TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE UNIONIST SETTLEMENT.
THE differences within the Unionist Party are virtually at an end. Mr. Bonar Law has yet to receive the memorial which will bear the signatures of almost all the Unionist members of Parliament, and we are not in the secret of what his answer will be. But with confidence we predict that a settlement will follow. Even if Mr. Bonar Law wished to hold out against the emphatic opinions of practically all his followers he would be unable to do so. His only course would be to resign. But if Mr. Bonar Law does not lead the party neither can any of his Front- Bench colleagues who consented in advance to the Ashton speech. We state the case in this way only to demonstrate an absurdity. It is true that there was a moment when it seemed that Mr. Bonar Law's resignation was becoming inevitable. But that danger has passed. It is on all hands admitted that the greatest possible disaster to the Unionist Party at the present moment would be to lose Mr. Bonar Law's leadership, and we know very well that Mr. Bonar Law, if he is once convinced of this fact, is much too patriotic a man to entertain for a second the thought of withdrawing from a position -which he has filled with exceptional success, and which not a single Unionist desires to have filled by any other man. The prospect for the Unionist Party is now as cheerful as it was depressing after the Albert Hall meeting. The party is at one in its determination to achieve the first purpose of statesmanship, which is to combat the immediate evil instead of postponing the realities of the moment to a remote ideal. There is now little doubt that, though Tariff Reform will remain the creed of the vast majority of Unionists, every candi- date at the next general election will be authorized to tell the electors that no Food Taxes will be imposed unless they are approved by the electors after an express reference to them of the subject. We have yet to know whether the reference will eventually be by a second guaranteed election or by a Poll of the People. If the decision on that point is left to Mr. Boner Law every TJnionist will have absolute confidence in his judgment, and his decision will certainly not be questioned. Incidentally the solution does great credit to those extreme Tariff Reformers who have been willing to modify their demand for the immediate inclusion of Food Taxes in the programme of the party. Unionists ought now to be able to march forward with every expectation of winning the next general election under a leader whom they all trust, and whose personal hold upon the party, we may add, has increased steadily and unmistakably during the recent dissensions.
We have felt it our duty as Free Traders to say as few words as possible during the dispute within the party. We have recognized that for good or ill the party was com- mitted to Tariff Reform, and that our right to try to guide a fiscal dispute would not be admitted by most of our fellow Unionists, and that persistent criticism and advice would therefore do more harm than good. As we have said all along, it was our intention to support the Unionist Party, however deeply it might be committed to Tariff Reform, and to advise all moderate men to do so also. For Tariff Reform is not a thing which could be introduced without considerable delay, even if the country were in favour of it ; whereas the existing dangers, from which Unionists alone can save the country, are of the most pressing kind. If Home Rule, Welsh Disestablishment, a disastrous land policy, a wildly partisan franchise proposal (which would secure the principle of one man one vote without its obviously proper corollary of one vote one value), and many other bad or discreditable schemes are to be defeated, it is absolutely essential to concentrate on resistance to them at whatever sacrifice of future ideals. Statesmanship means nothing for us if it does not mean combating the greatest evils of the moment. We need not search far for the appropriate word to describe a policy of wilfully accepting present evils in order to bring rather nearer some problematical political scheme. If all moderate persons had felt as we did, the Unionist leaders could have drafted any proposals for Food Taxes that they pleased and still have felt perfectly secure of having all the support they needed. But unfortu- nately for the Unionist Party there is a very large number of people who, while intensely disliking the present Govern-, ment, shy violently at the very mention of Food Taxes, and absolutely refuse to give even a contingent sanction to them. They refuse their sanction although they know that thereby they are consenting to the bullying of Ulstermen, to the snatching away of religious funds in Wales from their rightful purpose, and to all the other odious policies of the so-called Liberal Party. Obviously the duty of the Unionist Party to remove the objections of this very large hesitating group had become imperative. The internal disputes of the party, of course, really turned on this point. And now that the matter is almost settled in a satisfactory manner we no longer feel under the obliga- tion of silence. We congratulate the Tariff Reformers on their wisdom and their patfiotism. Of their own motion they are saving the situation.
We know perfectly well that for the more austere Tariff Reformers to place Food Taxes—a very important part of the scheme of Imperial Preference, if not an essential part —one step further from realization meant a real sacrifice. That sacrifice has been made. But we cannot help also remarking that the degree of the attachment of the vast majority of Unionists to Food Taxes had been wildly overestimated. It now turns out that a few very ardent Tariff Reformers had, as it were, held the rest of the party spell-bound. The rest have now most readily deferred a part of their programme on which they had never set so much store as was supposed. They had all per- ceived for some time, in fact, that by clinging to Food Taxes they were accepting fearful risks in the immediate future of the country. Yet each kept his own counsel out of loyalty to his party, as he supposed, until the Lancashire members burst their bonds, and then, behold ! all but an insignificant minority were found to be of the same opinion. Of course, the sudden change has given Liberals a grateful opportunity to deride the wholesale conversion of the party at a moment when conversion was convenient for winning votes. They are quite welcome to enjoy, if they please, a wholly untrue picture of what has happened. The majority of Unionists have changed their attitude for two very simple and satisfactory reasons. One is, as we have said, that it has been made possible to declare publicly an honest conviction which has for some time been harboured privately, and the other is that where a real sacrifice has been made (as in several cases of course it has been made) it is the result of recognizing that patriotism requires, first and foremost, resistance to the immediate evil, irrespective of all other considerations. We can illustrate this from our own experience. Our belief in Free Trade is as deep and sincere as ever it -was, but we have announced our intention of subordinating our desires on this point to the more urgent necessities of the situa- tion. Tariff Reformers on their side have now consented to modify their demands for exactly the same purpose. That is a perfectly intelligible and, moreover, a perfectly honourable thing to do. Only Liberal writers intent on strokes of irony and political sophistry can make it out to be otherwise.
There is another point in the controversy which we must mention. The straitest sect of Food Taxers—the very small group which either makes concession with an ill grace or refuses it, and is represented by the Morning Post and in a, lesser degree by the Pall Mall Gazette—pretends that there has been a newspaper plot, headed by the Times and the Daily Mail, to reverse the hitherto established policy of Tariff Reform. In our opinion this is a pure myth. There has been no plot. The Times and the Daily Mail have done no more than express the views of the vast majority of Unionists, and have expressel them with great ability. The Liverpool Courier, which has been much more emphatic, demanding nothing less than the immediate revival of the Referendum pledge, has no connexion with the proprietors of the Times and the Daily Mail. Nor has the Daily Telegraph. Nor has the Globe, nor the Yorkshire Post, nor the Glasgow Herald.
For ourselves, we regard the policy of Food Taxes as finished with, because we are certain that the Dominions will never spontaneously ask the people of Great Britain to tax their food. Mr. Bonar Law, of course, promised that British food shall not be taxed unless the Dominions request that this shall be done. But, if all goes well, there is now to be a second safeguard. If the Conference between the Dominions and Great Britain, after all, should draft a
policy of taxation on food, even then it will not come into operation till the country has voted on it as a single issue by some means or other yet to be decided. For Tariff Reformers there is, after all, no great hardship. It was always obvious that Tariff Reform could not be successfully introduced till the nation was " educated " to wish for it. The opportunity of education remains. No doubt the Unionist Party will do its very best to complete the national education. The party believes that it will succeed. We retain our own opinion.
We should have much preferred that the country should be promised a Referendum at once, for a Referen- dum alone secures a verdict on an undivided issue. But we have frankly recognized that another immediate promise of a Referendum was scarcely possible, and we dismissed it from our minds. In all the circumstances we are convinced that the bare undertaking that Food Taxes, before they are imposed, shall be laid before the electors for their decision is the best possible solution. That undertaking can be met only by a Referendum or by a second election.
No doubt Mr. Bonar Law's speech at Ashton really disposed of Food Taxes, but there was an acute danger that the country would not understand this. Another step was required to make it perfectly plain to the elector that by voting Unionist at the next election he would not in any shape or form be committing himself to Food. Taxes. That step, we have little doubt, is now about to be taken. It is in our judgment all that is necessary to win the next election. Immediately after Mr. Bonar Law's speech at Ashton we wrote (Spectator, December 21st, 1912) : "We can only hope that when the refusal of the Colonies to allow Food Taxes to be referred to them becomes clear, as we are con- vinced. it will, he [Mr. Bonar Law] may be able to take the further step of declaring that no recommendation of the Imperial Conference, should it involve Food Taxes, will be carried out without a further appeal to the electors." We are new, as we cannot doubt, in virtual possession of that promise of a second election, and there is a possi- bility of something even better—the institution of the Poll of the People. In any case the neutral voter will be set free to vote Unionist at the next election. It will be plain beyond all shadow of misunderstanding, if Mr. Bonar Law continues in his position, that Food Taxes are not an issue at the next election. It only remains to convince Mr. Bonar Law of what is the plain and simple truth, that the -Unionist Party is in urgent need of his con- tinued services. He is implicitly trusted, liked, and respected as a leader. If he refuses to remain in his position it can only be because the actual state of feeling in the party has not been revealed to him. Let him only be made aware of it a.ad we know that he will not fail us.
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