Functions of Government and Principles of Legislation

Maoriland Worker, Volume 3, Issue 88, 22 November 1912, Page 7

Functions of Government and Principles of Legislation

CONSCRIPTION AND THE REFER-

ENDUM.

A WEIGHTY LETTER

Writing to the "Lyttelton Timee," Mr. P. J. O'Regan says :— Sir, —There is one danger for which opponents of conscription should be prepared, and I ask you to be good enough to allow mc to direct attention thereto. Now that our politicians are beginning to realise that the Defence Act is likely to be troublesome at the next election, many of them will endeavor to protect themselves by advocating a plebiscite or referendum on the question of compulsion in this connection. Needless to say, 1 desire in no way to disparage the principle of direct legislation, but I do protest most emphatically against the prevailing readiness to refer everything to the vote of the majority. The first question to consider is the functions of government, or, in other words, the principles of legislation. Once settle that, and it is then time to discuss the expediency of direct legislation by the plebiscite or referendum. Apart from any attempt at the definition of the functions of government, I think everybody will admit that there must be some limit to legislation— that no majority, no matter how great, can have any jurisdiction to amend the Decalogue, and hence that there are many matters which should never be submitted to a majority vote. What are the functions of government? My reply is that government exist 3 to protect individual rights — natural rights, the Government, for example, did not and never did create a right of property. Property springs from the rignt of every man to tho product of his own industry, a right which exist? quite independent of government. Men worked and possessed property before the State in the modern sense ekisted. The function of the State is to protect men in the enjoyment of that right, and, inasmuch aa men owned property antecedents to the existence of the State., it follows that ho majority could ever rightly dispossess atiy man of his property. A man or any number of men might, indeed, voluntarily surrender his or their property; but apart from surrender, the right h sacred in spite of the verdict of any majority. Keeping the principle 1 have laid down in view, let mc ask how the Si?ate could ever morally acquire any right to interfere with a man who minds his owh business, doee no wrong to anyone, and earns his liviAg honestly. For

such a man. there should be really no law. Tho law exists for the purpose of restraining acts of violence or injustice, and such v man docs no injustice. To place his liberty in peril by a plebiscite may be called democratic by people who have a child-like faith in Acts of Parliament, and who long to decide everything by a majority vote, but it is nothing less than a suggestion to erect a tyranny in the name of liberty.

The existing Defence Aft raises the whole question of the functions of government. It' conscription is correct in principle, it is not a little remarkable that the spirit of Britain has always associated it with tyranny. If it possesses all the virtues claimed for it by our military ''experts," it seems curious that w>; should have waited until the twentieth century to dig for principles iv the ashpit of Continental despotism, If our children tuny rightly be drilled And dragooned in defiance of our deepest convictions, then the authority of the military roue is superior to that of the parent!

No, we must tight any attempt to make conscription a question for a plebiscite. We must insist on the question being faced by parliamentary candidates in the regular way—and we mean to do so.