TOPICS OF THE DAY.
WHY NOT A ROUND-TABLE CONFERENCE?
WE sincerely trust that the action taken by those who formed the deputation to the Archbishop of Canterbury on Thursday will bear fruit, and that the Government Bill' and the Lords' amendments may be made the basis for a national settlement of the education question. Assuredly there is need for that settlement from every point of view. The members of the Government, though they may use brave and loud words—we do not blame them for that, it is only natural—know in their hearts that to withdraw the Bill, and lose all the work of the past Session, would land them in many very serious difficulties from the party point of view. To begin with, they would be face to face with the scandal of "passive resistance" in a very acute form, and, in addition to that, their whole programme of legislation would be set back by the need of introducing a new Education Bill. It is easy in hot blood to threaten that the new legislation would be much more hostile to the denominations than the present Bill, and that the Church would find herself in the position of the King who rejected the first two offers of the Sibyl. In reality, they know well enough that the introduction of a Bill more hostile to the denominations would prove, in the most complete sense, an apple of discord in their own ranks. The present Bill almost caused a rupture with the Irish Members and with the Irish and Roman Catholic supporters of the Ministry in a very large number of English constituencies. A more severe Bill might strain relations to the breaking-point. But such a result would be by no means agreeable at a time when the Cabinet are contemplating the introduction, with the aid of the Nationalists, of a measure in lieu of Home-rule. At the best of times it would be difficult to get the Irish Members to consent to Devolution as an alternative to Home-rule ; but if the latter are haunted by the notion that the Government are going to settle the education question on terms which will be regarded as oppressive and unjust by every Roman Catholic in the kingdom, their task will indeed be a difficult one. Again, it is much easier to threaten Church-people with a secularist solution than actually to introduce one. The history of the last six months shows that, whatever else it will do, the nation will not accept the secularisation of the schools, and that the party which attempts to force such a solution on the country will inevitably meet with political disaster.
But if the Government have these potent reasons for desiring a compromise, the Church Party—or, at any rate, the moderate Church Party—have equally strong grounds for desiring a settlement, if a settlement can be obtained without the sacrifice of essential principles. It is not too much to say that the present controversy is doing an infinity of harm, not merely to the educational interests in the country, but also to the best interests of the Church. All thoughtful observers have noted with alarm how bitterness of feeling towards the national Church has increased since 1902. Before that date it seemed as if the cry for Disestablishment were rapidly becoming a dead issue. That issue has received a new lease of life through the education controversy, and no true friend of the Church of England can con- template the possibility of another two or three years devoted to sectarian recrimination without the gravest mis- giving. The situation as it exists to-day can be summed up as follows. Both sides to the controversy desire a settlement, for both dread the continuance of the struggle. At the same time, it is exceedingly difficult to find, not merely the basis of a compromise, but a method for arriving at a compromise. The deputation that waited on the Archbishop of Canterbury did good work, as we have said, by calling attention to the imperative need for a national settlement, and the Archbishop furthered that good work- by the sympathy and statesmanship shown in his reply. To point out the urgent need for a national settlement cannot, however, produce that settlement by itself. Just as it takes two to make a quarrel, so it takes two to make a compromise. Until the leaders of the two sides can be brought together in private and face each other across a table, little practical advance will be made. If bargaining, as we said last week, is in the air, you cannot expect the parties, till they are actually in touch, to admit that it will be possible for them to give up any- thing. Each feels that such an admission will be used against him at a critical moment. It is only when they are met together in a room, when the door has been shut, and when both feel that the nation will look with something sterner than mere annoyance upon the side whose obstinacy causes the break up of the negotiations, that men become willing to state frankly and fully where they can yield and where they cannot. Again, it is not until such intimate negotiations take place that men fully understand each other's point of view. All experience shows that again and again men go into a Conference-room feeling perfectly hopeless as to any good result following from their deliberations. 'Yet if the conditions are favourable, they often find that what they believed were .hopeless points can in reality be made the subject for compromise. In view of these considerations, we welcome Mr. Henry Hobhouse's outspoken demand that the leaders of both sides should meet at a round-table Conference and endeavour to arrive at an agreement. Bargaining is troublesome and anxious work, but it is impossible to deny that it lies at the base of our political and social as well as of our economic life. No solution of a great political or social problem is ever permanent which is not the outcome of the give-and-take of bargaining.
We should stultify all that we have said as to the need of getting the negotiators alone in a room with their minds unfettered were we to attempt to lay down the conditions of compromise. What are wanted are concessions in the room, not outside it. But though we fully realise that the Archbishop, as representing the denominational interests, cannot be expected to begin by stating what are the points on which he is prepared to yield, and also that Mr. Birrell cannot, on behalf of the Government, publicly announce that be will in the interest of peace throw over this or that clause or sub-section in his Bill, we may, as out- siders, venture to express the belief that the Archbishop will, in the last resort, press nothing which will destroy the essential character of the Bill, provided that the Govern- ment do not merely assert in the abstract, but are prepared to make good in practice, those concessions in regard to the denominations which they have promised, but which it is contended, with no little show of reason, they have up till now failed to express in their measure in a concrete form.
Our last word to the Archbishop on the one side, and to Mr. Birrell on the other, is to ask each of them not to be afraid of his extremists. We do not doubt that if a.
compromise is reached the extremists in both camps will swear that they have been betrayed, and that nothing will induce them to submit. To overcome such recalcitrants we must rely upon the sober sense of the great bulk of the British people. After all, there exists in the good sense of the public at large a form of "passive resistance" far more potent than that of those who for the moment have usurped that name. If once a sound and sensible com- promise is reached, we believe that the nation, wearied by internecine strife, will insist upon a cessation of controversy, and upon the work of national education proceeding un- hindered by the bigotry either of Church or Chapel.
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