RIGHTS OF THE MINORITY.

"When, after the overthrow of the Second Empire in France, and the suppression of the Commune which arose from its ruins, the reconstruction of the political institutions of the country on some solid and durable basis became a matter of paramount importance, the relative advantages of a two chamber and of a one-chamber system were discussed with as much earnestness in Paris as they had been in Philadelphia while the Constitution of the American Republic was being framed. Every French statesman of weight and authority endorsed the conclusions arrived at by the founders of the union, that two chambers were indispensable to the freedom and welfare of society. As MADISON pointed out, you have not only to enable the Government to control the governed, but to compel it to control itself; and as, under democratic institutions, the legislative authority is supreme, it is necessary to devise some safeguard against the arbitrary exercise and the injurious abuse of its power. This is to be found, observes MADISON, in a " division of the Legislature into branches, and in rendering them, by different modes of election and different principles of action, as little connected with each other as the nature of their common functions and their common dependence on the society will admit." Therefore a bicameral system was adopted in the United States. It has its inconveniences, undoubtedly. The two Chambers will be often at cross purposes, and will occasionally come into conflict. But even a protracted deadlock is far more tolerable than the tyranny and corruption which would inevitably result from the concentration of all power in a single House. The Long Parliament, notwithstanding its patriotism at the outset, became frightfully venal towards the close of its existence ; and it is admitted by the most eminent authorities in France that the omnipotence of one Chamber in 1791, 1793, and 1848, was the principal reason and effective cause of the disasters and miseries of the country. The suppression of liberty leads to anarchy, and anarchy paves the way for despotism. There was not an intelligent republican in France who was not free to admit, in 1795, that the faults and crimes of the Convention were attributable to legislative unity.

In M. Rossi's able Cours de Droit Constitutionnel, he has stated the whole question with the utmost conciseness. Starting from the proposition that all social organisations tend naturally towards an inequality of condition among the citizens, and that there is every where an aristocratic and a democratic class, no matter what may be the designation which each enjoys, he argues that we must provide for the representation of these two elements of society in any body which is entrusted with the duty of making laws for the whole community. Otherwise, he observes, the majority will stifle the minority by the mere brute force of numbers, unless, indeed, the minority, by dint of its wealth, its compactness, and its adroitness, should succeed in controlling the elections to the Assembly, with a view to crush the majority. But in either case, the state of things thus induced is a very deplorable one. A double Chamber is a transaction between the aristocratic and the democratic element of society; and whatever opinions we may entertain with respect to the ideally best constitution of a state, and as to the undesirability or otherwise of the existence in it of an aristocracy, whether territorial or moneyed, or both, we have to deal with hard facts, and not with agreeable theories. Industry, prudence, sagacity, enterprise, and foresight will create wealth, and wealth buys leisure, buys education, buys social consideration and distinction, and buys or facilitates the acquisition of power. You cannot by any legislation prevent the accumulation of wealth, and if you could, you would deprive every industrious man in the community of one of the strongest incentives to labour, and to refrain from degenerating into an indolent and helpless burden on his neighbours. As property, therefore, is recognised by all civilised nations as something which their citizens should be encouraged to acquire by legitimate methods, and as the possession of it is a right which the state considers itself bound to guarantee and protect, it follows that property, equally with labour, is entitled to be represented in the Parliament which makes laws for both.

Now, the best if not the only method of bringing about this desirable result, is by a bicameral Legislature ; of which the Upper House—to adopt M. Rossi's words—"represents conservatism, tradition, and property, while the Lower " represents new ideas, new interests, progress, youth, and life." To nullify the Legislative Council and to transform it into a mere court of record, as the Government of this colony proposes to do, would be tantamount to its extinction ; and we believe that most of those who affect to regard such a contingency as not altogether undesirable, entirely ignorant of the enormous evils which have actually arisen in other countries from the concentration of all power in a popular assembly. It was the dream of TURGOT, who was enamoured of its simplicity and uniformity, besides being inflamed with animosity against the odious aristocracy of France at that time. He converted FRANKLIN to his ideas, and when the latter returned to America, he persuaded the State of Pennsylvania to give it a trial. It did so ; but it very soon got sick of the experiment, and reverted to a bicameral Legislature. In 1791,CLERMONT-TONNERRE made the memorable declaration that "a single Chamber will be eternally a despot or a slave;" and he predicted that the Constitution adopted by France in that year would condemn the nation to a state of anarchy, which would last until the advent of a master, the cause of that anarchy being the unity of the Corps Legislatif. Never was prophecy more literally fulfilled; and it was in view of the history of his country from '89 downwards, that BENJAMIN CONSTANT, who, being a true lover of liberty, was an ardent hater of Parliamentary omnipotence, left on record the constitutional maxim, that " The nation is only free when there is a curb placed upon the deputies." Fortunately, this statesman did not live to witness the events of 1848, when, in spite of the remonstrances of men like MM. THIERS, DE TOCQUEVILLE, and ODILON BARROT, the revolutionary leaders repeated the mistake of 1791, and thus smoothed the path for the establishment of the second empire, and for the train of disasters in which it terminated. The lessons to be learned from history should not be lost upon ourselves.


The Argus 7 April 1874,

[Of course the wealthy never got wealthy by accidently striking it rich ( finding oil or gold) and then passing on to their families vast inheritances.]