TOPICS OF THE DAY.
AN IMPERIAL DEMOCRATIC PARTY.—II.
THE POLL OF THE PEOPLE.
THE Labour Party and the Radical Party have always been thrown into an agitation of frenzied opposition by any proposal for introducing the Referendum into this .country. They will not even hear of it in the very sensible, practical, and smooth-working form which exists in Switzer- land—a form which in the working has given a denial to every argument that has been used against the Refer- endum. The Referendum has helped to keep Switzerland together as a political entity under circumstances which, at first sight, seem almost impossible. Here is a com- munity in which no fewer than four distinct languages are spoken—German, French, Italian, and Romance. There is also the cross division, which enters into every canton, between Roman Catholics and Protestants. In Switzerland -there are Roman Catholic Teutons and Protestant Italians, French Protestants and, if we are not mistaken, even a few Romance-speaking Protestants. Yet the power of veto over the ways and works of the popular represen- tatives has united the country and maintained its soli- darity in a way which we venture to say could not have been attained by any other system. Cromwell held up the Switzer country, a land where one canton was against another canton, as an awful warning, as it then was, of fissiparousness in the State.
Happily, however, some eighty years ago the Swiss discovered in the Constitution of some of the cantons a political germ which could be cultivated into a serum that would cure their ills. They adopted the people's veto over the acts of their representativesby means of the Referendum. Since then, there has been no fear of a break-up of the Con- federation. Remember that Switzerland, though it has now settled down to the veto use and function of the Referendum, has lived through the dangers which are generally rigged up as bogeys to frighten people here from having recourse to direct declarations of the Popular Will. The Swiss have got the Initiative in their Constitution, but it is seldom, if ever, used. They have also got the power to use that inefficient form of the Referendum under which vague and abstract schemes without details, mere projects for laws, can be put before the Electors. In such cases the voters cannot tell what they are voting for. But this, again, is very rarely used. Where the Referendum is used in the Federal Constitution, and where it is effective, is in the submission to the Electors of Bills which have been hammered into shape and worked out in detail by 'the representatives of the People in the Legislative Assembly. When this has been accomplished, and the few at Berne have done their beat to make what they think a good law, it is placed before the many, i.e., the sovereign people as a whole. These proceed to answer the definite question, -" Do you approve of this law coming into force—Yes or No ? "
It is our opinion that the new Party must trust the People, not merely in theory and in talk, but as the People • are trusted under the Swiss Constitution. That is, in spite of the ravings of the Socialists, the threats of the Radicals, and the wails of UniOnist and Liberal wire- pullers, we must adopt as an essential part of the Consti- tution this most Democratic of institutions. Do not let us be put off by wonderful schemes of Second Chambers. These will simply reflect the majority in the House of Commons. Let us, instead, trust. the People in the full confidence that they are trustworthy. .
After all, the sacrifice is not a very great one to make, because, for good or ill, we have in the end to trust the People. What we want is that the real People shall be trusted and not merely the gentlemen who pretend that they know what the People are thinking, but are most anxious that their opinions shall never be put to the direct test of a Poll.
And here we would ask those who are the raw materials of the new Party never to be misled into thinking that we are proposing the Initiative when we propose the Referendum. We fully agree that laws must be thrashed out and debated in a Parliament—that is, in a Select Committee of the People. That is not merely the practical way ; it is the proper function of Parliamentary representatives, who are also required to form the Executive. When, however, Parliament has done its best to produce a good law on a vital issue, the law should not then be immediately put into operation, but should be submitted to the People with the question put in Switzerland : " Do you approve of the Bill as submitted to you—Yes or No ? It is idle to say that the People cannot exercise a choice and that they would not be able to tell whether to vote or not for a complicated measure. In the first place, the thing is done every year in Sviitzerland, and our Electorate are not less civilized or less well instructed, but are better instructed in politics than the Swiss peasants. In- the next place, the objection is unsustainable by Governments who are constantly, as ours are, appealing to the people at General Elections. We venture to say, without fear of contradiction, that it is far easier to make a choice in regard to a compli- cated measure than in regard to a complicated man. Just as you like, or think you like, certain things about Mr. Jones and dislike, or think you dislike, other of his charac- teristics, so you may like, or think you like, or dislike certain points in a measure, but in both cases you vote on the balance of approval or disapproval. Personally, we have nc patience with the impertinence of those aristocratic.intel- lectuals who sneer at the idea of the ordinary man being able to decide for himself whether he wants a Bill passed or not. After all, the ordinary man in the Commons House no more studies the Bills than does the man in the ale-house. Yet it is universally allowed that he can vote on the third reading debate. Then why not the men who have had the good sense, or the folly, whichever it may be, to have sent him to Parliament ?
The Referendum is not valuable merely as a proof of trust in the People. It is quite as valuable in the fact that it is the corrective of that system of log- rolling which is the great evil of the representative system. Under a strict Party system we are in perpetual danger of minority legislation. Either a determined minority sways the Party which sways the Legislature, or else a group of minorities put their heads together and arrange to roll each other's logs. Therefore, in our opinion, the first thing that is necessary to the salvation of the new Party is the adoption, ex aninto of the Democratic spirit. One of the chief plank: in its platform should be the Referendum. There is no need for what Burke called " plodding with attor- neys " or Parliamentary draftsmen in this matter. The Bill introduced by the late Lord Balfour -of Burleigh, which was read a second time in the House of Lords, is a most excellent piece of proposed legislation and could at once be taken up by the new Party. We are promised an immediate attempt to produce some system of Second Chamber Government. Let us, instead, try the really Democratic alternative under which the right of veto over Legislation shall be placed in the hands of the People, and thus a curb will be found for what is a very real danger— the oligarchic insolence of elected persons. (To be continued.)
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