DO WE NEED PARTIES IN POLITICS?

New Zealand Listener, Volume 8, Issue 193, 5 March 1943, Page 6

DO WE NEED PARTIES IN POLITICS?

A Discussion between Cyril Lakin, M.P., R. C. K. Ensor, Maurice Webb, and Vernon Bartlett, M.P., in the Home Service session of the BBC.

cides how many parties there shall be in a particular country? R. C. K. Ensor: It isn’t decided by the number of ideas in the country, or the number of cleavages of opinion. It is decided mechanically, by the mode of election. In the year 1914 every Parliament in the world except two was elected by one of two modes: either by the British mode where you take only one poll and the candidate at the top is at once elected, irrespective of whether or not he has a majority of the votes:cast; or by the French mode, called Second Ballot, where if the first poll doesn’t yield any candidate a clear majority, you take a second poll a week later . . . The difference affects the working of politics in! two ways. First of all it determines the character of parties. In a_ two-party system, each party, must aim to please over 50 per cent. of the electorate. It can never get office unless it does. Hence its appeal LAKIN: What de-

must be on a very broad basis. It can’t afford to be narrow or dogmatic. On the other hand, in the manyparty system each party has got to distinguish itself sharply from others. Unless it can, it has no reason to

exist. But it never hopes or dreams that it will poll anything like 50 per cent of the electorate. Therefore, it can, and it must, be dogmatic, extremist, factious, often even revolutionary. Maurice Webb: I find what Ensor has’ just said-or rather its implication — somewhat provoking. He seems to suggest that it is a bad thing for a party to be dogmatic. But surely a party is only dogmatic in so far as it affirms its principles, or declares positively and clearly what it intends to do if elected. Isn’t this a desirable thing? Ensor: Under the two-party system the parties are really the Ins and the Outs, or the Reds and the Blues, but, of course, they have got to have some claims’ on the electorate for putting them in rather than the other men. To that extent they have distinctive principles. But to have distinctive principles is one thing and to have dogmas in the way the French parties have is another. If you have a many-party system, every government is a coalition; no government has any real permanence; you can change your government many times in the same Parliament; there is no oceasion ever to dissolve. But in the two-party system, normally speaking, if the Government is defeated, Parliament must be dissolved. That makes Parliament chary of defeating the Government, and enables Governments to be strong and stable, Lakin: Now it’s time we heard Vernon Bartlett. As an Independent M.P., he should have positive convictions on these matters. . Vernon Bartlett: I think there is a profound difference-almost a_bielogical difference-between the Left and the Right, the Progressives and the Conservatives, or the Reds and the Blues as you call them. Most politicallyminded men or women are _politically- | minded because they sincerely jbelieve

that a certain policy would be in the interest of the nation, and, to some extent, to themselves. Webb: One reason why people attack the party system is their belief that parties are all pretty much alike, The fact is that there are fundamental differences between the motives of the main political groups in this country. Bartlett: Yes, and many people are bored with politics because of this failure to express political beliefs with enough conviction. But if you have no party, you have only to worry about two sets of interests: those of the nation and those of the constituency you represent. You avoid that third interest which leads to conflict between loyalty to the nation and loyalty to the party. And if I am right in believing that parties can be justified only if they proclaim their programmes bluntly and clearly, then you need at any rate a few people who are not tied to either programme and who can therefore take the initiative in suggesting compromise between conflicting views and in keeping what they believe is the national interest in the forefront of debate, because after all tle basis of a successful parliamentary system is compromise. Webb: I must register here one small but important point of difference with Bartlett. I don’t accept the view that you get specialists only through ‘the election of Independents. The parties give them to us in abundance. One of. the notable things about Parliament is the way in which, whatever the subject it is discussing, there’s always a group of men, on both sides, who can speak with practical experience and knowledge. It’s fashionable to deplore the number of Trades Union officials in the House, but on industrial qyestions their experience proves invaluable. There are, for instance, fifty-odd miners,: and in (Continued on next page)

(Continued from previous page) recent debates on coal their contributions have been of great service. And it’s true of everything else. Lakin: I can fully confirm that. And I should like to add this. Bartlett has put up a case for a few Independents; a few admittedly do good work. But there would be absolute chaos if you had a House full of Independents who would not, or could not, subordinate their differences in the interests of common action. But now to go back to Ensor for a moment. You don’t think, do you, that our present system is perfect and needs no change? Ensor: No, I wouldn’t say that. Though the two parties are fundamentally not parties of opinion, they have to be the vehicles of opposing points of view. Only, it is risky for them to go far from the centre. When the Democratic Party in America took up Bimetallism in 1896, it forfeited office for 16 years. When the Liberals here took up Irish Home Rule in 1886, they forfeited office for most of 20 years. Similarly, when Joseph Chamberlain had identified the Conservatives with Tariff Reform, they lost three successive general elections. . Webb: I’m not sure that you are not wht cae the extent to which contempt for the Parliamentary system has grown up. I think Parliament’s record in the War has reduced it far more than those of us who criticise Parliament’ are prepared to admit. But still, there is undoubtedly disquiet, and that’s dangerous. What do you suggest should be done about it?

Bartlett: We should have scrapped Party discipline as much as possible, even before the war, and in any case if parties may be a danger in peace time, they must be a danger in war time. Party politics are supposed to be in cold storage. But they aren't really. Or not entirely. An encouraging number of M.P.’s have spoken their minds frankly and honestly, irrespective of party. But if it comes to a vote the party whips are still apt to consider that critics are betraying their party or even the nation. That means that the delay is longer than it should be before ,currents of public opinion are reflected in government action. I have one last, and very. important, objection to party government. It is inevitable that the party bosses should want their parties to be financially strong. If you abolished parties and made it against the law to spend anything like so much money on elections as the party system make it possible to spend, I believe you would get a better type of candidate elected. Webb: You said just now "If we abolish parties." But you can’t abolish parties. Uriless, of course, you take away one of the essential freedoms; the right of men to associate together for a common cause. Bartlett: Which none of us wants to do. Webb: Exactly. It’s the Fascists who want to abolish parties. and even they cannot do it completely. So strong is this urge to combine that men go on doing it in secret and under threat of vicious penalties, even in the totalitarian countries.