I was saying that we are interested in this Initiative. We would have been interested in it if the recent Petition was not in question at all. We would have been interested in it as giving certain powers to the people to deal with matters which they could not very easily deal with at general elections. I indicated my own view, that I was more in favour of the Initiative for constitutional amendments because the road was easier, because there was less difficulty associated with it than for the initiation of ordinary laws. I am not going to quarrel with any Deputy who is anxious to use it for the more general purpose of initiating ordinary law. I have no objection to it except that there are certain difficulties in the way, in the case of initiating ordinary laws, which would not be in the way of constitutional amendments. The body of law as a whole is a large matter; the Constitution generally is a comparatively small document which can be digested and understood by the average person, and he can get legal advice on matters where legal advice seems to him necessary. It is a very different thing from trying to frame a law and fit it in with the general body of laws. There are drafting and other difficulties. But as I indicated, we are not going to quarrel with anyone who wants the Initiative for ordinary laws. On this side we want it, and as a single individual I am anxious to see the power and the right of the Initiative maintained. One of the reasons why I am anxious for it is one of the reasons put forward here when it was accepted by the Provisional Parliament. At that time it was stated that it associated the people with their own laws; it gave them the feeling that they were the ultimate power, the ultimate rulers in the country; it gave them an interest which they would not otherwise have in legislation, and in the laws generally. It gave the people an opportunity of considering certain questions in a way in which they would not be discussed or considered at general elections at all.
It is proposed to wipe that out, and it is clearly indicated here that the Bill to be introduced is not going to provide any substitute. The result is that there are certain consequential amendments of the Constitution which must follow on the deletion of this particular Article, and the Bill is going to provide for these. There ought to be no reason why anyone should wait for the Second Reading to understand what is in this Bill. They ought to be able to make up their minds on the First Reading. They ought to be able to see from what has been said already about the Petition, and the bearing of this right on the general condition of the country, that if this power is removed from the people, and if it is made clear that this Constitution is only intended by the other side as a means of binding their political opponents, while they are free themselves—that it is something they need not give any respect to, but that they expect their opponents to give respect to—then I say the result of that policy is going to be that the people will despair of any effort by constitutional methods. At the present time we see the fruit—we saw it in the past— of the contrary policy, the policy of the Executive, that is trying to have its way and its own particular view-point secured by force. We see it in the position we have at Mountjoy at present, as I am told, where there are five Republican girls on hunger strike, who have been pursued—for what? For the very same sort of thing that the gentlemen on the other side supported formerly. They are standing out for political treatment. They are doing that in the very same way in which it was done against the British. This Constitution has been, to their minds anyway—however Deputies may differ on that matter—imposed on them, and if the avenue by which they could change it is to be closed, I say it is a bad national policy.
I think that it is a dangerous policy, and that it is not the policy of people who really believe that the people of this country are the rulers. What it means is that the particular majority here for the moment think that they are perpetual rulers. The people have a right to change their minds, and if those opposite are in a majority to-day, is that majority going to be a perpetual one? Are the people going to be prevented because they took a certain line on a certain occasion, perpetually from changing their minds and from doing something else if they want to? I always knew, once there was close contact here, that the people would very quickly find out who were the democrats, who really believed in the rights of the people and who did not. The militarists here, those people who are depending on force, were the people who were standing up for the constitutional rights of the people. We have a splendid example of it in this. The members of the Labour Party, for a considerable period in the past, were quite consistent in their attitude. Though I did not agree with the attitude they took up, I do admit, and did admit, that they were consistent for a long portion of the time, until they got involved in a certain position here, and I admit that they were trying, during the summer of 1922, to get a proper national policy adopted, with a proper reference to the people.