William Sharp McKechnie

“ Not all who acquiesce in the formulas of popular government have analysed what is involved in the attempt to carry them consistently into practice. It is easier to invoke or to deplore democracy than to say exactly what it is. For some of its adherents, it takes the negative form of a protest against luxury and class privilege; for others it takes the positive form of a scheme for turning England, or the whole world, into a poor man's paradise. To some, its economic aspects, to others, its political possibilities make the deeper appeal. ”

“ The reign of King Demos is not necessarily a state of society in which the highest and enduring interests of the commonwealth are entrusted to those best fitted for the task, but rather the triumph of those who sacrifice the future to the present, the minority to the majority, and the provident and self-reliant to the wastrel and malingerer. In the opinion of such prophets of evil, open flattery and veiled bribery are the surest methods of gaining the popular influence which is now the only road to political power. ”

“ If the Referendum is, in its very essence, democratic, it is more likely to intensify than to abate the dangers of democracy. If the chief want of our present system, or absence of system, is a safeguard of minority rights, that is not to be found in the expedient of submitting individual questions, as they arise, to the determination of majorities. The more extensively the Referendum is resorted to, the more complete will be the triumph of democracy. ”

“ All the classical writers on that great theme Tocqueville, Calhoun, Mill, and Laboulaye he points out, "have shown democracy without respect for the past or care for the future, regardless of public faith and of national honour, extravagant and inconstant, jealous of talent and of knowledge, indifferent to justice but servile towards opinion, incapable of organisation, impatient of authority, averse from obedience, hostile to religion and to established law." ”

“ Sincere democratic sentiment will tolerate nothing short of universal equal suffrage without respect of age, sex, or rank in life. In this view, it is absurd that 53,000 electors of the Eomford division of Essex should only have one member to represent them, while 2600 citizens of Durham should have a member to themselves. Here one voter of the latter constituency is made of equal value with twenty of the former. This is an outrage on the sacred principle of equality. ”

“ Among the masses, who control the destinies of democracies, there is a tendency, natural enough but deplorable in its effects, to dissipate the painfully accumulated reserves of national capital in an attempt to satisfy the ever-pressing needs of a rising standard of living, combined with the ever-increasing burden of maintaining the prolific submerged class. Democracy not only frightens capital from the country, but squanders part of what is left at home. ”

“ Democracy, far from embodying compromise, implies a monopoly of power by one-half of the people over the other half. Each party in turn is absolutely supreme, without let or hindrance. Sovereignty is no longer divided between King, Lords, and Commons, but is concentrated in the leaders of the party in power, on the one condition that they continue to lead. This is the fundamental fact to be kept in view in any analysis of the British Constitution of to-day. ”

“ In the sacred name of the people and of constitutional liberty, he can safely put into motion the inquisitorial authority of Government; while the grinding power of the machinery of taxation at his disposal has been brought to a perfection of smooth-working efficiency never before equalled in any age or country. Under a possible combination of circumstances, the irresistible taxing powers of a one-chambered legislature might be placed at the absolute discretion of one individual Minister of the Crown. ”

“ The power of the modern Parliament, however, is more deeply rooted; and its action, with all the resources of modern science and civilisation at its command, a thousand times more penetrating and thorough. Legislation, as it were by the mere pressing of an electric button, can silently transform the whole face of society. There is another difference and one which operates in favour of the modern engine of supreme power: while the Star Chamber often acted rather in the interests of the few than of the many, the House of Commons always acts in the name of the sovereign people. ”

“ It is of vital importance to ascertain what attitude is likely to be adopted on this crucial matter by a Parliament professing as its only rule of faith an honest desire to carry out the wishes of the majority. What answer will be forthcoming from the people, asked by Referendum or otherwise, whether they will eat their loaf to-day or reserve it for to-morrow? Would the influence of the self-denying minority induce the mass of their fellow-citizens to sacrifice the present to the future, or their own interests to those of their grandchildren? ”

“ Yet thrift is the philosopher's stone that transmutes the surplus revenue of to-day into the capital of to-morrow: and the accumulation of capital is the prime essential of all permanent advance in the standard of comfort enjoyed by the working classes. It is essential to the well-being of society that the provident minority should not lie at the mercy of the careless or extravagant majority. All expenditure, national or individual, that encroaches on the reserves of capital or discourages additions being made to these, reduces for all time the main source of industrial prosperity. ”

“ It is for Ministers to settle the thousand and one matters of detail, and to select (always of course with the roll of voters before their eyes) the victims who have to pay the bill. If the people get and get quickly what they want, it matters little to them who finds the money; they have not the leisure, the knowledge, or the patience to analyse the probable consequences to their sons or grandsons of any suggested measure. On all such matters, it is for Ministers to guide public opinion: on their shoulders alone, all responsibility will rest. ”

“ The needs of minorities are even greater, for they require protection from the extreme consequences of a doctrine of unqualified democratic equality. Minorities, even justly unpopular minorities, have right to some measure of protection for themselves and their belongings, against the crushing despotism of majorities. Thus, in a democratic state, constitutional safeguards are as necessary as under any other form of government. In some respects, more so; for it is easier for the public opinion of the many to act as a drag on the tyranny of the few, than for the few to restrain the many. ”

“ Why should the freedom, property, and lives of nearly half the nation lie, absolutely without appeal, at the mercy of the other half? Would any sane man, who has anything to lose, voluntarily join a society whose members have the right by secret voting to strip him of all he has? Majority rule in its modern form cannot expect to pass unchallenged ”

“ The Conservatives are bent on providing democracy with a new and potent weapon, by conferring on the masses the right to be directly consulted on each important issue that arises; while the Liberals are carefully eliminating any shadowy remnant of the factors that once helped to counteract the omnipotence of mere numbers.
The Referendum, abolition of plural voting, and universal franchise, among them, will add increased momentum to the moving avalanche sufficient to bring it swiftly and inevitably to the brink of the precipice. Meanwhile, democracy by no means stands idly by. ”

“ Individual rights, whether of the nature of life, liberty, property, honour, or ambition, lie naked before the dissecting knife of legislative authority. Nothing stands between the subject and the ever-increasing demands of a Government that rests on a compact majority. ”

“ When a man is relieved of his own natural responsibilities, he is emptied of the qualities that make for manhood of independence, initiative, self-control, self-reliance, and self-sacrifice. If the destruction of these characteristics is the sole return to the State for its lavish expenditure, democratic legislation is doing worse than merely wasting the material wealth of the community: it is undermining the national character. It is doing its best to eradicate from the next generation of Britons the qualities that have enabled their forefathers to build up the British Empire. ”

“ The non-union labourer or the "blackleg" unionist, who claims the right to labour when a majority of his fellows have decided on a strike, finds himself incapable of resistance in the artificial circumstances created by a legislature that has taken sides against him. By conceding the right of "peaceful picketing" to those who desire to use it as a screen for threats of open violence, the Act of 1906 has deprived minorities of their right to equality of opportunity. Legislation, forced upon a government by "political equality," has proved fatal to more essential aspects of that principle. ”

“ The divergence between theory and practice may thus be used for their own purposes by the friends and enemies of equality in turn. This possibility in no way militates against the theory of democracy, which leaves every man free to use his vote in his own way. If an ignorant elector follows the interested advice of a glib-tongued trickster, or defers to the wishes of one he considers wiser than himself, he still votes for what he wants, just as much as though he were guided solely by his own appetites or passions. ”

“ If organised labour is able to obtain from Parliament legal powers that paralyse the arm of the community acting in its own defence, the community must go to the wall. If, outside of Parliament, numerical majorities are henceforth to push their claims by violence, and are, at the same time, to be allowed to obtain undisputed control of the machinery of legislation, the forces making for unlimited democracy in Great Britain are likely, in the near future, to move with a relentless swiftness of which the world has hitherto had no experience. ”

“ No real difference remains as to the guiding postulate of modern politics. The statesman's duty is summed up in one sentence: "Find what the people want, and see that they get it." This profession of belief, once publicly made, cannot lightly be withdrawn. Anyone who has ever stood on a modern election platform can readily imagine the spasm of dismay that would pass over the sea of listening faces, if a candidate declared his distrust in the perfect justice, wisdom, and moderation of "the people." ”

“ Absolute equality in the rights and duties of citizenship is obviously an essential of a true democracy. Not only must the portals of the ideal commonwealth be open to all, but every one who has entered must, irrespective of the worth of his contribution to its welfare, enjoy an equal vote in the shaping of its destinies. Conservative statesmen, at the present moment, are even more vehement than their rivals in insisting on the absolute necessity of the equal values of individual votes. ”

“ Parliament, the government-controlling organ. The original system of checks and balances was thus devised to protect popular rights against the monarch to protect the many against the tyranny of one.
The present-day menace to liberty comes from a different quarter. Parliament, not the King, is now supreme. Individual rights are no longer invaded by arbitrary acts of Ministers in breach of law, but by the laws themselves by statutes that override the rights of minorities in the interests of their political opponents. Power is no longer split up among various organs, enforcing mutual restraint. ”

“ To sum up, the theory of democracy has three radical defects: its initial assumption of the political equality of beings essentially unequal is untenable; its claim for the divine right of majorities to work their will upon defeated minorities is unfounded; while its total denial of effective constitutional and legal rights to men, whose equality in moral rights forms its own root doctrine, is illogical and absurd. Democracy, founded on a basis of false and self-contradictory theory, can never in practice prove a satisfactory system of government. ”

“ The best, and indeed the only, safeguard against the extravagance of an Executive Government, ever ready to further its own purposes with money taken from the people's pockets, is to require for every penny of taxation the consent of a Parliament that is truly representative of every class of those who have to pay. ”

“ This spirit of meek prostration before "the people's will" is the quintessence of modern Democracy. This modern Democracy is not the limited democracy of the past, tempered by the survival of counterbalancing royal and hereditary influences that once formed prominent ingredients in the admired "mixed Constitution" as known to Blackstone and De Lolme, but a democracy free to use to the uttermost, powers that are absolute and unchecked. ”

“ The extent to which the People's Chamber is dominated by outside influences, however, does not modify the fact that the people use their power not directly but only through their nominees. When all is said, the individual Member of Parliament has a greater share of legislative power than any one of the constituents who elect him. Here, again, practical necessities stultify the boast of democracy that all citizens enjoy an equality of political power. ”

“ Safeguards are, in particular, needed against the well-meaning extravagance of a philanthropic but ignorant House of Commons. Something is needed to take the place of the ancient checks and balances that have been destroyed. Some new device is urgently required to restore government by free discussion to its ancient throne. A firm constitutional framework is, indeed, more than ever necessary in a state of society, where no limits are recognised to the province of legislation, and no natural rights of individuals are allowed to bar the free gratification of the desires of majorities. ”

“ The actual vote of the individual member of a free commonwealth comes to be of trivial importance compared with the extent of his influence over the votes of others. The man of position, wealth, or moral worth, or above all of subtle intellect and effective oratory may command hundreds or thousands of votes. A nominal equality, it is urged, by no means results in the triumph of sheer brute numbers over the finer and subtler influences that build up a nation's greatness. ”