482 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
must accept the advice of the Prime Minister and if he does not accept the advice of the Prime Minister, the Prime Minister shall force his ejection.” That being our convention, it would be wrong on our part to defeat Mr. Baldwin, on an issue which increases the authority of the King. And the Labour Party listened to his advice and did nothing of the kind. They said, they must observe the rules of the game. If you read English history, you will find many such illustrations where the party leaders have had before them many temptations to do wrong to their opponents in office or in opposition by clutching at an issue which gave them temporary power, but which they refused to fall a prey to, because they knew that they would damage the constitution and damage democracy.
There is one other thing which I think is very necessary in the working of democracy and it is this that in the name of democracy there must be no tyranny of the majority over the minority. The minority must always feel safe that although the majority is carrying on the Government, the minority is not being hurt, or the minority is not being hit below the belt. This is a thing which is very greatly respected in the House of Commons. Good many of you must be remembering the results of elections in England in 1931 when Mr. Ramsay Mac Donald left the Labour Party and formed the National Government. When the election came, the Labour Party which I think numbered somewhere about
150 or so, had only 50 members out of 650 with Mr. Baldwin as the Prime Minister. I was then there. But I have never heard of a single instance of this small minority of 50 members belonging to the Labour Party under the huge majority of the conservatives ever complaining that they were denied their due rights of speech, or opposition or making motions of any kind as you probably know. You take our own Parliament. I am not justifying what the members of the opposition are doing by constantly bringing in motions of censure or adjournment motions. It is not a very happy thing to work in parliament to be constantly dunning these adjournment motions. All the same, you must have noticed that there is hardly any motion, whether of adjournment or censure which has been admitted for the debate. It surprises me considerably. In my reading of the English parliamentary debates I have very seldom come