Our Only True Democrat.

By J. MacGregor, M.A.

Reprinted from Otago Witness, December 7, 1904

Who is he? "Mr Seddon, of course," will be the general answer. "Not at all," says Dr Gibb, "I am The Democrat of New Zealand, and all who follow me are Democrats; I once considered the Premier a true Democrat, but that was when I thought he was going to do as I told him about the referendum; now I find he is no Democrat."

Those are not the exact words used by Dr Gibb in his speech at the General Assembly, but they express the general purport of it. Take the following passage as a sample: "Why were the newspapers and the State Schools' Defence League so opposed to submitting this question to the people? It was because they were afraid they would be beaten. They should insist that their opponents were anti-Democrats, and that they [i.e., Dr Gibb and his followers! were the only true Democrats." If Dr Gibb's object had been to prove himself a true demagogue we should have been forced to admit his complete success, page 2 for no third-rate politician, not the most blatant of demagogues, could have made a more barefaced appeal to the ignorance and prejudice of a mob. And these terms apply to the whole of his Bible-in-schools propaganda, for it is nothing else but an invocation of the power of the mere numerical majority, and that, too, in a sphere which all lovers of liberty have been wont to regard as sacrosanct—the sphere of conscience and religion. The amazing thing is that an Assembly of Protestants, nay, of Presbyterians, could listen without a word or sign of protest to a speech which was a denial of what used to be regarded as one of their dearest principles: but perhaps that was when they were in the minority. The new Protestant doctrine was propounded even more nakedly a few weeks ago by a recent convert to the cause of which Dr Gibb has constituted himself the protagonist; I refer to the Rev. J. Gibson-Smith, who wrote thus: "If the majority of the people want to have Bible lessons taught in the State schools, the majority of the people are entitled to have their will give effect to. . . . Demos is king, and his will is law unless we are prepared for a revolution."

To say that Democracy means the rule of the majority would be to state what is now regarded as an identical proposition, but a proposition which would not serve the purpose of Dr Gibb and his newly-converted henchman. We all know that, in a democratic community, power lies with the majority; but what Dr Gibb and Mr Smith contend is that the might of the majority makes right. I venture to affirm in opposition to these two champions of the tyranny of the majority that the majority of the people are not Entitled to have their will give effect to if that which they will is wrong or unjust. Alas! for the page 3 Democracy or the Church that has for its leaders men who are prepared to preach such doctrine merely to serve the purpose of the moment: the Democracy will never lack men (demagogues, not Democrats) who are prepared to declare their readiness to follow the majority wherever it may lead; but what it lacks and needs most is, justum et tenacem propositivirum (the man of firm and righteous will), one who knows, not only how and when to trust the people, but also to withstand them. Just as the Stuart tyrants never lacked sycophants ready to ascribe to them the "right divine to govern wrong," so King Demos has always had his courtiers (demagogues) who flatter him for their own ends. We have long been familiar with the part on the political stage, but we may expect improvements when an ecclesiastic assumes the role as an under-study of the leading exponent in New Zealand.

"Historically the consent of the governed (the majority) has never had the least effect to make the government founded thereon a just government. In Spain, under Philip II, there is little question that the great mass of the people would have voted to continue the Inquisition; their acquiescence did not make the Inquisition just. In the Red Terror, Robespierre and the guillotine had the enthusiastic support of the people; that support did not make the Red Terror a just government. The Empire of Napoleon I was founded on a plebiscite which gave overwhelming indorsement to both it and him, and was an undoubted expression of the will of the great body of the people of France; the plebiscite did not make the Napoleonic Empire a just government. The burning of negroes in the Smith and West of the United States is no more an act of justice because it is done by a mass meeting than page 2 for no third-rate politician, not the most blatant of demagogues, could have made a more barefaced appeal to the ignorance and prejudice of a mob. And these terms apply to the whole of his Bible-in-schools propaganda, for it is nothing else but an invocation of the power of the mere numerical majority, and that, too, in a sphere which all lovers of liberty have been wont to regard as sacrosanct—the sphere of conscience and religion. The amazing thing is that an Assembly of Protestants, nay, of Presbyterians, could listen without a word or sign of protest to a speech which was a denial of what used to be regarded as one of their dearest principles: but perhaps that was when they were in the minority. The new Protestant doctrine was propounded even more nakedly a few weeks ago by a recent convert to the cause of which Dr Gibb has constituted himself the protagonist; I refer to the Rev. J. Gibson-Smith, who wrote thus: "If the majority of the people want to have Bible lessons taught in the State schools, the majority of the people are entitled to have their will give effect to. . . . Demos is king, and his will is law unless we are prepared for a revolution."

To say that Democracy means the rule of the majority would be to state what is now regarded as an identical proposition, but a proposition which would not serve the purpose of Dr Gibb and his newly-converted henchman. We all know that, in a democratic community, power lies with the majority; but what Dr Gibb and Mr Smith contend is that the might of the majority makes right. I venture to affirm in opposition to these two champions of the tyranny of the majority that the majority of the people are not Entitled to have their will give effect to if that which they will is wrong or unjust. Alas! for the page 3 Democracy or the Church that has for its leaders men who are prepared to preach such doctrine merely to serve the purpose of the moment: the Democracy will never lack men (demagogues, not Democrats) who are prepared to declare their readiness to follow the majority wherever it may lead; but what it lacks and needs most is, justum et tenacem propositi virum (the man of firm and righteous will), one who knows, not only how and when to trust the people, but also to withstand them. Just as the Stuart tyrants never lacked sycophants ready to ascribe to them the "right divine to govern wrong," so King Demos has always had his courtiers (demagogues) who flatter him for their own ends. We have long been familiar with the part on the political stage, but we may expect improvements when an ecclesiastic assumes the role as an under-study of the leading exponent in New Zealand.

"Historically the consent of the governed (the majority) has never had the least effect to make the government founded thereon a just government. In Spain, under Philip II, there is little question that the great mass of the people would have voted to continue the Inquisition; their acquiescence did not make the Inquisition just. In the Red Terror, Robespierre and the guillotine had the enthusiastic support of the people; that support did not make the Red Terror a just government. The Empire of Napoleon I was founded on a plebiscite which gave overwhelming indorsement to both it and him, and was an undoubted expression of the will of the great body of the people of France; the plebiscite did not make the Napoleonic Empire a just government. The burning of negroes in the Smith and West of the United States is no more an act of justice because it is done by a mass meeting than page 4 if it were done by a Star Chamber. Majorities do not make right wrong." Nor do they render just that which, is unjust. No majority, however great, can make it right for the Protestant majority to take money out of the pockets of the Catholic minority for the purpose of teaching an anti-Catholic religion; and any religion that is non-Catholie is necessarily anti-Catholic. More especially is this unjust when the Catholics prove their sincerity by the expenditure of many thousands of pounds yearly of their own money for the support of "their own schools. Dr Gibb's appeal to the sheer force of the majority is an abandonment of his former attempts to make it appear that his scheme does not involve the teaching of religion, and he does not even attempt to show that it does not involve hardship to the Catholics. It is simply inconceivable that, in a justice-loving community, a majority can be found to listen to such an appeal. His conscience clause is simply adding insult to injury and injustice.

Over against the teaching of our only true Democrat I set that of the most judicial of publicists, the admirable De Tocqueville. "I hold it an impious and an execrable maxim that, politically speaking, a people has a right to do whatever it pleases, and yet I have asserted that all authority originates in the will of the majority. Am I, then, in contradiction with myself?

"A general law—which bears the name of Justice—has been made and sanctioned, not only by a majority of this or that people, but by a majority of mankind. The rights of every people are consequently confined within the limits of what is just. . . It has been asserted that a people can rever entirely overstep the boundaries of justice and reason in page 5 those affairs which are more peculiarly its own, and that consequently full power may fearlessly be given to the majority. But this language is that of a slave.

"Unlimited power is in itself a bad and dangerous thing; human beings are not competent to exercise it with discretion, and God alone can be omnipotent, because His wisdom and His justice are always equal to His power... When I see that the right and means of absolute command are conferred on a people or upon a king, upon an autocracy or a democracy, a monarchy or a republic, I recognise the germ of tyranny, and I journey onwards to a land of more hopeful institutions."

I commend those noble passages from two great writers, not to Dr Gibb (for they would be thrown away on a demagogue), but to the Protestants (so-called) who listened without protest to a string of sophisms and platitudes worthy only of a demagogue flattering and cajoling a mob of voters.

But what better was to be expected of men who could tamely allow Dr Gibb to put into their mouths, through his report, a sentence cunningly constructed for the purpose of making it appear that the great question as to whether the State should teach religion in the schools is merely a matter of regulating the curriculum. Could anything be more disingenuous? and yet such a sentence appears in the report adopted by the Assembly. One wonders whether the members can have read it.

But it is perhaps even more surprising that they should have listened without demur to such claptrap as this: "Why were the newspapers and the State Schools' Defence League so opposed to submitting this question to the people? It was because page 6 they were afraid they would be beaten." If there are true Democrats and fearless truth-loving men in New Zealand they are John Hutcheson and A. R. Atkinson, and they are office-bearers of the league of which J. R. Blair is president Afraid, forsooth! There is one thing which Dr Gibb durst to do which they would not—talk blatant and mischievous nonsense to an assembly of divines, and malign men who are better than himself. When this assembly of so-called Protestants listened to Dr Gibb declaring that fear of the result was the only explanation of the opposition of such men as I have named, were they aware of the nature of the measure referred to? Had they ever taken the trouble to read it or inquire into its nature? Were they aware that it would have the effect of introducing into our Constitution a principle which is not only foreign to it, but destructive of representative and responsible government. Dr Gibb cares nothing for such considerations—as witness his action with regard to union of the churches—if he can only attain his end.

Listening to Dr Gibb on his so-called referendum, one cannot help thinking that he has succeeded in convincing himself, like the knight in "Alice in Wonderland," that it is his own invention, and he seems to be as proud of it as the knight was, and with about as much reason An invention it certainly is, but not a referendum in any proper sense; it is the invention of shuffling, time-serving politicians, devised for the purpose of enabling them to evade an awkward question; and to make this "referendum" a test question at the general election, as Dr Gibb threatens to do, would be simply to further the election of the shuffler and time-server, just as his conscience clause for teachers would further the promotion of the sneaks amongst page 7 them, by putting a premium on hypocrisy. But he cares nothing for such considerations, if only he can get the "kudos" for having carried Bible-reading. Up to the time of the invention of the referendum, Dr Gibb was opposed to or indifferent to Bible-reading in the schools, but with the instincts of the demagogue, he realised the potentialities of the referendum, and made it his own, just as he has done with the Bible lessons of the Victorian Commission. He was indifferent to, if not opposed to, the reading of the Bible—"the Word of God"—but Dr Gibb's Bible, lessons?—that is quite a different matter! Not a, day must be lost! The country is simply going to perdition for lack of them.

Afraid, indeed! Have we not good reason to be afraid of the demagogic declamation of men like Dr Gibb, who, in order to gratify their ambition, are prepared to set up the tyranny of the majority as a sacred principle, even in the region of religion and conscience? We know that ambitious men (including even the ecclesiastics) have at all times been apt to disguise their love of power even from themselves as anxiety for the public welfare. If this kind of ambition were, by some miracle, extracted from Dr Gibb's composition one wonders what would remain.

In a noble and ennobling passage in his biography of Gladstone, Mr Morley says of Gladstone: "He knew men well enough at least to have found out that none gains such ascendancy over them as he who appeals to what is the nobler part in human nature"; but there is reason to fear that an ascendancy almost equally complete may be gained by appealing to what is the baser part in human nature—to its meanness, its cupidity, its insensate folly, to prejudice, superstition, and sentiment. page 8 Such, it has been said, is the foundation of Tammany, and we are not without some knowledge of it in New Zealand; indeed, of recent years we have had little else in politics, and now we are doomed to see it invade the sphere of religion, and this so-called referendum is one of the vilest of its progeny Afraid: Have we not reason to be afraid of the demagogue, especially when he appears in the vestments of the ecclesiastic.' If this is fear it is that kind of fear for one's country which is really patriotic virtue:—

Let liars fear, let cowards shake,
Let traitors turn away;
Whatever we have dared to think,
That dare we also say.

One can still be a believer in Democracy without regarding the voice of the people as the voice of God; that faith is 30 years out of date, and it is perhaps fitting that the attempt to revive it, for his own immediate end, should have been made by one who, not long ago, expressed the wish that all rationalists and secularists might be swept out of the country—presumably, into the sea. Why not revive the good old method of burning, and include all Roman Catholics? At one stage of his propaganda, prior to the manifesto of the bishops, Dr Gibb hoped to secure the support of the Catholics, and (to use his own phrase) he was quite prepared "to join hands with them." He no doubt reckoned upon their taking this course in order to strengthen their claim to a grant, but, now that they have adopted the straightforward way, they are anathema maranatha, and not entitled even to common justice. And this, forsooth, is the man who aspires to the guidance of the Democracy—our only Democrat!