The Guardian And Evening Star, with which is incorporated the West Coast Times.

Hokitika Guardian, 8 November 1928, Page 4

The Guardian And Evening Star, with which is incorporated the West Coast Times.

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 1928

THE BARE MAJORITY FALLACY. Thkhk is a distinct speciousness, comments the Otago Daily' Times, about the argument that the prohibition issue should be settled by' a bare majority, because otherwise—so the pica runs—the votes of all the electors would not have an equal value. The fallacy on the pait of those who argue In this way is that they do not distinguish between the vote that is recorded in the exercise of a purely electoral right, as in the case of a parliamentary election, and the vote that lias a legislative effect. The referendum, as a ■constitutional instrument, has been condemned by some thoughtful writers on the ground ,that it involves an appeal from the instructed to the mi instructed—an appeal from knowledge to ignorance. But the referendum is a less dangerous contrivance than the popular vote to which the prohibition issue is submitted in this country. Under the referendum, a law which has already been passed is submitted to the ('lectors for confirmation or rejection. In this case the law has lieen subjected to close consideration by the Legislature, the instructed body, before it has been remitted to the uninstructed body consisting of the general body of the electors. It lias passed through successive stages of examination in the Legislature, each of which constitutes a safeguard against hasty and ill-con-considered legislation. In the case ot the licensing issue in this Dominion, prohibition may lx? thrust on the community at one fell swoop by' a simple majority which may be more largely 7 influenced b.v appeals to the reason. The vote is one that is not associated with any of the checks upon ill-con-sidered legislation that form a part of the machinery of representative government. Moreover, under the present law, a decision in favour of prohibition is not revocable. An Act of Parliament may be repealed at any time. But there is no legislative provision under which another licensing poll should be held if prohibition were carried. In circumstances such as these, even if it were not highly desirable, as i must be held to be, that a decision in favour of prohibition, if ever arrived at, should have behind it the support of a sufficient number of the electors to ensure That it should possess stability, the case in favour of the bare

majority at the licensing poll is very unconvincing and very unimpressive. “No law,’ 5 it has heeu said, “can fully satisfy evc'rybody. The most—and the least—we must ask is that the inevitable dissatisfaction should be reduced to a minimum, and especially that no section of the people should be given cause to regard themselves as unjustly treated The greatest crime which any Government can commit is to deal wtili any section of the citizens in such a way as to alienate their loyalty towards the common institutions of the nation and make them feel that res.stance to the law is a moral duty.” Tt is necessary only to look to the United States, with its recent history of corruption and open violation of.the Volstead law, for an illustration of the justice of these statements. The You stead law was not, however, an act of swift determination, accomplished at one blow and in a single day, as the introduction of prohibition by a bare majority in New Zealand would be. If prohibition were carried the defeated minority would have greater cause for resentment than the opponents of the Volstead law in the United States have. The conditions under which prohibition might be brought into force in the Dominion furnish a powerful argument against the claim that the issue, should be decided by a bare majority.