NOTES AND COMMENTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21146, 1 April 1932, Page 8

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

DEMOCRACY AND THE MANDATE. "As a convenient thought and troublesaving device tho word 'mandate' has few equals." says tho Manchester Guardian. Tho politician who rolls it richly round his tongue often claims to have had a clear call—far from clear to many of his fellow-citizens —to do a, number of things unspecified which they will probably strongly object to. As Professor J. L. Stocks points out, the conception of the mandate is quite a recent growth. Tho theory has developed as an extra-legal limitation on the authority of our sovereign Parliament. On any great issue Parliament is "morally bound" to ascertain the foeling of tho country. Pushed to an extreme, tho conception of the mandate logically involves the "delegacy theory" of representation by which Parliament should be tho mere mouthpiece of the electorate. In this view democracy becomes a kind of reversed wireless, political wisdom and instruction being collected from twenty million microphones —tho ballot papers—and faithfully reproduced in the large loud-speaker which is Westminster. "Is not this what democracy means?" Professor Stocks does not think so and most people will agree with him. There is no "mandate" to be had unless tho will of the people is first instructed—and it is- the duty of Parliament to foster that instructed will. UNDER-EDUCATED ELECTORATE. Dr. W. H. Moberly, Vice Chancellor of the Manchester University, spoke on "Education and Democratic Government" recently. What was wrong with our own democracy, he said, was that it was uninformed and under-educated and therefore incapable of judging intelligently on matters of national and international importance. Critics of democracy pointed out that people in tho mass were less intelligent than the individual; and the purpose of the Workers' Educational Association was to reverse this and make people more intelligent by bringing them together to acquire knowledge. The elimination of ignorance and bias throughout the democracies of the world was what was most needed to-day. Feople in- democratic countries had the nominal power to decido questions, but they were not sufficiently equipped, and the purpose of adult education was to equip them. HUMAN IMPULSES. "Docs human nature change?" The subject was discussed by Dr. S. Herbert, in the Manchester County Forum. The Conservative said that man was a fighting animal, that he always would fight, and therefore there must be war; or that man loved and would always love properly, and therefore we could not have Socialism. The o(her idea was expressed by the Socialist, who maintained that we only needed (o change the general economic conditions to change the whole moral outlook of the people. Each side was in some degree both right and wrong. We must distinguish in man two kinds of human nature—the unconscious impulse and the conscious reaction. The unconscious impulse for fighting must probably remain, because under certain conditions, such as war, the fighting instinct came uppermost, and people were quite willing temporarily to put aside their moral outlook. Put, tho primitive and unconscious impulses could, and in the interests of civilisation must, be sublimated into a higher form of activity. The Conservative was wrong in leaving out of account the possibility of sidetracking the unconscious impulses and sublimating them, and thereby really changing actions. Similarly, the Socialist was wrong in saying that human nature could be changed by economic conditions, having regard to the unconscious impulses which did not change, but, was right in maintaining that the changed conditions would change our human actions by enabling tho primitive human impulses to be sublimated. FILM CENSORSHIP. There has unquestionably been a tendency of late, states tho British Board of Film Censors in its annual report, for films to become more and more daring, the result, probably, of the large number of stago plays which are now presented on the screen, and of the licence which is to-day allowed in current fiction. Subjects coming under the category of what has been termed " sex " films, others containing various phases of immorality, and incidents which tend to bring the institution of marriage into contempt show a marked increase in number. It cannot bo denied that this tendency is much to bo deplored and that it is distinctly harmful to tho best interests of tho screen. Even when the story is not itself wholly immoral there appears to be a. desire to stress the unpleasant aspect which is best, described as " sex appeal " with a wealth of detail which is altogether prohibitive for public exhibition. Tho board has always taken exception to stories in which the main theme is either lust or the development of erotic passions, but the president has como to tho definite conclusion that more drastic action will have to be taken with regard to such films in the future, 1.10 has already called the attention of certain members of tho film industry to this fact, and this opportunity is taken of notifying tho whole industry of tho standpoint he proposes to adopt. It would not be equitable, the report states, to take such definite action without giving this note of warning, but from the far-reaching inquiries which have been made among those who are competent to judge, it is satisfactory to hear that there is every likelihood of a diminution in the productioh of films which come •within this category.