MR. ASQUITH ON THE COUNTRY'S VERDICT.
IF we understand Mr. Asquith's speech at the City Liberal Club rightly, he holds that when a General Election displaces one Government, and replaces it by that of the opposite party, the new Government, if it can wisely undertake Office at all, is bound to reverse absolutely the policy of its predecessor, at least on all those questions on which it professed to disapprove the policy of that predecessor. His exact words were these : " For what purpose had a Liberal Government been returned to power ? In my judgment, not to follow, but to reverse the policy of their predecessors." Again, he said more cautiously : "He must ask whether the country, when it gave a majority to the Liberal Party, and when, as a con- sequence of that verdict, it returned the present Govern- ment to power, did not intend that legislation for the next few years should be conducted on different lines and principles from those of the Parliament that was dead ?" Well that, of course, may be conceded; but that is saying nothing like so much as was suggested by the language of his first answer ; and yet he appeared to think that it was only another way of expressing the language of his first answer, for to the meaning of that first answer he reso- lutely adhered. So far as can be gathered from the speech, the Home Secretary holds that the Government owe nothing to the party which is defeated at the polls, however doubtful that defeat may be, and however near to an equality with the victorious party the General Election may show it to have been. To our mind, that is not true statesmanship. By accepting Office, a Govern- ment becomes trustee for the whole country, and is bound to consider not only the vote of the party which gave it the triumph, but also the vote of the opposite party, and to construe its duty to the whole country on a careful consideration of the significance of the total result. As we understand Mr. Asquith, the duty of the Govern- ment is just the same, whether it is returned to Office by a majority of two to one, or by a bare majority of a few votes. The new Government is to be bound by its pledges when in Opposition, and by those only. If it asked for leave to reverse the policy of its predecessors on ten or twenty large questions, and received that leave either by a a much more than decisive majority, or by a very bare majority indeed, its duty is to proceed at once, if it accepts Office at all, to carry out in Office its policy when in Opposition, without drawing any substantial distinet.on between the meaning of a crushing victory and the meaning of a bare and ambiguous victory. Now, surely, that cannot be true statesmanship. Statesmen who act for the country as a whole, are bound to consider the decision of the country as a whole. No doubt they have no right to accept Office at all unless they can see their way to carrying out in power some of the leading principles of the policy, legis- lative or administrative, or both, to which they have pledged themselves in Opposition. But it seems to us equally clear that the extent and character of their enterprise must depend, and ought to depend, on the character and completeness or incompleteness of their victory,—that, for instance, in the present case, Mr. Gladstone's Government would have very different duties if they had been returned to office by a majority of 140, as Mr. Herbert Gladstone, we believe, ventured to predict, from those which they have under the con- ditions under which they are now acting, with a com- posite and by no means trustworthy majority of 38. The French people have a maxim that power depends on capacity. You cannot do with an army of ten thousand men what you could do with an army of half-a- million, whatever you may wish. You cannot do with a majority of 38 out of 670, what you could do with a majority of 140 out of the same number, whatever you may wish. If the country is eager and almost unanimous for one class of measures, you can do one thing. If it is dubious and very much divided upon them, you cannot either prudently or rightly attempt to do the same. You must cut your coat according to your cloth. And if the cloth be insufficient for a long and flowing garment, you must content yourself with a relatively poor and inadequate one. cessors, considering the overwhelming majority which the country had bestowed upon him. We must say that it seems to us not only the prudent but the right policy for A MANY-HEADED DILE.
all pendence of British opinion. Does not the verdict of the afraid of its foremen than it might be, to judge, at a country show that such independence would be inconsistent events, by railway experience, of its big contractors. You with the wishes of the United Kingdom as a whole ? Is cannot dismiss the latter at a week's notice. The he not bound to take the large hostile minority into con- precedents, too, are not in favour of inefficiency. The sideration in defining the British control for which he should Post Office is the most ably managed of all depart- explicitly condition over Irish policy ? Again, he is corn- ments of the State, and the defect of the Royal mitted to "One man, one vote ; " but he is not committed Dockyards as compared with private dockyards is not that to refusing that redistribution of representative power they turn out bad work, but that their good work costs which would equalise the value of the vote in different too much. It was Mr. Napier, the great shipbuilder, we constituencies. Is he not bound to take the universally think, for the Blue-Book is an old one now, who told a Cora- expressed wish of his opponents to that effect into con- mittee of Inquiry that the Queen's wooden ships were all sideration, and to equalise the representative power of Irish too good, and that nothing was gained by constructing and English constituencies at the same time that he abolishes such "beds of teak." What we should expect from the the right of the same elector to vote in more constituencies new plan is not either corruption or inefficiency, but exces- than one? It seems to us a sound doctrine that a Government sive extravagance. There will be no sort of competition, should take into account the strength of its opponents, the Committee will thirst for applause, and be perfectly especially on all subjects on which its own friends are not irresponsible as to details—you cannot even hoot a Corn- united, and are more or less in sympathy with his oppo. mittee of fifteen with any advantage—and the foremen will nents. Representative government is a principle which be as eager as all professionals are to spend their employers' cannot hold good for one party alone. If the Opposition money. The new house does look so beautiful to the fancy is powerful, and if on individual points it commands sym- when somebody else is to pay for it. They will want repute pathy even on your own side, does not representative among each other, and they will get it by doing everything government require that on those points a very clear con- needlessly well, and building bridges as many engineers cession should be made to the powerful body opposed to do, not with an eye either to the county treasury or to the you ? It seems to us that Mr. Asquith's doctrine ignores traffic, but to make for themselves professional reputations. this altogether, but that the principles of our Constitution "Cheap plan ? " said a great engineer one day ; "yes, I really require it. Mr. Labouchere may cry aloud and could give them a cheap plan, but I sha'n't." Moreover, spare not if he pleases ; but if the country had agreed with the Committee will have to justify its existence, to utilise him, it would not have returned Mr. Gladstone to power its plant, to keep its industrial army fully in work, so that with so very narrow a majority. It is an odd way of it may never, in contractor's phrase, be allowed to "eat its deferring to public opinion,—which is the great law of head off,"—and this is the most expensive of all responsi- the Liberal Party,—to study the Extremists who have no bilities. At present, when a work is done, there may be a lull political power at all except by the acquiescence of the in expenditure till the next fancy seizes the Council ; but moderate Liberals, more than the Unionists, who have a the Committee will not be able to tolerate lulls ; will always powerful and united minority on their side which very want to be doing something ; always shrinking from the nearly equals that of the whole composite Gladstonian dread alternative of sending its thousands of hands away. Party, and has more than twice, if not thrice, the Parlia- They might not only parade the streets in gangs as mentary strength of the noisy Left wing. starving victims of the Council's meanness, but they might Mr. Asquith does not seem to us to have read aright even vote against their employers at the next election, the duty of a Government which accedes to office with a which would be the Deluge. We do not expect that either very narrow majority. In our opinion, such a Government the ratepayers' consciences or the ratepayers' pride will should, while proposing to carry out its principles on one be injured by any action of the Committee of Public or two leading questions, carry them out in the most Works ; but we are quite sure the ratepayers' purses moderate form possible, and should certainly not magnify will. They, poor powerless wretches, have to pay for and parade its differences with the minority. It should everything now, education included, for everybody except not insist on all the promises it made in Opposition, but their own children, and they will have to pay for the only on the more important of them, and drop all need- glorification of the new Committee. Only a majority of lessly irritating controversy. It should, in fact, not attempt the Council sympathise with Mr. Tom Mann's opinion to " reverse " the policy of its predecessors, but only about rates ; but it will be found, we fancy, before long to seriously to recast it. It should try to give effect to its express the opinion of every member of the Public Works convictions on the main issues between the two parties ; Committee. That gentleman, who has at least the merit but it should go to meet its powerful opponent and accept of frankness, replied on Monday to an interviewer from cheerfully from him any such modification of principle as the St. James's Gazelle in the following remarkable words, the electorate, as a whole, has left in the lurch.
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