W HAT is the result of the Southampton Conference on the
Fiscal problem ? That is the question which at the present moment is being asked on every side. People expected that the Southampton Conference would finally clear up their doubts as to whether Mr. Balfour l and Mr. Chamberlain were in agreement or not. How far have these expectations been ful- filled? Mr. Balfour made a speech at Edinburgh in which he professed to set forth with perfect clearness his attitude on the Fiscal question. Immediately after that speech was delivered two schools of thought were formed for its interpretation. On the one hand, we were told that the speech showed that Mr. Balfour and Mr. Chamberlain continued in virtual agreement. On the other hand, it was declared that Mr. Balfour intended the speech as a definite repudiation of Chamberlainism. He had at last come out, we were informed, in his true colours. The speech was meant as a notice to Mr. Chamberlain that he must either abandon his Fiscal policy as outlined by himself and by his special organisations, the Tariff Reform League and the Tariff Commission, or else be con- sidered in antagonism to his leader. In fact, if this interpretation of the Edinburgh speech was the true one, we had reached a point where Mr. Chamberlain must either throw over a, great part of his programme or else split his party. Naturally, Mr. Chamberlain's Luton speech, which followed so closely on the Edinburgh speech, was looked forward to with intense interest. It would show which of the two interpretations was correct. Mr. Cham- berlain's speech came, and the weight of his authority was thrown entirely on the side of those who declared that there was no essential difference between the two leaders. Mr. Chamberlain formulated his Fiscal views exactly in the old way, and then added that he agreed with Mr. Balfour in repudiating Protection as defined by Mr. Balfour. He also spoke of the policy put forward by "Mr. Balfour and myself," and finally declared that the only point where he differed from the Prime Minister was whether the Colonial Conference should be followed by immediate action, or by a second Dissolution. To many people, as to ourselves, this seemed conclusive. Mr. Chamberlain was, after all, the best judge of whether he had been repudiated by Mr. Balfour. But he told us in so many words that he had not been repudiated, and that his policy and that of the Prime Minister were in essentials the same. Those, however, who favoured a Free-trade interpretation of Mr. Balfour's speech stuck to their guns. They insisted that Mr. Chamberlain was only putting as good a face as he could upon the snub administered to him, and that nothing had been altered by the attitude of satisfaction which he chose to assume. To this we and others replied that if they were right, Mr. Balfour would no doubt at once correct Mr. Chamberlain, and inform him politely but firmly that he was mistaken in his view of the Edinburgh speech. No such declaration came from Mr. Balfour. "No matter," said the supporters of the Free-trade inter- pretation, "the Southampton Conference is coming, and that will be the proper place for Mr. Chamberlain to be undeceived, and shown that he has been reckoning with- out his leader."
What has been the effect of the Southampton Con- ference? It is true that; owing to the anxious and dangerous condition of foreign affairs, Mr. Balfour was unable to deal with the Fiscal situation, except to complain that people treated his speeches as if they were classics, and made all sorts of ingenious explanations as to their meanings, instead of going straight to the speeches them- selves and seeing what he really did say. Considering the condition of public affairs when Mr. Balfour spoke at Southampton, we make no complaint as to his failure to deal in person and at length with the Fiscal question. We cannot, however, admit that this failure leaves the problem of his views in doubt, or that there is any longer any excuse for saying that Mr. Chamberlain has been repudiated, and that the Free-trade interpretation of the Edinburgh speech holds the field. On the contrary, and in spite of the absence of a definite declaration by Mr. Balfour, the whole course of events at Southampton proves conclusively that Mr. Chamberlain had a right to take the line he took at Luton, and that he and' the Prime Minister are still in general agreement. We say this with deep regret and disappointment ; but it would be idle to pretend that things are better than they are. Let us look at what actually happened at Southampton, and judge by the facts. The first fact is a negative one, but none the less of supreme importance. Though Mr. Balfour was not present at the discussions in the Conference, the Chief Whip of the party, Sir A. F. Acland-Hood, was there ; and if Mr. Balfour had chosen he could have delegated to him the task of undeceiving Mr. Chamberlain's supporters, and of showing that the Edinburgh speech meant business, and was not merely the putting up and knocking over of a Protectionist man of straw. Nothing would have been easier or more appropriate than for the Chief Whip .tc have acted as Mr. Balfour's mouthpiece in making the situation clear: But no such illuminating word was spoken by Mr. Balfour's representative. Though, as a competent observer informs us, the tone of the Conference was distinctly Chamberlainite, and the vast majority of the members were inspired by the spirit of the Tariff 'Reform League, no attempt was made to show them that their views were antagonistic to those of the official leader and chief of the Unionist party, and had been specifically repudiated by him. Surely this absence of protest must be taken to mean that Mr. Balfour and his official repre- sentative did not feel that the Conference was deceiving itself in regard to the situation. Here, if anywhere, silence gave consent. If this negative fact is strong, even stronger are the two positive facts now to be set forth. In the first place, the official resolution of the Conference was moved by Mr. Chaplin, Mr. Chamberlain's lieutenant in the conduct of the Fiscal Reform move- ment,—a politician with whose name the policy of Tariff Reform has been associated throughout the present crisis. Mr. Chaplin's resolution may not have been very strongly worded, but it is a complete endorsement of the view that there is no substantial or essential difference between Mr. Chamberlain and Mr. Balfour, but that they are working in unison. Here are its actual words :— " That this Conference agrees with the Prime Minister that the time has come for the revision of our Fiscal policy, and cordially supports his claim for power to deal with the evils arising from the unfair competition caused by the practice of dumping (to which it believes that the present want of employment and distress in the country are in great measure due). It likewise welcomes the recent declaration of the Prime Minister that if he is again returned to power he will invite a Conference with delegates from the Colonies and India to meet free and unfettered in order to discuss, in the first place, whether the ideal of a fiscal union is one that commends itself to them, and, in the second place, to consider how it should be carried out."
But if the resolution in effect negatived the notion that Mr. Balfour has repudiated Mr. Chamberlain, still more so did Mr. Chaplin's speech. That speech was not fully reported, owing no doubt, to the pressure. on the space of the newspapers, but those who heard it felt that it was a strong plea for Chamberlainism. Very significant was the passage—a passage reported in the Times—in which Mr. Chaplin declared that he had at one time foreseen the possibility of difference and disunion at the Conference, "but that the way had been made smooth by the Edinburgh speech of the Premier." When a man in Mr. Chaplin's position uses such language before the party Whip, and in the presence of the leaders of the party organisation throughout the country, and uses it with- out the slightest protest from the representatives of the Government, how can we be expected to believe that Mr. Balfour still repudiates Chamberlainism ? The next .positive fact is equally important. Mr. Moore-Bayley moved, and Mr. Ward Humphreys seconded, an amend- ment to Mr. Chaplin's resolution that the first paragraph should be left out, and the following inserted : "cordially approves of the Fiscal policy of the Prime Minister as announced in his recent speech in Edinburgh." This amendment was, of course, intended as a declaration of support to the anti-Chamberlain and Free-trade inter- pretation of the Edinburgh speech. If it had been the true one, would not the party Whip or some other repre- sentative of Mr. Balfour have given it encouragement, or at least toleration ? Instead, not a word of official endorse- ment did it receive, and Mr. Chaplin refused, from his point of view very naturally, to tolerate it for a moment. It would, he declared, defeat the objects of its supporters, and was wholly unnecessary. It was eventually put to the vote, and only thirteen delegates supported it. Finally the original Chaplin motion was, on the suggestion of Councillor Sharp, put to the Conference, and Coimcillor Sharp in doing so declared that he was "a taxation-on- food chap." In the final division only two persons voted against the Chaplin resolution. What does this positive action of the Conference mean ? In plain words, it means that the two interpretations of Mr. Balfour's Edinburgh speech—the Chamberlain interpretation as represented by Mr., Chaplin, and the Free-trade interpretation as repre- sented. by Mr. Moore-Bayley's amendment—were put before the Conference, and that the Conference accepted almost unanimously the Chamberlain interpretation of the Edinburgh speech. Note, further, that they accepted this interpretation in the presence of the representatives of the Premier, who could quite well have told the Conference that they were wrong in their interpretation had they really ;been wrong. Unless, then, Mr. Balfour even now _repudiates this interpretation as a mistake, or authorises some one else to do it for him, we are bound to believe that Mr. Chamberlain had a right to say what he did when he spoke of the Fiscal policy of "Mr. Balfour and myself.' We have had. at Southampton not merely an endorsement by inference of the Chamberlain repudia- tion, but a positive endorsement. We cannot even say that Mr. Balfour let judgment go by default. We are un- happily obliged to say that he was a consenting party to the judgment.
We must ask once again what is the duty of those Unionist Free-traders who, like ourselves, are determined to remain both Unionists and Free-traders, It is, in our opinion, their imperative duty to organise themselves for the fight, and to determine to make their views effective by supporting Free-trade candidates, though at the same time refusing to surrender their right to call theniselves Unionists, and to be Unionists. They must, in the first place, show the Unionist party organisation that it cannot afford to do without them. This sharp lesson will be learned at the Dissolution in unmistakable terms if the Unionist. Free-traders organise themselves in every con- stituency in the country. When it has been learned, the Unionist Free-traders must take up their second work of ' reconverting the Unionist party to Free-trade and of re-establishing that party in its old faith,—the faith from which it has been seduced, but, as we believe, only temporarily seduced, by the recklessness of Mr. Chamber- lain and the weakness of Mr. Balfour. Unionist Free- ,. traders must face the fact that Mr. Balfour is not going to throw over Mr. Chamberlain, and accept the consequences, not in despair, but with the determination still to save the party from its false leaders.
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