Again, exceptional gifts may be noted. An eloquence of speech, a rugged sincerity that carries conviction, a love of nature and of literature--all these things, controlled and tempered by will and refined by use, have won for Mr. Hardie a high regard and an affection for the cause he champions. For years Mr. Hardie was misrepresented in the Press, abused by political opponents and misunderstood by many of the working class. From 1895 to 1900 he was out of Parliament, rejected by the working-class electorate of South West Ham. But nothing turned Mr. Hardie from his policy of independence, or shook his faith in the belief that only by forming a political party of their own could the working people establish a social democracy. Merthyr Tydvil re-elected him to the House of Commons in 1900 at the very time when he was braving a strong public opinion by denouncing the South African War; and for Merthyr Mr. Hardie will sit as long as he is in Parliament.
It may safely be said that Mr. Hardie will never take office in a Liberal Ministry. The sturdy republicanism that keeps him from court functions and from the dinner parties of the rich and the great, and the strong conviction that Labour members do well to retain simple habits of life, are not qualities that impel men to join Governments.
Visionary as he is--and no less a visionary because he has seen some fulfilment of his hopes--so indifferent to public opinion that many have exclaimed at his indiscretions, with a religious temperament that makes him treat his political work as a solemn calling of God and gives prophetic fire to his public utterances, Mr. Keir Hardie may remain a private member of Parliament; but he also remains an outstanding figure in democratic politics, conspicuous in an age that has seen the working class rising cautiously to power. Mr. Hardie's influence with the politically minded of the working class has contributed in no small degree to the changes that are now at work. The ideal of a working class, educated and organised, taking up the reins of government and using its power in sober righteousness, has been preached by Mr. Hardie with a fervour that commands respect. He has made an appeal that has moved the hearts of men and women by its religious note, and hence it is very considerably from the ranks of Nonconformists with Puritan traditions that the Independent Labour Party has been recruited. Mr. Hardie is now fifty-five years of age. He has never been afraid of making mistakes, and he has never sought the applause of men. He has succeeded in arousing large numbers of people from a passive allegiance to the party governments of Liberals and Conservatives, and constrained them to march under a Labour banner at political contests. Whether the Labour Party in Parliament will remain a separate organisation or will steadily become merged in the Liberal Party, forming perhaps a definite left wing of that party: whether a sufficiently large number of voters will ever be found to make the Labour Party anything more than a group in Parliament: and whether the Independent Labour movement is not passing as Robert Owen's socialist movement and as the Chartist movement passed away in the middle of the nineteenth century, are questions that are yet to be answered. Democracy will go its own way in spite of the prophets. In any case, the work of Mr. Keir Hardie has been fruitful and valuable. For it has made for a quickened intelligence, and a more exalted view of human life amongst the working people; and it has increased the sense of personal and civic responsibility. It has made for civilisation, in fact, and it has insisted on the importance of things that democracy can only forget to its own destruction.