THE REFERENDUM.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR.") Sur,-1 venture to think that most old-fashioned Constitutional- ists disrelish the idea of such a direct appeal to the people as is involved in the above. Representative government—the omnipotence of the "King in Parliament "—has hitherto been tho basal principle of the English Constitution. Any form of Referendum seems alien to tho historic spirit and natural development of the Constitution. Nevertheless, some remedy must be found for the admitted evils of the modern House of Commons. And as an old-fashioned Constitutionalist myself, I confess that your arguments for the Referendum in a recent issue have forced me to the conclusion that if we are to save the Constitution itself something of the kind will have to be adopted. On one point, however, I discern a real difficulty. Would the effect upon the Government of an adverse vote at a Poll of the People be similar to that of an adverse vote at a General Election? In other words, would it involve the fall of the Ministry? Suppose, e.g., the present Irish Free State (Agreement) Bill was referred to the people and rejected by them. Could the existing administration possibly survive such a defeat? And would it not be the same in the case of any other such leading measure of the Government of the day? Is there not a serious danger that the Referendum would tend to produce such constant changes of administration as would seriously interfere with the stability and continuity of govern- ment? I should be glad to know the opinion of the Spectator on this point.—I am, Sir, &c., WILLIAM R. M. Oss. Gilford, Co. Down.
[An adverse vote at a Referendum would not be worse for a Government than an adverse vote in the House of Commons. We have never been able to understand why the latter should be regarded—as a good many people evidently do regard it—as requiring the resignation of the Government, unless, of course, the Government are defeated on some essential matter. In matters which are not essential the voting of the House is a method of instructing the Government about popular feeling. Applying this reasoning to the Referendum we would say that any democratic Government which is worthy of the name ought to be glad to know whether the nation does or does not want the political fare offered to it. That is to say, the rejection of a Bill at a Poll of the People should not involve the resignation of the Government unless the Government deemed the policy embodied in the Bill as essential. It seems to us that tho Poll of the People regarded from this point of view—as a means of making the Government continuously responsive to popular wishes—would, in a general way, increase rather than decrease the stability of Governments. As for the particular instance which our correspondent mentions—the Irish Free State Bill—we agree that the Government could not well sur- vive its rejection. But the nation welcomed the settlement, and if it should reject it after further consideration, it would be not because it was unwilling to settle the Irish problem on some such lines, but because it felt that the Government had misled it on certain definite points.—En. Spectator.]
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