That the Council system of to-day is a truer democracy than existing Parliamentary systems is also shown practically by its being a much surer and safer machine for the realisation of public opinion. Theoretically, the pyramidal piling up of Councils, each represented in a superior Council, until a Central Council caps the pile, would seem to be indirect election raised to infinity; and indirect election is theoretically undemocratic. But this was not the conclusion forced on one in Germany when one compared the working of the two systems. The inferiority in the position of politicians, owing their power to the Parliamentary system, compared with that of those based on the Council system, was very striking. The Parliamentarians never knew where they were or what was what. Out of touch, necessarily, with their enormous constituencies, they seemed to be always crawling about with their ears to the ground, dependent on agents and reporters of every sort, even on the Press, for an idea of what was going on. As they never knew where the hounds were, they could not use such knowledge of the country as they had to lead the field. The leaders of the Council movement, on the other hand, had an immediate indication of every trend of opinion in the changing composition of the lower strata of Councils; and their difficulty was rather to control the energies that came pouring up to them through the system. The Parliamentary leader seemed like a water finder, wandering about and waiting for the twig to twiddle, while the Council leader was more like a marine engineer with his eye on the pressure gauge and his hand on the lever. Perhaps indirect election is only undemocratic when the function of the lower body is mainly to elect to a higher, but becomes democratic when it has vital functions of its own that are merely controlled by the higher body.
And yet another point and a paradox. Whereas the results of Council representation of opinion in Germany are not revolutionary, the results of the Parliamentary system are becoming more and more so, and not only in Germany but in Great Britain. The failure of the Parliamentary system to express the forces making for change--a failure not confined to Germany--and the fictitious relationship between the elector and the elected has two results. It diverts a large part of these forces of progress into various forms of direct action, all of them revolutionary, whether actively so, such as street fighting, or passively so, such as strikes. It also gives a revolutionary character to the periodical elections. For the vast constituencies vote merely along the line of the least common multiple of their mob minds. This line is generally a vague dissatisfaction; and unless it be diverted by "stunts" or otherwise diddled, will result in violent pendulum swings. Under these impulses Parliament will become still less representative, and will tend to be either revolutionary or reactionary. For an exaggerated majority is the extremists' opportunity.