There it is. Democracy needs for its counsellors, legislators and ministers, strength, wisdom, skill, endurance and courage, and must get these qualities in whomsoever they are to be found. Democracy can afford the widest range of choice in the election of popular representatives, or it will never reach its full stature.
In the choice of its representatives, a democracy will do well to elect those who know the life of the working people, and who share its toils; just as it will do well to shun the mere talker, and to seek out for itself candidates for election rather than have candidates thrust upon its attention by some caucus in London. But the main thing is that it should first discern men and women of ability and of character and then elect them for its representatives, rejecting those, it may be of more dazzling qualities, who are unstable in mind and consumed with vanity. It would be well if the elected representative were always an inhabitant of the county or the borough, known to his neighbours, and of tested worth. True, the prophet is often without honour in his own country, and a constituency acts wisely in electing a representative of national repute. But to search for a man of wealth who will subsidise every club and charitable institution in the constituency, and to rejoice when such a candidate is procured from some political headquarters, is a wretched proceeding in a democratic state. The member who buys a constituency by his gifts will always feel entitled to sell his constituents should occasion arise.
Again, the delegate theory of representation can be a danger to democracy.
A Parliamentary representative is something better than a mechanical contrivance for registering the opinions of electors on certain subjects. Otherwise all Parliamentary debate is a mockery. A representative he is of the majority of electors, but he must act freely and with initiative. Often enough he may be constrained to vote, not as many of his constituents would prefer, but using his own judgment. Of course when the choice is between obedience to the party whip and the wishes of his constituents, and personal conviction is with the latter, then at all costs the decision should be to stand by his constituents, or popular representation is a delusion.
To-day the pressure is far greater from the party whips than from the constituents, especially when in so many cases election expenses are paid, in part at least, from the party funds. And to overcome this constant danger to popular representation a sure plan would be the payment of all necessary election expenses out of the local rates, and the prohibition by law of all payments by the candidate or by political associations. When members are paid for their attendance in Parliament, far better would it be, too, if such payment were made by the constituents in each case, and not from the national exchequer.[[90]] Worse than the delegate theory is the opinion that a representative of the people is in Parliament chiefly to keep his party in power. Political parties are inevitable, and they are effective and convenient when principles divide people. But popular representation is older than a party system of government, and when it becomes utterly subordinate to the welfare of parties it is time for a democratic people to realise the possible loss of their instrument of liberty.
Great Britain is not partial to groups, it has always broadly been divided politically into two camps, but a few men of strong independent judgment are invaluable in a popular assembly. There need be no fear lest governments totter and fall at the presence of men who dare to take a line of their own, and to speak out boldly on occasion. The bulk of members of Parliament will always cleave to their party, as the bulk of electors do, and the dread of being thought singular is a potent influence on the average man, in or out of Parliament. Democracy is in danger of losing the counsel of its best men when it insists that its representatives must be merely delegates of the electors, without minds or wills of their own; but it is in greater danger if it allows its representatives to be nothing but the tools of the party in power or in opposition. For when Parliamentary representation is confined to those who are willing to be the mechanical implements of party leaders and managers, the House of Commons becomes an assembly of place-hunters and self-seekers, for whom the profession of politics affords the gratification of vanity or enrichment at the public expense. In such an assembly the self-respecting man with a laudable willingness to serve the State is conspicuous by his absence.
With a Press in the hands of party politicians, and with editors and journalists engaged to write up their party through thick and thin, and to write down every honest effort at political independence of mind, the danger of losing from all political service the few rare minds that can ill be spared is a very real and present danger.
On Behalf of Democracy
"The price of liberty is eternal vigilance," and often enough we sleep at our vigils. But when all the dangers and difficulties that beset democracy are enumerated, and all its weak spots are laid bare, we can still hold democracy to be the only suitable form of government for persons possessing free will, and the representation of the people the most satisfactory expression of democracy.
Government by autocrat, by despotism, benevolent or otherwise, by expert officials, or by an oligarchy of superior intelligences is irksome to the average man or woman of reasonable education, and in each case has been intolerable to the British people. They have all been tried and found wanting—royal absolutism, aristocracy, military dictatorship, and only of late have we been threatened by an expert bureaucracy.