Magna Charta Myth

New Zealand Listener, Volume 5, Issue 114, 29 August 1941, Page 5

Magna Charta Myth

T has been rather fashionable lately to despise the Magna Charta and to say that this was a piece of black reaction which quite accidentally became the symbol of liberty and" progress. Up to a point this is true enough. Magna Charta said nothing whatever about trial by jury, for example, let alone Parliamentary government. It was the result of a rebellion war, led by barons who were afraid that their class privileges were in danger, its victim, the King, stood for those forces which ultimately produced modern civilisation (whatever that may mean). Nevertheless, Magna Charta was a very valuable document, indeed, quite apart from the nonsense that our ancestors used to believe about it. Suppose it was a conservative document. There were special reasons why it was important for the law of the land to be re-stated just then, and in just the way it was. At that time, feudalism was beginning to break up. However, feudalism had some essential things to contribute to modern democracy, and one of the most vital of them was the theory of the contract between ruler and subject; the theory that the subject had rights of his own, even against the king. There was a great danger that as the feudal system was destroyed the world would lose the good as well as the bad; and it was Magna Charta which made certain that this particular good thing would be handed on.-(Professor F. L. W. Wood, "Democracy" series, 2YA, August 11.)