Dangers Threatening [unclear: Mo] Democracies.

Now it is my purpose to-night to [unclear: you] some of the dangers which [unclear: threat] modern democracies, and in order [unclear: th] may be interested in tracing these [unclear: t] source, I propose to glance back [unclear: causes] which have wrecked [unclear: demo] the past. I am not one of those [unclear: who] are fond of theoretical argument I attach the greatest weight to [unclear: hi] facts. If you can bring me a single [unclear: show] the operation of a custom, of a vice, or of anything else, and say, [unclear: is] the consequence of it," I begin to [unclear: it] with the keenest interest; and it [unclear: study] of the causes which [unclear: led] decay and fall of the ancient [unclear: dem] that we may hope to save ourselves similar disasters. If we find the [unclear: sam] operating and producing the [unclear: same] as in ancient times, it behoves [unclear: tho] who look below the surface to [unclear: be] and watchful, and raise a [unclear: warning] the endeavour to save our [unclear: moden] cracies from the dangers [unclear: which] and overwhelmed the ancient [unclear: on] before we go to these ancient report me put it to you in this [unclear: way.] easily see and understand that [unclear: if] 100,000 of the Pacific [unclear: islanders] them into one of our great [unclear: countri] would never make a [unclear: democracy.] be impossible. We are [unclear: indebted] history and traditions of our [unclear: forefa] the customs of our forefathers, [unclear: to] formation sent down to us through of printing and now accumulated [unclear: i] mass, being imparted to us [unclear: in] years—it is solely in consequence and the training we receive [unclear: f] time we are born until we [unclear: are] upon to exercise the [unclear: vote] elector, that we arrive at sound [unclear: pe] Therefore it is highly [unclear: important] us that the great institutions [unclear: on] depend for successful [unclear: training] preserved in their purity and [unclear: intec] have referred in my address to [unclear: the] of Auckland (laughter) to one of [unclear: t] causes to which we can [unclear: trace] of ancient Rome. We find [unclear: the] danger in an attack upon [unclear: the] and beauty of the marriage [unclear: t] after the divorce laws [unclear: ha] page 5 [unclear: hanged] and relaxed, instead of the [unclear: oman] matron being held up to the admiration of the whole world for her chastity [unclear: ad] loyalty to her husband, she gradually became degraded until, in the last years of [unclear: he] Republic, when the State was [unclear: plunged] civil war, women thought nothing of [unclear: isoning] their husbands. In a single [unclear: ar] two hundred women were found [unclear: guilty] poisoning their husbands. (Laughter.) [unclear: nd] women in the highest places—not [unclear: erely] the lowest portion of the [unclear: population] were found guilty of these terrible crimes. When we compare that state of affairs with [unclear: he] state of affairs in modern democracies now in regard to women, we find [unclear: he] same danger. The institution of [unclear: arriage] is being attacked. A [unclear: cry] being raised by unthinking [unclear: persons] the divorce laws to be extended, [unclear: and] sanctity of the marriage tie is being [unclear: in-ded]. We have to fight it at the initial [unclear: int] If we do not, but allow these things [unclear: d] the abominable innovation of the Woman's Suffrage Bill to go on to the [unclear: grading] of our women—although it [unclear: ay] take fully 200 years to degrade [unclear: e] women of England—yet, as [unclear: surely] history repeats itself, so [unclear: surely] women of England, of [unclear: America,] of these colonies will be degraded [unclear: un-] we faise a warning voice in time and [unclear: see] thing stopped Then, again, [unclear: another] cause of the fall of Rome was the [unclear: aption] of her senators and [unclear: legislators.] can take a time in Roman history—I [unclear: k] about 270 or so B.C.—I have the [unclear: date] a time as late as 277 B.C., when the [unclear: tors] of Rome were pure and the [unclear: citizens] pure. Anyone going then and [unclear: mpting] to bribe the Roman [unclear: Senate] the Roman people met with a [unclear: queer] kind of reception. In [unclear: B.C.], Pyrrhus, King of Epirus, came [unclear: taly] to assist the Argentines against the [unclear: ans] He defeated the Roman armies [unclear: h] great loss, and he found himself in such [unclear: postion] that he thought it a capital [unclear: potunity] to make an advantageous [unclear: ty] He therefore sent his minister, [unclear: great] orator, to Rome to nego [unclear: terms] of peace. And that great [unclear: or] used his utmost arts of flattery upon [unclear: Roman] people and upon the Roman [unclear: ate] He was also furnished with large [unclear: of] money in order to bribe the Senate, [unclear: what] did he find? He found that there [unclear: not] a man in Rome whose hand would [unclear: upon] gold, and when he went away he [unclear: lared] that every burgess in that city was [unclear: ai] to a king. (Applause.) Well, [unclear: gentle] we pass on to a later age, and in the [unclear: atime] a great change had come over [unclear: Roman] people. Something like 150 [unclear: had] passed away when another [unclear: suggestive] circumstance took place. You have all read of Jugurtha? (Cries of "No we haven't.") Well, if you have not you had better do so. (Laughetr.) Well, Jugurtha was an African General who had served under the great Scipio and who had taken it into his head to usurp the kingdom of Numidia. He came over to Rome bringing immense sums of money with him, and he found a very different reception on the part of the Roman senators and the Roman people from that which Pyrrhus had experienced. He found he had not enough gold, vast as his wealth was, to grease all the palms that were held out for it. That was the state of affairs then. (Cat-calls, general disorder, at the extreme back of the hall, and a voice, "Hurry up, old man.") Now, you know you will have to behave yourselves there behind. Well, gentlemen—(renewed disorder and a voice : "Oh, shut up")—when Jugurtha left Rome his testimony was very different from that of the minister of Pyrrhus. His words were : "Here is a city for sale if she can find a purchaser." Now, during these 150 or 160 years a very marked change had been coming over the Roman nation. It was found at the elections that bribery was going on. It was found that this system of corruption very gradually begun, was permeating the whole mass of the Roman people.

There was another thing that characterised the last century of the Roman empire. (Interruption.) It was this: the sudden rise of demagogues. These demagogues got so bad at last that they actually would pay men to come and listen to them, and they went on making great speeches, trying to tickle the ears of the more ignorant portion of the people, and to delude them by putting before them all sorts of visionary ideas and by promising them all sorts of magnificent things if the people would only place them in power. Cannot you see some of these things passing round about us now? I see them with great clearness. I see a degeneracy of the integrity of public men in the last few years. I see attempts made in England and in the colonies to imperil the constitution, and to degrade the citizens by appeals to the lowest side of human nature. I see all sorts of promises made by our public men in attempting to get power into their hands. I see them promising large sums of money to be spent in various districts if they are put into power. That is neither more nor less than simple bribery—than corruption of the people. (Cheers.) If it were not for the fear of wearying you, I could show you other signs of weakness in the ancient democracies rising into the greatest prominence now. There was, for instance, the worship of wealth—one of the most notorious things that characterised the decay of the Roman empire. We see now page 6 amongst ourselves in Europe that if a man has a large amount of gold every one bows down to him. Scepticism spread with alarming rapidity throughout the whole mass of the people, and unholy and unclean orgies of the most frightful character debased and degraded the people. To such a terrible extent had this grown that at one time 7000 men were put to death on account of it without, however, crushing the frightful disorder. All these things we may see traces of in our modern democracies and we must face them with a determination to purge them out of the land. In attempting to do my share in this direction I have a distinct purpose in standing for a seat in parliament to endeavour to aid in raising the public life of New Zealand, and to purge out of it these evidences of a decay or of a corruption which is sapping the public life of the colony. And, gentlemen, when I think, or when I thought, how best it was to be done, I could see that my hopes lay with the young colonial blood of the colony. (Cheers.)