GREAT CHANGE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 158, 6 July 1937, Page 8

GREAT CHANGE.

POLITICAL VIEWS.

CENTURY AGO AND TO-DAY. PROFESSOR SUMS UP. (By Telegraph.—Special to "Star.") HAMILTON, this day. The philosophy of government as it existed a century ago with the dominating trend of political philosophy to-day were contrasted in a lecture at Hamilton last night by Profeseor R. M. Algie, professor of law at the Auckland University College. The address wae one of a couree of university extension lectures given by different Auckland professors in provincial towns. A century ago the doctrine of laisscz faire was exercising the greatest influence in political theory and practice, be said. Under the influence of that doctrine men believed that it was the business of the Government to interfere as little ae possible with individual rights and activities. They considered that a Government should not interfere in those matters which the citizen could do just as well by himself; and they argued that taxation should be limited to the needs of revenue and that it should be made to fall with equal weight relatively upon all sections of the community. It was felt, too, that after the needs of taxation had been met, ae much money as possible should be left in the pockets of the taxpayer, so that the taxpayer himself would have a fund to employ as he thought beet. Wishes of People. Out of the principles of laissez faire emerged the theory of democracy as correctly understood. This later theory meant that there should be government for the good of the people by the people themselves, and in accordance with the wishes of the people. In other words, the citizen was to have what he considered best for himself. The doctrine of laissez faire as correctly understood may be said to have disappeared from practical politics before the year 1900; end from that date to the present it was possible to notice very grave encroachments upon the principle of the rule of law as eet out above. In far too many statutes of recent date there was a tendency to substitute a Minister of the Crown for the decision of a court of law, and discretionary authority on the part of a Government meant insecurity for legal freedom on the part of the citizens. The great increase in governmental interference in trade and industry and in planning schemes generally had necesearily led to the appointment of numerous inspectors with very wide powers. Different statutes might be cited under which inspectors and others were empowered to enter into private dwellings and upon business premises, and for purposes which would have been considered an outrage a century ago. The old well-established principles that the legal righte of a citizen were not to be interferred with except by due process of law and that justice was not to be denied to the citizen who sought it, had been most seriously encroached upon in modern times. Inferior Court. Statute after statute could be cited in which the final decision upon import-ant matters rested with an inferior Court or with a State official, and from which decision the right to appeal to a higher Court was denied absolutely. All those symptoms of a decline in true democracy were by no means peculiar to New Zealand. They were discoverable in varying degrees in the policy of other countries as well, and they served to show that true democracy tended to be replaced most definitely by the philosophy of collectivism.

"Under this latter doctrine," Professor Algie added, "people tend to be governed by State officials and by Cabinet Ministers, who give to the people not necessarily what the people want for themselves, but that which such officials and Ministers in their judgment consider to be the best for them. "If pure democracy is to re-establish itself as a principle of Government there must be in the citizen himself a deeper realisation of his duties as a citizen. The obligation of a democrat does not bejrin and end on election day at the ballot box. It is his business to follow the trends of Government in an intelligent and critical manner, and to make his criticism effective where he believes it to be just. The price of real democracy is unceasing vigilence."'