FROM HOBBES TO LENIN.

Digger (Invercargill RSA), Issue 25, 3 September 1920, Page 12

FROM HOBBES TO LENIN.

POLIT1CAL THEORY AND POLITICAL PRACT1CE. Kowevor unpleasant it may be to iive under ihe rnle of Bolshevists, it is cvrtka that Lenin wili Iive in the poHtical history of the world for his invention of a new theoiy of government. The "dict i 1 riiip of the proletariat" is, at least, a imvel idea, even though, in practice, it may raean the dictatoxship of more or ie«s stlfappointed eommissars. In a period of change and experiment, it is interesting and important to know something of the thcories and ideals tnat have inspired the changes of the past, ajid the experimerlts that have already been mde. Such a hook as Mr/ Hector Macpherson's "A Century of Political Development" c'ertainly supplies topical r.eading relevant to the times.

HOBBES' S IDEA. Mr Macpherson begins his story with the French Revolution, but he discusses ihe theories of government that preceded the revolution. The English philosopher, Hobbes, a devout believer in the doctrine of original sin, laid it down that se'flsh ferocious man found it necessary, in order that he should be protected from his fellows, to create some sort of authcrity that all should obey. Mr Macpherson summarises the Hobbes doctrine a»s follows : — "Primitive men made a covenant with one another to elect one of their number as soverign with unlimited powers — so unlimited, indeed, that, no matter how despotic were his acts, the community having granted those powers, could not revoke them and had no altemative but ab j ect submission. " Lt is not to be wondered at that Hobbes was very popular with the Stuats, and he must sur,ely have been one of the favourite authors in the Plohenzollem library.

LOCKE AA D THE KING. Locke, on the' other hand, contended that tliere was an implied contract betw,een the Soverign and his subjects which compslled him to pay fo his pivileges by re. specting their rights. This view was expressed by a Scotch preacher (quoted by Mr Macpherson), who said in his sermon at the coronation of Charles II. : — -"It is good for our King to learn to be wise in time, and loiow that h,e receiveth this day a power to govern, but a power limited by contract, and those conditions he is bound to stand to." Jean Jacques Rousseau went much farther than Locke. He began with the thesis that "man was born free and yeit he is everywhere in chains." Rousseau was eager to lead man back again to his natural state of freedom. In his famous "Social Contract," the "Biblo of the Rev. olution," he lays down the doctrine of the soverign ty of the people, and it is worthy of notice that (wishing the people to be soverign) he had almost as deep a mistrust of Parliamenfs as Lenin himself. ROUSSEAU 'S PTJPILS. Rousseau taught — Danton, Marat, and Robespierre practised — and Napoleon conquered. A rather tragic historic story in a sentence with an obvious moral! Burke, the great antagonist of the revolution, had a simple faith. He regarded the British Constitution as the most effective protection against Jacobinism, and he regarded the smallest tampering •with the Constitution (with its rotten boroughs and restricted franchise) as the unforgivahle sin. Erom Waterloo to th,e Reform 33111, reaction triumphed in England, and liberty hardly existed, but even in that dead time teachers arose with new versions of the old gospel. BENTHAM AND SIDNEY WEBB. Jeremy Bentham, the Utilitarian, was as unsentimontal as Mr Sidney Webb. He despised fme phrases. "Rights of man, " "sovereignty of the people," "natural conditions," were jusb "large words" to him, mere jargon and hodge-podge. He denounced the existing Govemment becauso it was a bad Government. He declared tliat it was inevitable that an absolute ruler should think first of his own interests, that the aim. of Government should be the attainment of the "greatest happiness of the greatest number," and that this could only be approached by a democracy. Bentham advocated universa.1 suffrage, and both he and the elder Mill believed that the politically free masses would be content to be guided and led by the middle class. i Bentham was not a Socialist, but John Stuart Mill pointed out that if there were no such things as natural rights, a complete democracy may be as extreme a daspotism as an autocracy.