TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE POLITICAL SITUATION.
IT would be idle to pretend that the Walthamstow election is anything but a great disappointment to all Unionists. It shows what South Shields and the other by- elections have shown, and what is also indicated in the results of the municipal elections,—namely, that the Unionist Party is not making progress, and that if a General Election were to take place next January, the party situation would be left unchanged, and the Government would have approximately the same measure of support as they have now in the House of Commons. The Unionists might gain a few seats, and the Labour Party might lose a few, but this would not substantially influence the situation. The Government would still be able to remain in power with the support of the Labour Members and the Nationalists. To put the matter in another way, there seems every indication that Tariff Reform reached its high-water mark in the Election of 1910. No doubt it will be urged that when the Spectator says this, the wish is father to the thought, and that therefore our opinion on the matter is vitiated. We can only here assure our readers once again that, Free- traders as we remain, we regard the present Government with such distrust that we are quite prepared to do what we did at the last Election, and to ask people to vote for Tariff Reform candidates, even though such candidates may not be willing to make any concession on the Fiscal question. But though we are prepared to give that advice and to act upon it, we should be ill friends of the Unionist Party if we attempted to disguise the fact that we do not believe that such advice will have much, or indeed any, effect upon the very large number of Free-traders—Unionist, moderate Liberal, and non-party—who detest the present Government and are anxious to vote against them, but who will not do so as long as they believe that the price of getting rid of Mr. Asquith's Administration is the taxation of food and the imposition of a Protective and Preferential tariff. We may think, and do think, that such persons are making a wrong choice, and of two evils are choosing the greater, but our opinion on this point is really a matter of no importance. It is the facts with which we have to deal, and the facts are as we have stated them.
The lesson to be drawn from these facts is clear. If the Tariff Reformers want to win at the next Election —that is, if they want to get rid of the present Government and all their injurious plans and acts—they must work for the concentration of the Unionist Party, or rather for the concentration of all the conservative forces in the country, using the term in its widest sense. Now there is only one way of doing this,—by making it clear to the moderate Free-trade electors that votes given against the Government at the next Election will not be used by those to whom they are given in order to enact a tariff before the country has had an opportunity of seeing and passing an opinion on that tariff. It will be said that in asking this we are asking a great deal too much. We shall be told that we do not realise that Tariff Reformers act from conviction quite as much as Free- traders, and that it is monstrous to suggest that they should be asked to give up their convictions in order to obtain office. We can only say to people who argue in this way that they have entirely failed to understand the suggestion which we make. We do not for one moment ask the Tariff Reformers to give up their convictions, for we know that would be useless. We recognise fully that they are quite as much in earnest and quite as sincere as the Free-traders. We do not even ask them to stop their propaganda work, to refrain from a. single argument, or to pause for an instant in the work of trying to convert their countrymen. There is no reason, if they adopt the Spectator's proposal, why they should not work quite as actively for Tariff Reform as they do now. All we ask is that they should appeal to the electors at the next General Election on the following lines :—" We are Tariff Reformers, and we believe that Tariff Reform is absolutely necessary to the welfare of the country. On the present occasion, however, we are not going to ask all those who vote for us to commit themselves to a tariff which they have not seen. We believe so strongly that when we have framed our tariff it will commend itself to the good sense of the nation as moderate, reasonable, and beneficial that we are perfectly prepared to give the voters the opportunity of passing judgment upon it at another Election. As soon, then, as our tariff is ready, and it cannot be ready for a couple of years—we have got to put it together not only with the help and advice of the traders of this country, but also in consultation with the Governments of the self- governing portions of the Empire, and with the Govern- ments of India and the other dependencies of the Crown— we mean to show our faith in it by asking for its endorsement by the people. In these circumstances, we have no hesitation in appealing to all voters who, though Free-traders, detest the present Government to help us to put that Government out of office. They may do so with the assurance that such help does not commit them on the tariff question, but that they will have a further oppor- tunity for judging of that. Meantime we are convinced that when they see our Tariff Bill their objections will vanish. Its schedules will prove the greatest agents of con- version in the history of the anti-Free-trade movement."
Can it possibly be said that a. Tariff Reformer who made such a statement as this, and thereby secured concentration upon the need of the hour—the expulsion of the present Government—would be sacrificing one jot or tittle of his Tariff Reform convictions ? He would not even be post- poning them, for, as we have said above, and have said on previous occasions, it must in any case take at least two years to frame a Protective and Preferential tariff upon which the traders here and the Governments of the over- seas Empire can agree. We can quite understand Free- traders objecting to our scheme, because they will say that if once a man gets into the habit of voting for a Tariff Reformer, even though he does not like his principles, that habit will stay with him, and that therefore nothing but the abandonment of Tariff Reform ought to satisfy Free- trade Unionists or Free-trade non-party men. Again, we shall be told, and are indeed now told, that it would be making a most dangerous concession to Tariff Reform to allow the Tariff Reformers to frame a tariff. Such a tariff, it is argued, will be a most insidious engine for corrupting the virtue of Free-traders, for though really a great impediment to Free Exchange, it will be possible by clever manipulation to make it appear a most innocuous proposal. "The Tariff Reformers now find themselves in front of a wall too high for them to climb. The Spectator's proposal is to provide them with a step which will enable them to get over the wall." That is the argument. To a great deal of this criticism we are obliged to give assent. All we can say is that, great as are the risks, we think it necessary to run them in order to get rid of the present Government. There is no disguising the fact, however, that we are proposing to provide the Tariff Reformers with a stool. Unless, then, they consider that it is better not to obtain a reasonable chance of climbing the wall, if you have to wait a little to get that chance, they should welcome our proposal.
Let us for a moment look at the alternatives before the Tariff Reformers. It is hardly necessary for us to say that if the Tariff Reformers really believed they were going to win at the next Election without making any concession such as we have urged, it would be idiotic of them to accept our advice. Their answer would naturally and rightly be :—" Thank you for nothing. We are going to win in any case, and therefore we are not going to be so foolish as to tie our hands in any particular or to postpone the cause we have at heart for a single day." But we are certain that we are not misrepresenting the facts when we say that no Tariff Reformers with any knowledge or insight into political conditions believe this or use such language in private. They know that they are not going to win at the next General Election if it comes soon, and many of them are of opinion that it is quite possible that the Government's position may be strengthened, not weakened, in the course of the present year. If this, as we believe it is, is the true state of the case, it means that the Tariff Reformers are going into battle with the belief that they will be defeated,—the worst possible frame of mind which combatants of any kind can assume. It comes to this, then : the Tariff Reformers would rather face the certainty of defeat than accept a proposal which, though of course it cannot guarantee victory, must undoubtedly give them a very considerable acces- sion of strength.—Remember that there are thousands of moderate Free-traders who dread the policy of the present Government, and would be only too glad of an excuse for voting against them, but who without that excuse cannot bring themselves to vote for Tariff Reformers.—The Tariff Reformers reject, that is, a very considerable chance of victory for what is something very like the certainty of defeat. Surely that is not business.
It will be said perhaps that the flaw in our argument is that the postponement of the actual enactment of a tariff till the people of this country have had a chance of seeing it and passing an opinion upon it would take all heart out of the Tariff Reform Party, and that they therefore would be in a worse position under our plan than even under their own. We do not believe it for a, moment. We cannot conceive that a Tariff Reformer, able as he would be to preach Tariff Reform to his heart's content, could be the loser by our proposal. On the contrary, we hold that the suggestion of two certain steps, as they would seem to the Tariff Reformer, rather than of one uncertain one, would be very popular. Nothing succeeds so well as confidence in one's own views. The ordinary elector would, we feel sure, be immensely impressed by the fact that the Tariff Reformers were so confident of their ability to frame a tariff which would be acceptable to the country that they were prepared to submit it for popular approval. There is nothing the elector likes better than to be told that his will is to prevail, and that he is giving by his vote, not a blank cheque, but a cheque which will need his further endorsement before it can be cashed. That is only human nature.
In our opinion, then, the Tariff Reformers have got to choose whether they will accept our suggestion or stand upon a punctilio and say : "We will not accept even a very reasonable prospect of victory when it comes to us from a tainted Free-trade source," and so go gallantly and uselessly to their political deaths, for, remember, another failure to carry Tariff Reform must mean political death in any case. The country could not again be asked to vote for a cause that had been three times rejected at the polls. We fully admit that the Spectator is not the best source from which this sug- gestion for Unionist concentration should be made ; but convinced as we are of its importance, we feel bound to make it again. We ought to say that we are emboldened thus to reiterate the proposal made a fortnight ago by the fact that we have had significant indications in private that it is not one that the rank-and-file of the party would reject, provided some Tariff Reform leader would have the boldness to take it up and. point out what assuredly is the case,—that it involves no abandonment of Tariff Reform, and. is not in the least inconsistent with the convictions of the sincere opponents of Free-trade.
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