FATE OF LIBERALISM

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 8652, 10 February 1914, Page 8

FATE OF LIBERALISM

ELECTORAL REFORM TO EXPRESS THE WILL OF THE PEOPLE. (By Sir John Findlay, K.C., LL.D.) The most formidable barriers to true progress continue in effectiveness not so much by withstanding criticism as by escajiing it. The strongest entrenchments which block the march of popular welfare often lie deeply hidden in economic class methods and interests, or are masked or screened by the almost subconscious sentiments, fears, prejudices and illusions the evolution of its social system has implanted in our race. Mr Balfour indeed contends in his essays on, “Progress” that permanent reform is not so much a matter of constructive statecraft aa of enlightening social sentiment and clarifying collective consciousness. And as light is the best solvent of error,, so it is the most efficacious incentive to a criticism and rational analysis of those inherited erroneous sentiments and prejudices which lie across the path of progress. What is wanted most of all to-day is a powerful search light to disclose and expose the real barriers to reform. This would give, among other things, some noonday clearness to the methods just now so often concealed by which class interests are buttressed and large schemes of social reform defeated or delayed. You may charge with in- ' justice before the bar of public opinion a class, an institution, or a prevailing sentiment, but unless proper investigation has been made, the true nature of the case revealed, and the facts indisputably ascertained, no conclusive verdict will be secured from the tribunal. The first essential to steady progress is to bring before the eyes of men the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth regarding the real obstacles which impede its march. Just now the facts are for the most part concealed, lost in darkness or seen only in the dimmest twilight. What we want is a true diagnosis of the sources and causes of the diseases and evils of our body politic and social system. This is why I have always strongly advocated the creation of a non-political, highly qualified, permanent commission of economic investigation. A revelation by such a body of the true facta regarding many of the main impedimenta to reform would do more for its cause tlian all the stump platform and Parliamentary oratory of a decade. Dr Holmes tells us that he let light into what was happening below an inno-cent-looking stone by inserting a stick and turning it over in the field. He found that concealed below it was a large collection of undesirable and unsightly forms of life, which went scuttling in all directions—fleeing from light and its exposure. Just so if some of the large stones which are so familiar to our eyes in the field of our national life as to seem quite harmless were turned over by a commission of economic investigation there would be revealed some very unlovely forms of privilege, monopoly, and ' commercial abuses. All this, however, is but an illustration of the principle that wise statesmanship begins by removing the large obstructions to progress before devising particular reforms. It is safer and easier in the long run to blast out of the way the rooks that lie in the mid-channel than to Laboriously navigate round them. It is just because this rule was not followed that many a promising measure or movement has been wrecked by submerged obstructions. The vice of some reformers is that they impatiently want to carry their schemes before the vessel is ready or the channel proper ly cleared. This is the raw haste which always spells delay. The vessel in and by which great reforms must be canned is the popular will, and that must before all other equipment be furnished with the best electoral machinery that can be devised. In New Zealand to-day we have an electoral system that, so fax from expressing the will of the people, can and does frequently defeat it, as witness, for example, the spectacle of our present Government governing this country against the will of nearly twothirds of the electors. It has been well said that. the false pretence that democracy exists with us is the subtlest defence of privilege. Democracy is in its very essence government by majority. Its antithesis is minority rule, and yet we fervently regard this as a democratic country, and credit the laws passed by the present Parliament with having the sanction of a majority of our people. It is in this false assumption that privilege and monopoly get their most insidious protection. There is no true democracy until the voice and will of the majority are effectively expressed through a true representative electoral system, and in my opinion electoral reform is the first and paramount concern of every patriotic New Zealander. The existing

system is one of the most dangerous barriers to her progress, as it tends to give (and has actually given) the control of the destinies of this country into the hands of party majority out of all proportion to their numerical support in the electorates. It,, indeed, makes possible the existence of an. undisguised oligarchy. Reform in Now Zealand has already to fight its way against sufficient opposition from powerful party and class interests without being handicapped by such an electoral system as permits these results. 1 recognise the difficulty which has been felt here and elsewhere in devising- the perfect electoral machinery with which a democracy should be equipped. I believe that the best scheme is one of proportional representation. hut if a fully-developed scheme of this, character would be premature at present in that it would require for its successful operation a certain amount of popular instruction before it would work well, there surely can be no objection to the immediate adoption of the system known as the “Single Transferable Vote” applied in areas large enough to permit a substantial measure cf minority representation. Such a system is so simple, so manifestly fair, and so certain of success, that I believe it would have the unhesitating approval of the vast majority of our people. It, moreover, would be educative and prepare the way for the adoption of a fully-devel-oped system of proportional representation.

I began this article by impressing the importance of attacking the great obstacles to progress before constructing new measures of reform, and the first of these obstacles which should he attacked to-day is an electoral system which can he and has been employed to signally defeat the first purpose of democracy—namely, government through the will of the people, and which always leaves minorities, no matter how numerically large, without voice or representation.