LOSS OF FAITH.

Hokitika Guardian, 19 March 1931, Page 8

LOSS OF FAITH.

DEMOCRACY A FAILURE CANON JAMES’S ADDRESS. PARLIAMENT AND THE PEOPLE. WELLINGTON, March 16. “Thirty or forty years ago iL required a sturdy courage to suggest nUit democracy was anything but an unqualified success, the pinnacle ot political evolution. Now it lias become almost a commonplace to say that democracy has failed,” declared Canon Percival James in his .sermon last evening at St. Paul’s ProCathedral.

“i pleaded some weeks ago that a moral appeal should be made by our leaders; but 1 find many who consider it quite useless to address higher appeals to the mass of voters. The only argument they say, that has any value for gaining votes is that ‘This will pay you best; this policy is designed to put most into your pockets and to take least out of them.’ “The average voter has been debunched by 'tlie methods of wholesale bribery that have long been practised by politicians of all parties in all democratic countries. Parties have found that they can most easily climb into power upon pledges of doles to large sections of the electorate from the plunder of minorities. “If this is 'the necessary effect of democratic institutions, based upon universal suffrage, then politics must become more and more degraded, honourable men driven out of what should lie a noble calling, and the destinies of peoples committed into the hands of unscrupulous demagogues. There are, some countries in which political life is so shameful that to call a man a politician is to offer him an insult.

POLITICAL INSANITY. “Something like this, if we may judge by uLerances wiiich reach us from Australia, is the opinion now forming itself in the minds of thougntiul men tiiere. I lie marvel ol Australia is the combination of a generally nigh level oi intelligence among tne people, with a political insanity which has inflicted upon Australia a national humiliation, felt keenly by the decent elements there. The poiit.cians’ pledges ol predatory legislation have been redeemed to the point of the destruction of national credit; and it seen s a small thing to some of the politicians to complete the disaster by the sacrifice of national honour. Can we wonder that reasonable men in Australia, who have some conception of the conditions of national prosperity, are fearing that a continuance of democratic institutions, at least in the shape that they have hitherto been known, must inevitably lead to national suicide? .

' “That democracy has failed is not the peculiar opinion of that school ol political thought which calls its If conservative, and i 3 called by its opponents' ‘reactionary.’ On the contrary, the revolt against democracy ’is led bv tbe more radical movement which treat it with open scorn, as in Russia. The more fervently men pin their faith to any remedy of our social ills, the more firmly they are convinced that the remedy is dependent upon strong, sane, just and wise government, which has been shown to be difficult, if not impossible, to obtain under democracy.

FAILURE UNDER TEST. “These tilings arc being written and said. I am not giving my own opinions. Present forms of government it seems to me must continue for a time, if only because there is no alternative likely to be accepted. But all this is melancholy hearing to us. We used to be told that ‘Parliamentary institutions have been incomparably the greatgift of English people to the civilisation of the worm. it i s sad to lind that so many Imve lost all faith in the political institutions they have borrowed from ourselves. The truth seems to be that the mind and character o! the average citizen have not been found equal to the- exacting demands which a system of universal suffrage makes upon him. He is not a clear enough thinker to share the responsibilities of government. No r has he the qualities of character that can put the good of the country before selfish interest, much less put the cause of humanity before the claims of his own nation.

“The question whether ‘democracy as we know it can be mended or must be ended’ depends upon the possibility of convincing tile average elector that the moral factor in political and economic questions must be dominant. If his civic conscience is informed, controlled and directed by high ethical ideals and motives, good government must follow. The church in its cooperate capacity must keep clear of party politics; but the church must never ceas e to impress upon the Christian that lie must think as a Christian and vote as a Christian. The political function of the church is to seek to Christianise the political and economic motives of citizens; to wean them from worship of the golden calf to obedience to the golden rule; to proclaim that ‘righteousness exalteth a nation,’ and is more important than the development of material resources; and that the national standard of honour is more sacred than the national ‘standard of living.’ ”