Democracy by Gaslight

New Zealand Listener, Volume 41, Issue 1052, 23 October 1959, Page 10

Democracy by Gaslight

HE best story of the British election came from a village called Stanton-Upon-Hine-Heath, "10 miles from Shrewsbury, 10 miles from Wellington, 10 miles from Market Drayton, and many, many more years behind the times." Its inhabitants had a grievance, literally a burning one. In Stanton they had no electricity, only candles, oil lamps, and "some rather fitful bottled gas." For ten years they had been trying to get electricity; and when, with the election approaching and the air full of promises, they were told to expect no relief before 1963, resentment curdled and they decided that no votes would be given for any party on polling day. The decision was reached by methods older than democracy. There were no formal meetings; the villagers simply discussed their problem-by gaslight-at the local pub. They also talked of it at whist drives and dances and between games of snooker in the parish hall. It was, naturally enough, the oldest inhabitant who pointed the way. "We've written to M.P.’s," he said, "we’ve used yards of paper writing all over the place. We've even written to the Queen-got no reply. This is our answer-don’t vote. Why should we?" It is doubtful if Lord Hailsham turned pale at the news, or if Mr Morgan Phillips felt obliged to issue a statement to the press. The big guns at that time were being trained on Field Marshal Lord Montgomery, whose latest intervention had brought dismay to his friends and comfort to his enemies. But the people of Stanton were concerned simply with their own situation. They wanted to make a protest, and if it seemed ineffectual outside Stanton, it satisfied themselves, and marvellously revived and strengthened the communal spirit. It is of course quite wrong to allow parochial issues to cloud an election. The people of Stanton need. more than electricity; they live in a country as well as a village; and are affected by national policies, But their. stand wins reluctant sympathy. It reveals again the English stubbornness,

the refusal to be pushed around, which created the very system they are now briefly rejecting. Democracy has no real existence unless it expresses a way of life; and in Britain today, as the management of affairs becomes more complex, life and government seem often to have only a distant connection. Between the people and their representatives stand echelons of civil servants and administrators with functions as closely meshed-and as confusing to the layman-as the wires behind a switchboard. Authority becomes "They," a faceless but potent presence, pervasive when things are to be forbidden, and elusive when rights and benefits are being sought. At election time, of course, everything is different: the sole political aim is to make people happy. Yet the old remoteness, the niggling sense of separation from what is really happening, cannot be lost overnight. The voter may be assured that his candidates have been selected in a democratic way; but he would prefer someone else, and feels the need of a policy that nobody has formulated. His alternatives are narrow and rigid; he knows that he is voting for a party, not a man, and that in making his choice he must accept much that he would like to reject. At such a time the local grievance can become symbolical. It was probably a relief in Stanton to put aside bewilderment and take one issue into which all feeling could be poured. What did it matter if the Government had no immediate responsibility for electricity? Who cared if the Opposition could claim innocence in the past and good intentions for the future? And in a wrong-headed way, democracy was still obscurely at work. A man who refuses to vote may indulge his apathy or satisfy his conscience without being noticed. But a community, no matter how small, cannot stand aside from the polls without a display of unity which has almost the force of a vote-a vote of -- no-confidence in __ political euctame that leave too little room

for the village,

M.H.

H.