The Spectre of MacDonald

TOWARDS COALITION?

By ROBERT RHODES JAMES

ITNIE curious manner in which the melancholy I shades of Ramsay MacDonald have been exhumed for this week's hundredth anniver- sary of his birth is a macabre commen- tary on how views on political history can be somewhat abruptly amended. For twenty-five years Labour mythology has found in Mac- Donald's 'betrayal' of 1931 a convenient method of obscuring the disasters of the 1929-31 Labour government. Recognition of MacDonald's unique part in the rise of the parliamentary Labour party was long overdue. But the superficial compari- sons between the present political situation and that of 1931 are such that some commentators have discerned rather more in this restoration to the Labour Valhalla than merely a penitent wish to make amends to the memory of a severely maligned man. Not only the spectre of Ratiisay Macdonald, but that of National government, is stalking ominously around West- minSter and Whitehall.

So runs the argument of some political obser- vers. It may be useful to delve deeper into the possibilities.

Admirers of Three Men in a Boat will recall the shrewd comments on the subject of the local weather-man. If he cheerfully forecasts fine weather he is rewarded by gratitude, even if his prognostication is false; he did, after all, do his best."But if he gloomily declares that it is going to rain, the inquirers scowl and pass on, mutter- ing 'silly old fool, what does he know about it?'; and if he turns out to have been right, the resent- ment against him is augmented further, as though he were personally responsible. This is only one variant on the ancient theme that nobody loves Cassandra, but it is one that seems particularly appropriate in the present political situation, with the press and political commentators cast in the role of the weather-man. Hence the famous locker-room harangue to the editors at the end of July, the reiterated assaults on 'sell- ing Britain short,' and the embargo on the use of the dreaded word d-v-l-a-i-n. As always, the Cas- sandras are on to a beating to nothing.

The present political lull recalls Rosebery's obserVation that 'there is never a calm on the political ocean; its most serene temper is the ground swell which follows, or the grim stillness which precedes, the storm, often more awful than the storm itself.' That the storm is coming no one doubts. What form it will assume, with what de- gree of force it will rage, and what consequences it will have are wrapped in the mysteries of the future. Of all occupations or diversions; that of political forecasting is among the most absorbing and the most futile. 'Politics,' as Sorel wrote, 'are a conflict of which chance seems to be modi- fying the whole course.'

It is not surprising that anyone in either of the two major parties who ventures to raise the subject of a National government should arouse resentful reactions from his colleagues. The path of the coalitionist in modern British politics has always been stony. England may, or may not, love coalitions. English politicians, with a few conspicuous exceptions, loathe them. Nor is this surprising. Coalitions tend to be born in acute crisis and to expire in a storm of mutual rancour and recrimination. Coalition, after all, involves the sacrifice of a great deal. It involves working with old political foes. It involves the ditching of loyal party men who would have received recog- nition in a purely party administration. It in- volves some pretty rough and ready horse-trading on positions, policies and patronage. It severely hampers that freedom of manoeuvre---including the freedom to commit hara-kiri—which is so dear to all political confederations. It is thus not remarkable that parties enter coalitions with re- luctance and leave them with relief, declaring after the latter event, in the words of the army officer in 1919, 'now we can get back to real soldering.'

If it is said that the possibilities for a coalition in the near future are nil, it would be well to remind ourselves of Disraeli's comment that 'the vicissitudes of politics are inexhaustible.' In short, British politics are volatile and unpredictable, and its recent history should warn anyone against dismissing any possibility.

The circumstances in which the Unionist alliance was created in 1886 provide a case in point. In 1883 Joseph Chamberlain was accusing Lord Salisbury of being a representative of a class that toiled not, neither did it spin; Lord Salisbury responded with spirit by comparing Chamberlain to Jack Cade. In the 1885 general election Lord Randolph Churchill, ever fertile in images, compared Lord Hartington to a boa con- strictor, stood as a candidate. in Birming- ham, the Chamberlainite citadel, and denounced the Whigs as a class 'with the prejudices and the vices of a class,' and the Radicals as 'a sect with the tyranny and the fanaticism of a sect.' In the same election Chamberlain's 'Unauthorised Pro- gramme' so alarmed Harlington that the two former Cabinet colleagues devoted much time and energy to public mutual disparagement.

Gladstone's espousal of Home Rule brought these warring factions together in an alliance that was to give the Unionist party—the phrase was Lord Randolph's—nearly twenty years of office. The alliance had many strains, and the Harting- toti-Chamberlain-Cecil trio split disastrously in 1903 over Tariff Reform. But the Unionist alliance itself survived.

This startling coalition, utterly unforeseeable in 1885, was not the great Centre party which ha4 been such a persistent dream of some British politicians. It might well have been, if Chamber- lain had been able to take more Radical support with him into the Tory camp. Lord Randolph was a consistent advocate of a great Centre party ('All centre and no circumference,' Harcourt commented drily on the proposal), and the dream was inherited by his son. It was ironical that Winston Churchill, with what Asquith called 'his hankering for coalitions and odd regroupings' should have been the most conspicuous victim of the 1915 Coalition, should have shared the obloquy that fell upon the 1918-22 Coalition, and should have been excluded froth the 1931 National Government. (But in the latter case he had, as Beaverbrook wrote of Sir William Robertson in another context, 'taken a pot-shot at Santa Claus and missed.') The fate of coalitionists has not been encour- aging for their would-be successors. Lord Ran- dolph disappeared; Rosebery was left on the deserted field forlornly holding his banner of Efficiency; Churchill, Birkenhead and Austen Chamberlain returned from the wilderness only by the gracious permission of Mr Baldwin.

The fortunes of leaders of modern coalitions have been equally unhappy. Asquith was over- thrown by a palace revolution; Lloyd George was bundled out of office for ever in October 1922; MacDonald's last years were a miserable conclu- sion to a remarkable career; Churchill in 1945 `was immediately dismissed by the British elec- torate from all further conduct of their affairs.' ' Moreover, the Lloyd George and MacDonald- Baldwin governments have given coalition an ugly ring in political vocabulary. The former, with its character of ;cynical opportunism and atmosphere of unscrupulous panjandrums play- ing a private and highly dangerous game, pro- voked the gentle Edward Grey to 'indignation and despair such as I have never felt about any other British government.'

If the origins of the Lloyd George Coalition were murky, its record was even murkier. The intervention in Rusiia, the introduction of the Black and Tans into Ireland, the trafficking in honours, Lloyd George's catastrophic Hel- lenic adventures, and the complete failure to build 'a land fit for heroes to live in'—all these combined to destroy not merely the Coalition itself but to confirm critics of the prin- ciple of coalition itself in their hostility. Arnold Bennett remarked after being present at a con- clave of the Coalition leaders that '1 never heard principles or the welfare of the country mentioned.' The Lloyd George Coalition was a prolonged exercise in power-juggling, and hubris brought the jugglers down. Hence Bonar Law and Stanley Baldwin. In the words of Philip Guedalla: 'At an open competition in the some- what negative exercise of not being Mr Lloyd George that was held in November 1922, Mr Law was found to be more indubitably not Mr Lloyd George than any of the other competi- tors.'

The 1931 National Government has also done the name of coalition little good. It was really a coalition of personalities rather than a coalition of parties, which was why it never really un-made itself. The Labour leaders gradually faded away, leaVing the Conservatives in charge and with the National Liberals loudly protesting their inde- pendence and deceiving nobody. The 'Doctor's Mandate' was neatly appropriated by the Con- servatives in the 1935 election, and the continued presence of Ramsay MacDonald and his son in the government gave it a titular claim to being called National. The ability of the Conservatives to swallow their allies—in the nicest possible way, of course—is not the least intriguing of the features of the 1886, 1915-22 and 1931-35 Coali- tions.

From these recent examples—and I exclude the 1940-45 Coalition in view of the very special circumstances—it will be seen that the act of political coalition was forced upon the parties. In no one case (with the possible exception of 1931) was it in response to deeper feelings about the failure of party government. It was the foundation of Rosebery's campaign for Efficiency at the beginning of the century that party govern- ment is ipso facto inadequate and inefficient. As he wrote on one occasion:

It [party government] is considered as inevit- able as the fog, yet its operation blights efficiency. It keeps out of employment a great many men of precious ability. It puts into place not the fittest, but the most eligible from the party point of view. . . . That is, very often, the worst. Efficiency implies the rule of the fittest. Party means the rule of something else, not of the un- fittest, but of the few fit, the accidentally not unfit, and the glaringly unfit.

The tacit acceptance of party warfare and party government as being 'as inevitable as the fog' is, of course, the decisive factor, and explains the failure of Rosebery's crusade.

Interpreting political history is as perilous as political forecasting, but there do seem to be cer- tain pointers from the past. In the first place, the necessity for coalition must exist in the minds of the party leaders, and, closely linked to this, the belief that it will in the long run be in the party's interests. (It may be noted that joining a Coalition government is always in the interest of the Oppo- sition party, if the precedents of 1915, 1931 and 1940 are valid.) In the second, there must be a reasonably close identification of views and atti- tudes between the leaders who are to head a Coalition. The Asquith-Law relationship was at best uneasy; that between Lloyd George and Law was good until Law's retirement in 1921; Austen Chamberlain worked well with Lloyd George, but was out of touch with real opinion in the Con- servative party; the MacDonald-Baldwin and Churchill-Attlee relationships on the major issues at least were good. This harmony at the top—or, rather, absence of discord—seems to be crucial. In the third place, the rank-and-file must be con- vinced that their interests are best served by coalescing. In the fourth, the contract must be reasonably precise, and with an agreed break- clause.

It is difficult indeed to see any of these condi- tions being met in the present political situation. Nevertheless, the conditions could be created. A major national crisis, a Labour party sickened and disillusioned by office, a Tory party panting for it, two leaders in severe difficulties—who could say with certainty that this combination of circumstances could not occur?

The Tories hate Opposition. They glow and expand in the balmy warmth of office, and feel the chills of the cool shades of Opposition with great acuteness. In Opposition they are tetchy, nervy, introspective and oppressed by dire forebodings. Coalition would be a welcome de- liverance from the and and depressing prospect of four and a half years of this wretched exis- tence. To quote Rosebery again: 'Politicians do not care to preach and parade in a wilderness. The fruitful oasis of bounty and patronage will be elsewhere.' Coalition is one method by which the oasis can be captured—if the opportunity ever occurs.

And what if Mr Wilson, too, were searching for political sanctuary? The possibility is by no means chimerical. It does not appear that either Mr Wilson or Mr Heath have struck deep roots in their respective parties; they give the impres- sion of surface growths without the deep strength to ride out a political hurricane. It is by no means impossible that the strong natural political instincts of self-interest and self-survival might impel each towards a conjunction. Nor is it im- possible that either might seek alliance with the Liberals. If all this is highly improbable, much stranger things have happened in the past.

Everything depends on the nature of the storm that will assail this country in the next twelve months. A year is a very long time indeed in politics, as a contemplation of the events of the past year demonstrates. Political prognostication, as I have remarked, is a futile occupation. But the present situation is interesting.

But beyond the party considerations there lies the nation itself. The dominant impression of the condition of British politics at the moment is that of a prize fight on a remote field, in which the rules are known only to the combatants and to their professional observers. Neither the fighters, sparring endlessly, nor their absorbed watchers, realise that night is falling and that the bewildered and bored crowd has disappeared. In these cir- cumstances there is a temptation to welcome the prospect of a great political upheaval and the introduction of new dividing-lines between the political parties. But is Coalition the answer? Coalition means a series of compromises not only on policies but on attitudes, and there is some- thing to be said for the argument that this further blurring would make confusion worse con- founded. As Nigel Nicolson wrote in People and Parliament in 1958, 'a party makes vague aspira- tions articulate and effective. In this sense its function is so valuable, so irreplaceable, that it is almost impossible to conceive of a democratic society without it.'

Most important of all, there seems to be no practical support for the rejection of party government. Conflict and clash are regarded as the most significant benefits of the party system. It is too often forgotten that a price is paid for this; government by 'the few fit, the accidentally not unfit, and the glaringly unfit.' The events of the next few months will place a severe test on this form of government. If it is found wanting, any- thing could happen.