VISCOUNT BYRCE ON DEMOCRACY

Hokitika Guardian, 18 June 1921, Page 4

VISCOUNT BYRCE ON DEMOCRACY

Tt lias been said tbn! fully to appreciate virtue one should have at least a nodding acquaintance with its opposite ; and Viscount Bryce is therefore doubly qualified, both by training and experience, to speak with authority on democracy. Not only has lie dwelt long in countries and examined systems of government which are democratic, but lie is equally familiar with lands, epochs; and institutions which represents the very antithesis of democracy. With the more certainty lie can isolate and define lac essential principles upon which democracy rests, and determine how far various communities in the practice of democracy have attained their ideals.

“Modern Democracies” is a splendid crown to Viscount Bryce’s life’s work. In tlie.se two volumes are displayed all the ripe wisdom, all the knowledge of men and affairs, all the wealth of historical material gleaned from every age and clime, all the sane criticism and the close observation that we associate with his writings. It is a monumental work, which will rank with his “Holy Roman Empire” and his “American Commonwealth” as a classic. Viscount Bryce thinks that some explanation of the title is necessary. The adjective “modern” is really .superfluous, for democracy, in the sense in which we use the term, is a comparatively modern concept. The so-called democracies of Athens and republican Rome were not properly democracies at all. They were founded on slavery. Certain classes suffered political and legal disabilities. In the same way, in the “republics’’ of the Middle Ages, jn-ivildge might bo spread over a fairly large class; but there were always some to whom it was denied. Not until the French Revolution is the principle of absolute political equality asserted and established—the right of every individual iu the State to share in the government; and that, of course, is the very basis of democracy. Nevertheless although the word “modern” in this connection may be otiose, \ iscount Bryce prefers to retain it in order to avoid any possibility of confusion. He is concerned with certain systems of government, not as they were at the time of their foundation, not as they were meant by their founders to be, but as they are to-day in operation, lift prefaces bis detailed investigation with a discussion of democracy in the nb-

I straet. He analyses the concept. In ’ what does it consist ? How can it best realise its objects It is one tiling to say that everyone shall have a voice in the government; it is another to ensure that that voice shall lie effective. What is the best vehicle for the expression of popular opinion? After touching on these and similar questions, and laying down certain general propositions, lie proceeds, in the light of them, to examine the cun temporary democracies ot France. Switzerland. Canada, the United States, Australia, and New Zealand. Switzerland in many respects approaches most nearly to the theoretical standards set by the political scientist, and for this it has its peculiar geographical and economic conditions to thank. It has shaped the growth of other democracies. It isinall and compact; it has not had to open up vast virgin territories; it began, so to speak, as a going concern : it lias not known, war ; its development has been correspondingly simplified. The section dealing with the United States is particularly interesting, because, more than .‘if) years ago, Viscount Bryeo made an exhaustive study of its institutions, and he can now tell us whether time lias modified, corrected, or accentuated certain tendencies lie noted then.

Hut naturally to the Australian the chapters devoted to Australia are the most interesting of all, and the cabled extracts, published a few weeks necessarily stave a very inadequate idea lof Lord Bryce’s opinions. He visited - ; Australia not long before the war, and • made remarkably good use of his opportunities. lie is an observer and a recorder lather than a judge, but we must admit that the occasional criticism he does offer is very much to the point. Here and there he is guilty of inaccuracies. Thus more than once ho says that the first conscription referendum was taken in 1015; he is ten years out in the date he assigns for the adoption of proportional representation in New South Wales; and his use of tin word “Papua” suggests some confusion of ideas; he seems to imagine that prior to the war Australia had no interests in New Guinea. But these little errors do not detract from - the value of his impressions or the authority of his conclusions. He begins by declaring that there is no such thing as a typical democracy; in every country physical conditions and inherited insti- | tutions give its government a distinctive' character. But if any country were to be selected as showing the course which a self-governing people | pursues, free from all external influj cnees and little trammelled by intellecI tual influences descending from the past, Australia would be that country. I It- is the newest of all democracies. I “It has travelled farthest and fastest I along the road which leads to the unlimited rule of the multitude.” Tt is : the best practical demonstration of i democracy in operation. Viscount | Bryce remarks on the homogeneity of our population—-a homogeneity greater than that existing in America, (Beat , Britain, and France. The Australian type hears some resemblance to the j American; he has the same energy and resourcefulness-, but “takes life less hardly, does not exhaust himself by a perpetual strain, loves bis amusements, thinks more of the present than of the future.” When the Englishman settles in America or flic dominions, though be retains “what may be called the bony framework of his English character,” ihc undergoes a sea change, and this is especially noticeable in the case ol the Australian. Nowhere can one find a stronger sentiment of equality; there is an antagonism between the wageearning and the employing class which the traveller feels in the atmosphere as soon as he lands. But it is economic rather than social, “for the rich do not

presume on their position and have never oppressed—they have never had

the chance of oppressing—their poorer neighbour.” “Rich,” indeed, is only a relative term, for there are few large ; fortunes in Australia, and the social inequalities to be found in older communities are almost non-existent. “One I pan hardly imagine si representative

system of government in and through which the masses can more swiftly and completely exert their sovereignty. Of them may he said what Macaulay said, not quite correctly, of the United States Government. It is ‘all sail and no ballast.’ ” And the fact that the people can so easily enforce their will by constitionai methods, combined with the long-settled habit of respect for law, is a guarantee of peaceful evolution. “However high the waves of party, strife may rise, one cannot imagine a time at which such tilings could happen as happened in the Parisian terror of 1793 or as we have seen happening recently in Eastern Europe. Nor must the traveller omit to note an undercurrent of prudence and restraint among the working masses, who are by no means so extreme as those who profess to speak for them.” Viscount Bryce observes that, although Australia claims to be such an advanced democracy, she has actually got no nearer than has any other country to solving the problem of government by the whole people with fairness to the whole people, but “lias given one move proof of what needed no proving—namely, that a class dominant as a class will always govern in its own interest.” Those who were loudest in their denunciation of class government were the first to indulge in it wliwi victory at the polls gave them the opportunity. The transfer of executive power to the masses has been accomplished without violence or bitter animosity, and, though it amounted to a revolution, it has been free from revolutionary incidents.” There w r as no passion because there were no hatreds, no wrongs to avenge, no abuses to destroy, like those which have often aroused ferocity among revolutionaries in countries that had never known or had lost eonstiututional government.” Nor has the transfer, with the consequent class-conscious legislation and the intrusion of the State into new spheres, so far seriously affected the prosperity of Australia, or reduced the energy and self-helpfulness of Australians, or involved any conspicuous injustice to individuals. “So far,” says Viscount Bryce, but it is too soon to form any conclusive judgment. Forty or fifty years hence the results of State control and State socialism can be better estimated. He deprecates the audacity of would-be prophets, and refuses to speculate on what the future holds for Australia, but contents himself with the following guarded observation:—“The trend of sentiment and the political habits of the masses are already so clearly marked that the tendency to throw burdens upon the richer sort, and to use Stato power for objects that promise to benefit the citizen even at the risk of limiting lus freedom, may bold ground for some time, suggesting further experiments the success or failure of which will accelerate or arrest the march towards communism. With its present prosperity tin* country can afford to lose money upon experiments tried at the expense of the few, even if failure may ultimately injure the many. Each of these will deserve to be studied by itself, and judged on its own special merits or demerits in making. Older countries will look on and be grateful for wliat Australia can teach.”