TIME AND THE NEW TASK

New Zealand Tablet, 5 June 1919, Page 9

TIME AND THE NEW TASK

One way in which representative government misrepresents has hardly been enough noticed (says the h ete II it no- «). It arises from a change in the value of time. The period during which a man remains a member is still the same. But the period during which a man can become a millionaire is very much shorter. When wealth was reckoned in a more human fashion by harvests, when even a great lord would make a gift or promise in the form of “three years of land,” no great risk was run by putting.a man on his political probation for five years of land, or seven years of land., If he had helped the country he could be retained; if he had only helped himself he could be rejected; but he could not have helped himself to very much. The modern system of swift and secret finance, of shares, tips and tricks of all kinds, has thrown out altogether this old calculation of septennial parliaments, and would probably make as much havoc of triennial parliaments. It may hardly take a month to make a millionaire; while it took a lifetime to make a miser. The millionaire, by that time, may not even care whether he is re-elected to the House of Commons; he may already have purchased a seat in the House of, Lords. He may already have purchased a newspaper, and be making and unmaking elections and parliaments. He may already be secretly supporting the party funds, and thus secretly supporting 10 parliamentary candidates to succeed if he fails. All this arises from no change in the political principle, but from a mere accident of the clock or the calendar. For the modern man time has shrunk ; considering how he uses it, we might say that it has shrivelled. Man’s' democratic dignity, being akin to his divinity, is constantly being thus caught in the network of time and space. But the present case has a very practical application. s y Most of the numerous and various groups that are discontented with the last election are looking forward to the next election. It is generally believed, and not without reason, that it may come very soon. There is good ground, doubtless, for discontented democrats saying that it cannot come too soon. But the point for our immediate purpose is that, however soon it comes", it will come too late. The pirates will already have seized the sort of treasure for which they are seeking. The particular processes, by which professional politicians put themselves in a position of privi-

lege and safety, now take a shorter time than the lifetime of the shortest .parliament.' ' Large numbers of hew members, as well as old members, have gone to the House of Commons. A great mass ,of them have gone to the House of Commons literally and exactly as they would have gone on the Stock Exchange. They have .gone , there simply and solely to make money. The Stock Exchange, of course, is now by far the more honorable institution of the two; for the stockbrokers avow the object of their meeting, and the meaning even of their forms and fictions. Stockbrokers wear no hats out of doors ; and Members of Parliament wear hats indoors; males in community always delight in such ceremonial antics. But the stockbroker does not pretend that he goes without a hat out of reverence for the home of heaven, or that he may always be open to the cry of the people. The Member of Parliament really does pretend that he wears his hat as a democratic delegate, who would dare to remain covered before a king. The shadow of a great seventeenth century legend of law and liberty, true or false, does still cover and conceal the acts of a highly modern club of hucksters and gamblers. The matter involved here, however, is one which the stockbrokers and the politicians happen, more or less, to share. Both are concerned with financial transactions that can be done as quickly as conjuring tricks; and are often as misleading as conjuring tricks. It takes an interminable time, sometimes, to “pilot” a Bill through Parliament; many of the actions of Government are excruciatingly lengthy and complicated, especially those for which there is urgent public need and public demand. But the bids for personal advantage, the financial flutters and inside information, may take a few minutes to suggest or a few hours to execute. This was apparent, of course, in the great historic case from which all such inquiry dates; that Marconi case, about which the politicians behaved with so much less delicacy than the stockbrokers. It did not take long for Godfrey Isaacs to give a tip to the present Prime Minister through the present Lord Chief Justice. There are, of course, other ways of making politics pay. Our national representatives and rulers are not exclusively occupied with their duties as bulls and bears. A method more dignified in form, if equally dangerous in fact, consists of obtaining quicker promotion or higher salaries in the legal profession, or in the new and enormous bureaucracy. Members depend on Ministers for places as Ministers depend on contractors for shares. The poixxt is that xxeither party depends for either advantage upon his coxxstituexxts. The oxxe body to which he does not look for promotioix, the oxxe body froxxx which he can not hope for ixxforxnation, the one body that owxxs xxo powers, possesses no secrets, promises no titles or rewards, threatens no punishments or disappointments, is precisely that group of citizens which has elected him as a representative. We put at the opening of the new year this view of the new Parliament because it is the defence of the

method of this paper. It explains the necessity for a process to which many of us are in no way - pi'one by temper or habit—the method of public scandal It is a method which caxx easily be abused, and is actually abused. It is a xxxethod already being used by demagogues for whom we have no regard, against scapegoats to whom we attach no importance. But it x'emains true, in the extraordinary condition of public affairs, that nothing but scaxxdal caxx save, us froxxx shaxxxe. The xxew Parliaxxxexxt xxxust be watched, the xxew xxxexx . xxxust be watched; above all, the older examples of the evil must be watched xxxore thaxx ever • axxd they must be watched with a deliberate eye to democratic agitatioxx outside the political exxclosux'e. The Parliamexxtary electioxx must be igxxored, especially in this very practical sense; that electioxx as a member must xxot be held tantamouxxt to acquittal as a xxxaxx. We know that the very people who have elected the members do not, in their daily coxxversatioxx, acquit the xxxexx. We kxxow that if there has beexx any “xxxaxxdate’’ it has merely, been a xxxandate to fixxish. the war; axxd if we have continued our protest, in spite of the patriotic claims of

the war, we must certainly renew- it with a greateri *•• •' «f. .*3 Vr r<i Vt-A -S ,;.,-.75- / f--., ••■.*■„ 2•. b » ~g energy in spite of any claims of- the sham fight of politics, i Inquiries already initiated must go on ,as ; before,! and much more ; energetically than before. Whether! Moritz Mond is a Minister or not a Minister, the truth about, such German-Jewish entanglements must be traced, as we have tried 'to trace: it. Whether Grant: Morden is a member or not a member, the investigations about Dope must be followed up, as they have-not*' yet been followed up. A highly crude eulo- ; gist of Mr. George, by the name of Dalziel, has acquired the Daily Chronicle, in which they were once investigated , with some spirit. Nobody is going to acquire the ’New Witness. v | That has happened in politics which is said to have happened to religion in the last decay of the Middle Ages. The most unsanctified thing is sanctuary. There has appeared in the political sanctuary of St. Stephen what may then have appeared in the ecclesiastical sanctuaries of St. Peter or St. John; the place is a positive refuge for thieves and outlaws. They go there, for safety ; we may rather say that they rush there for safety. That rapidity, on which we have remarked above, marks the movements of the new men towards politics as a profession, as it will mark, within the next few years, their rise on the ladder of that profession. They climb up to a high post in the State. as a man might climb a tree when pursued by a wild beast. And in a real sense they are pursued; though, the beast might be wilder without much danger, and probably will be wilder in the days to come. They flee there for an exceedingly simple reason ; because it has been mad© manifest, ever since the Marconi whitewashing, that the political world is the one world where they are safe from insult. It is the place of no punishments; and it may soon be entirely populated by the people who ought to be punished. It is when the sanctuary is desecrated in this degree that there is heard again an ancient and equally sacred saying: that wisdom crieth without: and her voice is heard in the street