Democracy and Liberty. William Edward Hartpole Lecky

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ at times when parties are evenly balanced, and when a few votes can save or destroy a Government, makes the attainment of those objects the price of its adhesion. Where there are only two strongly organised parties these minor questions fall into their natural place; but in a Parliament broken into many fractions, each fraction can exercise a power utterly disproportionate to its numbers and to its real hold upon the country. The action of the independent Irish Home Rule party in the parliamentary system has been the most remarkable instance of this truth, and other groups are evidently constituting themselves in the same way, and are likely to pursue their objects by the same parliamentary methods.

The consequences of all this are very far-reaching. If my forecast is not erroneous, it must end in the destruction of that ascendency of the House of Commons which was built up in the days of middle-class supremacy and of strong party organisation. It produces also a weakness and an instability in the executive power which is often very injurious to the interests of the nation. On the whole, however, this weakness seems likely to be greater under Liberal than under Conservative Governments, as the Conservative party is far more homogeneous than its rival. The great revolt of the nation against Radical policy in 1895 has created one of the most powerful ministries of the century, resting upon an enormous and substantially homogeneous majority in both Houses. But, with the fluctuations to which parliamentary government is now so liable, no one can suppose that such a majority can be permanent. All the signs of the times point to the probability in England, as elsewhere, of many ministries resting on precarious majorities formed out of independent or heterogeneous groups. There are few conditions less favourable to the healthy working of parliamentary institutions, or in which the danger of an uncontrolled House of Commons is more evident.

One consequence of this disintegration of Parliament is a greatly increased probability that policies which the nation does not really wish for may be carried into effect. The process which the Americans call ‘log-rolling’ becomes very easy. One minority will agree to support the objects of another minority on condition of receiving in return a similar assistance, and a number of small minorities aiming at different objects, no one of which is really desired by the majority of the nation, may attain their several ends by forming themselves into a political syndicate and mutually co-operating. The kind of politics which was notoriously adopted on the question of Home Rule illustrates both the nature and the danger of this system. The Home Rule Bill had been decisively condemned by the constituencies, and the Government which proposed it saw clearly that on that issue alone it was not likely to obtain a favourable verdict. It was argued, however, that if a Home Rule Government could win the support of the electors who desired local option, and the disestablishment of the Welsh and Scotch Churches, and the abolition of the hereditary element in the House of Lords, and legislation shortening the hours of labour, and other measures of a democratic character, these different parties would constitute a majority that would enable the ministers to carry Home Rule in spite of the wishes of the nation.

      Probably still more dangerous is the necessity, which the existing state of parliamentary representation establishes, of seeking for a popular cry, which generally means some organic and destructive change in the Constitution. An appetite for organic change is one of the worst diseases that can affect a nation. All real progress, all sound national development, must grow out of a stable, persistent national character, deeply influenced by custom and precedent and old traditional reverence, habitually aiming at the removal of practical evils and the attainment of practical advantages, rather than speculative change. Institutions, like trees, can never attain their maturity or produce their proper fruits if their roots are perpetually tampered with. In no single point is the American Constitution more incontestably superior to our own than in the provisions by which it has so effectually barred the path of organic change that the appetite for such change has almost passed away. No one who observes English politics with care can fail to see how frequently, when a statesman is out of office and his party divided, his first step is to mark out some ancient institution for attack in order to rally his followers. Personal vanity here concurs powerfully with party interests, for men who are utterly destitute of real constructive ability are capable of attacking an existing institution; and there is no other form of politics in which a noisy reputation can be so easily acquired. Instead of wisely using the machinery of government for the benefit of the whole nation, English politicians have of late years been perpetually tampering with it, and a spirit of feverish unrest has passed into English politics which, if it is not checked, bodes ill for the permanence of parliamentary government.

Both parties have in this respect much to answer for. A weak Conservative Government is often tempted to outbid its rival and win the support of some discontented fragment of the Opposition; and there is no Radicalism so dangerous as this, for it finds no external body to restrain it, and the Opposition is bound by its position to aggravate it. Few pages in our modern political history are more discreditable than the story of the ‘Conservative’ Reform Bill of 1867. A weak Liberal Government, on the other hand, depends for its support on the concurrence of many semi-detached groups, among which extreme politicians often exercise a disproportionate power. The Home Rule schism, by depriving the party of the greater part of its restraining and moderating element, has much increased the danger.

      There are few things, also, more disheartening in English politics than what may be called the unintelligent conservatism of English Radicalism. It moves persistently in a few old, well-worn grooves. The withdrawal of the control of affairs from the hands of the minority who, in the competitions of life, have risen to a higher plane of fortune and instruction; the continual degradation of the suffrage to lower and lower strata of intelligence; attacks upon institution after institution; a systematic hostility to the owners of landed property, and a disposition to grant much the same representative institutions to all portions of the Empire, quite irrespectively of their circumstances and characters, are the directions in which the ordinary Radical naturally moves. In hardly any quarter do we find less constructive ability, less power of arriving even at a perception of the new evils that have arisen or of the new remedies that are required. To destroy some institution, or to injure some class, is very commonly his first and last idea in constitutional policy.

Another tendency which is very manifestly strengthening in English politics is that of attempting to win votes by class bribery. With very large democratic constituencies, in which a great proportion of the voters are quite indifferent to the main questions of party politics, some form of corruption is certain to arise. The kinds of bribery, it is true, which prevailed in England under an unreformed Parliament have either disappeared or greatly diminished. The number of the electors, the secrecy of the vote, and the stringency of recent legislation against corruption, have had in this respect a salutary effect. The gigantic corruption which exists in America under the name of the ‘spoils system’ has not taken root in England, though some recent attempts to tamper, in the interests of party, with the old method of appointing magistrates in the counties, and some claims that have been put forward by members of parliament to dictate the patronage in their constituencies, show that there are politicians who would gladly introduce this poison-germ into English life. Happily, however, the system of competitive examination places most branches of the Civil Service out of the reach of politicians. But a form of bribery which is far cheaper to the candidate, yet far more costly to the nation, than that to which our grandfathers were accustomed, has rapidly grown. As Sir Henry Maine has truly said, the bribery which is most to be feared in a democracy is that of ‘legislating away the property of one class and transferring it to another.’⁷ Partial, inequitable taxation, introduced for the purpose of obtaining votes, is an evil which in democratic societies is but too likely to increase.

It has been rendered easier by the great fiscal revolution which took place in England after the abolition of the Corn Laws. A number of widely diffused indirect taxes, which were paid in the form of enhanced prices, were abolished; taxation has been more concentrated, and it has become very easy to vary both its amount and its incidence. It is remarkable that, at a time when this process was rapidly advancing, a note of warning and of protest was sounded by one of the wisest leaders of the Liberals. Sir C. Lewis, in the memorable Budget speech which he made as Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1857, quoted the following striking passage from Arthur Young: ‘The mere circumstance of taxes being very numerous in order to raise a given СКАЧАТЬ