THE DUKE OF NORTHUMBERLAND'S REVOLT.
WE have already dealt with Mr. Lloyd George's speech and the appalling position to which we have been brought by the Government's Irish policy. Here we want to say a word on an allied subject, namely, the Duke of Northumberland's spirited and eloquent protest against the way in which the Unionist Party have pros- trated themselves at the feet of the great Welsh orator. But let us be just.to the great Welsh orator. When we Bay hard things about him and his policy we feel that we ought first to say them about the Unionist leaders. They are the culprits. They are clearly sinning against the light. He cannot be accused of that final offence. He could not have done the things to which we object, and for which we speak critically of him, if he had not been given the power to do so by his Unionist colleagues. They made him what he is. They quite unnecessarily gave him a freer hand than that given to any Prime Minister since the days of the younger Pitt. They delivered themselves, bound hand and foot, to their former foe. They allowed him to scatter titles and honours broadcast throughout the land, and so accustomed every man on the make—and there are thousands of such in politics—to look to him for rewards for what is called public service but is really party service. Finally, the Unionist leaders allowed him and his lieutenants to stretch their hands out over the Unionist Press till there is only one London Unionist daily paper (the Morning Post) which criticizes the Prime Minister from the Unionist standpoint. The Northcliffe Press may, and does, criticize him, but that Press would not thank us for describing it as Unionist. The Unionist leaders have also allowed Mr. Lloyd George to create within the Coalition a band of Liberal Coalitionists, whom he can always use, and does use, as Mr. Jorkins used his partner, Mr. Spenlow. This and that must not be done for fear it would be taken ill by the Coalition Liberals. But let it not be thought that we want to show any hostility to the rank and file of the Coalition Liberals. Many of them, we are fully aware, are quite reasonable and sound in their political views. They are, that is, quite as sincere anti-revolutionaries as are the best Unionists. They serve, however, very well as the political bogy, which is used to keep the Unionist leaders and the Unionist rank and file in order. " We must not forget the Coalition Liberals. It is essential to keep them in line with us." That is the whispered word, sent by the Whips round the Unionist benches, which paralyses Unionism.
Though he did not say so in exactly the same way as we have put it, we feel sure that the Duke of Northumberland feels with us that it is the Unionist leaders and not the Unionist rank and file who are to blame. It is they who are responsible. It is they who have brought the great evils from which the country is suffering upon us. We ought then, in our opinion, to be very grateful to the Duke for having spoken out so boldly and so plainly as he did last Saturday.
But though we agree here, we are not in agreement with him as to the practical step which he recommends, i.e., secession from the Unionist Party. We would much rather have seen him stand by to make another effort to save it. Heaven knows it will soon enough want saving. The vampire of Lloyd Georgeism has already sucked away almost all its life-blood. What we think the Duke of Northumberland and the men who take his point of view ought to avoid is placing themselves in a position of political isolation. They should determine to carry on a campaign within the Party in order to re-establish it on true and constitutional lines—including first of all a system of conservative and constitutional finance. There is, we are certain, a great opportunity here. If in every constitu- ency a band of men openly professing themselves to be Unionists could be got together, such a band, however small, would exercise an enormous influence at the polls. Before we leave the Duke of Northumberland's speech we must say something in regard to his plain speaking about the Labour Party. We agree with him in deploring the miserable opportunism of the so-called Moderate Labour leaders. We do not object to their holding views which we regard as foolish, or even dangerous. That is their business. Further, if they can persuade the country to adopt these views and can form a Ministry we shall be as loyal in our obedience to such a Ministry as to any other. We should never dream of attempting to defeat the choice of the Democracy by side winds ; by organizing anarchic councils of direct action, or by trying to get up some movement of combined capital which would embarrass the Government and render the task committed to them by the country impossible. We shall advocate the playing of the game honestly and fairly whenever we get a Labour Ministry. Again, we join strongly in the Duke of Northumber- land's regret that Unionists have been made a party to the wretched attempt to buy off the antagonism of the Labour Party by adopting s part of their programme, and by giving under pressure a series of ,bribes and doles to organized Labour. Of course, if the Unionist Party were really converted. to the Labour Party policy it would be their duty to carry it out. But there is no question of such conversion. I'he Unionist Party, with Mr. Lloyd George at their head, agree in the abstract that the programme of the Labour leaders contains most perilous and poisonous. expedients. Yet they straightway proceed to give us as large a. dose as they dare of these poisons on the ground that if we do not take it from them we may be compelled to take a much larger dose from somebody else.
There is nothing worse than this policy of political Danegeld. If a bad policy has got to be tried, let it, at any rate, be tried by the people who believe in it. When they are doing that, they can, at all events, be subjected to strong opposition and atrongsritioism. 'What are we to say, how- ever, when this bad policy is taken up through cowardice by people who (1) possess a Parliamentary majority, and so are certain to be able to carry it through ; (2) who can muzzle all criticism ; (3)' who must incur responsibility for the inevitable fiasco when it takes place ? The Labour Party is ten times as powerful and as injurious when it coerces the Unionist Party into doing its work than when it is acting on its own; It has been bad enough to be dragged at the chariot wheels of Mr. Lloyd George. It is beyond endurance when, taking captivity captive, he makes us the Parliamentary Drudges of the Extremist-ridden Moderates of the Labour Party. The notion expressed by the dissentients at the end of the meeting at which the Duke of Northumberland spoke, that we are saving ourselves from revolution by supporting Mr. Lloyd George, is the wildest extravagance ever indulged in on a public platform. All history shows that the carrying-out by the frightened Moderates of immoderate and irrevolutionary policies " lest worse should happen " is the royal road to revolution. People who have tried it have not only always failed, but have usually gone by it to the scaffold or guillotine. If Cromwell, instead of fighting the Levellers and the Fourth Monarchy men, had yielded to them, he would never have died in his bed.
If we are to have revolutionary experiments tried in this country let them be tried by the people who believe in them, and who, if they fail, will bear the responsibility of that failure.
We are grateful, indeed, to the Duke of Northumberland for saying this• so clearly and insisting on it so boldly.
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