individual life. Nevertheless the effort must be made. We must distinguish and define economic interest, family interest, public interest. We have for our guidance the great general principle: " Render to Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's, and to God the things that are God's." It is no valid plea in avoidance that it is hard to distinguish the things that are Cæsar's and the things that are God's. Rather would it seem to be enjoined upon a robust morality incessantly to search the heart regarding all the details that arise in following the commandment.

The most perplexing questions that arise in this interrogation of duty spring from the conflict between fundamental and general moral ideas and the customs of various social groups. It is considered entirely allowable and laudable, for instance, that a father should encourage his son to succeed him in business, even if the business be not his but that of a corporation in which he is simply an official. Many of the means employed to this end-education, travel, apprenticeship, and so on

-are beyond reproach. Others involve gross favouritism and disregard of the merits of employees not connected with the family. The most noteworthy point involved in this illustration is. that a procedure which passes without question in business and family circles is recognised as reprehensible in politics. From this discrepance in social judgments it follows, however, that the man who

has made a success in politics may find it very difficult to see anything but the far-fetched morality of the "unco-guid" in the proposition that he may not provide places in the public service for his relatives and dependents, just as the man who has been successful as a merchant or manufacturer is in the habit of doing in his store or factory.

It would be possible to point out many similar divergences between the fatherly and motherly indulgence of family life, the charity, long-suffering, and forgiveness of Christian faith, the easy tolerance of social life on the one hand, and, on the other, the ideal of justice, cold and impassive, which we associate with the state. In her admirable discussion of "Friendship and Politics," Mrs. Simkhovitch has given us what is, on the whole, a very sympathetic picture of the poor man who would scorn to sell his vote outright but who delivers it blindly to the "big hearted" ward leader, whose kindly interest and protection he so constantly needs to secure work and avoid oppression. It is hardly fair to characterise his attitude in slightly ironic phrase as dominated by the principle of the "sacredness of the job." Hard, continuous labour and the support of a family under such conditions are virtues of no small proportions. In large part, as Mrs. Simkhovitch has pointed out, devotion to the ward leader may be much less the expression of selfishness than of the traditional

1

1 Political Science Quarterly, vol. xviii (1902), p. 188.

7

loyalty of a race, class, or neighbourhood. Such loyalty, within limits, must also be accounted a virtue. Finally, in attempting to judge the case, we must inquire into the opportunities which voters of this sort have had for acquiring high ideals of civic conduct. Are the best attainable results secured by our systems of education, poor relief, correction, and taxation? Need nothing further be done to prevent child labour, to furnish better housing conditions and to safeguard the public health?

If we concede the necessity of social reform in these or any other directions, we impliedly recognise either the failure of society to live up to its own ideals or the necessity of new and higher ideals of social conduct. And this recognition involves the assumption of part of the moral guilt of existing corruption by society itself. Mr. G. W. Alger has noted the current dissatisfaction with the ideal of pure cold justice.1 He also insists, correctly enough, that justice is the rock upon which alone generosity can safely build. The two ideals should not, however, be dealt with as fundamentally incompatible. Not since the time when Thomas Aquinas first recognised the caritative function of the state has such a view been tenable.. More and more the state has endeavoured in modern times to live up to this duty of protecting the poor and weak. Its fuller realisation will 1 Atlantic, vol. xcv (1905), p. 781.

mean the disappearance of many of the existing causes of corruption.

One aspect of corruption for motives not entirely personal must be dealt with separately, both because of the moral casuistry involved and because of its practical importance. This is the acceptance and use for party purposes of money paid to bosses or other leaders for the corrupt use of their political power. While the personal interest of the politician as a member of the party organisation is usually involved to some extent in such transactions, the purely selfish element may be extremely attenuated. Thus Floquet, accused of having accepted money for his favourable vote as member of the French Chamber of Deputies on the Panama canal scheme, defended himself on the ground that every centime of the sum paid him had been used for the benefit, not of himself, but of the party to which he belonged.1 Thurlow Weed is alleged to have used his political control of the New York state legislature in 1860 to secure the granting of several franchises for street railways in New York city to a gang of lobbyists, and to have spent the four to six hundred thousand dollars of "campaign contributions" obtained in this manner to back the candidacy of Seward for the presidential nomination at the Chicago convention of the Republican party. In such cases not a cent of the corruption fund may stick to the

1J. E. C. Bodley, France, bk. iii, ch. vi, p. 306.

hand of the party chief receiving it. Indeed it is not inconceivable that his devotion to party ends or to a party leader might induce him to pursue a corrupt course of conduct even though he foresaw his own ruin, politically or otherwise, as the certain result of his action.

Cases of the foregoing sort force us to a recognition of the fact that when political passion has reached its climax, as at the end of a hard fought campaign involving great principles, all considerations besides party success are apt to sink into nothingness. Properly considered, of course, the party organisation is a social institution subordinate to the state, but it differs materially in one way from other social groups of the same rank, such as business associations, the church, the family, etc. The latter accept their subordination more or less passively, but the party avowedly seeks to gain control of the government. course it professes its intention to conduct public business honestly and for the benefit of the whole people, but fine distinctions such as these are apt, in the heat of the conflict, to be lost sight of by practical politicians. Not unnaturally they identify the interests of the state with the interests of their party, and the acceptance of dishonest money, with the possible danger which such an act involves, may easily seem to them a patriotic duty rather than a heinous offence. In all their corrupt bargaining they are conscious of a certain devotion to

Of