TOPICS OF THE DAY.
VOTE UNIONIST.
HOW ought we to vote ? That is a question which we have had put to us by our readers in a hundred different forms. We shall not answer it by an evasion such as " Obey your convictions." We shall not answer it as Unionist Free Traders. We shall not answer it as persons strongly convinced of the danger of another Lloyd George regime. We shall not even answer itfrom the point of view of those who feel, as we dO ourselves, that it was most dangerous to dissolve the present Parliament under the present conditions at home and abroad before the Constitution had been fitted with machinery for obviating the risks of Group, and therefore Minority, Government. These risks always spring up when old political parties are broken and have to be re-cast. We shall answer the question, then, solely in what we believe to be the interests of the nation as a whole at the moment, uninfluenced by the thought that the provocation of a crisis was unnecessary. Our answer to Unionists of all descriptions, and also to men with neutral minds, is Vote Unionist. To our Liberal readers, of whom we are proud to say we have many thousands, who feel that they cannot support Protection in any form, we would say, " Before you vote for a sup- porter of the unholy alliance between Mr. Lloyd George and Mr. Asquith, make sure that you will have a right of reconsideration over its policy. That alliance may well end in a Liberal-Labour-Lloyd-George Coalition founded on a camouflaged Capital Levy, plus the remainder biscuit of an ineffectual Cobdenism. But that must mean a log-rolling Dictatorship tempered by political corruption of the kind which prevailed during the last Coalition, and blessed by a Syndicated Press."
To moderate supporters of the Labour Party's pro- gramme—for these again are among our readers—we would say, " Before you take action which may place the country in the hands of a Labour Administration, be sure that your dearest interests will not be bartered' away on the Parliamentary Exchange at Westminster. Labour Members and Labour Leaders are not worse than ordinary Party politicians, but there is no reason to believe them better. When exposed to the tremendous temptations which the near approach of office brings with it they are as likely to yield as their predecessors. Of politicians there are many varieties, but the nature of the tiger is always the same. Therefore, Liberal and Labour voters, if they arc wise, should quite as firmly as Unionists obtain pledges of support for the Referendum."
Our main, our essential, appeal must, however, be to the Unionist Free Traders. Many of them will be inclined to ask how it comes about that we who are Free Traders can urge them to vote for a Party led by an avowed Protectionist. Such a plain question requires a plain and honest answer. We advise them to vote Unionist in spite of our Free Trade beliefs, in the first place because we hold that the essential issue at the present election is not the issue of " Free Trade or Pro- tection," but of " Protection or the Capital Levy." Now, in our opinion, the Capital Levy means the ruin of the nation. The Capital Levy, we may also remind our readers, whatever else it is, is not Free Trade, or Cobden- ism, or anything like it. It is the most dangerous of all the many forms of interference with Free Eichange. That interference is the main economic objection to Protection. But Protection is at the worst only the throwing of sand into the machine. The Capital LeVy means its total destruction, We diS not desire, however, to justify our advice to voters to support Mr. Baldwin's special type of Protection, for a special type it is, solely on the ground that it is a lesser evil than Socialism and the Capital Levy. We hold that the conditions now prevailing are very different from those which prevailed when we fought; and triumph- antly fought, Mr. Chamberlain's scheme of Tariff Reform. Europe was not then covered with the still red ashes of war. We were not the victims of an alternation of Inflation and Deflation. We were not faced with the need of preventing our food supplies falling to the point of extreme danger. Above all, we were not preoccupied with a condition of unemployment such as can be radically cured, not by emigration, by doles, or by public works, but only by setting the workless to work at their accustomed trades. The problem has changed. The question is not now how to make us a richer country, as Mr. Chamberlain in effect posed it—Protection can never do that—but how to prevent the evils of unemploy- ment. To meet those evils we may, all of us, have to be forced to work harder and at less remuneration. That will be a waste of power, but not so great a waste as pure unemployment. - We still hold that Mr. Baldwin's way of meeting unemployment is a clumsy and wasteful way, and that a much more scientific way is offered by a change in our policy towards the pound sterling, an abandonment of the practice of Deflation, seen and unseen, and a return to the plan of expanding our credits so as to Carry an increase in trade, and also to enable us to do business with Europe and South America on a rational and practical system of exchange. This is a system which would not upset all values and so break the current of commercial intercourse. But. however that may be, Mr. Baldwin's policy is now before the country and is devised to meet the terrible industrial conditions that prevail. It is the only positive and practical plan placed before the elec- torate for setting the people of this country to work, and it is one which is sincerely planned and is not the creature of political design. Therefore we have come to the conclusion, though not, we admit, without some serious misgivings, that it must be given a fair trial. It will certainly not make us richer, but it may well give our people that psychological stimulus which at this moment is a prime need. It will not do as much good as its supporters expect, but on the other hand it will not do nearly as much harm under the existing conditions and needs as its opponents imagine.
We must never forget that psychology is an essential consideration in economics. The development of trade depends in the last resort upon the energy, enterprise, and diligence of the worker. But these again depend upon the state of his mind. In industry, if anywhere, the mind is the man. Therefore, all that affects the mind of the man is of vital import. The sense of security, of betterment, of co-operation, of mutuality, of solidarity of interest within a community, greatly influences the minds of the workers of all kinds, hand-workers and brain-workers alike. Therefore, though the line of least economic resistance—anti-waste and increase of riches— is always Free Trade, the beneficent reactions from liberty of exchange are often outbalanced by the psychological effects of Protection or Selective Trading. Perhaps the political moral of the whole matter is that it does not much matter which system a State adopts as long as it has a sufficient medium of exchange.
Therefore we say Vote Unionist. There may be some harm done by a Unionist triumph, but there may also be a great deal of good, especially if a series of Com- mercial Treaties follow Protection, and if our people are heartened by the sense of getting back to work.
J. ST. LOE STRACHEY.
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