HONOTTRS, PARTY FUNDS, AND THE REMEDY.
LORD SELBORNE bad, we believe, public opinion in the best sense behind him when he made his protest in the House of Lords against the sale of honours in order to fill the party exchequer. His speech was admirable for its moderation and common-sense. In spite of Mr. Asquith's message, through Lord Crowe, that "a contribu- tion to party funds had not been a consideration to him when recommending names to his Majesty for honours," and in spite, also, of Lord Crewe's statement of his belief that the same could be said by Mr. Asquith's two pre- decessors in the office of Prime Minister, the world knows that, if we have not actually reached the point of buying and selling honours, we have come perilously near it. We are not, of course, accusing Mr. Asquith of making a false statement, but we do accuse him of putting his head in the sand and declaring that he can see nothing to be ashamed of. No one who knows anything about our politics would dream of asserting that the Whips or anybody else ever go to the Prime Minister and say : "I have got a cheque for £50,000 in my office from old So-and-so. You can easily guess what for. Please, there- fore, put his name down for a peerage in the next Birthday List." A Whip who talked like that, or went within a thousand miles of such talk, would lose his office within twenty-four hours as either corrupt or mad. It is as well understood that the Prime Minister must never hear anything about the unpleasant side of the Whip's business as it is that a fine lady must never bear specially unsavoury domestic details about the sewers, the disposal of "soil," and so forth from the housekeeper, the estate mason, or the gardener. Such details are never mentioned to ears polite, and it is part of the etiquette of tha Constitution that the Prime
Minister ought not to hear the sordid details connected with party funds.
What the Whips say to him is something of this kind : "I think it would be an excellent thing if you could recommend Jones fora peerage [or baronetage, or whatever
may be the honour which is thought appropriate to Jones]. I know people abuse him, but he is really a capital fellow, and I cannot tell you what hard and self-sacrificing work he has done for us. When I am in a tight place there is no man I feel more inclined to go to than to him. He never wants to drive bargains, and his services to the party are really beyond praise. Not only does he thoroughly deserve recognition for all he has done, but if he gets it, it will show others what is the proper way of helping us. Some people seem to think that criticizing and calling us names and worrying generally is party loyalty, whereas Jones's idea has always been to help us when we are in difficulties rather than when all is going well." The Premier, of course, being a man of experience, is most careful to ask no more questions. He talks about the extreme difficulties he has in making up his honours list, and what a worry the whole thing is, but adds that, though he can make no sort of promise, he quite thinks that "something ought to be done for a man who has behaved so well as you show me Jones has." But it is not only the Prime Minister who is protected from having to face the mere market view of honours. We do not suppose that even the most hardened of Whips would ever tolerate a 'direct offer from a millionaire such as the following : If you will promise to get me made a peer I will give you "40,000." - Any self-respecting Whip would at once "get on the high horse" if the thing were put to him in such a crude way as that. He would shut his interlocutor up, and tell him that any such proposition would make it absolutely impossible for him ever to mention the applicant's name to the Prime Minister, that it was an absolute delusion to think that honours could be bought, that no bargains were ever made, and that any attempt to make them would at once put the applicant out of court for good and all. But though the Whip would say this, we venture to assert that, in the case of a particularly "warm " man in the financial sense, he would let it be understood that the faux pas could be forgotten, and would admit that generous subscriptions to the party funds, " without dishonouring conditions," were a party service which would not be ignored. In fact, he would in a discreet way create the impression which was produced by the Scotch minister in the famous story. A self-made millionaire whose conduct bad not been immaculate called a friendly minister to his sick- bed and addressed him as follows : "Ali, minister, I know I have led a very bad life, but I am rich now, and do you think it would help at all if I gave .2100,000 to the Kirk ?" The minister is said to have replied that the tenets of his Church would not allow him to say that such a gift could make any difference, or influence in the least the fate of the donor. "But," he added, "nevertheless I canna' help thiakin' that it is an experiment well worth the trying." The party Whip is bound to tell plain- spoken bargainers that their offers of purchase can be of no avail, but be, too, makes it clear that the experi- ment of an entirely unconditional subscription is well worth trying.
But though it is clear that at present party services are rewarded by titles, that a very important part of party service consists in contributions to the central funds, and, further, that everybody but the Prime Minister knows that this comes perilously near to the sale of honours— though, in a word, publio opinion condemns the present system, such condemnation is of little use unless we can provide a remedy. For ourselves, we have no doubt as to what would prove, we will not Bay an absolute cure, but something which would go very near to being a cure—a remedy that would keep the disease well under control. Party funds will always be needed, and by hook or by crook the party Whips will obtain them. At present the only method open to them is by the virtual sale of honours. The purist will say : " Why not make it a rule that party services are not to be rewarded by honours ? " That, as Lord Selborne and everyone else admits, is impracticable. Under our party system party services must be rewarded. But if that is so, how is it possible to say that largo con- tributions-to- the party funds are nonparty services, when.
it is obvious that the Whips consider them to be so, and will report them as party services ? In our opinion, the only way is to find some other method of providing the necessary party funds. If they are provided, as we believe they can be, on another system, the form of party service which tends so easily to degenerate into the sale of honours can be got rid of. In eliminating anything in the nature of a sale of honours by what we are going to propose, we shall secure a double advantage. Not only are honours now, in effect, sometimes sold for large contributions, but there is a tendency for policies also to be purchased by subscriptions. Our readers will not have forgotten how the Spectator showed that Mr. Cecil Rhodes not only induced the Irish Party by a large subscription to declare their policy in the way which he desired—there was no secret about that matter —but bargained privately with Mr. Schnadhorst, the Liberal wirepuller, for an undertaking that the Liberal Govern- ment would not make the evacuation of Egypt part of their policy. Mr. Rhodes was then specially intent upon his Cape-to-Cairo Railway. And here we may note, as a proof of how completely such negotiations are kept from tho loaders, that Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, in a letter to the Spectator, declared, both on his own behalf and on behalf of Sir William Harcourt, that the statement pub- lished by the Spectator as to Mr. Rhodes's action was a lie. Mr. Rhodes was able, by publishing in the Spectator his correspondence with Mr. Schnadhorst, to show that the statement was perfectly correct. Whether there have been other instances of this kind we do not know, but unquestionably there is a danger of policies, like honours, being sold if the Whips have to rely upon great gifts from a few plutocrats to replenish their funds.
It is not for us as Unionists to make specific suggestions to the Liberal Party. Such suggestions would be sure to be treated as an impertinence. We may, however, without offence, make them to our own party, though, as a matter of fact, the model scheme we mean to propose could just as well be adopted by the Liberals as by the Unionists. We propose that, instead of the Whips relying upon great subscriptions from a few people, they should democratize their appeal and obtain a fixed revenue in the following way. We start with the assumption, which we fancy will not prove to be far out, that the party wants some £50,000 a year for its central organization. No doubt in some years not nearly so much would be required, while in others—for instance, in years of General Elections—a. good deal more would be wanted. Still, taking one year with another, and assuming that party funds are not wasted by speculations of the kind indulged in by Lord Murray with the intent to increase them, a steady £50,000 a year should provide enough savings if General Elections are held on an average every four years.
Unquestionably £50,000 a year could be obtained by an appeal to the party as a whole if that appeal were properly organized. It would surely be possible to find ten thousand Unionists throughout the country who would be willing to give £5 a year to the party funds—to back their political opinions by subscribing the kind of sum they are willing enough to subscribe to a golf club. Of course some constituencies are very much richer than others, but we take it that, of the five hundred and sixty odd constituencies in England, Wales, and Scotland, there must be at least five hundred in which it would be quite easy on an average to find twenty men who would bind themselves to give regularly £5 a year. To put it in another way, an average of £100 a year would be raised in every constituency towards the central funds, and thus the party would be entirely freed from having to lay itself under an obligation to rich individuals. Possibly in some cases it might be necessary to allow individuals in a constituency to make themselves responsible for several units of subscription, but the ideal would be a flat-rate subscription of £5 from ten thousand subscribers. No doubt the first thought of the local organizations when approached would be to say that it would be impossible to get £100 a year for the central fund out of their constituencies, but we believe that when faced at closer quarters these difficulties would be easily surmounted. After all, three or four
subscribers in each polling district or ward ought. not to be difficult to find. It must, of course, be clearly understood that the ten thousand individual subscribers would give their money freely, and not expect to exercise
any more control over the way in which the money was spent or over the policy of the party than they did before, or than subscribers to a hospital do. A man who gives his five guineas a year to a hospital makes no claim to super- vise the work of the doctors. At the same time, the ten thousand guardians of the .party—that is a bad name, but it must serve for the moment—might form a very useful consultative body. One man might be chosen by the twenty in each constituency, and these five hundred, or whatever was the exact number, might meet once a year in London or at the autumn party congress. They could, in fact, easily be given a position in the party which would ultimately make the post one which would be sought for by keen politicians. It will be said, perhaps, that our plan would have the disadvantage of imposing too heavy a burden on poor constituencies and too light a one on the rich. That, however, might easily be got over by allowing the rich constituencies or rich divisions to help the poor ones. If, for example, in the southern division of a county a good many more than twenty men could bo found willing to bind themselves to give the annual £5, whilst not more than fifteen could be discovered in the northern division, it would be easy to effect a transfer, for we do not suggest that the twenty subscribers should be given any special power in the selection of candidate.. That should be left, as now, to the local party organiza- tion. The twenty subscribing party guardians would be solely concerned with the central organization. To put a specific case, there would probably be in the St. George's, Hanover Square, division so many people willing to give their £5 a year that thirty or forty of them might be allotted to make good deficiencies in, say, Poplar, Bethnal Green, West Ham, Southwark, or Battersea.
Our scheme will, of course, at the outset, be scouted as utterly impracticable, visionary, and absurd. Nevertheless we believe that it is sound in principle, though no doubt it could be greatly improved in detail. If carried out, it would prevent the party being placed under obligations of a most objectionable kind. Under it the Whips would be at liberty to recommend for recognition for party service, not merely the mau with the long purse, but the man who had done the kind of party work of which no one need be ashamed.
Before we leave the subject we should like to endorse Lord Milner's most useful suggestion to the effect that whenever an honour is given a statement should be made as to the grounds for conferring the distinction. That alone would be a very powerful check upon the bestowal of honours for nothing but a big subscription.
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