Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. TUESDAY, DECEMBER 6, 1910. DANGERS OF DESPOTISM.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10133, 6 December 1910, Page 4

Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. TUESDAY, DECEMBER 6, 1910. DANGERS OF DESPOTISM.

There are men and Avomen in New Zealand, as there are in other parts of the world, who regard a democratic state as the only safeguard against the tyrannies of despotism. To these might well be dedicated the remarks of Alexis de Tocqueville, the great French philosopher. "The people of the present day are," lie says, "moved by two opposing passions—the desire to be shepherded and the desire to be free. Unable to stifle either of these contrary instincts, they do their best to satisfy them both at once. Their ideal is a single, omnipotent, tutelary power, but one elected by those who are to be subject to it. They would thus combine centralization with the sovereignty of the people, and they willingly suffer bondage, because they remember that they themselves have chosen their overseers. There are many who are deceived to-day by this compromise between a despotism and the sovereignty of the people, believing that individual freedom must "oe~safe because it is entrusted, not to -atyrant, but to the nation itself. But it is a mistake to suppose that this is. any security for liberty. It does not so much mailer who the master is, as what is the nature, of the servitude. Liberty is at least as neces--i.sary in the minor choices of .life as it is in tlio.se great political decisions upon wljich we are called to vote; and those whose wjll has become blunted in respect of the former ...:n .... ; ' 1..,.,. ~,[..,!., ~,,- ~? ?] |>-)-,rer

with regard to tlie latter. You cannot expect men whom you arc making more and more dependent upon the central power to emerge with unimpaired powers of thought and feeling when the time conies for them to re-elect that power; you cannot even bo surprised if such a population, enervated more and more, should at length sink below the level of humanity itself. Indeed, it is difficult to imagine how men who have lost the habit of directing their own lives can rightly choose those who are to guide them ; it is impossible to believe that a wise, liberal government can arise from the suffrages of a servile people. When a condition of that kind has matured, the vices of the governors and the imbecility of the governed will quickly ruin the state ; and the unhappy nation, weary of its representatives and no less weary of itself, must create it? institutions anew, or subject itself in despair to the will of a single despot."