94]