THOSE who have studied their history must at times have been astonished at the ease with which popular movements, honest and sincere in themselves, have been manipulated by clever and unscrupulous men to their own personal advantage or to further their own political aspirations. The people have throughout the ages presented a pathetic spectacle. Time and again they have been used with most barefaced effrontery as a means of producing results which they themselves never desired. Indeed, in many cases, they have suffered terribly from their own achievements. Nothing is more pitiful than the persistent betrayal of the people by their leaders and nothing more splendid than the people’s refusal to believe it. In earlier history popular movements were difficult to create and direct unless they were purely local. Kings, princes, governors stood between the masses and their exploiters. Distances, too, were great in the days before railways, and communication was difficult. But, roughly speaking, the people were prevented by established authority from being victimised. To-day all that is changed, and we now live in an age which will be known, perhaps, in history as the age of the exploitation of the people.

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