TOPICS OF THE DAY.
'WHY NOT THE REFERENDUM? -wRITING last week before Mr. Asquith's speech on the question of the House of Lords had been delivered, we ventured to prophesy that it would politically amount to little or nothing. "Though," we said, "it will be no doubt an exceedingly able and impressive piece of oratory, it will not advance matters beyond the stage of Beware Jest you provoke us beyond endurance! ' " We do not think that any impartial person can read the reports of Mr. Asquith's speech without admitting that our forecast exactly describes it. Mr. Asquith's forensic training enables him to be as impressive in handling a weak ease or a hopeless case as when he has got everything in his favour. But this is only a matter of art. Of practical suggestions for getting rid of the obstacles to the carrying out of their policy caused by the House of Lords about which Liberals make such bitter complaint, not one was to be found in the speech. It merely told us that the Liberals dislike the Lords very much ; indeed, regard them as intolerable. It is obvious, however, that you cannot make a great Constitutional crisis by saying in impressive language what in reality amounts to no more than :—" Oh, you very wicked persons!" "How can you go on like that !" "I really am surprised at you!" "You ought to be ashamed of yourself ! " The House of Lords, as it showed on Tuesday night when it passed the second reading of the Eight Hours (Miners) Bill, is not a very courageous Assembly, can be very easily frightened, and when frightened tends to lose its bead and to mistake molehills for mountaius.—As Lord Beaconsfield said some seventy years ago, "there is no more unpleasant spectacle than that of a patrician in a panic."—But even the House of Lords could not be frightened by such a speech as Mr. Asquith's. It would not have alarmed a naughty schoolgirl at a picnic. The reason for this is, of course, that, as the whole world knows, Mr. Asquith had nothing to propose. His financial threat is either a piece of injustice so gross as to be absurd, or else it is no threat at all, but merely a statement of a lugubrious fact, namely, that we shall all have to pay very heavily for the Government's policy of so.called social reform. The reason that he has nothing to propose is that he has not got the country behind him. And not only has he not got the country behind him, but there is not even anything which can by a stretch of the imagination be called public interest in or excitement over the action of the Peers. If there is iudignation at all, it is that they tre such a very timorous and ineffectual Second Chamber. The central fact of the situation is admirably expressed by Punch in its chief cartoon this week, entitled "Boiling over with Apathy." In one corner Lord Lansdowne holds up a rejected Bill. In the front of the picture Mr. Asquith, in an exceedingly truculent attitude, says: "insult me six times more and I won't be answerable for myself, and Heaven knows what would happen if I appealed to my friend here, who already has great difficulty in controlling his indignation." Behind Mr. Asquith we see "my friend here "—John Bull—comfortably asleep on a garden seat, without even his dreams being disturbed by the dispute. Punch has shown during the seventy years of its existence an extraordinary knack of diagnosing the political situation and portraying the mood of the country, but we venture to say that it has never done it more successfully.
It is evident that the more thoughtful Liberals are beginning to realise the dangers and difficulties of the situation created by scolding the Peers and telling them they are defying the will of their master, but at the same time. swearing that no power on earth will induce the true and faithful servants—i.e., the Commons—to appeal to that master and get the unfaithful servants dis- charged. For example. the Westminster Gazette, after two days' ecstatic " chortling " over Mr. Asquith's brave words, is falling back into its wonted attitude of good sense and ability to appreciate things as they are rather than as the party politician would wish them to be. In its leader of Tuesday it throws out the suggestion that the Referendum might be used to determine dis- putes between the two Houses. That is, of course, the policy which the Spectator has advocated for the last ten or twelve years; but it is indeed significant to observe the Westminster approaching such a solution, for, unless we are mistaken, it has hitherto found a number of imperative reasons for considering that a poll of the people is not a really democratic institution. Our readers know our arguments in favour of the Referendum for the settlement of disputes between the two Houses so well that we shall only recapitulate them in outline on the present occasion. In spirit the House of Lords may already be said to have adopted the Referendum. The Peers never take up the line of saying that they mean to stop this or that piece of legislation whether it is wanted by the country or not. The most they assert is that the will of the country is not clear, and that till the master has expressed his wish they are bound to discharge the duty which that master has imposed upon them,--that of revising, and if neceismy vetoing, the legislative projects of the House of Commons. "If the will of the country is clear, we yield without question." That is the attitude of the Lords, and that is in effect the inchoate Referendum.
It is one of the advantages of the proposal to settle disputes between the two Houses by a poll of the people that it could be brought about without any great Constitutional change or disturbance. It might come incidentally, or almost accidentally, like other great changes in our political organism. All that would be necessary would be for the Lords, in a case where they could not settle matters with the Counnons, to yield to the wish of the Lower House on specific points, but to add to the Bill the following clause :—" This Act shall not come into operation till a poll of the people be taken thereon, and a majority of votes polled be shown to be in favour of its coining into operation. Such poll of the people shall be taken in the manner prescribed in the schedule to this Act." The schedule to the Act would empower the Crown to send writs to the returning officer in each constituency directing him to issue notices declaring that "a poll of the people upon an Act entitled Act for, &c., &c.,' will be taken on the — day of , at which all persons eligible to vote at Parliamentary elections will be entitled to record their votes": the election to be held under the Ballot Act and Corrupt Practices Act, and other Acts concerned with Parliamentary elections in so far as they are applicable. Further, the returning officer would be required to appoint as polling. stations those used at Parliamentary elections.. All elections would be held on the same day. The counting of the votes would be conducted in the presence of not less than six impartial persons resident in the constituency. (Such impartial persons would, of course, be in practice the representatives of the chief political parties.) The writs would be made returnable within three days after the day of election, except in the case of the most distant Scottish constituencies, and would be . endorsed with the numbers of the persons voting respectively "Yes" and. "No." The form of ballot-paper might be as follows :— It will be seen from the above how easy is the mechanism of the Referendum. In spite of this fact, we are quite prepared to find a great many people saying at first that the thing is impossible, and that it can never be worked in England. "Though the idea is no doubt an excellent one in itself, it is quite impracticable." We venture to think, however, that a little familiarity with the subject will soon disaburie people of the notion that it is impossible. As a matter of fact, it will be quite as easy to vote at a Referendum as at an ordinary election.
POLL OF THE PEOPLE.
Held on the day of , 1909.
Yes. No.
Is it your wish that the Act entitled "An Act for the shall come into operation on the day of ,1909 ?lb •
• Those who are in favour of the Act coming into operation should place a cross (X1 in the column headed "Yes.. Those who axe against should place a cross (X) in the column headed "No."
We -must now deal with one or two objections. One is that the Referendum put into operation by the House of Lords would only act when the Liberals were in power, and never in the case of Conservative legislation. We meet this in the following way. We would make a Referendum obligatory on any new Act in regard to which not less than, say, two hundred or two hundred and fifty Members of the House of Commons had petitioned for a poll of the people. This provision would make Conservative measures subject to the Referendum. Another objection is that the House of Lords would be for ever worrying the country with the Referendum. We do not believe it. There is nothing which Englishmen, or bodies of Englishmen, dislike more than being beaten. We may be sure, therefore, that the Lords would not add the Referendum clause to a Bill unless they thought there was a very good chance of the Bill being defeated. Again, the Ministry in power would not like to force upon the Peers recourse to the Referendum by resisting all amend- ments made by the Lords lest they, too, should be beaten at the polls. The Referendum would only be used in cases where there was a real doubt as to the opinion of the country. A third objection is that the Ministry -would think it necessary to resign after a Bill had been lost by Referendum. This is surely a most frivolous objection. Ministries do not resign if they are beaten at a dozen by-elections, and yet by-elections involve the question of confidence far more than a Referendum would. A Referendum would merely state the objection of the country to a particular law, and would in no way declare that the electors considered the Govern- ment inefficient or unworthy of their confidence from an administrative point of view. There is a further objection which is noticed, though not emphasised very strongly, by the Westminster Gazette. It suggests that the effect of the Referendum would be to weaken the position of the Members of the House of Commons, or at any rate to derogate from their senatorial status and make them regard themselves more as delegates than as limbs of the Legislature. We cannot agree. We believe, indeed, that the effect would be just the opposite. As it i,s, a Member of Parliament feels that his constituency has no power of expressing itself as to a particular piece of legislation except by means of his vote. He therefore may be tempted to vote against his conviction because he considers himself as the only conduit-pipe through which the will of the constituency can flow. If, however, in matters of great importance he knew that the constituency would have power to veto a particular measure, he would feel freer to indulge his own views as to what was right. He would say, in fact :—" I feel bound to support this Bill because I have come to regard the arguments in its favour as overwhelming. If, however, as seems likely, my constituents hold other views, they can express them when this very important statute is referred to their decision."
We have said enough to justify our belief that the Referendum is the true remedy for disputes between the two Houses which cannot be settled in any other way. We are glad to see that Lord St. Aldwyn in his speech on Monday showed himself favourable to this solution. We may also note that the Prime Minister not only some years ago expressed a favourable opinion of the Referendum, but the other day, in answer to the deputa- tion of the Proportional Representation Society, mentioned the Referendum in sympathetic terms. These seem to be good omens for the adoption of the solution in question. We may add that our proposal that there should be no special Referendum Act, but that the Lords should append a Referendum clause to the first Bill on which they differ seriously from the Commons, would in effect allow the experiment to be tried without committing the country absolutely to this new device. If it worked well, the precedent coi4d be followed. If not, and if public opinion showed itself adverse to the Referendum, then we need hear no more about it. And why should not this experiment be tried in regard to the Eight Hours (Miners) Bill? It is a measure which it is eminently right that the country as a whole should pass judgment on, for it affects consumers throughout the nation. The Lords have passed the second reading unwillingly. Let them make amends for their timidity by adding a Referendum clause. If the Commons refuse to assent to such a clause, then they must be held to have rejected the Referendum solution. If, however, they do not reject it, we shall have taken a very important step towasds solving a grave and difficult Constitutional problem.
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