Evening Post. MONDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 1921. PRINCIPLE AND PARTY

Evening Post, Volume CI, Issue 50, 28 February 1921, Page 6

Evening Post. MONDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 1921. PRINCIPLE AND PARTY

The problem of how to introduce ability and sincerity into a, Government run on political party lines is World-wide. Almost everywhere the party system of government—for which no proved sufficient substitute appears to be in sight— had had a deadening, levelling, machining effect. The machine- wins, not the man; and to develop personal sincerity, fixity of principle, and outstanding individual ability almost inevitably means to put one's self wrong with the machine and with the party. The soullessness of partyism, its inertia, and candid hypocrisy have not only placed personal sincerity and ability outside the Cabinet pale, but have brought the parliamentary system itself into a degree of disrespect that alarms everybody- except the politicians. It is no exaggeration to say that the evils of the party system, and its rigid boycott of principles that in the individual are considered good and admirable, constitute one of the chief recruiting factors for Bolshevism. Disgust with, political shuffling makes an excellent soil for the sower of revolution; consequently the problem ol democracy to-day is how to introduce into its -Parliament and Government its best individuals—in other words, how to master its machine instead of.allowing the machine to master democracy. In this respect, the governmental machinery is not, in all democracies, alike. Party machines are very much the same everywhere, but the machinery of government in the United States differs in important particulars _ from, the corresponding machinery generally used in the British Empire. A United .States President has much greater power than a Prime.Minister of the United Kingdom. The President's "powers Over Congress—though President Wilson has found them to be not unlimited—are much greater than the Prime Minister's powers over Parliament. A British Minister is a member of Parliament and is responsible to Parliament. A United States Minister ia not a member of Congress, and is responsible to the President only.

On the surface, then; it would appear that a United States President is much more free than is a Prime Minister to place in his Cabinet men oi ability and principle. So far as his mere executive power to make appointments is concerned, there is nothing to prevent a United States President from appointing to his Cabinet a potential rival whose individual ability and fixity of. principle so far exceeded his own as to eliminate the rival from the party-dominated Presidential election. And this is what, according to the cablegrams, the new Republican President, ( Mr. Harding, has done. Last year, when the nominations for the Presidency were uncertain, and when Mr." Hoover's name was mentioned in both political camps, Republican papers, in discussing the question of Hording v. Hoover, found that a championship of Harding practically involved a championship of comparative mediocrity. With cunning words they tried to gild the pill, but it boiled flown to this —that Hsu'dinr;. the admittedly inferior man, was preferred tn Hoover, the admittedly !iu.)wiav man, b«i4»H*« Harding, tb.vtJugH his limitations, was more adaptable to

the Republican machine. Now, the question to which the cabled appointment gives rise is this: Can sincerity-eum-brains, refused admittance at the front door of the party machine, find entrance through the back door provided by the above-mentioned peculiarity of the United States goyemmental machinery? If Hoover is impossible as a party President, is he possible as a Cabinet Minister solely responsible to a party President?Will Hoover vitalise and straighten out the administration despite the party machine, or will the machine, by curbing the President, bend Hoover in spite of himself? That the party is more powerful than the man, even the prima facie facts disclose; but if Hoover, by personal influence and administrative skill combined with tact, can moderate party abuses and improve party efficiency and fair dealing! ever so little-, he will have done something for that ideal of cleaner government that democracy longs for and needs. He lias an opportunity which by moral influence he may improve. The experiment has some hopeful aspects. .

We have no desire to idealise too highly in a necessitarian world, nor to place undue emphasis on the gap between principle and practice, ■in politics and elsewhere. We do not share the pessimism, of Hamlet:

Ophelia: What means your lordship? Ha|ilet: SThat if you be honest and fair, your honesty should admit no discourse to your beauty. Ophelia: Could beauty; my lord, have better commerce than with honesty?

Hamlet: Ay, truly; for the power of beauty will sooner transform honesty from what it is than the force of honesty can translate beauty into his likeness: this was sometime a paradox, but now the time gives it proof.

Does the time give proof that political partyism exerts over honesty the malignant power that Hamlet ascribes to beauty? We hope not. If it does, then the sooner the turning point is attained, the safer will be those democratic institutions, now threatened, in which reposes "the best guarantee of average human progress. ;•