In so far, however, as it is possible to read any intelligible meaning into the word "democracy," as currently employed, it must be prefixed by "political." The world must be made safe for the political democracies, that is to say, those countries which have provided themselves with the "democratic institution" of parliamentary government. A couple of centuries ago the blessings of political freedom preoccupied the minds of those countries which have ever since accepted the attainment of that end as a substitute for the liberty of which it seemed the simulacrum. Those were the happy days when the discovery had not yet been made that political power is determined and conditioned by economic power, the former being useless without the latter. The gradual realization of this has been accompanied by a widespread disillusionment with party politics, popularly summed up by Mr. Belloc in his book, _The Party System_, which put before the general reader criticisms heretofore confined to Socialist literature. The domination of politics by capitalism became an accepted truism, and it was no longer possible for intelligent men to consider their "representative assemblies" with that seriousness so necessary to the dignity and comfort of the political mountebanks. In short, without prejudice to the theoretical virtues of parliamentary government, the conviction was established that, under the régime of profiteering industrialism, political democracy is an impolite fiction, and that the politics of capitalism must be party politics, with all its inherent corruption and dishonesty.
This process of disillusionment was not without its counterpart in Ireland, since Irish politicians were part of precisely that political machinery whose workings were being exposed in England. Moreover, within the past quarter of a century Irishmen had begun to perceive that, by relying upon themselves rather than upon their representatives at Westminster, they could get things done instead of being talked about. They also observed that the most flourishing industrial and intellectual movement in the country advanced amidst the indifference, when so fortunate as not to arouse the active hostility, of the politicians. It required very little, then, to arouse the suspicion that nothing more could be obtained for Ireland by political action in England, and the ignominious fate of the Home Rule Bill came as the final confirmation of a slowly accumulated scepticism. There was, of course, much of the inevitable ingratitude of the mob in this revulsion of feeling against a system which had been accepted by the Irish people, and had, within its limits, procured them undeniable advantages. Ireland, being eighteenth century in its retarded political mentality, believed, and still believes, in the marvels of political liberty, so that the Parliamentary Party was naturally outraged by the ficklessness of the anti-parliamentarian campaign. Electors and elected equally believed in party politics, and the Irish Party could show, with reasonable pride, a record of definite parliamentary achievement, unequalled by any other minority party in the British House of Commons.