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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 75

Parliamentary Reform. — Chapter I. — Is Democracy a Failure?

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Parliamentary Reform.

Chapter I.

Is Democracy a Failure?

"It is better that the body of the people, with all its faults, should act for itself and control its own affairs, than that it should be set aside as ignorant and incapable, and have its affairs managed for it by a so-called superior class, possessing property and intelligence."—Matthew Arnold.

Alike to the student of political science and to the average citizen, the present position of politics in the more advanced nations of the world is one of intense interest. There is a marked and undeniable tendency in all the more civilised countries towards Democracy—that is to say, towards a principle of government the intention of which is, by means of a widely-extended franchise, to place the seat of all power with the people as a whole—and, therefore, the working of the political machine in those countries which approach most nearly to the democratic ideal is, naturally, noted with care by those who have the welfare of humanity at heart. Unfortunately the outlook is far from encouraging, and to those who cling to the high ideals of Mazzini—to whom Democracy meant purity of government and the brotherhood of man—the prospect may even be said to be profoundly disappointing. It is now a generation ago since the Prince Consort made the oft-quoted remark, that representative institutions were on their trial; and the course of events since then has certainly not tended to reassure thoughtful men its to their complete success. The main object of representative institutions is to make public opinion effective, but they seem to come no nearer to, if they do not grow further away from, achieving this end. Often, indeed, they do not appear even to represent the main characteristics of the voters. The French are the most thrifty and economical of all the European nations; and yet the French Government, for the last quarter of a century, has been conspicuous for its reckless page 6 extravagance in finance. The great American nation is probably composed of as many honourable men as any other civilised State, and yet we see their political world honey-combed with the most bare-faced corruption. The people even seem to be aware of the fact that their representatives do not really represent them, and the more democratic States of the Union are particularly distrustful of their politicians. Not only do they bind them down with constitutions full of minute details of legislation (compare, for instance, the "Sand-lot Constitution" of California with the constitution of any of the older Eastern States), but some of then are so anxious to minimise the evil their representatives are likely to do, that they only allow them a session once in two years.

Even in England Parliamentary institutions have fallen sadly into disrepute of late years. In spite of the introduction of the "closure," Ministers of the Crown have more than once admitted themselves unable to make any headway with the business of the country; while, from the language of the Press, it would seem that the House of Commons is rapidly becoming more an object of contempt than of respect and admiration. In Australia and New Zealand also, there has been of late years a growing impatience with the annual spectacle of the people's representatives constantly quarrelling and fighting for office when they should rather be minimising their differences, and working together for the good of their country. It would be difficult to exaggerate the danger of this growing distrust in, and contempt for, the Government, in countries where people are in a position to choose their own rulers; and when we see the present condition of affairs used by economists and philosophers—such as Herbert Spencer—as a strong argument in favour of confining the function of Government to mere police duty, it especially behoves all true democrats to spare no pains to try and discover the cause and also the remedy.

It would almost seem, on a casual survey of the facts, that the nearer we approach to a true Democracy, the further off we are from governing ourselves with wisdom and sobriety, or even with common honesty. There are many who believe that this is due to evils inherent in the principle of self-government by the whole people; and as this view, if justified by facts, would obviously be fatal to the future of Democracy, it deserves a careful examination. Its ablest exponents are Sir Henry Maine, page 7 in his work on "Popular Government," and Mr. Lecky, in his book entitled, "Democracy and Liberty." The latter has created more public interest than the former, and as it is the more recent and the more complete presentation of the difficulties and dangers in the democratic path, it deserves the more particular study. Before passing on to it, however, I would point out that Sir Henry Maine is apt to overlook the great development during the last half-century, in the mental, moral, and social condition of the masses. He says, for instance—

All that has made England famous, and all that has made England wealthy, has been the work of minorities, sometimes very small ones. It seems to me quite certain that if for four centuries there had been a very widely extended franchise, and a very large electoral body in this country, there would have been no reformation of religion, no change of dynasty, no toleration of Dissent, not even an accurate calendar. The threshing-machine, the power-loom, the spinning-jenny, and possibly the steam-engine, would have been prohibited. Even in our day vaccination is in the utmost danger, and we may say generally that the gradual establishment of the masses in power is of the blackest omen for all legislation founded on scientific opinion, which requires tension of mind to understand it, and self-denial to submit to it.

Few democrats would venture to deny that two or three centuries ago a sudden experiment in the direction of manhood suffrage would have been a very dangerous step in England. It is obvious to all that compulsory education must go hand in hand with democratic government, and it is not yet a generation since Mr. Forster's great Education Act was passed. Moreover, to make them fit to govern themselves, political education is fully as necessary as general education. Now, there is only one way of teaching self government; solvitur ambulaudo. To blame men or women for being obviously unfit to share in the government of the country, when they have never been allowed so much as a vote, is to prohibit them from entering the water, and then blame them for being unable to swim. This seems to me an answer to Sir Henry Maine. At the same time, it is clear that the want of education, general or political, is not the only, nor, indeed, the main trouble of modern democracies, for we see these troubles more pronounced in the United States and Australia than in England, although the voters in the former countries have better opportunities for education of both sorts than are possessed by their fellow voters in Great Britain, even allowing for the franchise being not quite so wide in the Old Country. The reason for this will be apparent, when we come to consider the page 8 real cause of the dispiriting outlook in the main democratic countries.

Let us turn to Mr. Lecky's book on "Democracy and Liberty." These two large volumes by our ablest living historian, who is, moreover, by no means a "bigoted tory," naturally raise great expectations in the minds of all who are interested in the great political and social questions of the day. The perusal of them, however, is disappointing, if not actually depressing. They contain a great quantity of valuable facts, collected with care and industry, and a number of interesting criticisms on various views and theories, coloured, of course, with his personal prejudices, especially with regard to Ireland and Mr. Gladstone; but the whole work lacks definite purpose and unity. There is little or no method in the arrangement, and the general effect is that of a collection of essays bound together merely by the binding of the book. The tone on the whole is decidedly pessimistic, more especially in the earlier part of the first volume—which might, indeed, have been not unfairly entitled "The Case against Democracy"—and this is the portion which most particularly concerns the subject we are considering. Mr. Lecky's general views on the results of a widely-extended franchise may be judged by the following extract:—

One of the great divisions of politics in our day is coming to be, whether, as a last resort, the world should be governed by its ignorance or by its intelligence. According to the one party, the preponderating power should be with education and property. According to the other, the ultimate source of power, the supreme right of appeal and control belongs legitimately to the majority of the nation told by the head-of in other words, to the poorest, the most ignorant, the most incapable who are necessarily the most numerous It is a theory which assuredly reverses all the past experiences of mankind. In every field of human enterprise, in all the competitions of life, by the inexorable law of nature, superiority lies with the few and not with the many, and success can only be attained by placing the guiding and controlling power mainly in their hands. That the interests of all classes should represented in the Legislature, that numbers as well as intelligence should have some voice in politics, is very true; but unless the government of mankind be essentially different from every other form of human enterprise, it must inevitably deteriorate if it is placed under the direct control of the most unintelligent classes.

Passing over the obvious criticism that the "most unintelligent classes" have not infrequently shown a clearer and truer political insight than their superiors in station, and also that when the superiority and ability which ought to rule is placed at the page 9 service of the people, they will not improbably avail themselves of it, and be guided to a large extent by it—let us now turn from these generalities to the more particular indictments of Democracy.

Mr. Lecky then briefly points out what excellent work was effected by the Parliaments of Austria, Italy, Belgium, and Holland, so long as they were "elected on a very high suffrage;" and what "manifest deterioration," especially in the case of Italy, has set in since they have "entered upon the experiment of Democracy." It is, however, to France and the United States that he devotes most of his attention, on the ground that "Democracy has completely triumphed in two forms—the American and the French—and we see it fully working before us;' He then reviews the recent political history of France, more particularly in its financial aspect, showing that the public debt increased during the three years of the Democratic Republic of 1848 more than it had done in the twenty-five years from 1823 to 1848; and that it expanded again, under the republic which followed the war with Germany, increasing during "the twelve years of perfect peace from 1881 to 1892" "by more than five milliards of francs, or two hundred millions of pounds, a sum equal to the whole war indemnity which she had been obliged to pay to Germany after the war of 1870." In 1848 the French debt was one-fourth, now it is about twice that of Great Britain.

It is undeniable that finance is the rock on which modern democracies seem most likely to split, and the main reason for this will appear later on. Mr. Lecky glances at it when he alludes to the "new system of prodigality" which began in 1871. "The enormous and wasteful expenditure on public works, which are for the most part unremunerative," such expenditure being simply a bribe or reward to the district for its support of the Government. Quoting Scherer* he says:—
Nearly every deputy enters the Chamber encumbered with many promises to individuals; the main object of his policy is usually to secure his re election after four years, and the methods by which this may be done are well known. There is the branch line of railroad which must be obtained for the district; there is the fountain that should be erected in the public place; there is perhaps even the restoration of the parish church to be effected. But it is not less important that all public offices which carry with them any local influence should be in the hands of his

* La Démocratic et la France.

page 10 supporters. He therefore at once puts pressure on the Government, which usually purchases his support by giving him the patronage [unclear: he] desires. There is a continual shifting in the smaller offices. Never [unclear: it] is said, were there so many dismissals and changes in these office [unclear: a] during the Republic; and they have been mainly due to the desire of the deputies to make room for their supporters or their children. The idea that a vote is a personal favour, establishing a claim to a [unclear: persent] reward, has rapidly spread. At the same time, any vote in favour [unclear: of] public works, and especially public works in his own constituency, [unclear: any] reorganisation that tends to increase the number of men in Government employment, increases the popularity of the deputy. The [unclear: socialis] spirit takes different forms in different countries, and this is the form [unclear: it] seems specially adopting in France The old idea that the representation Chamber is pre-eminently a check upon extravagance, a jealous guardion of the public purse, seems to have almost vanished in democratic countries and nowhere more completely than in France. In the words of [unclear: Les] Say, a great proportion of the deputies are, beyond all things, "[unclear: age] for instigating expense," seeking to secure a livelihood out of the public taxes for the greatest possible number of their electors.
Passing on now to the United States, Mr. Lecky has [unclear: a] difficulty in showing, by reference to American writers and records, and to such books as Mr. Bryce's "American Common-wealth," the appalling corruption which pervades the polities—whether municipal, state, or federal—of that country. It is unnecessary to follow him through his descriptions of the "[unclear: Spo] System," the war pension expenditure, and the lobbying and bribery, direct and indirect, which are such conspicuous features of the Great Republic, for the general facts are widely known and admitted. The curious fact, however, that their municipal politics have touched even a deeper depth than their State politics, deserves our attention in passing, because the [unclear: more] general rule in democratic countries (in Australasia, for [unclear: instance] is, that the local bodies are far less extravagant and less [unclear: corrup] than the central governments. There is no doubt as to the fact in America. Even Mr. Bryce, who minimises as far as possible the corruption in State politics, makes no attempt to [unclear: exten] the maladministration in the municipalities. He says:

The faults of the State Governments are insignificant compared [unclear: with] the extravagance, corruption, and mismanagement which mark the administration of most of the great cities. For these evils are not confined to one or two cities. There is not a city with a population of 200,000 where the poison germs have not sprung into vigorous life, and in some of the smaller ones, down to 70,000, it needs no microscope to [unclear: no] the results of their growth. Even in cities of the third rank similar phenomena may occasionally be discerned; though there, as someone has said, the jet black of New York or San Francisco dies away into harmless [unclear: gmy].

page 11
In the following passage Mr. Lecky gives some particulars, taken from Mr. Bryce and from good American sources, of the nature and methods of this municipal corruption:—

There are sales of monopolies in the use of public thoroughfares; systematic jobbing of contracts; enormous abuses in patronage; enornious overcharges in necessary public works. Cities have been compelled to buy lands for parks and places because the owners wished to sell them; to grade, pave, and sewer streets without inhabitants, in order to award corrupt contracts for the works; to purchase worthless properties at extravagant prices; to abolish one office and create another with the same duties, or to vary the functions of offices for the sole purpose of redistributing official emoluments; to make or keep the salary of an office unduly high, in order that its tenant may pay largely to the party funds; to lengthen the term of office, in order to secure the tenure of corrupt or incompetent men. When increasing taxation begins to arouse resistance, loans are launched under false pretences, and often with the assistance of falsified accounts. In all the chief towns municipal debts have risen to colossal dimensions, and increased with protentous rapidity. . . . The New York commissioners of 1876 probably understated the case when they declared that more than half of all the present city debts in the United States are the direct result of intentional and corrupt misrule.

Mr. Lecky, of course, accounts for all this by pointing out that manhood suffrage rules in America even in municipal matters. Now, there can be little doubt that manhood suffrage is indefensible when applied to local bodies. A due regard for the liberties of the people necessitates manhood suffrage for the main legislative power in the State; but this, of course, does not apply to municipalities. Again, the close connection which Liberalism has always insisted on between taxation and representation, while it demands manhood suffrage for Parliament (for in any country with even moderate customs tariffs the day labourer probably pays as large a proportion of his income in taxation as any other man in the community), just as clearly forbids it in the case of local bodies, whose funds are derived solely from taxes on property. To allow one set of men to incur expenditure and accumulate heavy loans, the principal and interest of which have to be paid by another set of men, is no part of any liberal creed. It is, indeed, very like legalised robbery, and certainly might account for great extravagance in municipal expenditure. It would hardly, however, account for the surprising manner in which this money is spent, and this is the real crux of the matter. These no doubt improperly obtained, funds do not, in their expenditure, go to benefit the masses of the people at all; they go to make wealthy contractors and political "bosses" still page 12 wealthier. If we want to see a municipality really [unclear: administer] in the interests of the people, we have to turn, for instance. Glasgow, with its model lodging-houses, its good drainage [unclear: t] well-kept streets, its cheap and excellent water, gas, and [unclear: t] service; and not to New York, where are some of the worst-[unclear: l] streets and most disgraceful city slums in any civilised country.

No; manhood suffrage might account for extravagance [unclear: i] not for deliberate corruption and mismanagement. We have [unclear: n] to study the manner in which the funds of the city are spent, [unclear: a] to notice the apparent absence of control of the people who [unclear: n] the money over its expenditure, and we see at once that the [unclear: r] cause of most of the extravagance, and all the corruption, is [unclear: t] fact that in America, and in America alone, has the Party [unclear: system] of government, with its attendant principle—"the spoils to [unclear: th] victors," been carried out logically, by being applied to [unclear: th] government of cities. If there is any soundness in the [unclear: princi] of the Party system, it would be as applicable to one representative institution as to another. We have seen how it works in [unclear: th] cities. It is essentially the same in the States, but [unclear: is] conspicuous, because not so close at hand, and somewhat [unclear: l] extreme, because of the more equitable incidence of [unclear: taxat] The average American citizen is an honest and sensible man, [unclear: l] he is quite helpless before the Juggernaut Car which he calls [unclear: th] "Party Machine."

Mr. Lecky is naturally surprised at such a state of [unclear: things] this, and he sums up the situation thus:

America illustrates, even more clearly than France, the truth [unclear: wh] I have already laid down, and which will again and again [unclear: reappear] these volumes—that pure Democracy is one of the least [unclear: representative] governments. In hardly any other country does the best life and [unclear: eve] of the nation How so habitually apart from politics. Hardly any [unclear: oth] nation would be more grossly misjudged, if it were mainly judged by [unclear: is] politicians and its political life. It seems a strange paradox [unclear: that] nation which stands in the very foremost rank in almost all the [unclear: element] of a great industrial civilisation, which teems with energy, [unclear: intelligent] and resource, and which exhibits in many most important fields [unclear: a] of moral excellence that very few European countries have [unclear: attained] should permit itself to be governed and represented among the [unclear: nation] the manner I have described. How strange it is, as an Italian [unclear: states] once said, that a century which has produced the telegraph and [unclear: the] telephone, and has shown in ten thousand forms such amazing [unclear: power] adaptation and invention, should have discovered no more [unclear: succe] methods of governing mankind. The fact, however, is as [unclear: I] presented it, and there are few more curious enquiries than its [unclear: cause].

page 13

The results of Mr. Lecky's enquiries are at least as curious [unclear: is] the enquiries themselves. It is indeed astonishing that such a [unclear: careful] observer and acute thinker should be able to content [unclear: himself] with the conclusion that manhood suffrage, or Democracy [unclear: for] he sometimes uses the two terms as if they were synonymous), [unclear: is] the fountain and origin of all these evils. Had he only extended [unclear: his] survey of democracies a little further, he would have found, [unclear: without] going outside Europe, a country which has governed [unclear: self] in truly democratic fashion for many hundred years, and [unclear: yet] where the evils he deplores are conspicuous only by their [unclear: bsence]. For centuries before the first Federal Constitution of [unclear: Switzerland], in 1291, the folkmotes of Uri, Schwytz, and Unter-[unclear: alden] had accustomed the hardy mountaineers to the duties and [unclear: ivileges] of self-government. Six of these cantonal folkmotes [unclear: remain] to this day—recalling the governments of the ancient city [unclear: states], such as the famous Ecclesia of Athens; and where folkmotes [unclear: have] given place to the modern idea of representative institutions, [unclear: I] need hardly say that manhood suffrage is the custom and the [unclear: w]. It is true that the present constitution of the country only [unclear: ates] from 1848, and was revised as recently as 1874, and that it [unclear: ntains] some ideas taken from the constitutions of Great Britain [unclear: ud] the United States; still, it is in the main a natural evolution [unclear: f] their own older methods of government, and "may be [unclear: considered] as the outcome of centuries."* Yet in this country—the very home and head centre of manhood suffrage—these [unclear: vils] of Democracy, the maladministration, the reckless extravagance in finance, the general corruption in politics, simply do not [unclear: exist]. On the contrary, the administration is generally admitted [unclear: to] be the best in Europe.

Sir F. O. Adams says:—"The members of the Federal Council, we will venture to affirm, yield to no other Government [unclear: in] Europe in devotion to their country, in incessant hard work [unclear: for] a poor salary, and in thorough honesty and incorruptibility." A more recent observer fully confirms this eulogy. He says:
The administration of affairs has reached a high degree of [unclear: fection]. . . . The Swiss have certainly learned the science of administration, for in all departments they succeed in showing

* "The Swiss Confederation," by Sir F. O. Adams and Mr. Cunningham.

Dr. J. M. Vincent, of John Hopkins University, in his excellent [unclear: tittle] work on "State and Federal Government in Switzerland."

page 14 remarkable results for the resources at command. It cannot [unclear: be] that the pecuniary inducements to enter political life are great, but [unclear: th] honours attached to a Cabinet office, and the reasonable [unclear: security] tenure, have been sufficient to draw out an eminently respectable [unclear: cl] of men, who have served their country well.

I am quite unable to imagine how Mr. Lecky, [unclear: although] briefly reviewing the political condition of many countries [unclear: whic] have recently adopted manhood suffrage, and examining in [unclear: so] detail the democracies of France and America, can have [unclear: pass] over Switzerland; but the fact is undeniable. He mentions [unclear: th] country now and then, once in reference to its management of [unclear: th] trade in alcohol, and again when discussing the [unclear: Referendum] but nowhere does he review the condition of Swiss politics, [unclear: st] less attempt to account for the absence from the oldest [unclear: democracy] now existing, of the numerous evils which, according to [unclear: him], inevitably follow in the wake of manhood suffrage. The [unclear: ol] phrase of "Hamlet, with the Prince of Denmark left out," [unclear: in] positively inadequate to describe a study, in two large [unclear: volumes] of "Democracy and Liberty" with Switzerland omitted—[unclear: the] only really successful democracy in the world, and the [unclear: only] civilised country in the world where liberty is an actual [unclear: f] rather than a cant phrase or remote ideal—"A land where (in [unclear: the] words of Mr. Freeman) the oldest institutions of our race—institutions which may be traced up to the earliest times [unclear: of] which history or legend give us any glimmering—still live on [unclear: in] their primeval freshness, . . . a land where an [unclear: immemorial] freedom, a freedom only less eternal than the rocks that guard [unclear: it], puts to shame the boasted antiquity of kingly dynasties, which, by its side, seem but as innovations of yesterday."*

The most interesting question, from the point of view of the student of political science, and the most useful enquiry for a statesman who wishes to build up a stable democracy for a young country such as New Zealand is clearly: What are the [unclear: cause] which make Democracy a complete success in Switzerland, [unclear: and] almost as complete a failure in other countries?

The first cause which suggests itself is the obvious one, [unclear: the] Swiss have been governing themselves for so many [unclear: centuries] that they are able to avoid the gross errors of newly-[unclear: enfranchised] nations. No doubt this political experience—which by this time

* "The Growth of the English Constitution."

page 15 may possibly be to some extent hereditary—when added to the political education they receive from their excellent systems of local government, might account for much. If this were all, we dwellers in democratic states might at least have hope for our children. That this want of experience is not, however, the real trouble in modern democracies is clear from the well-recognised facts that the political condition of these countries is steadily deteriorating, and that the political tone is worse where manhood suffirage has been long in force than in those countries where it has only recently been adopted. Compare, for instance, France and America with England, or the America of De Tocqueville with the America of to-day, in spite of the general improvement in morality during that time.*
Want of experience in self-government, we may therefore conclude, is a wholly inadequate cause. Can there, then, be some radical difference between the Swiss system of government and that in use in other states—any difference sufficient to account for the great gulf between the success of the one and the failure of the other? Now we are, I consider, on the right track. If we examine the Swiss form of Government we find its most Miking feature to be the total absence of the "Two-Party System." There is a recognised Government, but no organised Opposition, whose business it is to oppose whatever the other side may propose. There are legislators and administrators, but Bey devote their energies and abilities to legislation and administration, and not to Party intrigues, nor to attempts to discredit the executive in the eyes of the people. The Government is more on the lines of that of our large cities—say Manchester, Glasgow, or Birmingham, perhaps the best-governed cities in the world—than according to the customs of the British Constitution as exemplified in the British Parliament. Further enquiry will show us clearly that this is the real root of the matter; that the Party system of government, when fully developed, lives and thrives on corruption alone; that it inevitably Bracts to its service, and places in power, the self-seeking,

* A cautious and reliable American historian says: "It is certain that in no Teutonic nation of our day is the difference so marked between the public and private standards of morality as in the United States. The one is lower than it was in 1860; the other, inconsistent as it may seem is higher."—Rhodes' "History of the United States, from the Compromise of 1850."

page 16 unscrupulous political adventurer; that it tends to [unclear: become] thinly-veiled alternate Autocracy; and that, for these and [unclear: other] reasons, it is hopelessly incompatible with Democracy.

That Party government is the source of many evils [unclear: is of] course, no new discovery. Mr. Thomas Hare long since wrote, [unclear: in] speaking of the United States, that "Every reader of its [unclear: history] knows that it is to the overwhelming power of Party, [unclear: pushed] onward by a covetous greed of the profits of Party, and [unclear: subduing] all individual conscience and action, that the evils of political [unclear: life] in that country are owing."* Other English writers on [unclear: political] science have also repeatedly and warmly attacked the system. In England, however—the birth-place of the system—it is [unclear: not] fully developed as in some other countries, where the very [unclear: absence] of any natural and historical divisions among the people (a [unclear: facto] which should have made far greater ease and perfection in government) has hastened the development of the artificial or political party, which is fatal alike to political honesty and to any [unclear: real] democratic rule.

Mr. Lecky charges Democracy with reckless [unclear: extravagance] in finance, with hopeless corruption in administration, with being "one of the least representative of Governments," and with sundry other sins. I admit his charges, but intend to show that—like a letter which has been wrongly addressed—he should have directed them against Party government, and not against Democracy. Let the people, whether of New Zealand or any other democratic country, have a sane and suitable form of government, under which sound legislation and honest administration are possible; under which the tone of politics need not necessarily deteriorate; a form of government under which the people rule, and do not merely appear to do so, and we need have no fear of the result.

* "The Election of Representatives."