INITIATIVE AND REFERENDUM. (Hansard, 21 February 1896)

§ MR. R. WALLACE (Edinburgh, E.)
had given notice of the following Resolution, which he was precluded from moving by the result of the division on the first Motion:— That in the opinion of this House it is desirable to introduce the principle of the institution known as the Initiative and Referendum, with the view of more fully securing the direct and continuous control of the Legislature by the people. He said, he was rather taken by surprise that the Resolution had been reached so soon and that he had expected to have a longer time for researches necessary for the support of the Motion. Yet, if he did not avail himself of this opportunity, perhaps he would have none at all. There might appear to be something Quixotic in putting down such a resolution; but he was satisfied that those who believed in Democratic principles ought to lose no time in pushing them as far as they could. We were face to face with a formidable recrudescence of aristocratic ideas as to Government; more and more power was passing away from the bulk of the Members of the House into the hands of the alternating oligarchs of the Treasury Bench. The hereditary chamber had distinctly strengthened its position. Therefore, the democratising of our Constitution must be pursued more aggressively than 874 ever, and at the same time security should be taken against the evils incident to Democracy itself. He would deal with the principle underlying the two institutions mentioned in the Resolution, without contending for every detail in the method of working out those institutions and of applying them to political life, which might have been adopted by those countries in which they were in operation. In all cases error of method must be corrected by experience, and such details were not of the essence of the institutions. To his mind what they substantially embodied was the right of the people to interpose at any time in order to control law-makers in their law-making work. Practically there could be only one species of what was called Initiative and that was the demand of the electors or of a part of them that a law should be passed, and then it became the duty of the law-making body to put the demand into statutory shape. And then under the Referendum the electors might say whether they were satisfied with the law as they find it to have been shaped into legal form by their representatives. It had often been said by opponents of these institutions that this was a dangerous power to be lodged in the hands of the people and might, in moments of excitement, lead to the gravest disasters. But it had not hitherto done so, and surely it was not beyond the Constitution-makers' ingenuity to suggest to the people safeguards by which they might protect themselves from that impatience and haste which human nature in its limitations was always liable, anywhere and everywhere, to make the means of bringing danger upon itself. There was only one species of Referendum. In saying this he was not forgetting that in Switzerland, in a certain class of Federal laws, and in some Cantons in the case of all laws, there was a compulsory Referendum, that was to say the laws made by the law-making body, whether on their own initiative or that of the electorate, must be submitted to popular approval or disapproval, while in other instances there was an optional Referendum. The electorate might interpose and veto a law or not according as their own inclination took them. But whether it be a compulsory or an optional 875 Referendum, the people had it in their power with certain unimportant exceptions to forbid any Bill, though completely carried by the legislature, passing into law. Accordingly, taking the two together—the Initiative and the Referendum—the Swiss people had virtually the power of directing or forbidding their legislative body to legislate as they thought fit. The optional and compulsory Referendum although different in form were practically equivalent. If he were to make a comparison between them, he should say the optional Referendum was more just to the idea of complete sovereignty in the people. It gave more freedom to express opinion or withhold it as they judged suitable to themselves and their circumstances. What fault from a Democratic point of view, could be found with the complete power of the people to control positively or negatively, the action of the legislature. Yet it was from a certain class of professed Democrats that the professional opponents of all Democracy got their best help to oppose this extension of Democratic principles. But how could they consistently object to the sovereign people having the last word? There had been various instances in the history of Swiss Referendum in which the people had rejected certain measures and subsequently accepted them. Then it was said this proposal would destroy the Parliamentary system and reduce Parliament to a mere body of subordinate officials whose principal business was to put into shape the directions that had been given from outside. This was very much what was going on to his mind in Parliaments already—in a Parliament not a hundred miles from that House. All legislation was going—as all administration had long gone—into the hands of the co-optative oligarchies that sat on the front Benches. ["Hear, hear!"] There they were holding the positions they had acquired to command the law-making machinery which stood behind them and even if the Initiative and Referendum had that effect on Parliaments, it should not seem so terrible and lamentable a rule because it was nothing new and had been tested, and its results were not so terribly mischievous. As a matter of fact, what was the General Election but a rough and ready Referendum. In Switzerland 876 it was reduced to a system and each measure was judged by itself alone and on its own merits, and they should not have a man elected for Free Trade and opposed on account of Disestablishment. Each question was taken separately and on its merits, and the consequence was the Party system with all its gigantic and gross evils was mitigated in comparison with what it was among ourselves. Then they were told people were not fit judges of laws. That was one of the old arguments used in the days of aristocratic domination against admitting the people to the franchise. The people are not fit to exercise the franchise said the opponents of our great grandsires. But history had tolerably corrected and brought up to date that unfortunate opinion. The people might not be fit judges of all the legal technicalities and necessary phraseology used in embodying the purposes they desired to see put into legislative shape, but they were as good judges as anyone of the main object of the law; and in that way they were competent when a law had been passed, and they had obtained information as to its working from sources open to them, to say whether the law suited their judgment and interests present or prospective. If that was not sound argument, where was the representative system to go to, because if the representatives of the people had passed laws of and which the people were not competent to form a proper opinion, to say that was to take the representative system away from its true basis. Many a man was fit to make choice of an expert, and it did not require special knowledge to choose an expert to clothe ideas in legal language and to judge of the amount of trust that could be placed in him by the ordinary action of common sense. He could not at such short notice go into all the objections that had been raised to this proposal, but he thought he had given a fair sample of them. ["Hear, hear!" and laughter.] He would, however, refer to one or two of the advantages it would confer upon the country. In the first place the ruling body would know, if a project of legislation were not initiated by the people, that there was no tornado of public opinion in favour of such project. In the second place it would bring about an attenuation of 877 Party feeling which all must admit would be a great advantage, because it would take away in a large degree the incentive to get the "ins" out and the "outs" in, which at present was so harmful to public morality and to the most important public interests. The Members of the legislative body would know that their constituents would have the power of rectifying any legislative error that they might make and, therefore, there would be greater freedom in their legislation. The proposal, if adopted, would also tend to educate the people, who would be led to make research into history and to study political principles more carefully than they did at present. Since the system had been adopted Switzerland had been more peaceful and had flourished in every way, while they had striven to make their laws the best they could. Experience derived from Switzerland fully answered the objection that if the system were adopted in this country we should be subjected to the turmoil of an election every three months. As regarded the question of expense, one-third of the cost of an ironclad would more than defray the cost of a Referendum. The feeling in favour of this form of direct representation of the people was growing rapidly in America and in this country. On these grounds he had had no hesitation in laying this proposal before the House. ["Hear, hear!"]

§ MR. W. ALLEN (Newcastle-under-Lyme)
said, that as a protest against the absence of the Ministers during the important speech which had just been delivered by the hon. Member for Edinburgh, he begged to move the adjournment of the House. ["Hear, hear!"]

§ MR. J. H. DALZIEL (Kirkcaldy Burghs)
seconded the Motion.

§ MR. FLYNN (Cork, N.)
said, that although he entirely agreed in the censure upon Members of the Government which had been uttered by the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme, he must oppose the Motion as he had an important Motion upon the Paper.