DIFFICULTIES OF DEMOCRACY.

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 227, 25 September 1930, Page 6

DIFFICULTIES OF DEMOCRACY.

——- 1 EXPERTS AND AVERAGE m, I

(To the Editor.) The "Star" of September 20 leading article on "A Crisis for Democr J One reason for the state of affairs I think, to be found in the fact th J **' have expected too much from democ The writer of an article on the toictnw. Auckland Art Gallery ("Star" SeptembX says that there. are good and not s pictures in the gallery and the latter S should be removed to make more room f the former, but this should be done canß? , "No knowledge is better than I ZW' tion, still this matter has to be threshed sooner or later and it should be placed feZ the public, whose property the pictures *1 so that they will be able to read the rea«n for and against -what is considered £ 2 in our gallery and thus be able to nav. better judgment for themselves." I after the reasons for and against the xS pictures had been duly set forth the matter would be decided by a kind of election ' which the electors would 'be called upon f strike out from a list of pictures the nam ' of the pictures they did not want. Suchmethod for deciding the fate of pictures m be democratic, but it seems a. little absurd but only so because we are not to deal in that way with matters of art W do deal in that way, however, with very 'manv equally impoi tant, if not more important subjects, and the only alternative to doing if in that way and retaining democracy elect, or select, experts in the various matters to do these things for us. It seems as though democracy may fail because it is too-demo-era.tic. Education has not kept pace wit! the need for education, and even if it had the average elector, man or woman, could only have a very general knowledge of all the many complicated problems with which modem society, in all countries, is faced. The problem for democracy is the one it has, never faced, that is to decide the spheres of control for the expert and for the averagi; man. Because democracy has not decided that problem the dictator has arisen in some coun trier and he is using experts to override the average man, or the average man to override the expert, just as his fancy takes him. Ido not think democracy has failed. I has not yet taken "up its proper task, and. I sometimes think it never will. The other way seems so easy, and it is easy until hard times and exceptional difficulties arise. These things, however, bring opportunities for the autocrat or dictator, and one fine day we wake tip td find ourselves being told not what we may do but what we must do and with no time to wait to take a vote on the matter. ' ■ TOM BLOODWORTH.'