The Dominion. MONDAY, FEBRUARY 27, 1911. JACOBINISM.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1062, 27 February 1911, Page 4

The Dominion. MONDAY, FEBRUARY 27, 1911. JACOBINISM.

To tho student of political history nothing is more curious than the strange misuse- of political labels that is current at the present time m almost every country. In New Zealand tho opponents of Stato Socialism aro usually referred to as Tones" by the upholders of State paternalism, who complacently refer to themselves as "Liberals." .. Between tho true Liberal and the State Socialist who in New. Zealand calls himself a Liberal there is an impassable gulf; between the State Socialist and the true Tory there is an essential likeness. by the way, tlic Opposi-uon-m this country aro also referred to as Whigs-is unleavened Liberalism, and the fundamental principle of Whig doctrine is correctly enough summed.up in Bolinguroke's formula: "The power and majesty of the people, an original contract, tho authority and independency of Parliaments, liberty, resistance," etc. Toryism, on the other hand, like Stats Socialism, is tho negation of individualism. This is made brilliantly dear, by Herbert Spencer in his famous essay upon "Tho Now Toryism," in which ho expounded •-no difference between Liberalism in tluxtrue sense of the so-called Liberalism of modern days. In pasttimes Liberalism habitually stoocl for individual freedom versus State-' coercion." To-day it is the deadly enemy of true Liberalism who claims to be > called a Liberal. In Great Britain they do not so absurdly abuse political terminology as the State Socialists do in this country, but Mn. "Winston Chukchim. seems to have como very near to the ineptitude of the critics who call, say, Jj.it. Massby a "Tory," for in tho debate on tho Parliament'Bill ho said "tho llefcrcndum would lead to Jacobinism, Socialism, and Anarchy.". We are not concerned with ■tho merits of tho Referendum, which might-but which would not —lead to Socialism or to Anarchy; nothing could be more wildly topsyturvy than the statement that the Hcfcrendum "would lead to Jacobinism." It .is like saying that flrcongmes would cause conllagrations, or that safety-valves would make boilers blow up.- The Referendum is_ the ono direct and perfect way of destroying Jacobinism. We. havo often referred in those columns to Mr. Li,oyd-Oeorge and his school as the modorn Jacobins, and it is worth while explaining just why this is a true description, especially as the explanation will incidentally show that Jacobinism is having its innings in New Zealand. The special mark of the French Jacobins was their essentially undemocratic character. . "They did not wish tho will of tho people to provnil," ns one recent writer puts it (> "but only the triumph of certain political ideas. If the people could bo persuaded to adopt those ideas, well and good; but if not, other methods must bo ■'used,' and the democracy must be forced into doing what was right." They had doctrines and formulas as neat and as numerous as Dr. Findlay's, and they proceeded to carry them out precisely as the Portuguese Republicans havo sought to carry out thoirs —with tho samo haste, tho same tyrannical ruthlessness, and the same chaotic results. In his great "Letter to a Noble Lord" Burke, has provided a magnificent analysis of the Jacobin spirit—of tho essential wickedness of it under its surface show of high aspiration, of the cruelty beneath its smooth "humanism," to.quote tho saugrcnu invention -of Mr. Seddon, arid of its vital hostility to true freedom. "Independent of any interest," he says, referring . to the Jacobin leaders, "which if it operated alone would mako them much more tractable, they aro carried with such a headlong rage towards every desperate trial, that they would sacrifice the whole human.race to the slightest of their experiments." These doctrinaires, who "consider men in their experiments no more than they do mice in an air-pump or in a.recipient of mephitick gas," and who disregard tho everlasting truth that "it is no easy operation to eradicate humanity from the human breast," aro in spirit exactly akin to those political experimenters who to-day defy the natural laws of economies and who direct their energies towards regimenting mankind with restrictions and commands in the hope of one day making nil men equal in all things. We have this spirit manifesting itself to-day in Britain and in New Zealand. The Attorney-Gen-eral, for example, iii propounding a policy of giving "access" to this, that, and the other thing, spoko as if he contemplated opening door after' door and destroying barrier after barrier, but upon examination it. becomes clear that he could only carry out his programme by a pro&rcssive strangulation of nil true berty. Arid it inuEt not be for-

gotten that the French Jacobins looked exactly like Dn. Fisdlay and Mn. LLOVD-QEoncE to bogin with. As Bukke says:

They seemed tame ami even caressing. They had'nothing but "douce hiiinanitc" iii their mouth. They could not bear the pmiinhment uf the milttcpt la«s on Hie greatest criminals. Tho slightest severity of justice made their llesh creep. The very idea that war existed in the world disturbed their repose, Military glory was no mcro with them than a splendid infamy. Hardly would they hcarof self-defence, which they reduced •within such bounds as to leave it no defence at all. All this v:hile they medi-' tared the confiscations and massacres we havo seen. Had any one told the?o unfcrlunnto noblemen and gentlemen how nnd by wholn the grand fabriek of the French monarchy under which they nourished would bo subverted, they would not havo pitied him. as a visionary, but would havo turned from him as what they call a "mauvnis plaisant." Yet we have seen what has happened.

Bstwccn the performance of the French Jacobins ahel those of the Jacobins in the British Empire today there is a vast difference, of course, although it is only the difference of conditions and opportunities; the aspirations are less different; tho driving spirit is in each case the same. In Great Britain the points of resemblance are very striking, but in nothing so much as in the Liberals' desire to set up an.uncontrolled Single.Chamber and their unwillingness to allow the people supremacy over the Commons through tho Referendum. The evils of an .uncontrolled Single Chamber havo been enlarged upon by many great' writers and statesmen, but they have never been better stated than by JonN Stuart Mux in his work on Representative Government.

The consideration (ho saj's) which tells most, in my judgment, in favour of two Chambers is the evil etfect produced upon tho mind of any holder of power, whether an individual or an assembly, by the consciousness of having only themselves to consult. It is important that no set of persons should, in great affairs, be able, even temporarily, to make their "sic volo" prevail without asking anyone else for his consent. A majority in a single assembly, when it has assumed a permanent character—when composed of the same persons habitually acting together, and always assured of victory in their own House—easily becomes despotic and overweening, if released from the necessity of considering whether'.its nets will bo concurred in by another constituted authority. . . . That thero

should be, in every polity, a centre of lcsistanee to the predominant power of tho Constitution—and in a democratic constitution, therefore, a nucleus of.resistance to the democracy—l have already maintained; and I regard it as a fundamental maxim of government.

What the British Liberals desire— ov a section of them, > led .by Mn, Churchili; and Mr. Lloyd-George— is perfect freedom for tho Ministry to carry out its experiments rcgardloss'of the will of tho nation or even of its true interests. This is the true Jacobin spirit.