Consultation must be representative and not selective. If the government appoints people of its own choice, it is no consultation. Selective consultation is a biased expression of opinion which a government can always secure.
Real consultation means eliciting opinions from representatives nominated by the interests concerned. In almost every aspect of social life, with which government is likely to be concerned, there are representative organisations which have come into being for the purpose of protecting specialised interests. In the field of industrial relations there are trade unions and employers’ federations.
The chambers of commerce in almost all civilised countries have a public status. In local government there are associations of different types and the local authorities themselves are representative bodies.
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There are similarly associations concerned with the welfare of children or of animals, with social services, with scientific and cultural matters and with numberless other activities embracing the life of man. Sometimes, however, there are rival associations, each claiming to represent the same interests.
In some cases there are associations representing opposed interests. Government must be certain that if they take consultation at all, it must be representative of all shades of opinion so that it should be comprehensive, otherwise they will be accused of partisan consultation and, therefore, of partiality.
If, for example, the Government of India decides to remove protection from the sugar industry, it must consult all the interests involved in the manufacture of sugar the representatives of the manufacturers, cane growers, workers, both skilled and unskilled, chambers of commerce, distributors, and consumers.
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They should be really the representatives of all interests concerned and not those nominated by government, whose views are already known and coincide with proposed policy of the government. Modern researches in Social Psychology have convincingly proved that no public activity can succeed unless “it functions as an arm of the people.”
Mere consent means the approval of the ideas and actions of those who put them up for consent. But genuine agreement is the integration of the activities of many who have reason to participate in those activities and own them to be their own.