THE BEST WE CAN DO
ANEWSPAPER has no duty,' the Observer argued at the beginning of the election cam- paign, 'to advise its readers how to vote.' But of course it has. At election time every journal of opinion finds itself in a position not dissimilar to that which is occupied by a dramatic critic, who gives his verdict on the plays he sees in the assump- tion that some of his readers will want to go to them even if he denounces them, and that others will want to go because he has denounced them. He is not seeking to impose his taste on others; he is simply. trying to express his own opinions with sufficient consistency for his readers to make the necessary allowances when his tastes and preju- dices differ from their own. The Spectator is read by many people with formed political opinions which are not going to be altered by anything which they read in an editorial; but this does not make it unnecessary or presumptuous to give an opinion of our own.
Though the Spectator is by tradition conserva- tive, this does not mean (and has never meant) that we automatically support whatever happens to be official Conservative Party policy. Our first editor, Rintoul, had a' reply to those who re- proached him with not having a steady party line: when asked what the Spectator represented, he answered, 'We stand against the prejudices of all parties.' This meant for Rintoul (as it did for his contemporary, Thomas Barnes, of The Times) a willingness to recognise not merely that the Reform Bill of 1 832 was necessary but that—in the famous slogan—it must be 'the Bill, the whole Bill, and nothing but the Bill.' In other words, Rintoul realised that something drastic was needed if Britain was to be saved from chaos, perhaps from revolution; that it is possible, and sometimes netessary, for a conservative to be a radical.
But it is never popular; not within the party. Churchill did not endear himself to Conservative colleagues when, at Munich time, he insisted that acceptance of Hitler's terms 'involves the prostra- tion of Europe before the Nazi power, of which the fullest advantage will certainly be taken'; on the contrary, he was ridiculed for his obstinacy or reviled for being disloyal. It is worth recalling that the twin Tory flags of Peace (in our time) and Prosperity (by comparison with the slump) were being waved as freely by Conservatives then as they are now; had Chamberlain appealed to the country on those two planks he would probably have won a majority as great as the National Government's seven years before. The people can be fooled—some of the time.
The Churchill test must again be applied in this election. Can conservatives, assessing the political situation in the light of what has happened since 1955, honestly tell themselves that the present Government deserves their support? It is not enough for the Prime Minister to boast of his services to peace: one has only to set the relative insignificance of his visit to Russia beside the impact of Mr. Richard Nixon's tour to realise how silly the conceit is. Still less is it enough for him to point to the country's undoubted pros- perity. That can be bought at too high a price; and if the price of continued prosperity is the re-election of the men of Suez, too high it is.
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