RESTLESS POLITICIANS.
WHEN announcing that the Government intended to propose the extension of the life of the present Parliament, Mr. Asquith wisely adopted a conciliatory tone towards those restless politicians who are constantly demanding an early Dissolution. It is generally well in political hfe to conciliate even the most unreasonable of your opponents, and the demand for a Dissolution, though it comes from a very small number of persons, has certain plausible arguments to support it which cannot be altogether Ignored. The main argument is that the present House of Commons was elected nearly six years ago under political conditions entirely different from those now existing. It was elected in order to enable the Liberal Government to triumph over the House of Lords on an issue provoked by the Lloyd Georgian land taxes. No one at that time foresaw the questions -which have been raised by the present war, and it may be added that even the Irish question was scarcely mentioned, though the subsequent introduction of the Home Rule Bill nearly led to civil war. It is indeed indisputable that the House of Commons does not represent the opinion of the country in a Constitutional sense, for the country has not had any means of expressing in a Constitutional manner its opinion upon the issues now before the nation. There is a further point ,which is sometimes pressed by the advocates of a Dissolution. They say that the mere prolongation of the life of the House of Commons in defiance of the definite arrangement made under the Parliament Act is itself a Constitutional outrage analogous to that committed in the eighteenth century when the Triennial Act was abolished and the Septennial Act substituted. Theoretically this argument is a strong one. The action of a Legislative Assembly in prolonging its own existence is in the nature of a breach of trust, analogous to the breach of trust committed when Members of Parliament vote money to themselves for their private use out of the public revenues• which they were elected to control for the public benefit. The eighteenth-century Parliament has always been blamed for passing the Septennial Act, and equal blame would rest upon the present Parliament were it not for the important, and occasionally forgotten, fact that the country is engaged in a life-and-death struggle with the German Empire.
It is this fact which upsets all theoretic arguments, and upsets also any practical considerations which would be of undoubted weight at other times. The advocates of a Dissolution not only urge, quite truly, that the House of Commons fails to satisfy the theory of the Constitution, but they also contend, often with much exuberant rhetoric, that as a practical "proposition" the present Government cannot be trusted to manage the affairs of the country at this crisis. So far as this contention comes from politicians who are not in office and would like to be there it may be disregarded. Our actual Ministers are not angels, but neither are their critics. Looking up and down the benches of the House of Commons, one cannot discover any group of men who would collectively be an obvious improvement on the existing Ministry. Doubtless some members of the Cabinet are intellectually inferior to some of their critics, but there is no such general inferiority as to justify a change on that ground alone. There remains the question whether a change is desirable on the ground of policy, and this would be a very strong point indeed with the advocates of a Dissolution if they could clearly define the change of policy which they desire, and which they think the country would support them in obtaining. Nobody suggests that the present Cabinet is not anxious to win the war ; nobody really believes that it is likely to give away any vital point when terms of peace come to be discussed. Even those critics of the Government who are most distrustful of certain members of the Cabinet know perfectly well that the Cabinet as a whole would not dare to take any course —as, for example, the surrender of our rights upon the sea—about which the nation could be instantly roused to a fury of indignation. The truth is that, though the present Cabinet is largely self-appointed and largely inde- pendent of the control of the House of Commons, it is not independent of the general sentiment of the nation. Indeed, it might well be said that one of the worst faults of the Coalition Government is its almost exaggerated sensitiveness• to public opinion as expressed by a few influential journals.
Therefore on this score it- is not easy to see how we could possibly gain any practical results• by means of a Dissolution. Even those journals which a few months ago were most zealous for a General Election without delay now admit that there is no issue which could be presented to the country on which to take a vote. They are driven to arguing that the one thing needed is to prepare a new Parliamentary register so that there may be a means of taking an Election when a convenient occasion or a pressing issue arises. The Government's record on this question is not altogether a happy one. The difficulties are so great that no satisfactory solution can be conceived. But politicians are always reluctant to confess their own impotence, and therefore Mr. Asquith and his colleagues have from time to time for several months past repeatedly asserted that the matter was occupying the careful attention of the Cabinet, and that in due course proposals would be made. The proposal finally made was that the question should be handed over altogether to the unfettered judgment of the House of Commons. A Committee of the House was to be appointed. to draw up a scheme. If the Minister in charge of this.proposal had been wise enough to present it to the House of Commons with a grave face, it would probably have been adopted without difficulty, and the House itself would have been left to discover the impossibility of making any really good plan for holding a General Election in the midst of a great war. Unfortunately Mr. Samuel allowed his sense of the ridiculous to overcome his sense of Parliamentary decorum, and he proposed the appointment of a Select Committee in a speech bristling with sarcasm. The more solemn members of the House of Commons took umbrage at what they regarded as disrespect to themselves ; an indignant clamour arose, and the Prime Minister was forced to abandon the appointment of the Select Committee, and to promise to produce a scheme of his own. It is now, of course, more difficult than ever for Mr. Asquith to resist the argument that Constitutional propriety at least requires that a new register shall be prepared with a view to whatever contingencies the future may have in store.
Whatever plan the Government may ultimately submit, it is quite certain that there will only be a pretence of overcoming difficulties which are in substance and in fact insuperable. A large number of the electors of the kingdom are now scattered over France, Greece, Egypt, East Africa, Mesopotamia, and India. By no conceivable means can they be reached by the ordinary machinery of the political election. So far, indeed, as concerns those who are actively engaged in fighting at the front at this moment, it is, incon- ceivable that the military authorities would tolerate the interruption of their military duties to enable them to record their votes. At a rough guess, the number of electors who are abroad on military or naval duties of one kind or another can hardly be less than forty per cent. of the total. In addition, a very large number of electors have moved into munition areas in order to do munition work. It is true that they might be registered at their new residences, but before an Election actually took place it is more than probable that many of them would have moved to some other district. In any case, they are temporarily detached from their homes and from such local political organizations as they previously belonged to. It is, in fine, impossible to maintain cur system of representation of localities when so many of the inhabitants of the localities to be represented are away from their homes. In practice, if an Election were to take place either upon the existing register with all its defects, or upon a new register brought up to date as far as possible, very few constituencies would be able to poll half their ordinary number of electors. and that half would not be the half which is most entitled to be heard on the vital issues before the country.
We come, therefore, to this conclusion—that even if we admit all that is alleged against the present Ministry by its enemies in the Press and in the House of Commons, there is no remedy. We have got to accept the continuance of the present Government, with some slight modifications from time to time, because we have no means of getting a better. People who are disgusted at this admission may be again reminded that a great war is in progress, and that this fact overrides all ordinary Constitutional considerations. However we try, we cannot disentangle ourselves from the consequences in which we are involved by the war, and it is useless to waste our efforts in trying to do so. All the efforts we have to spare are wanted for winning the war.
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