The Dominion FRIDAY, OCTOBER 16, 1942. THE THING UNDERLYING

Dominion, Volume 36, Issue 18, 16 October 1942, Page 4

The Dominion FRIDAY, OCTOBER 16, 1942. THE THING UNDERLYING

It is strange —though in a democratic country of all places it should be the accepted order —that resignations from Ministerial office on what are held to be matters of principle should be questioned as thev were in Parliament yesterday and an effort made to belittle that standard of public conduct. If those who now control the affairs of the State had a fuller knowledge of the political history of the Dominion they would realize that time and again men have retired from the highest offices rather than compromise over matters of principle. Few, in those days when the foundations of the nation were being well and truly laid —and they were times of extreme difficulty —ever expected a leader to prefer office to principle, and the fairly frequent changes in Government were, at least in part, due to the fact that men would hold tenaciously to what they regarded as basic principles. If a Minister could not conscientiously support a policy or a course of action then he resigned in order to free himself to fight for what he held to be right, and the public, life of this country was the better for this regard for principles. Not for years has this vital issue come so prominently to the foie in our public life as it has during the past few weeks, and careful students of the processes of government will welcome its re-emergence, quite apart from the merits or demerits of the cause. This is a democratic country and it has been truly said that, a. democratic State is something more than the perfect profit-sharing institution. Its strength lies in what it expects in the standard of conduct of its citizens and of their representatives in public office. There .must be national and individual discipline, and the instrument of discipline in a democracy is the law —and observance of the law. It is not the part of the democratic State to bargain for that obedience, or -make concessions in order to obtain it, for if that were to be the accepted procedure then the strong would have advantages over the weak; the powerfully organized enjoy privileges denied to the individual. Democracy, it has been well said, presupposes an equality of rights between men “and if there is none, then the totalitarians are right.” The law embodies that equality and if it is to be set aside in the interests of this or-that faction, then that protection must lose its value. It is, as the Prime Minister has stated, part of the constitutional law that sentences may be revoked, suspended or a pardon given, but has it ever been conceded that these things were bargaining counters, to be used to suit the needs or inclination of the Government of the day? , . These, then, are the larger issues underlying the unusual political situation which has developed and led to the want of confidence debate in Parliament. The Leader of the Opposition has truly stated that “the State that neglects to enforce its own laws sows the seeds of anarchy.” The laws in. the matter under review were not enforced, but .were set aside. Expediency was preferred to principle, and the democratic theory of national discipline jettisoned in favour of compromise with a law-breaking section that, in the Prime Minister’s words, was trebly wrbng. Whatever the outcome in the political sphere—limiting that term to the Parliamentary arena—there must, as the facts sink in and the issues be truly measured,, be far-reaching repercussions in the community; not perhaps immediately but in the future, for the supremacy of principle as the guidin? factor in public life has been revived. That must be welcomed by all who have watched it being supplanted by what is expedient or, more often, what is thought will be popular.