THE REFERENDUM IN AMERICA. T HE Boston correspondent of the Daily
Chronicle sent a very interesting letter to that paper, published on Tuesday last, concerning the growing dissatisfaction in the States with the system of caucus government, and especially with the dictation of the great political wire- pullers, who "boss," as it is called, the caucuses of the cities or States which control the Representative Assemblies of either the one or the other. In New York, for instance, the Democratic Party is as much in the hands of Richard Croker, and the Republican Party in the hands of Tom Platt, as if these wire-pullers were despots, instead of mere organisers, of the party. In Brooklyn, again, a shrewd tradesman of the name of McLaughlin has the con- trol of all the political organisations, and is described as using it only from the love of influence, and not from any desire to enrich himself. Nevertheless, he is always meditating new plans for increasing the range and also the intensity of his influence. But the result of all these strong party organisations is that the people are not in any sense really self-governed, but are governed almost despotically by the wills of one or two rivals, by whom, generally in alternation, the check-strings of political or municipal power are pulled. Now, the United States constitute a sort of laboratory of large and small demo- cracies, both municipal and political, in which it is not only possible to try a good many valuable experiments, but almost impossible not to try them. For the American people, though even more patient politically than the English people,—as, being set apart on a continent of their own, where they have little to fear from other States, and where political interests are, *lore often than not, very secondary interests,—are a shrewd and pertina- cious people, who, when they once get it into their heads that something is radically wrong in their condition, do not rest till they have tried every available means of set- ting it right. Thus, as the Daily Chronicle's correspon- dent tells us, there is gro wing up simultaneously, both in the East and in the West, a very great dissatisfaction with the caucus system as it is at present managed, and a deep conviction that, instead of seeuring self-govern- ment, it all but prevents it, except on the few great occasions when the people are so thoroughly roused by a public emergency that the wire-pullers are paralysed by the outbreak of popular feeling. In Massachusetts, in New York, in Kansas, Colorado, and Nebraska, the feeling is rapidly gaining ground that the wire-pullers cheat the people of their right of deciding for themselves, and that they need what the Swiss have got, the privilege both of initiating for themselves, and without being at the mercy of their representatives, legislation for which they wish, and of endorsing finally, or repudiating, the legislation which their representatives have prepared in their name, where there is any widespread popular hesitation as to its fitness. It is felt that with these Swiss checks on political wire-pullers, the wire-puller's occupation would be gone, and accordingly, both in New England and New York, and in the West, there is growing up a pertinacious demand for both the Referendum and the Initiative.
This seems to us the genuine democratic article, in con- trast to the spurious article which the Platts, the Crokers, the McLaaighlins, and, let us add, the Schnadhorsts, pass off under that name. It really brings home to the people their immediate responsibility for wise and foolish measures alike. They realise, as no representative system can help them to realise, that they themselves, each in his own person, have asked for the measure which the popular initiative started, and have sanctioned, each in his own person, the measure which the popular Referendum approved. They can charge nobody else with misleading them. If they were misled, they asked to be misled ; if they blundered, it was as much their own blunder as it is when they have bought what does not suit them, or have sold what they find themselves in need of. Now that is the most important of all the uses of Democracy, namely, that the people learn by it that they smart for their own sins, and profit by their own virtues.
And there is certainly no lesson of which we in England stand in more need, and of which, under our present political and municipal arrangements, we have less ex- perience. A party programme is drawn up, of which we hear many praises, and for which the party votes en masse. The Liberal elector finds Home-rule sand- wiched, perhaps, between the Payment of Members and Disestablishment. He has very hazy views of two of them, perhaps, and a very clear perception of his approval of the third, and so he votes for all indis- criminately; or a. Conservative elector finds Women's Suffrage sandwiched between a measure for insuring him a competence for his old age and a, measure for federating the Colonies and fortifying distant coaling stations, and he, too, has a strong impression of the advantages of some one of these proposals, and hardly any distinct notion as to the wisdom or folly of the others.
He votes for them in block, and finds himself perhaps saddled with one on which he had no clear opinion at all, and as far as ever from obtaining the measure for which he really wished. How can he feel personally responsible for what he never really cared to do, but was induced to do solely by the confusion into which he was betrayed by his party leaders between a policy he de- sired and a policy on which he had never had a single coherent idea? Of course, under such a system as this, we get no real sense on the part of the Democracy that if they are disappointed it is their own fault, and that if they find themselves in the right, it is their own sagacity which has hit the right nail on the head. Our system seems carefully devised to render it easy for party chiefs to lead the people into doing what they do not want to do, and into refraining from doing what they earnestly want to do. If, for instance, Mr. Gladstone carries Home-rule, or Lord Salisbury and Mr. Balfour carry Women's Suffrage, the people will blame Mr. Gladstone, or Lord Salisbury and Mr. Balfour, if they find they are in the wrong, and will not blame themselves. They will say, and will generally say justly, that this was a matter on which we had no clear judgment of our own, and only followed our leaders because it was mixed up with other matters on which we had a clear judgment of our own identical with theirs.' But if they have demanded the measure by a popular initiative, or approved it, when passed, by a popular sanction, or both, they cannot feel this ; they must feel, and rightly feel, that. they personally have brought upon themselves the penalties, or have earned the advantages, of that for which they personally gave their votes. Now, as we regard dis- tinct popular responsibility as far the most important of all the advantages of Democracy, we regard the Swiss system as of its very essence. it alone brings home to the people a feeling of personal pridejin having chosen the right policy, and a feeling of per- sonal humiliation in having chosen the wrong. The American States which are suffering under the greed or ambition of their political "bosses," and are be- ginning to demand the right of initiating and sanc- tioning for themselves the great constitutional measures of which they feel the need, are on the right tack, and if we are wise we shall follow their ex- ample. The one and only reason that we have ever heard alleged against this development of Democracy is this, that representatives will lose their sense of deliberative freedom, if they are directed to execute a dictated policy on which they have no discretion given them, and will not urge those objections to it which may only be discovered or discoverable after the issue has been brought to the test of careful examination and debate. The answer to that is, first, that this is by no means a necessary consequence of the Swiss initiative, since there will always be constitu- encies which have not voted for it, or have voted against it, and whose representatives therefore will have full right to oppose it in debate; but next, and chiefly, that we are already reaping all the ills of a system of delegation without getting the advantages of a system of direct popular responsibility. For the most part, our representatives are already committed to vote for a measure before they take their seats, and can only turn round at the risk of being branded by the Whips as turncoats and political traitors. In other words, we have all the mischiefs of delegation without the advantages of full popular consciousness of the people's responsibility. The old conception that it is the duty of a representative to commit himself only to principles, and to reserve full freedom to criticise freely the measures in which it is contended that these principles are embodied, is already obsolete. If a supporter of Home-rule does not approve Mr. Gladstone's measure, he is simply set down as a turncoat, and boy- cotted by his party. In a word, the Democracy has got beyond the old theory of the representative s3r8tem, and yet has not transferred to the electors that sense of personal responsibility of which it has robbed the representatives. The only true policy now is to bring home to the electorates their individual responsi- bilities for the measures for which they already require their representatives to vote, without being either willing, or indeed, under the present confused system, able, to realise fully that it is they, and not their repre- sentatives, who have dictated the character and contents of those,measures.
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