SIR,—Trimmer, in your issue of January 7, has a queer
idea of social and political development. All is well, provided there is no progress, no change! He says '. . . since 1867,
when the conditions of parliamentary demo-
cracy were first established . . In eighty- seven years a nation can hardly be said to have learnt all there is to know about the technique of electing its government.
Quite clearly the considerable minority of Liberals, some three million at the 1951 elec- tion, who arc at present disenfranchised, to say nothing of the Socialists in Sussex or the Tories in Tyneside, all of whom stand little chance of having their views represented in Parliament, do not indicate to Trimmer any signs of an inefficient democratic representa- tion. Nor does he find it odd that in 1945 a Labour Government with 48 per cent. of the votes cast got a majority of 146, whereas the Conservatives in 1951 with 48 per cent. of the votes cast got a majority of eighteen.
There are many up and down the country who echo the opinions of Mr. Christopher Hollis, MP, who said in a broadcast in 1952: 'A lot of people talked as if democracy were a state which, having been achieved, would automatically go on for the rest of time; but the lesson of history was that though demo- cracy might he one of the best forms of government, it was also one of the most short- lived.'—Yours faithfully,
ALLAN BATHAM
West Watch, Ferry.Drive, Wraysbury, Bucks
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