THE FALLACY OF " ONE MAN ONE VOTE."

Wanganui Chronicle, Issue 19898, 16 September 1913, Page 4

THE FALLACY OF " ONE MAN ONE VOTE."

Mr W. S. Lilly is a strong opponent of the principle of "one man one vote." and in the "Nineteenth Century" he returns to the attack. In these days of universal suffrage it seems a hopeless and1 forlorn fight, but Mr Lilly says it is always worth while t od-s----charge a duty. He believes in Goeth i s d-finition of a majority as "a few strong: men who lead, some kna •■«?; wr o temporise, and tha weak iniutiNi'lo «h'> fallow, without -i he fain .est <Ua 'I what they want," and in Aristotle's dictum that " there cannot be a political community of equals." He quotes a recent German writer to show that the , eifect of universal suffrage lias been to reduce the Reichstags' power in capacity, in characters tand leaders. In France it is difficult to induce men of Iglit and leading to undergo the degradation of public life as it now exists there. We are getting ochlocracy, or mob rule. In England those whom it is the fashion to call the miasses are now the privileged class. They can swamp the rest of the electors at the polls. Their banded -unions are granted immunity from laws which restrain others from tyranny and oppression. "They are suffered to carry on. in the form of strike? enforced by savage picketing, gigantic wars against the community, because the party politicians who profess to govern us are afraid- of them. When every man counts for one, and no mnn for more than one, no matter whiat stake he has in the country, it is tyranny^—>a regimen whereby one part of the community absolutely governs the other." There are many people even in democratic New Zealand who will endorse Mr Lilly's sentiments, and the number will increase as the public mind becomes strengthened in the conviction that equity, not equality, is the true principle upon. which to build the world's political, social and industrial informs.