" RECALL " BY REFERENDUM.
[To THE EDITOR COP THE "SPECTATOR."] Sin,—President Taft's successful opposition to the " Recall " of judges in Arizona is a victory for conservatism in the use of the Referendum.
The Territory, being sufficient in area and having acquired a population numerically adequate, was empowered by Congress to submit for approval the draft of a constitution for a State government, in the preparation of which advocates of the extreme principles of popular government, who are organized throughout the United States as " Direct Legislation Leagues," contrived to insert a clause by virtue of which, upon the petition of a minority—I think 20 per cent.—of the voters, the State Legislature would have been compelled to submit to the people, by special Referendum, the question of the "Recall" (a euphemism for removal) of a judge, thus, in effect, substituting for the process of impeachment the judg- ment of the whole body of the voters, affected, perhaps, by some sudden and temporary outburst of passion with which students of democracies are familiar, and subjecting the very foundations of law to the destructive influences of impassioned appeals to the prejudices of the moment.
After a prolonged struggle between the President and Congress the vicious clause has been eliminated, and Arizona takes its place as one of tha States of the American Union, the number of which (with New Mexico, which has also been admitted as a State) is now forty-eight.
In this connexion will you allow me to warn your readers that the paper which was laid on the table of the House of Commons early in its recent session relative to the Refer- endum, and which bears the imprimatur of Mr. Bryce, in so far as it relates to the American States, is almost wholly devoted to the results of the work of these "Direct Legisla- tion Leagues," which has very little connexion with that conservative use of the Referendum which has existed in the American States for more than one hundred years P—I am, Sir,
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