So that, though Politics be as absurd as the Constitution, God bless her,
it may yet fulfil as useful a function. Who would deprive the hosts of
working-men of their generous enthusiasms, even though these be to the
profit of the professional politician? Who would narrow their horizon
back to the public-house and the workshop or the clerical desk and the
music-hall, by assuring them that all these great national and
international questions will be no penny the worse or the better for
their interest in them? For it is they, not the State, that will be
benefited. Politics is a great educative force: it teaches history,
geography, and the art of debate, and is not without relation to
Shakespeare and the musical glasses. The flies on the wheel are not
moving the wheel, but they are travelling and seeing the world, whereas
they might otherwise be buzzing around the dust-bin. Politics sets the
humblest at the centre of great cross-roads of history: it promotes clubs
and all manner of fellowship, and enables the poorest--on polling-day at
least--to know himself the equal of the greatest. Even the most
illiterate is spared the mortification of being reminded that he cannot
sign his name. And finally, and most of all, it preserves among us the
lost art of fighting.
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