TRACTS FOR THE TIMES.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 85, 11 April 1933, Page 6

TRACTS FOR THE TIMES.

WHERE SAFETY LIES.

(By PRO BONO PUBLICO.)

When Old John said that his own creed was "Live and let live' 5 he was formulating something like the fundamental law of politics. I don't suppose he knows a great deal about the theory 01 politics. Probably he has never read a book on political science, but he has worked out his own idea of political common sense and he rests on that. He realises that "do as you would be done by" is the only basis of permanent political peace. I recall that years, ago he said in the course of a discussion that self-sacrifice had no place in justice and therefore could have no real place in politics. I took him up on this point, because it seemed to me that his own creed involved giving way to other people on occasion. He admitted the fact that lie gave way, but_ held_ that tins did not affect the argument, since in politics everything had to bo done by law and was thereforecompulsory. A sacrifice that ycu made when you had to make it could not be termed a sacrifice. In private action it is competent for an individual to concede a point and to make a sacrifice, but not in polities. You give way, he explained, in order to secure a workable law which approximates to social justice. Consequently you gain something and are not therefore making Quite lately, when we were discussing dictatorships, I expressed a guarded approval of the idea because, I said, the people were not sufficiently educated to know what was good for them ancl for the community generally. Old John detected a fallacy immediately. If the State perpetrated an injustice because of the lack of education of the constituencies, he said, in effect, it could not be argued that it indicated a defect in the system. All it showed was that the community ought to be better educated. John is no pessimist. He holds that a whole people is more likely to> do social justice than is any autocracy, whose idea of justice will be conditioned by its prejudices and whose inclination will be to favour its own friends or its own class. I objected that in a democratic community the class that can secure a majority of votes will perpetrate injustice on the others. He agreed, but argued that whereas an autocracy would do the same thing and could not be shifted, a class in the ascendancy under a democracy could always be deprived of power if the other classes were convinced of its lack of justice. Democracy, provided it' maintained the liberal institutions, gave ■the community a better chance of social justice than did any form of autocracy. Moreover, John said, in the long run a mass of the people_ would be amenable to reason. It might act emotionally and unjustly, but would always react when the emotional stimulus passed. Democracy, ho declared on another occasion, was safer than Socialism, even if the democracy had socialistic inclinations. No matter how crude its ideas might be, it followed its leaders loyally and there was always a chance of honest leadership. An autocrat who was dishonest could not be shifted without shedding blood, but a demagogue could be dropped in -twenty-four hours.