A DEMOCRATIC AUTOCRACY.
Sir,—We frequently hear it said that New Zealand wants better laws and better lawmakers. The question is. how? Everybody knows that this system of triennial elections is a costly and cumbrous system, and most people know that under the present system at least some of the big fools get into Parliament. We have perfected and pernotrated a system of government by petticoat influence and logrolling. The democracy, if it really dared to trust itself, could improve on that. Say that tho State were governed by a council of ten, each elected for life by the vote of the whole of the people. There would be no elections then, except when vacancies occurred in the Council. ■ The ten would have the full powers and prerogatives now wielded by both Houses of Parliament, tho Cabinet, and (I dare say) Lord Plunkct. I should think the ten would sit behind closed doors. They would be responsible only to the whole body of the people, and to remove any one of them a vote of at least three parts of the. wholo people would bo needed. In these circumstances, tho people would be wonderfully careful whom they trusted. Wellingtonian.
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Bibliographic details
New Zealand Herald, Volume XLVI, Issue 14146, 23 August 1909, Page 8
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198A DEMOCRATIC AUTOCRACY. New Zealand Herald, Volume XLVI, Issue 14146, 23 August 1909, Page 8
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