NOTES AND COMMENTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20869, 11 May 1931, Page 8

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

DEMOCRACY A DELUSION. " There is in human nature undoubtedly a perpetually increasing trend toward oligarchy. People always prefer to let the few control the many," said Lord Hugh Cecil in a speech in the House of Commons. " The whole of this theory of equalitarian democracy is a delusion. There is no such thing. ' Government by the people ' in any real sense of the terra has never been in existence, at any rate, in any large community. Need we go further than the greatest political decision of our day ? Our whole lives have been, and the lives of many generations succeeding us will be, coloured by the decision taken in August, 1914, to go to war. That decision was taken by the Ministry of the day, who called into collaboration the leaders of the other parties. That decision was taken by quite a small number of persons. Nor could it have been otherwise, because the issue was not before the country, and could not have been, at any election, and the House of Commons was required to assent, under the ordinary party arrangements, to what its leaders had determined. I would argue, therefore, that the principle of equalitarian democracy is a legendary thing."

THE REPRESENTATIVE THEORY. " I should be sorry to leavo the argument there, in a merely negative form," Lord Hugh Cecil added. " There is a theory, and a tru3 theory, of representation which is quito different from tlie theory which I have been criticising. That is a theory which descends to us, I suppose, for 200 or 300 years, and which was made classical by the genius of Burke. That theory does not seek to trace political power from each of tho 20,000,000 voters, or whatever the

numbers are, up to this House or to the Government of the day. It views representation from another aspect. It seeks to have a House of Commons which shall bo representative because it is a microcosm of the whole people. Wo sit hero on that theory, not as being each man with so many thousand voters' political power to exercise, but as being typical commoners, who aro so chosen that the decision wc como to is likely to be the decision of the whole people. , . That is a true claim in tho main."

GERMAN POLITICS. After the Reichstag had adjourned for six months at tho end of March, President von Hindcnburg signed a decree investing tho public authorities with farreaching powers for combating political violence. "One justification for this step is the appalling figure of casualties arising from encounters between armed political organisations in the streets," says the Economist. " Latterly there has been a regular toll of deaths from this causo in Germany every week-end —as regular, indeed, as the week-end toll of deaths from motor accidents in Britain, or from communal conflicts in India. Sinco the revolution of 1919, Germany's record in political crimes has been very bad—much worse than in any other, great civilised country. A consciousness of this evil and a desire to find a remedy for it arc shown in the approval with which the new decree has been received by all tho moderate elements in German public opinion. On the other hand, the decree has aroused equally violent protests from the extremists of boll) Left and Right; and this is perhaps the best justification of all. At tho same time, this measure of defenco against political extremism, necessary though it may be, i» being paid for dearly in tho sacrifice of civil liberties. The freedom of assembly, of association and of the press, which was fully secured in Germany, for tho first time, by the Weimar Consti tution, goes by the board; and tho power which is being placed in the hands of the police (who, in Germany, aje apt to be high-handed), ib really very formidable."