ABSTRACT
From the middle of the nineteenth century onwards the kind of criticism has continued to increase in volume, and to seek for justification in an increasing number of illustrations. Thus, in France, those who had hoped most from democracy in political government, complain to-day that it has, as a working system, replaced a noblesse by a bourgeoisie far more oppressive. Whilst in America, where political democracy has been attempted on the largest scale, conditions are more unequal than in any other country in the world. The more democratic a government may be in semblance, and the more profuse, as a consequence, it is in its popular promises, the greater is the discrepancy between its promises and the utmost it is able to perform. In a word, the broad result of the theory of pure governmental democracy, especially with reference to the general governmental objective, is to render the people restive by popularising impossible expectations.
