The Press. MONDAY, DECEMBER 21, 1896. THE VIRTUE OF MAJORITIES.

Press, Volume LIII, Issue 9605, 21 December 1896, Page 4

The Press. MONDAY, DECEMBER 21, 1896. THE VIRTUE OF MAJORITIES.

New Zealand has recently expressed her opinion in an uumistakeable way ou the claims of a certain section of her citizens to enforce the will of the bare majority on the bare minority in the matter of liberty of drinking. •Even the most rabid prohibitionists to our knowledge now admit that they must bo content with what before the elections they sturdily refused to accept—three-fifths majority rule on this particular question. Bat we may be sure that their energies will not be relaxed; that we have not heard the last by a long way of bare majority fanaticism. And it may be well while the people of the colony are in such good mind to listen, as they are now, to revert again to the question, and point out the injustice and the inexpediency of acceding to the bare majority claim. English history was for centuries the history of a struggle on the one question — the limit of monarchic authority. .The same struggle still occupies the world, but with a difference; it is still a struggle about the limit of authority, but it is Democratifi not Monarchic authority, that is in question. We no longer argue about the prerogatives ( of kings; we have shifted our ground to the prerogative of majorities. There are undoubtedly some questions on which it.v is both just and expedient—and indeed essential—that the bare majority should rule. There are just as certainly some questions in which no one pretends the bare majority has any' right to interfere. And there is a third class of questions—of whioh the drink question is at present the most prominent—on which opinion is divided and controversy rages. Ifc is clearly necessary to search for a dividing line, a demarcation to, enable us to distinguish clearly, if possible, between the questions in which the bare majority should rule, and those in which it should not. The effort to find snch a line of demarcation has occupied economists for the bast part of this century. John Stuart Milt, laid down a definition which was fcfr a time at least accepted as workable :— " The principle is that the solo end for which mankind are warranted individually or collectively in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their number, is self-protection ; that the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilised community against his will is to prevent havm to others." Again,* Herbert Skgkcer, the patron saint, if we may say so without disrespect, of the Chrisfcchurch Liberty' League, gives an * equally explicit definition of the limits of liberty :— "■ Every man may claim the fullest liberty to do all that he will, provided that he infringes not the equal freedom of any other man." Are these practical working principles ? Do they take us farther than we were before j and give us an infallible test of the expediency arid justice of allowing the bare majority to rule on any- particular question? Mai-'s definition certainly does not. It can be quoted with as much force by prohibitionist's in their favour as by anti-prohibitionists in theirs. And Herbert Spencer will not do either. His principle is sound, so far as it goes, but it does not go far enough to supply us with a test in all cases. Both definitions fail to touch the kernel of the difficulty, which is that hardly any acfcjons are purely self-regarding. There is scarcely a step we can take in life which does not do " harm to ofchersf' , or "infringe; the equal liberty of ajny other man " to do the same. To adopt the reductio ad absurdum. If you eat your dinner you diminish the food supply and raise the price and so "do harm to others" and infringe the equal freedom of any other man to procure his meat at the price it would have sold at but for your competition. A man's very existence, the act of being born, does " harm to others " by causing an enhanced demand for the necessaries of life, and hence the cry against over-population. What; is wanted then is a tnore exppcit, more definite line of demarcation between the cases where the majority may and may not interfere. To take some examples:—lt is clear that a bare majority must govern the return of a member of Parliament, say, if half the electorate, plus one, prefer Jones to Smith, Jones must go in. We cannot have three-fifths of Jones representing one section and, two-fifths of Smith representing the

other. If a bare majority prefers a land tax to a property tax, j a land tax we rnnsfc have. There cannot be two different fiscal systems in the colony to suit two different sets of thinkers. We cannot have protection in one port and freotrade in another. Consequently a bare majority of electors in the whole colony must settlo that question. These casos are tolerably clear on the one hand. On the other hand, no cne nowadays, in this part of the world, proposes to take a " straight out" bare majority vote on, say, Catholicism versus Protestantism. If the Catholics of Ireland, by a majority vote, decided that ail the Protestants must become converted, and enforced baptism at the ballot bos the whole world would cry out. Again, if the majority in New Zealand believed one glass of grog per diem to be essential to health and happiness, and through the ballot attempted to make the minority conform aud take their liquor, it would be regarded as monstrous persecution. Similarly, if a bare majority harked back to the tyranny of the" Middle Ages and endeavoured to enforce a prescribed form of attire, a particular method of headdress, or a statutory hour for going to bed, their pretensions would not be tolerated for a moment. Hore, thon, are a number of cases equally clear on the other side of the lino of demarcation. What, then, is tho line and where is it to be drawn ? The distinction appsars to us to ba something like this : the bare majority must rule in all cases where it is impossible for the majority to held and act upon their opinion, and the minority at the same time to hold and act upon theirs. A bare majority wants Jones ; a bare minority wants Smith. They can't both have their way, aud so Jones goes in. A bare majority wants a land tax and a bare minority wants an income tax, both cannot be satisfied, and the income tax passes. But whero the question is one that admits of both parties retaining their liberty to hold and act upon their opinion it is neither just nor expedient that one should over-rule the other. A majority in a country, say, are Catholics ; a minority are Protestants. Each religious body caii practise its rites, build churchos, and attend them, appoint clergy and listen to them, without interfering with the equal freedom of the other body to do the same. A majority prefers tobacco, and a minority abhors it. It is perfectly open to the one section to smoke ad nauseam and to the other to avoid nicotine, and the State refuses, and rightly refuses, to interfere. Similarly with the drink question : It is possible for abstainers to abstain and for drunkards to drink in the same place and nnder the same circumstances, without mutual interference. One section can build public houses, the other temparanoe halls. Each can hold and act upon its collective opinion without in the slightest degree preventing the other from hol'ling and acting upon differing opinions. This, then, we believe, will be found a practical working test to determine what questions ought and what ought not to be decided by bare majorities. The bare majority should only be allowed to dominate the bare minority iv tliftse cases where it is im-. ' possible for themajority to hold and act upon their opinion unless the minority cease to hold and act upon theirs.