The Dominion. FRIDAY, MARCH 8, 1912. THE PARTY SYSTEM.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1383, 8 March 1912, Page 4

The Dominion. FRIDAY, MARCH 8, 1912. THE PARTY SYSTEM.

One interesting feature of the present political crisis is the assumption of the Wardists that their majority is a "solid" one—by which we suppose they mean one that can be relied' on to ,act together in every important issue. _ We have given reasons for believing that this will very probably turn out not to be the case. Even the Liberals must uneasily suspect that those who have dishonoured, a public promise will not hold a semi-private understanding inviolate. Nor can those who have united in an effort to induce men to break their pledges be very sure of their own faithfulness to each other. It is said that there is honour among a certain class of persons, but we never heard of honour among promise-breakers and their tempters. Nevertheless it would be foolish to assume off-hand that the seemingly confident talk of solidarity is wholly without foundation either in fact or theory. The schemers evidently build much upon the tradition of party cohesiveness. It is a tradition that has for many years been acquiring additional force, until at length politics have reached such a pass that whatever the Government does, the Government party will support it. The necessary consequence is that the Government does whatever it likes. Its fear of the electors is the only check, but even that is weakened by the knowledge that the members who have been its tame auxiliaries in the House must defend it, as' well as themselves, on the hustings. Parliament, therefore, tends to become less and less of a deliberative assembly and more and more of a machine for registering the decrees of a power which is at one time an oligarchy and at another time an autocracy. • Paradoxically enough, the chief virtue of such a machine is its friction, for it is only by means of delays and such noise as may awaken a drowsy public that a Parliament so circumstanced can place any restraint upon Ministerial despotism. It follows that a Premier's irritability, an Opposition's interjections, and the daily "scenes and "breezes" usurp the attention which, under healthier conditions, would be concentrated upon the debates. For these last who cares? It is understood that they cannot influence a vote, and therefore they do not matter. A man will not deliver the best speech of which he is capable when he knows that it cannot have any result His audience in the House and the wider audience outside will pay but little heed to an inferior speech or to a discussion on which nothing hangs. There is an old story of a member of the House of Commons, who said, after listening to a noble speech: "He has convinced me, but I must vote with my mob." The tale is out-of-date so far at least as the New Zealand Parliament is concerned, for the convincing debater and the openminded member have been unable to survive the blight of excessive partisanship. Lkcky attributed the. decline of Parliamentary oratory to the practice of shorthand reporting, but a more powerful cause is to lie found in the conditions which make eloquence seem hardly worth while. Party spirit, of course, will always exist under constitutional government. It is a good thing in its place; we complain only of its excesses. We endorse llaokiiot's description of the right sort of Parliamentary majority—"not a mechanical majority ready to accept anything—but a fair and reasonable [ one, predisposed to think the Gov-

ernment right, but not ready to find it to be so in the face of facts and in opposition to whatever might occur." With such a majority, a Government would find it comparatively easy to do well and very difficult to do ill. Parliamentary debates would be richer in reasoning, in eloquence, in evidential facts. They would he heard and read with eager attention, and the people being thus caused to take an interest in their own affairs would ho on their guard against the encroachments of power. We do not forget that promises given by candidates to the electors may so predetermine the result of a no-confidence division that the debate becomes either a superfluity or something much worse. Such promises should be sparingly made, but—and we wish there was no occasion to say it— when made they should be kept. When the principal issue before the country at a general election is the continuance or expulsion of a Ministry, the electors are entitled to know what each candidate, if elected, will do about it. In such circumstances, it is rarely possible or desirable nowadays that a candidate should be absolutely unpledged. Yet, with' this reservation, members of Parliament might, with advantage to themselves, their constituents, and the country, be somewhat less like automata and somewhat more like men. The acknowledged scripture on this topic is Bukke's speech after the Bristol election. The colleague who had been returned with him had agreed, to take constant instructions fromthe electors, but BuitKE was of a different mind. "Your representative owes you," he told the electors, "not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion." And further: To deliver an opinion is the right of all men; that of constituents is a weighty and respectable opinion, which a representative ought always to rejoice to hear; and which he ought always most seriously to consider. But authoritative instructions; mandates issued, which the member is bound blindly and implicitly to obey, to vote, and to argue for, though contrary to the clearest conviction of his judgment and conscience—these are things utterly unknown to the laws of this land, and which arise from a fundamental mistake of the whole order and tenor of our constitution.

He placed the matter also unon higher ground and declared tha't a representative's "unbiased opinion, his mature judgment, his enlightened conscience" were a trust for which he was answerable to Providence, and which he ought not to sacrifice to tho electors, or to any man or any set of men. But nobody who has any acquaintance with Burke's spirit will fail to understand that he would have poured a torrent of majestic scorn upon any man who, professing to believe tho Government should be turned out, and gaining a seat by pledging himself to assist in turning that Government out, should all the time have contemplated violating his pledge and betraying hi 3 constituents. His objection to the giving of pledges did not involve—it could not involve— an objection' to_ the keeping of pledges when given. His general doctrine docs not authorise infidelity. But it does rule out the authority of the political chief as completely as the authority of the electorate, and it condemns the party system in its present morbidly developed form as involving breach of a sacred trust. The remedy lies in the hands of the people. If they do not want mere party hacks as their representatives, they need not have them, and in the political awakening which New Zealand is now going through, the party hack is being forced to give place to the true representative.