Communal interests

The most audacious defence of communal representation that we have seen so far appears, strangely enough, in a recent issue of the Statesman of Calcutta. What makes the article noticeable, however, is not so much its origin, as the particular line of defence which the journal has seen fit to adopt. One of the strongest arguments of those who condemn communal representation is that it finds no support from the experience of countries which have developed democratic and self-governing institutions. This is exactly the argument which the journal takes it upon itself to combat. “The ordinary objections to communal representation,” it writes, “are of an ideal character and are largely influenced by Great Britain’s modern parliamentary institutions. But British patriotism and the British Parliament are both a product of community representation and the present homogenous British nation would never have grown up, had it received in the beginning a full-grown paper Constitution, which refused to give special representation to the interests which were most powerful in each succeeding age.” By way of illustrating its meaning, the journal adds: “It was the communal interest of the barons that secured the Magna Carta. It was the communal interest of the Protestants that for long disfranchised the Roman Catholics and still keeps the bench of Bishops in the House of Lords. It was the communal interest of the manufacturers that secured that great Reform Bill, remodelling the constituencies and the franchise.”

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