AS A teenager growing up in England I was an active Trotskyist.
My pal and fellow Trotskyist PJ and I devised a petition to have Queen Elizabeth – or Mrs Elizabeth Windsor as we preferred to called her – her husband, the late Duke of Edinburgh, and her children, evicted from Buckingham Palace and re-housed in a modest semi-detached home in the outer London dormitory suburb of Croydon.
- Sharp disparity exists with infant mortality rates between otherwise first world nations.
- Infant mortality is almost always significantly higher in constitutional republics.
- Republics concentrate all their political power in the hands of the political class.
Our aim was to re-purpose the palace as a home for unmarried mothers. It seems hard to credit it now but in late 1960s Britain’s unmarried mothers were still pariahs.
In the Birmingham Bullring Shopping Centre each Saturday we sold the Trotskyist newspaper and Tariq Ali’s militant minority newspaper, Black Dwarf.
Our rival proselytisers in the shopping centre forecourt, the Jehovah’s Witnesses, did better than we did, sales wise, except for Black Dwarf sales which we later learned were driven by the erroneous belief Mr Ali’s publication was pornographic.
HAPPY
We canvassed the shoppers to sign our petition, few did. One brief incident from that time has stayed with me all my life.
An elderly lady had declined to sign our petition. After she walked away she came back and wagged her finger at me saying: “Listen to me young man, we are a happy people here in England and the reason why we’re happy is we have a queen”.
I thanked her for her opinion. I did not say “Go forth and multiply, you silly old bat”. I was a polite young Trotskyist. However, I probably did think, arrogantly, something along those lines.
Later, as a committed Marxist, I migrated to Israel to live a Marxist life in a kibbutz. After a few months of that life, I abandoned Marxism and reverted to an earlier form of Socialism – Robert Owen Socialism.
This variety of socialism was practiced by the founder of NCR, John Patterson, an immensely influential figure in American enterprise, Henry Ford and Thomas Mort, the greatest entrepreneur in Australian history, co-founder of AMP, builder of Australia’s first railway and factory to build railway engines.
Mort was also the builder of the world’s first refrigerated ship (to facilitate an Australian beef export industry), the founder of the Bodalla Cheese company and the progenitor of the Australian wool auctioning system.
A statue of Thomas Mort stands today in Macquarie Place, erected posthumously at their own expense by the citizens of Sydney (the first public statue of a private citizen) in gratitude for the impact his milk refrigeration system had on infant mortality in Sydney.*
CANCER
I have maintained my commitment to Robert Owen Socialism to this day.
Fast forward a quarter of a century. I am now an Australian citizen in early middle-age, living in Sydney. I’m working in cancer epidemiology studying survival rates for various cancers, necessarily paying special attention to mortality in all its forms.
One evening one of my colleagues pointed out to me that the infant mortality rates within the OECD varied greatly despite the fact that most of the economies were similar and comparable.
Infant mortality might seem irrelevant, trivial or unimportant but it is not. Biostatisticians and epidemiologists pay careful attention to it because it is a key indicator of harmony in a society, of fairness and equitable distribution of income within the society in question.
High infant mortality indicates an unfair distribution of income and wealth. A low infant mortality rate indicates a more harmonious and equitable society.
It’s not just about the deaths of a few infants, heart breaking as it is for the families and society as a whole, it’s the key indicator as to how fair or unfair an advanced economy is and thus how economically and politically stable the body politic in question is.
INEQUALITY
Revolutions tend to grow out of pervasive and persistent income inequality.
When I began to investigate this anomaly, I expected to find it was just a temporary statistical distortion – but a careful examination of the historical data showed a marked disparity between various leading economies consistent over the past half a century [see the table below].
Why there should be such a sharp and consistent disparity between nations of relatively equal economic success was a perplexing conundrum.
It’s hard to account for this striking difference in infant mortality excepting republics concentrate all their political power in the hands of the political class.
Republics such as China, the United States and the Russian Federation all have relatively high infant mortality rates. But constitutional monarchies such as Sweden, the Netherlands, Britain and Japan have low infant mortality rates, substantially lower than republics that were similar and comparable to them economically.
I eventually concluded that the factor separating the lower infant mortality economies from high infant mortality economies was their political structure.
Constitutional monarchy provides some sort of protection against high infant mortality. Although the statistical picture is indisputable, why it should be so is a question I still cannot answer with certainty.
I would suggest the reason is that the harshest edges of politics are softened by the vesting in the monarch of ultimate political power.
Perhaps one of our universities could take on a proper investigation to discover the cause of this persistent difference.
Generally speaking, the constitutional monarchies had infant mortality rates consistently below 5.0 per 1000 births in 2018, the most current available.
SOCIALISED
For the republics, the rate was always above 5.0, often well above. China had an infant mortality rate of 7.4, the United States had 5.8 and the Russian Federation had a rate of 5.1 despite a century of egalitarian socialised medicine.
Contrast these rates with the rates for constitutional monarchies in the 2018 statistics. The United Kingdom had a rate of 3.9, Denmark 3.7 and the Netherlands 3.5. Some of the other constitutional monarchies have even more remarkably low rates of infant mortality. Sweden is a mere 2.0 and Japan an astonishing 1.9.
Australia wisely remains a constitutional monarchy and has a very low rate 3.0, half the rate of some of the leading republics.
There can be no question the statistics clearly show, over the past half a century, constitutional monarchies have a consistently and substantially lower infant mortality rate than do republics.
A constitutional monarchy represents a more equitable and fair society in terms of the distribution of wealth and income; republics tend to be less equitable and to have unfair and unequal distribution of wealth and income.
It is hard to account for this striking difference excepting republics concentrate all their political power in the hands of the political class.
Constitutional monarchy in contrast removes the ultimate political power from the political process and vests it in a person who is beyond the political process.
They are simply born to this role, they are not elected by anyone and are beyond the whole process of politics, they are constitutionally barred from involvement in politics.
Removing the ultimate power from the day-to-day political process creates the possibility of a more equitable, fair and harmonious society.
REPUBLIC
My great grandfather married twice. I am descended from his second wife. His first wife, and all his children by her, died of starvation in the Irish Potato Famine. He himself was so debilitated by starvation he was unable to dig proper graves for them. He had to watch, helpless, as his own starving dogs dug up their corpses from their shallow graves and ate them.
At that time, Ireland was still ruled by England and the monarch, Victoria, did little to assist her Irish subjects during this crisis. She was advised to do nothing and that “this catastrophe might help break the back of the always present Irish nationalism”.
Not long after the establishment of Eire, independent Ireland, my uncle Michael, who was nine at the time, was minding the sheep on a hillside in Sligo.
He looked up and saw three armed men cresting the hill. He jumped up and ran for his life for he recognised immediately the Black and Tan uniforms they wore.
They had no right, by this point in history, to be in Eire, these murderous British police officers had crossed over the border from Northern Ireland illegally, looking for soft targets to practice on.
As my uncle fled all three of them fired on the fleeing 9-year-old boy. One of the bullets grazed his left temple and he carried the scar for the rest of his long life.
I have good historical and personal reasons for supporting an Australian republic. Although I was born in England and largely grew up there, my entire ancestry to time immemorial is Irish.
Growing up in Birmingham I was surrounded by the Catholic dissent that pervaded Elizabethan Warwickshire, there was even a local Catholic parish, the Forty English Martyrs, English Catholics put to death by Queen Elizabeth I.
I have many reasons to maintain a republican stance, both for Australia and England. However, starting with the realisation of the effect of constitutional monarchy on infant mortality I began to have doubts about the wisdom of a republic for Australia.
TURNBULL
The injustices of the past are not solid grounds for creating a miserably unequal future.
If Australia becomes a republic, it follows we would need to elect a President. The most likely candidates fielded by the major parties would be ex-prime ministers. If a Labor voter, how do you feel about President Malcolm Turnbull or, if a Liberal voter, President Kevin Rudd?
Under our existing constitutional monarchy, the monarch controls the armed forces. The importance of this power was brought in to sharp relief when Margaret Thatcher requested troops to break the Yorkshire miners strike.
Queen Elizabeth II declined to provide them on the grounds using British troops against British working people would create disharmony in the realm.
Please imagine an airline pilots strike in an Australian republic. The prime minister requests the President allow RAAF pilots to be used to ease the crisis. A Liberal President could easily crush a Labor PM by refusing and vice versa.
Having the ultimate political power vested in a person, a monarch, who is beyond the political process is a most excellent safeguard against bitter political extremist behaviour generating immensely damaging conflict. A republic is devoid of such a safeguard.
Being a constitutional monarchy is one of the most valuable and underestimated treasures Australians possess.
Are we going to throw it away on the very dubious benefits a republic might bestow? And what, if any, are those benefits? I do not believe we will, I believe Australians are a conservative people and will stick with what they know works.
SAME SEX
When Malcolm Turnbull squandered $180m of the people’s money shoring up his own support in his electorate with a pointless referendum on same sex marriage, less than half of voters voted for the proposition.
It was the only occasion in my 48 years in Australia when voting was not mandatory, had it been so the proposition would surely have been defeated.
More than half voted against it or abstained which was essentially rejection. If they had really cared about the proposition they would have made the effort to vote for it.
Some gay activists even opposed this absurdly expensive exercise in futility pointing out same sex couples were already well protected within Australia’s constitutional monarchy – but could be persecuted – and often are – in many countries, almost exclusively, it must be said, republics.
Spending the money protecting persecuted gay people in less enlightened societies made much more sense.
The dollars wasted on the referendum farce would have been better spent helping protect them from murderous and inhuman regimes.
FARCICAL
The only value of the referendum was to highlight the essential conservatism of the Australian people, despite the shamefully supine Australian media (Who guards the guardians? Apparently no one in Australia) who allowed the farcical and spendthrift referendum to proceed without a word of protest.
Hopefully this conservative characteristic will save Australia from falling for the dubious benefits of a republic.
I have lived all my life as a subject of Queen Elizabeth, mostly in Britain or Australia. The recent death of the Duke of Edinburgh has focused my mind on our constitutional monarchy and the immense value it delivers.
I sincerely hope, for the rest of this century and beyond, Australia has Queen Elizabeth II, King Charles III, King William V and King George VII as its heads of state.
If we are prudent enough to maintain constitutional monarchy as the heart of our political system then we Australians have a very good chance of remaining a happy and harmonious people in to the foreseeable future.
Constitutional monarchy is too valuable a treasure to trade for a republic of very little value. PC
MAIN PHOTOGRAPH: Queen Elizabeth (courtesy Popsugar)
POLITICOM: Queen unfit due to her faith – republicans
POLITICOM: King Kevin through the back door
(*Milk distributors adulterated milk to extend their profits. This caused infant deaths in nineteenth century Sydney; a similar thing has happened in China in recent times. Mort substantially reduced milk costs by increasing supply through refrigeration, reducing spoilage and other factors, negating the incentive to adulterate.)
Will, Brilliant analysis, thank-you. I had never put this together, but it makes perfect sense. Politicians – as a collective – almost always look after themselves and their families as they strive to get ahead.
The Monarch, on the other hand – wants for nothing but peace, so – puts her people first and, as a result, everyone benefits.
Love it.