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sleep—yet legislation would proceed on favourable
 lines, so far is the nation now convinced of
the necessity of reform in these things. And for
me the war has changed the aspect of the question.
 I do not mean that I did not always
sympathize with the cause now represented by
the W.E.A. I mean this, that I never believed
that in a large nation or empire a democratic
government could be efficient and stable.
Put it in this way. Philosophers have from
time to time drawn up ideal schemes of government
 based on the aim of greatest happiness,
Utopias, as they are called ; but the word Utopia
has come to mean a state of society presumably
desirable, but only feasible if men were different
from what they really are. What is usually
depicted is a small State working harmoniously
on a democratic or social basis; and in small
States the social basis can be worked, where
home-life is simple, and external complications
generally absent. Small village communities in
a sort of patriarchal simplicity meet together to
confer, the members are all personally known to
one another, and they elect for their head and