The Dominion WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 28, 1928. ELECTIONS AND PUBLIC OPINION

Dominion, Volume 22, Issue 55, 28 November 1928, Page 10

The Dominion WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 28, 1928. ELECTIONS AND PUBLIC OPINION

It will probably be argued by some who take the trouble to analyse the figures of the recent general election that the result supplies a very strong reason for a change in the system of voting. If figures were the sole index of public opinion this argument might have some force. But they are not. That public opinion must in the final count shape policy and make or unmake Governments is incontestable. Even such powerful personalities as Frederick the Great and Napoleon freely admitted the weight of its influence. But they did not take a vote in orde to ascertain its force and direction. They sensed it. "Votes ” declared Mr. L. B. Namier in the course of an interesting article in The Nation, “can be counted, not weighed. The degree of emphasis which the individual voter puts into his vote the measure of sacrifice with which he is prepared to back it, and the dynamic force of his personality, are hopelessly lost in such purely mechanical processes as proportional representation, referendums, popular ” The’same argument, it may be submitted, can be used against the present system of "first past the post.” Mr. Namier does not “It is the avowed aim of our system of representative and government,” he says, “to secure the rule of public opinion,’ and it does so to a fairly satisfactory degree provided no ill-judged attempts are made at attaining accuracy by narrow artificial, mechanical devices, which cannot supply reliable results, but merely produce a deceptive feeling of knowledge and certainty. Mr. Namier comes to the conclusion that public opinion is a mental atmosphere rather than a statistical quantity, and is cieated by the logic of ideas. That is probably true. The ideas which in cumulative effect develop mass opinions are intensely . primitive and individualistic. If a Government does the right thing, it does not always follow that public opinion will approve of it. The Reform Government, conscious of its responsibility to the nation, during the period of the financial depression exercised great care in administration and built up a sound finance under difficult conditions. It declined to risk the well-being of the country by yielding to popular demands for expenditure; it felt that it would be risky if not dangerous, in the unsettled conditions prevailing to reduce taxation; it did a thing which no other Government in the past 35 years has dared to do—it cut down borrowing on the eve of a general election. Take each.of these points, scrutinise them in their relationship to the financial circumstances of the country, and the only possible conclusion is that they were the right things to do. They were in the interests of the people as a whole and especially the future welfare of the people. The result is seen in the present political impasse. In other words, the Government displayed sound judgment and high courage, but failed in electioneering astuteness. Mr. Namier makes the point that the true ideal of representative government is to place men in office who are likely to leact to problems, situations, and events in the way in which the great mass of their countrymen would do. There is, of course, a good deal of truth in this. But it can be carried too far. It is not for our rulers merely to follow the changing opinions of the mass, but to shape and guide them in the right direction. It is not a very lofty conception of the obligations of leadership to depict a Government with its ears constantly to the ground and changing front as public opinion veers this way or that. The popular thing is not always the right thing; nor is what the mass asks for always the best thing to give it for its own welfare. Yet in the main the views advanced by Mr. Namier as to the means of testing public opinion on matters of public policy are not very wide of the mark. It is probable that our present system of voting affords as satisfactory a method of ascertaining public opinion on broad issues of policy as any of the artificial methods of securing an absolute majority of votes. To take the position as we have it to-day the judgment of the electors, broadly, is that it prefers the policy of the Reform and the United Parties to the policy of the Labour-Socialists.

No one can dispute that that view fairly represents the feeling of the people of the Dominion. It may be claimed, perhaps, with equal justice, that the fairly even representation given by the electors to the Reform and United Parties indicates that the people, generally speaking, see very little difference between the policies and outlook of these two parties. Extreme partisans may dispute this, but the verdict of the polls is difficult to escape from.