POLITICAL STABILITY

Waikato Times, Volume 122, Issue 20505, 23 May 1938, Page 6

POLITICAL STABILITY

The general election in South Africa has resulted, as was expected, in a sweeping victory for the Government, and the Union is assured of political stability for a further term. World conditions have been such that many people have become alarmed. Dictators have played dramatic parts on the international stage, have spent vast sums arranging receptions for one another—the celebrations usually including an impressive display of armed might—and have claimed that they are the instruments of the Almighty in the working out of a law related, in some way, to blood and the soil. Europe has experienced one crisis after another, and on occasion the outlook has been threatening. It is a pleasing contrast to turn from all this turmoil and tension to the way in which people under the British flag pursue their way. Not long ago the Federal elections were held in Australia, and a Government returned to office with the power to put its proposals into operation. Then three of the States in the Commonwealth conducted general elections, with not even a mention of any alternative system of governance. In South Africa there are problems of a very difficult order, but the right to self-govern-ment is not challenged by any section of the community. Even the extremists recognise that any change must come by permission of the people, and that force is definitely ruled out.

In the course of a few months the people of New Zealand will take the same course as that followed by the other self-governing units. There will be a general election, and the people will, by their votes, determine who shall occupy executive office for the ensuing period. It is the British way of doing things. While some dictator is said to be disturbing the relations of European nations the British proceed with a by-election at Aylesbury, in Buckinghamshire, one of several held recently. The critics may contend that this form of democratic government is not so efficient, so capable of promp action, as that called Nazi or Fascist, but it has a record for stability which neither of these new systems can claim. That may not be an altogether convincing form of comparison, but it does show that democratic government is best fitted to the temperament of British people. They did the most to evolve a system of self-government, and the House of Commons is often called the Mother of Parliaments.

It may be that the critics are right in many of their contentions, but that does not mean that a drastic change would be for the better. In some respects the position to-day is illogical. One of the greatest authorities on constitutional government said, after studying the position in Great Britain for three years: “The British Constitution! There is no such thing.’’ It may he a mixture of law, custom and precedent but it has the supreme justification that it works. That is one of the many things that puzzle foreign students. They cannot understand a people who accept wholeheartedly the dictum of a great Liberal statesman: “Self-government is better than good government.”