WHERE ARE THE ANTI-FADDISTS ?
WHEN we see what a very disproportionate and even calamitous influence the faddists have on the elections, it often strikes us with surprise and chagrin that there should be no combination in the constituencies amongst the Anti-Faddists, we mean among those who deprecate and condemn the practice of inventing a number of minute test-questions on their answers to which the political candidates are to be judged. It seems to us that in a constituency where Anti-Vaccination is made a test- question, there ought to be a large number of persons who should declare that they would place no confidence in a candidate who was willing to commit himself to vote against compulsory vaccination ; that in a consti- tuency where there was a large section committed to putting down the growth of opium in India, there ought to be considerable numbers who would make it a point that their Member should not commit him- self to any course of the kind without listening care- fully to all that the Anglo-Indians had to say on the other side ; that in a constituency where the teetotalers make the extinction of licences without compensation the hinge of the election, there ought to be a good many who would refuse to support a candidate willing to pledge himself to any such course ; and, again, that in a constituency where women's suffrage, or the principle of " One man, one vote," is made the test, the prudent elector should make his voice heard in the avowal that any candidate who declared him- self willing to accept either test would alienate rather than secure his vote by that course. We have not chosen cases in all of which we are vehemently opposed to the par- ticular fad in question. For one of these fads at least we have ourselves argued, and would argue again. But it does seem to us most important that elections should not be allowed to turn on petty matters of this kind, and that there is not half enough steady resistance to this faddism among English constituencies. If we were the practical people that we claim to be, nothing should irritate us more than this disposition to elevate small and relatively unim- portant points into the hinge of a General Election, es- pecially at a time when constitutional issues of the most vital importance are before the constituencies. With questions like Irish Home-rule, or, to take an instance from the General Election of 1885, Disestablishment, before the constituencies, to insist that you will not vote for a candidate unless he agrees with you about the Deceased Wife's Sister Bill, or about finding or refusing to find "three acres and a cow" for the agricultural labourer, or about Sunday closing in Wales, or about the legitimacy or illegitimacy of asking a man to state his religion in the census-paper,—seems to us little short of a political crime. We maintain that in all public- spirited constituencies there ought to be a deliberate stand made against this kind of political faddism, and that even " heckling" a candidate as to his views on a vast number of subjects as to which, if he is wise, he will not have formed any views at all, should be gravely discouraged. Why is there not in every party a deliberate effort made to guard their candidates' freedom on minute questions of this kind ? If, indeed, it happens, as it may often happen, that the candidate has thought much on one of these minor points, and has made up his own mind, let him state that mind freely ; but that should be no reason at all why a supporter of his general principles who does not happen to agree with him in his particular judgment, should with- draw his help. And, on the other hand, any readiness to pledge himself on matters of this relatively petty kind without having given the subject very careful consideration, and without having come to a very clear judgment upon it, ought to excite great distrust, and to be regarded as showing that the candidate is not one of that prudent and reticent character who protects his own freedom against premature and inconsiderate pledges. We are very seriously of opinion that no change more beneficial could be made in our popular politics than the habit of gravely discouraging this tendency to exact pledges on small subjects. For every voter who insists on a pledge to aid in the repeal of the Vaccination Laws, or the Licensing Law, or the opium traffic, or " One man, one vote," or the religious census, there ought to be two or three who disapprove of exacting and of giving any pledge on these subjects ; and candidates who give such pledges should be made to feel that they lose a great deal more popularity amongst their sensible constituents than they gain amongst their foolish constituents by accepting them. It seems to us quite certain that a great deal might be done in this way to improve the nature of party organisations. If candidates found that they were much more likely to be adopted by either the Gladstouians o1 the Unionists, when, after explaining their principles and their attitude towards the Government or the leader of Opposi- tion, they refused to pledge themselves on matters they had not considered at all, or had not considered- at all deeply, we should soon find that the faddists would lose half their mischievous power. But this is not a matter which can be managed without deliberate organisation. It should be the duty of the local leaders on both sides to take care that there is a genuine effort made to sup- port candidates who refuse these paltry pledges, and to discourage candidates who accept them. There should be a considerable section of both parties who, if they found the candidate accepting pledges of the sort without re- ference to any carefully formed political convictions of his own, should be ready to say This is not the man for us. We do not want a man pledged up to the eyes on all sorts of subjects of which he knows little or nothing. We want a man who has an open mind on all questions which he has not really studied, and who has the courage to say he will not commit himself without having heard all that is to be said on both sides.' But as matters stand, there is, we believe, no organisation of opinion against the faddists, no care taken to make candidates feel the dis- trust which such pledges ought to inspire, and the confidence which the manly resistance to such pledges ought to inspire. It is only the faddists who exercise a real influence in elections. The anti-faddists are wholly unorganised and left out of the account. This need not be so, and ought not to be so. We venture to say that in every constituency there are, if only they would unite and put themselves in evidence, a great many electors who disapprove of this sort of way of cutting up their representative into a number of " isms," and who would be very glad to protect his freedom, and to secure for them- selves, so far as possible, the kind of representative who values such freedom. What is wanted is that these men should unite to assert the mischief of these manifold and ill-considered pledges, and to make known that the represen- tative for whom they would vote is not the willing delegate of a multitude of petty associations, but the political thinker who is aware that these matters are not so easily decided, and that it is a very wrong as well as a very unwise thing to pledge yourself to the ill-considered views of other people without really forming your own mind on the issue for yourself.
Previous page
