Parties and Democracies

Dominion, Volume 27, Issue 35, 4 November 1933, Page 20

Parties and Democracies

“We see bow democracies are overthrown in some places by dictatorships,” said Mr. Ramsay MacDonald in a recent speech. “Poverty, industrial distress, and despair have been great testing things for democracies. “Democracy cannot stand in crises, when faction and party are active. There are democracies that have gone down during the last few years tb it would still have been existing if politics bad been conducted by national combinations co-operating for common ends and not by parties fighting each other for partisan gains. “What was the position under the operation of party politics? It was like a football match that immediately the game started, the moment the ball became alive, the moment a proposal was made and was thrown, so to speak, on the floor of the House of Commons, there was a rush, not to get the good thing through a goal, but a rush to prevent the good thing getting through any goal. “Somebody said that the duty of an Opposition is to oppose and never subscribe to that doctrine. I have denounced it again and again. The duty of an Opposition is to criticise, is to hold up the side of a proposition of a different kind. One party sees one side, another party sees another side, and truth, wisdom, safety depends upon how both .sides’ views are embodied in the legislation that is passed. “Fancy government by tackling, government by pulling down, government by preventing things getting through goals—it is absurd !”