NOTES AND COMMENTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 19952, 22 May 1928, Page 10

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

A UNIQUE RECEIPT. A veiled reference to a story of ' a receipt for a kingdom" having been given by Sir Herbert Samuel led the latter to disclose the precise details. When he went to Palestine as High Commissioner in 1920 he formally received charge of the country from the then Military Governor, General Sir Louis Bols. Sir Herbert had not made any preparation for any documentary evidence of the formality, but the soldier, trained in the business side of his profession, had. "You will give me a receipt, of course ? said the soldier. The High Commissioner thought the Military Governor was joking, and said so. But never was military authority more serious. Sir Louis Bols produced a form of receipt already drawn up in the approved army manner. It read: "Received from General Sir Louis Bols, K.C.8., K.C.M.G., one Palestine." Sir Herbert signed that receipt, and added in the corner the mystic initials which commercial folks employ to indicate that the receipt was signed "errors and omissions excepted." That receipt surely may be counted as one of the most curious documents associated with settlements after the World War.

MUNICIPAL MORALITY. "There is no democratic city in which opportunities for corruption are entirely absent," says the Yorkshire Post, in discussing the riotous elections in Chicago. "Probably there is no city in which such opportunities are not sometimes turned to profit. But in England, a case of municipal corruption that comes to light is treated as a scandal, while, in Chicago, it seems corruption is accepted as an inevitable part of the political machine.

. . . In most American cities today, it is said, the ablest men prefer to concentrate on business and professional life and to leave politics severely alone. Thus when honest men are most needed thoy are hardest to find. The obvious and essential responsibility for all democratic citizens is to maintain such standards in public life as will make honest men easy to find. A democracy, in other words, that is not in practice an aristocracy will very easily degenerate into a condition where rule is exercised not even by its average citizens, but by its most corrupt and unscrupulous place-seekers, since to no one else is the political atmosphere at all congenial. It is easy to extract sensational amusement from the municipal affairs of Chicago. But it is perhaps wiser for the citizens of any democratic city to murmur, 'there, but for the grace of God, go we'."

THE PEOPLE AND POLITICS. Mr. Sidney Webb, who has decided not to seek re-election at the next general election, has contributed an article to the London Observer, in which he discusses the attitude of the public to Parliament. He considers that it is quite a mistake to imagine that people have lost interest in its doings, asserting that actually more people hear about them, think about them, have some comprehension of their significance, and are interested in them, than at any previous period. " What proportion of the population of the England of the eighteenth century read what Bnrke said, or understood Pitt's policy ?" asks Mr. Webb. " How large was the middle-class electorate that was thrilled by the combats of Gladstone and Disraeli ? How many readers (or, rather, how few!) had the newspapers of my boyhood, which every day reported the Parliamentary speeches at what we now consider an intolerable length ? My conclusion is that tho House of Commons now enters into tho thoughts, not only of a greater number of Britons than ever before, but also actually touches the minds of a larger proportion of the contemporary population of Great Britain than at any previous date. I have an equal suspicion that those who lament the degeneration of the House of Commons, whether in capacity or integrity, in education or manners, are talking nonsense."

THE CHOICE OF GOVERNMENT. " What the House of Commons secures for the people of Great Britain is the paramount advantage of being able, every few years, to change our Government lawfully, peaceably, without loss of its strength and without social disturbance," Mr. Webb adds. " The fundamental purpose of a general election is not to choose the most capable legislators or the most forceful exponents of our particular fancies, but to declare which among the immediately available sorts of Cabinet the nation prefers. Thus, the House of Commons is far more important when it is approving the King's nomination of the Prime Minister and his colleagues, or supporting them against their opponents, or defeating them when it has had enough of them, than in its aspect as a legislature amending the law (which it does not do particularly well), or in its function as a critic of the Government's administration (which it does imperfectly), or in its duty of securing financial economy (which it does not do at all). To my mind the least important function of the House of Commons is that to which some people give most weight, namely, that of a debating society, in which every point of view can find expression. This is one reason why 1 am not impressed by the advocates of the system ot election called proportional representation." He considers the existence of more than two political parties as abnormal for the twoparty system enables the electorate, as a whole, not only to indicate which Cabinet it prefers, but also by a decisive vote to put that Cabinet into power. If England loves, not coalitions, so, too, it loves not a third party—once it has decided which is the third party! In this intuitive dislike the British elector exhibits a sound appreciation of the British Constitution.