Part 16 (1/2)
Those who put their trust in theories of popular sovereignty, and urge the referendum and initiative as the surer instruments of democracy than Parliamentary representation, may recall that a popular plebiscite organised by Napoleon in 1802 conferred on him the Consulate for life; that Louis Napoleon was made President of the French Republic in 1848 by a popular vote, obtained a new const.i.tution by a plebiscite in 1851, and a year later arranged another plebiscite which declared him hereditary Emperor, Napoleon III. France, where naturally Rousseau's theories have made the deepest impression, has since the Revolution gloried in the right of the ”sovereign people” to overthrow the government, and its elected representatives have been alternately at the mercy of dictators and social revolutionists.
On the whole, the stability of the British Government, rooted in the main on the traditional belief in the representation of the electorate, would seem to make more surely for national progress and wider political liberty than the alternation of revolution and reaction which France has known in the last hundred and twenty years.
England has not been without its popular outbursts against what the American poet called ”the never-ending audacity of elected persons,” but these outbursts are commonly accepted as manifestations of intolerable conditions; and while the outbursts are repressed means are taken by Government to amend the conditions. When the Government fails to amend things, the House of Commons takes the matter up; and if the Commons neglect to do so, then the electors make it plain that amendment and reform are necessary by returning men to Parliament pledged to change matters, and by rejecting those who have failed to meet the situation.
THE OBVIOUS DANGERS
The dangers that threaten democracy are obvious. Universal adult suffrage, short Parliaments, proportional representation, equal electoral districts, second ballots--none of these things can insure democracy against corruption. For a government which rests on the will of a people--a will expressed by the election of representatives--is inevitably exposed to all the evils attendant on the unruly wills and affections of the average man.
The orator can play upon the feelings of the crowd, and sway mult.i.tudes against a better judgment; and he has greater chance of working mischief when a referendum or other direct instrument of democracy is in vogue than he has when government is by elected representatives. For the party system, itself open to plenty of criticism, constantly defeats the orator by the superior power of organisation. Hence it frequently happens at Parliamentary elections that a candidate whose meetings are enthusiastic and well attended fails lamentably at the poll. His followers are a crowd; they are not a party. They do not know each other, and they have not the confidence that comes of members.h.i.+p in a large society.
PARTY GOVERNMENT
If the orator is a menace to the wise decisions of the people by a referendum, the party organiser and political ”boss” can easily be a curse to representative government on party lines. By all manner of unholy devices he can secure votes for his candidate and his party, and he has raised (or lowered) the simple business of getting the people to choose their representative into the art of electioneering. The triumph of political principles by the election of persons to carry out those principles becomes of less importance than the successful working of the party machine, when the boss and the organiser are conspicuous. Patronage becomes the method for keeping the party in power, and the promise of rewards and spoils enables an opposition to defeat the Government and obtain office. To be outside the party is to lose all chance of sharing in the spoils, and to take an interest in politics means, under these circ.u.mstances, to expect some consideration in the distribution of honours.
The ”spoils system” is notorious in America, but in England it has become practically impossible for a man to take any serious part in politics except by becoming part of the machine. An independent att.i.tude means isolation. To belong to a party--Liberal, Unionist, or Labour--and to criticise its policy, or differ from its leaders, is resented as impertinence. The machine is master of the man. A troublesome and dangerous critic is commonly bought or silenced. He is given office in the Government, or rewarded with a legal appointment; perhaps made a peer if his tastes are in that direction. A critic who cannot command a considerable backing among the electorate will probably be driven out of public life. The disinterested activity in politics that puts the commonwealth before party gain is naturally discouraged by the party organisers.
Yet when public interest in national affairs sinks to the merely sporting instinct of ”backing your candidate” at elections as a horse is backed at race meetings, and of ”shouting for your party” as men shout for their favourite football team, or sinks still lower to the mercenary speculation of personal gain or loss on election results, then another danger comes in--the indifference of the average honest citizen to all politics, and the cynical disbelief in political honesty.
The warnings of John Stuart Mill against leaving politics to the politicians and against the professional position may be quoted:
”Representative inst.i.tutions are of little value, and may be a mere instrument of tyranny or intrigue when the generality of electors are not sufficiently interested in their own government to give their vote; or, if they vote at all, do not bestow their suffrages on public grounds, but sell them for money, or vote at the beck of some one who has control over them, or whom for private reasons they desire to propitiate. Popular elections as thus practised, instead of a security against misgovernment, are but an additional wheel in its machinery.”
Mill himself was a striking example of the entirely disinterested politician, who, caring a great deal more for principles than for party, finds little favour with the electors, and less with the party managers, and retires from politics to the relief of his fellows.
A general lack of interest in politics can prove fatal to democracy. The party managers, without the fear of the electorate before their eyes, will increase the number of salaried officials and strengthen their position by judicious appointments. Nominally, these inspectors and officers will be required for the public service, and the appointments will be justified on patriotic grounds. There will be little criticism in Parliament, because the party not in power will be anxious to create similar ”jobs” when its own turn comes. Besides, as the public pays for these officials, there is no drain on the party funds; and this is a matter of congratulation to party managers, who are always anxious not to spend more than they can help on the political machinery.
BUREAUCRACY
But the horde of officials and inspectors will change democracy into bureaucracy, and the discovery is sometimes made too late that a land is ruled by permanent officials, and not by elected representatives. The elected representatives may sit and pa.s.s laws, but the bureaucracy which administers them will be the real authority.
It may be an entirely honest and efficient bureaucracy, as free from political partisans.h.i.+p as our British Civil Service and police-court magistracy are, but if it is admitted to be outside the jurisdiction of the House of Commons, and to be under no obedience to local councils, and if its powers involve a close inquisition into the lives of the people, and include the right to interfere daily with these lives, then bureaucracy and not democracy is the actual government.
A host of salaried political workers--agents, organisers, secretaries, etc.--will make popular representative government a mere matter of political rivalry, an affair of ”ins and outs,” and by this development of the party system will exclude from active politics all who are not loyal to the ”machine,” and are not strong enough to break it. But a host of public officers--inspectors, clerks, etc.--paid out of the public funds will do more than pervert representative government: they will make it subordinate to the permanent official cla.s.s; and bureaucracy, once firmly in the saddle, is harder to get rid of than the absolutism of kings, or the rule of an aristocracy.
Yet a permanent Civil Service is better in every way in a democracy than a Civil Service which lives and dies with a political party, and is changed with the Cabinet.
On the whole, the best thing for democracy is that the paid workers in politics should be as few as possible, and the number of salaried state officials strictly limited. The fewer the paid political workers, the fewer people will be concerned to maintain the efficiency of the political machine, and the more freely will the electorate act in the choice of its representatives. The fewer the salaried officials of State, the less inspection and restriction, and the less encouragement to habits of submission in the people. Democracy must depend on a healthy, robust sense of personal responsibility in its citizens, and every increase in the inspectorate tends to diminish this personal responsibility, and to breed a ”servile state” that will fall a willing prey to tyranny and bureaucracy.
Nevertheless, whilst in self-defence democracy will avoid increasing its officials, it will distinguish between officials and employees. It is bound to add to the number of its employees every year, as its munic.i.p.al and imperial responsibilities grow steadily larger, and these employees, rightly regarded as public servants, cannot threaten to become our masters.
WORKING-CLa.s.s ASCENDANCY
Still one more danger to democracy may be mentioned, and that is the notion that from the working cla.s.s must necessarily come our best rulers.
”Rulers are not wise by reason of their number or their poverty, or their reception of a weekly wage instead of a monthly salary or yearly income. It is worse and more unpleasant and more dangerous to be ruled by many fools than by one fool, or a few fools. The tyranny of an ignorant and cowardly mob is a worse tyranny than the tyranny of an ignorant and cowardly clique or individual.
”Workers are not respectable or to be considered because they work more with their hands or feet than with their brains, but because the work they do is good. If it is not good work they do, they are as unprofitable as any other wasters. A plumber is not a useful or admirable creature because he plumbs (if he plumbs ignorantly or dishonestly, he is often either a manslayer or a murderer), but because he plumbs well, and saves the community from danger and damp, disease, and fire and water. Makers of useless machine-made ornaments are, however 'h.o.r.n.y-handed,' really 'anti-social persons,' baneful to the community as far as their bad work goes; more baneful, possibly, than the consumers of these bad articles, quite as baneful as the _entrepreneurs_ who employ them.