THE ADAPTABILITY OF THE WORKING COMMUNITY TO ACT AS REPRESENTATIVES.

Westport Times, Volume II, Issue 166, 11 February 1868, Page 2

THE ADAPTABILITY OF THE WORKING COMMUNITY TO ACT AS REPRESENTATIVES.

(Fnom the Nelson Ezaminer of tlie \%th iast.) If we were to canvass the population of the colony, we should probably obtain a pretty unanimous vote in favor of representative institutions. There might, indeed, be found amongst us a few who, imbued with the printiples of Mr Carlyle, would bo logical and consistent enough to accept the {Napoleonic doctrines to which those principles directly and inevitably lead. Such persons would undoubtedly tell us that the best government means the government of the best, and that representative institutions, instead of leading

to tho government of the best, tend only to throw wide open the flood-gales to an almighty torrent of clap-trap, " beer and balderdash." To such persons wo do not now address ourselves ; nor is it necessary to our present purposes to pause even for tho sake of admitting tho important truth which wo fully believe lies at the bottom of this view, and give it all its value in the eyes of tho ablest partisans. Our present remarks are rather intended for those who, with us, adopt the theory that representative government'is, at all events for us, the best system that has yet been devised ; who, with us, lamorit that representative government falls so far short of what might be theoretically expected of it; and who are willing, with us, to inquire by whut means it may bo turned from an instrument of confusion and decay into a 'power of order and progress, and noble growth in all that is excellent.

We know very well that the great majority 'of our fellow colonists will be found strenuous supporters of representative institutions, and we believe that in the main they can give a 'good reason for the faith that is in them. Yet we do not think that the majority of 'them have yet attained to the highest and •truest -views upon the subject; nor is the Ipopular idea at all adequate to the height of ■the argument. The common way of putting ■the thing as that all tho people are entitled 'to take a share in the government of the •country, and in making the laws by which 'they are to be bound; but in as much as a .parliament of several hundred thousands, or perhaps several millions of persons, would be "somewhat inconvenient, it is better for the hundred thousands or millions to choose from among themselves a limited number of '.persons to act for them as their representatives or delegates. The necessary consequence of this view is, that the representative or delegate ought to be as nearly as possible the typical man of the constituency which returns him. He ought to represent his constituents, their hopes and fears, their excellencies and defects, and to stand up on all occasions for their interests. This view is, wo believe, the popular view of the meaning of parliamentary representation, and we do not ■hesitate to say that we believe it to be the fundamental cause and root of most of the evils of representative government. One of the most common shapes in which this idea of representative institutions meets 'us is found in the prevalent desire of each constituency to elect a man " who knows where the shoe pinches." If you can only return a man " who knows whore the shoe pinches" you are all right. You have then attained to the highest ideal of representative government. And what an ideal that is! What a picture it presents to us ! A legislature made up of a number of honomable members, each of whom has taken the precise •measure of the understanding of his constituency, and knows exactly "where the shoe pinches." Hence results a mere babel ■of voices, each one clamorous because some other shoe has obtained a little more cobbling than seems its legitimate due. When there is so fertile a theme as this to write upon, it • is not of much consequence whence the particular illustration may be drawn. In the ,present case we take the late Buller election as an appropriate'iilustration of our meaning. ■ln Westpsrt and the auriferous districts in its 'neighbourhood there has been no great electioneering furor. Your model digger cares a 'great deal more about the success of the newest cement crushing-machine, or the latest decision in the Warden's Court about 'water-rights, than the best election that was ever set on foot. He regards politics as an excuse for a day's protection to bis claim, and consumption of beer ad libitum, or at the highest as a possible engine for getting some bush-track made or improved. But inasmuch as it is necessury for him, when called upon 'to take, some action in electioneering matters, to assume and avow some principle, he invariably falls back upon the principle we have already quoted, and advocates the return of 'the man " who knows where the shoe pinches." So it has been at the recent Buller election of a candidate for the Nelson Provincial Council. 'Of four candidates two may be said to have been placed, but the other two came out of the contes with the singular result of a tie, seventy-four votes having been polled for each. Of these two •candidates, one is a tradesman and tho nominee of the business people of Wcstport, the other a packer or ex-digger, and tho favorito of the miners. Mr Smith, the successful candidate, was returned by the casting vote of the Eeturning Officer, who, as an •educated man, could not well have given his 'vote in any other way. We congratulate tho Buller on having a candidate who will do it no discredit in the Provincial Council, and the Provincial Council on the acquisition of 'a member who can at least say a plain thing in intelligible English. But our pi-csent purpose is to point out that tho representative man of the diggers is not Mr Smith, but Mr Graham. There can be little doubt that if the ' diggers had thought it worth their while to come into town in larger numbers, or if there had been a polling-place at Addison's Plat, 'there would have been no tic, but Mr Graham would have been returned by a large majority. Aid why? Mr Graham is a gentleman who is not ashamed of the attire of a bullock-driver, who calls clecterers, and Mrs 'Chisholm "Mrs Chisl'em," and tells the Commissioner that if he will disobey tho law the diggers will see him through it. Not that we mean to disparage Mr Graham. We know him to be a shrewd, ready-witted, and fearless man, and we believe him to be honest and straightforward. But what we insist ■upon is, that it is not his honesty or his fearlessness that recommends him to the diggers, so much as the feeling that he is not in any material respect superior to themselves. Li'costume, in speech, in deficiency of education, he is entirely one-of them, and hence their confidence in him. He will at all •events " know where the shoe pinches." And so Mr Graham was nearly returned for the Buller, and at 'the present moment, perhaps, stands a fair chance of being returned for Charleston. The view which the diggers take is evidently this—they think that a man like Mr Graham will tellthe Provincial Council in plain digger style what the diggers want, what they consider their rights, and what they insist upon getting. And they think that this digger style of talk would be most likely to impress the Council with a •conviction of the urgent nature of tho wants of the digging community, and of the necessity of attending to them. If anything we could say would have any weight with our friends, the diggers,, we should tell them de-

cidedly that they are wrong; that the man who has felt the shoe pinch is not necessarily the man who best knows how to mend the shoe ; and the man of most education best knows both how to become acquainted with, and how to impress upon others the wants of any particular section of the general community. It is perhaps to little purpose that, we thus particularly point our moral, for we can have little hope that our political disquisitions will ■weigh nrach at Wake's Pakihi or Charleston ; but the general principlo which we have been discussing is of the utmost importance. That any constituency should have confidence in a candidate because he talks bad grammar and wears moleskin trowsers, is astounding enough, but yet it is only a logical sequence of the doctrine that a parliamentary representative ought to embody the leading features of the constituency which he represents; and nothing better than this can bo expected so long as believe that the prineial ohjeet of sending a member to Parliament is to got a particular road made, a particular coal-mine opened, or a particular block of land cut up into sections and leased. A better state of things may arise when the truth isrecognised that a legislator ought to represent, not the lowest features of character presented by his constituency during the tumult of an election, but their highest qualities, in their calmest and most dispassionate moments. If voters would give up the practice of considering who is tho man that will stand up most vigorously for this or that particular interest, if they would weigh within themselves what are the highest qualities which a legislator ought to possess, and if they would choose the man who comes nearest to that ideal, then the present evils of representative government would soon be at an end, and democracy would be found to be the same thing as an aristneracy—the government of the best. The lesson which electors require to learn is, that whatever may be their peculiar circumstances or wants, they will be better represented by a man of high education than by any other. He will both understand where tho shoe pinches, and how to remedy the evil, and he will get at the remedy not by clamouring vociferously, and in bad English about the rights of his constituents, but by a philosophical investigation into those remoter causes of which his constituents themselves have probably never dreamed. In a word, representative govornments is a poor thing if the representatives are not superior to the represented. But before this truth is generally recognised, whut an advance must be made in national education ! No less an advance than is required to make an average dogmatic Englishman believe that he knows little or nothing of politics, and that the wisest thing he can do is to give his vote for some one who knows more than himself.