AN IMPORTANT BOOK.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXIII, Issue 10133, 16 May 1896, Page 1 (Supplement)

AN IMPORTANT BOOK.

MR. LECKY ON " DEMOCRACY AND LIBERTY,"

MANY LESSONS FOR NEW ZEALAND. Mr. I/KOKr, perhaps tho foremost historian and philosopher of the ago, has just published a work in two volumes entitled, " Democracy and Liberty." It is full of instruction for us in New Zealand. For a notice of the book and extracts from it we are indebted to a review in the Timos :—

The range of Mr. Lecky'e inquiry is im? menso. He draws his illustrations from all modern forms of democracy. He examines the problem tram many aides. Indeed, every varioty of topic is introduced and discussed, often at considerable length. Page after page is devoted to Continental Catholicism, Sunday legislation, gambling, intoxicating drinks, marriage laws, divorce, education, the military systems of the Continent, socialism, trade unions, labour questions generally, and the movements relating to women's rights, , In Mr. Locky's view the cardinal error in many modern political themes is Rousseau's doctrine that each man should have a vote, and one of the same value; and that representatives should bo merely delogates. Unless the government of mankind be different from every other form of known enterprise, it must deteriorate if it is placed under the control of the most unintelligent classes. M Leckyrogretsthedi3appearauce of the old representative system of England, under which fluctuations of power were less frequent and violent) than they have recently been, and which showed that "strong indisposition to organic change" was compatible with readiness to initiate administrative reform. Burke did not denounce more vehemently than does Mr. L<ecky tho theory of representation based on the fiction of equality. " Surely nothing in ancient alchemy was more irrational than the notion that increased ignorance in the elective body will bo converted into increased capacity for good government in the represontativo body ' Tho day will como when it will appear one of the strangest facts in the history of human folly that such a theory was regarded as liberal and progressive.'' It is pointed out that tho best and most successful Parliaments—the British Parliament of the past, tho Italian Parliament of 1859, the Parliament which transformed Austria from a despotism into a well-governed countrywere elocted on a restricted suffrage. The Parliaments responsible for unstable or wasteful administrations—those whose conduct has made men despair of tho future of Parliamentary government— been tho offspringof universal suffrage, It is admitted that everywhere universal suffrage is established or imminent. What has been the motive in bringing about this change? Not, if Mr. Lecky is right, a deliberate belief in the superiority of the new system, but in the main, the existence of a now form of sycophancy; tho men who would, in former agos, havo grovelled at the feet of emperors or kings, now finding it to their interest to declaim against the iniquities of privilege, and extol the matchless wisdom of tho masses.

Many of those who are doing their best to reduce the influence of education and intelligence in English politics arc highly cultivated men, who owe to University education all that they are, though they arc now imitating —usually with awkward and overstrained effort—the rant of the vulgar demagogue. They have taken their line in public lite, and some of them have attained their ends. Ido not think that the respect of honest men will form any large part of their reward. It 1 is' curious how often in modern England extreme enthusiasm for education is combined with an utter disregard for the opinions of the more educated-classes.

IE there is one conclusion to which the whole of the author's reasoning leads up, it is the doctrine, repeated again and again in these pages, that democracy may be the least representative of governments, and that it may otten prove the direcc opposite of a state of liberty.

The question of taxation is in the highest degree a question of liberty, and taxation under a democracy is likely to take forms that are peculiarly hostile to liberty, I have already pointed nut how the old fundamental principle of ISnclish freedom, that no one should be taxed except by his consent, is being gradually discarded j and how we are steadily advancing to a state in which one class will impose the taxes, while another class will be mainly compelled to pay thfiin. It is obvious that taxation is more and more employed for objects that are not common interests of the whole community, and that there is a growing tendency to look upon it as a possible means of confiscation; to make use of it to break down the power, influence, and wealth of particular classes; to form a new social type; to obtain the means of class bribery.

From surveying politics in America he reports no more favourably of democracy in that country. It has made the "spoils system" and the caucus important parts of the government of the country. It has introduced waste, enormous political and municipal corruption, and it has brought about one thing worse still,

There is one thing which is worse than corruption. It is acquiescence in corruption. No feature of American life strikes a .rancor so powerfully as the extraordinary indifference, partly cynicism and partly good nature, with which notorious frauds and notorious corruption iu the sphere of politics are viewed by American public opinion. There is nothing, I think, altogether like this to be found in any other groat country. It is something wholly different from the political torpor which is common - in half-developed nations and corrupt despotisms, and it is curiously unlike the state of feeling which exists in the French Republic. Flagrant instances of corruption have been disclosed in Prince since . 1870, but French public opinion never fails promptly to resent and to punish them. In America, notorious prolligaoy iu public life and in the administration of public funds seems to excite little more than a disdainful smile. It is treated as very natural—as the normal result of the existing form of government. Mo one who observes English politics with care can fail to see how frequently, when a statesman is out of office and his party divided, his first step is to mark oat some ancient institution for attack in order to rally his followers. Personal vanity here concurs powerfully with party interests, for men who are utterly destitute of real constructive ability are capable of attacking an existing institution: and there is no other form of polities in which a noisy/ reputation can be so easily acquired. Instead of wisely using the machinery of Government for the benefit of the whole nation, English politicians have of late years been perpetually tampering with it, and a spirit of feverish unrest has passed ; into English politics, which, if it is not checked, bodos ill for the permanence of Parliamentary Government. Both parties have in this respect much to answer for. A weak Conservative Government is _ often tempted to out-bid its rival and win the support of some discontented fragment of the Opposition; and there is no Radicalism bo dangerous as this, for it finds no external body to restrain it, and the Opposition is, bound by its position to aggravate it. There are few things, also, more disheartening in English politics than what may be called the unintelligent conservation of English Radicalism. It moves persistently in a few old, well-worn grooves, The withdrawal of the control of affairs from the hands of the minority, who, in the* com-e petitions of life, have risen to a higher plan of fortune and instruction; the continual degradation of the suffrage to" lower and lower strata of intelligence; attacks upon institution after institution; a systematic hostility to the owners of landed property, and a disposition to grant much the same representative institutions to all portions of the Empire quito irrespective of their circumstances and characters, are the directions iu which the ordinary Radical naturally moves. lii lhardly any quarter do we find less constructive ability, less power of .arriving even at a perception of t the new evils that have arison, or of the new remedies that are required. To destroy some institution, or to injure some class, is very commonly his first and last idea in constitutional policy.

• One of the oldest objections to democracy is thai) it would be followed by measures of

spoliation; and no aspect of democracy alarms Mr. Leoky more than tho consequo trees upon taxation. \ More and more is it' employed for objects other than the common interests of the community.

When the present evils infecting our Parliamentary system have grown still graver; when a democratic House, more and more broken up into small groups, more and more governed by sectional or in wrested motives, shall have shown itself evidently incompetent to conduct the business of the country with honour, efficiency, and safety; when public opinion has learn more fully the enormous danger to national prosperity, as well as individual happiness, of (lissociating power from property, and giving the many an unlimited right of confiscating by taxation the possessions of the few, some great reconstruction of govcrni'.ient is sure to bo demanded. Fifty, or even 25 years hence, the current of political opinion in England may be as different from that of our owir-day as contemporary political tendencies are different from those in the generation of our fathers. Expedionta-and arguments that are now dismissed with contempt may then revive and play no small part in the politics of the future.

Impressed by the calamities that threaten the fabric of the Empire and " the enormous danger of placing the essential elements of the Constitution at the mercy of a simple majority of a single Parliament," Mr. Lecky would seek in democracy itself a remedy for the evils which alarm him. Notwithstanding the novelty of the Referendum and the obvious difficulty in reconciling it with our Parliamentary system, Mr. Lecky thinks that this device is full of promise. It may be mentioned that as to Ireland he hold? tho opinion that the effect of recent legislation has been to give an enormous increase of political power to the Catholic priesthood, and to invest it with a monopoly of power " quite as absolute as tho monopoly of power that existed in the darkest days of Tory ascendancy." Abroad, in Prance and Germany for example, another history has produced other consequences, and Mr. Lecky discerns signs of the formation of a strong alliance, such as De Tocqueville foresaw, between the forces of the Catholic Church and of democracy. Nearly 200 pages are devoted to a minute study of modern Socialism, extending from the time of Mably and Babceuf to those of Marx, and of the chief labour questions of our generation. Mr. Locky oven finds space for references to Mr. Bernard Shaw, the Fabian Society, and its " stylishlooking blood-red invitation cards." In regard to some fashionable schemes of Socialism and collectivism he uses plain words; in his eyes they are.mere schemes of " plunder," though tricked out in fino plyasos about justice and roligion. He winds up his reflections on some of the high-sounding specious devices for transferring the proporty of one class to another by saying that " Cant is never a beautiful thing, but among all the forms that aro now current in the world this (tho decking of plunder in thff*garments of honesty) perhaps is the most nauseous." On the whole, Mr. Lecky thinks that the country is safo from oxtromo Socialistic measures. There is not, I think any real danger that the vast predatory schemes of George and Marx will ever be carried into effect in England', or indeed in any other great civilised country, though it is probable that the disciples ot these men may. in some degree, and in more than one direction, modify the action both of the State and of local bodies.

. . . In hardly any country in Europe have extreme or revolutionary opinions been so freely propagated as in England. In hardly any country in Europe have they so little power.

The long discussion of the woman's question is a history, temperate and judicial In tone, of the movement in favour of the extension of women's rights since the publication of Mary Wollstonecraft's "Vindication." Sympathy with the general objects of that movement is accompanied, by an inclination to beliovo that the effect of the changes for good or pvil advocated by " the new woman " is much exaggerated. But one peril ho foresees:—

. There have been ages in which insensibility to Suffering was the prevailing vice of public oplni'ii. In our own there is perhaps more to be feared from wild gusts of unreasoning, uncalculating, hysterical emotion. "Ljs raoes," as Btiffon said, "se fem'misenc." A due sense of the proportion of things; tin adequate subordination of impulse to reason; an habitual regard to the ultimate and distant consequences of political measures; a sound, sober, and uuexagger&ted judgment, are elements which already are lamentably wanting in political life, and female influence would certainly not tend to increase them.

Wide though the range ol Mr. Lecky's inquiry is, one point of interest is passed over. Ho has little to say on the bearings of the progress of science on the problems of which he treats, and he is wholly silent on the relationship of the teaching of Darwin to the principles of democracy. Yet they are not unconnected. According to writers of eminence, democracy, with its theory of equality, must one day come into conflict with scientific doctrines which lay stress on inequality of aptitude of organisms for their environment, and reveal at work throughout the universe processes of soleotiou, Nature's franchise law, altogether in contradiction to the day dreams of Rousseau. Bebel and other modern German Socialists maintain that their doctrines are reconcilable with Darwinism. Haeckel, Zieglor, Oscar Schmidt, and other scientific investigators are, on the contrary, suro that the doctrine of evolution, properly understood, conflicts with modern Social ism. In Germany there is no inconsiderably literature on this aspoct of Mr, Locky's subject—one much more novel and suggestive than some of the well-worn theses which he discusses.

In many ways- Mr. Lecky's latest work is worthy of his reputation. It is a veritable onclyclopsdia of information. Not only is it the product of a full mind ; it is in the main temperate and judicial in spirit, and marked by independence of judgment ; and it fully justifies the modest remark in the preface that " the history of the past is not without its use in elucidating the politics of the present."