Considerations on Representative Government — John Stuart Mill — John Shaqi
Considerations on Representative Government
John Stuart Mill · en
like the Hindoos, will perjure themselves to screen the man who has
robbed them, rather than take trouble or expose themselves to
vindictiveness by giving evidence against him; who, like some nations
of Europe down to a recent date, if a man poniards another in the
public street, pass by on the other side, because it is the business
of the police to look to the matter, and it is safer not to interfere
in what does not concern them; a people who are revolted by an
execution, but not shocked at an assassination--require that the
public authorities should be armed with much sterner powers of
repression than elsewhere, since the first indispensable requisites of
civilized life have nothing else to rest on. These deplorable states
of feeling, in any people who have emerged from savage life, are, no
doubt, usually the consequence of previous bad government, which has
taught them to regard the law as made for other ends than their good,
and its administrators as worse enemies than those who openly violate
it. But, however little blame may be due to those in whom these mental
habits have grown up, and however the habits may be ultimately
conquerable by better government, yet, while they exist, a people so
disposed can not be governed with as little power exercised over them
as a people whose sympathies are on the side of the law, and who are
willing to give active assistance in its enforcement. Again,
representative institutions are of little value, and may be a mere
instrument of tyranny or intrigue, when the generality of electors are
not sufficiently interested in their own government to give their
vote, or, if they vote at all, do not bestow their suffrages on public
grounds, but sell them for money, or vote at the beck of some one who
has control over them, or whom for private reasons they desire to
propitiate. Popular election thus practiced, instead of a security
against misgovernment, is but an additional wheel in its machinery.