TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE VOTE OF CENSURE.
THE debate on the vote of censure ended, as it was certain to end, in a majority for the Government. It must not be thought, however, that therefore there is ground for dissatisfaction in regard to the welfare of the Free-trade cause. On the contrary, the debate did a great deal to bring the reality of the situation home to men's minds. The danger has always been that the public mind should be so confused by Mr. Balfour's dialectic that it would come to regard him as after all a real Free-trader at heart. The debate of Bank Holiday has added yet another act of confirmation to the proof that has been accumulating throughout the Session that Mr. Balfour is not a Free-trader, but instead a supporter, though a " hedging " one, of Mr. Chamberlain. The public, that is, has gradually come to the conclusion that if Mr. Balfour were really opposed to Mr. Chamberlain's policy, he would find no difficulty in bringing the fact home to men's minds in a few simple words ; and Monday's debate has done nothing to alter that conclusion, but rather has strongly confirmed it. The plain man argues something after this fashion :—" Depend upon it, if Mr. Balfour were really opposed to Mr. Chamberlain's policy, Mr. Balfour could manage to say so in an hour's speech. Next., Mr. Chamberlain must know quite well whether Mr. Balfour is or is not opposed to him ; and if he knew Mr. Balfour was opposed to him, he would not make speeches in his favour, lend him help whenever he is in difficulties, and accept Mr. Balfour's chief colleagues as subordinates in his new organisation." Put in another way, the country, puzzled by the hubbub of words, has begun to judge the question by the acts of the leading politicians, and finds that those acts, while consistent with the view that Mr. Balfour agrees with Mr. Chamberlain's policy, are wholly inconsistent with the view that Mr. Balfour is opposed to the Chamberlain policy. When it is to the political interest of an astute politician to keep the public in the dark as to his intentions, he finds little difficulty in using words which conceal his thoughts. In such cases the only safe guide is his acts. But Mr. Balfour's acts, whatever his words may be, are all on one side,—and that side is the side of Mr. Chamberlain. He may call himself a Free-trader, but he wishes Mr. Chamberlain " God-speed " in his work of converting the country to Protection ; he sends messages of support to Chamberlainite candi- dates—as, for example, the defeated Chamberlainite candidate in the Oswestry division—and he allows his leading colleagues to join an organisation which has been abandoned by its Free-trade members and remodelled in order to support the cause of Protection. Surely such acts are sufficient. But even in a wordy age, when phrases are considered better guides than deeds, those who desire proof by word rather than by act may receive enlightenment. It should be noted that though Mr. Balfour is perfectly willing to make any number of affirmative statements that be is a Free-trader, he has never yet been induced to say that he is opposed to the Chamberlain policy. The reason is not difficult to under- stand. To affirm his belief in Free-trade is a vague and abstract thing, for he can give any definition that suits him in regard to Free-trade. When, however, it comes to declaring opposition to Mr. Chamberlain's policy, things wear a very different aspect. Mr. Chamberlain's policy is an ascertained fact. We have had it stated and defined in plain words, and everybody knows what it is, down to the fact that bacon and maize are not to be taxed, while corn, milk, meat, and cheese are to bear the burden that is also to be imposed on all manufactured articles. Mr. Balfour could not express himself as opposed to such a policy without letting us know his real mind. Therefore when Mr. Balfour refuses to say that he is opposed to the Chamberlain policy we have every right to declare that he is not opposed to it. But it is impossible not to be opposed to it and yet to be a Free-trader. If, then, the discussions of the Session have had little practical result, they, have at least elucidated the fact that Mr. Balfour is not at present opposed to the Chamberlain policy.
Before we leave the subject of Monday's debate there are one or two points which are worth noting. The first is Mr. Balfour's extraordinary recklessness of statement in regard to his Fiscal views. They are well brought out in Tuesday's Westminster Gazette by contrasting what Mr. Balfour said on Monday in regard to these views with what he said fourteen months ago. Here is the statement of Monday :—" I have been interested in economics for many years. I have spoken on them before the Fiscal question came before the country in its present stage. I have spoken and written upon them frequently since. Any one who will take the trouble to read through these various speeches and writings I have made in the last twenty years of my political life will see that everything I have said on these economic subjects belongs to one consistent body of doctrine." In other words, Mr. Balfour has always been the exponent of a settled and consistent, even if original, economic doctrine. Contrast this with what Mr. Balfour said in June, 1903 :—" I should consider that I was but ill-performing my duty, I will not say to my party, but to the House and the country, if I were to pro- fess a settled conviction where no settled conviction exists." The contrast of these extraordinary statements can best be left without comment.
We must note next Mr. Chamberlain's return to the ridiculous assertion that the Colonies have made us an offer in regard to Preference which it is our business to accept or reject. Mr. Chamberlain always speaks, and he did so with special persistence on Monday, as if he were the versatile person who draws up the advertisements for the Times in regard to some new venture. There is always an offer, and that offer is always only open for a limited time, and must always be seized at once if the reader does not want to lose his chance. " To-morrow will be too late," is the keynote of the appeal. Now this is legitimate enough in the case of the Times, because it does make a definite offer, and can and does keep its promises. But in Mr. Chamberlain's case he is trading on an offer that has never been made, and so cannot be accepted. That Mr. Chamberlain has fully persuaded himself into believing that an offer has been made by the Colonies we are quite aware, but his illusions on this point do not alter the facts. In reality there has been no offer in regard to Mr. Chamberlain's policy, as Mr. Lyttelton in effect admitted the other day. Mr. Chamberlain is, in fact, in the position of the sanguine and excitable person who persuades himself into thinking he has actually bought a beautiful house in the country, when in reality all he has done is to get a guarded intimation from a landlord's agent that he will submit a proposal to purchase for the con- sideration of his client. The very most that can be said in regard to any offer by the Colonies is that their Ministers have promised that if we make definite proposals for Pre- ference they will submit them for the consideration of their Parliaments. Further than this they very properly refuse to go. They could not say less without com- mitting an incivility to the Mother-country which they certainly will not commit.
Another point of importance raised by Mr. Chamberlain was his request to the Prime Minister to call a Colonial Conference. The object of the Conference was very characteristically stated by Mr. Chamberlain. He asked for " a Conference of representatives to meet and consider this subject, in order that the House and the country may discover whether in what I have said on this subject I have based myself upon real knowledge and experience, or whether those are right who from the first, almost before they knew what my policy could be, determined to oppose it on purely party grounds." Now we are fully agreed that on important points of Imperial policy it is most desirable that Conferences of representatives from the self-governing portions of the Empire should be called to meet in London. For example, we should like to see a Conference called to deliberate on the naval and military defence of the Empire. Again, we should like to see one summoned to consider the reconstitution of the final Court of Appeal for the Empire. Also, we think that before committing South Africa to contract Chinese labour by the act of an unrepresentative Crown Colony Government, it would have been wise to call representatives of those self-governing States whose sons shed their blood to keep South Africa within the Empire to deliberate on the whole matter. Lastly, we would willingly see a Conference convened to consider the possibility of complete Free-trade within the Empire. But when it comes to calling a Colonial Conference to decide whether Mr. Chamberlain is right or wrong, we confess that the idea appears to us somewhat grotesque, and one not unlikely to be regarded by the Colonies as undignified. Mr. Chamberlain is a great man, and is rightly popular in the Empire, but the summoning of Conferences to confirm statements made by him in the rough-and-tumble of political battle is surely not a very happy proposal. Waiving, however, this point, and assuming that Mr. Chamberlain ends by asking for a general, and not merely a personal, Conference, we desire to refer to Lord Rosebery's letter in Wednesday's Times. As he very properly points out, Mr. Chamberlain should have asked for a Conference in May, 1903, before a fierce party fight had broken out over his proposals, and not in the middle of the struggle :— "Had it been made in May, 1903, the Conservative party would have been preserved intact, much opposition would have been silenced, and, what is infinitely more important, the Empire would not have been flung into the arena of party. The country would not then have been told that the country was turning its back on an offer which we are now officially informed has never been made. The very avoidance up to now of this obvious suggestion has been one of the main causes which have tended to throw doubt on the genuineness of the policy, and to associate it rather with party exigencies than Imperial ideals. The proposal of a Con- ference should in fine have been the base and starting point, not an afterthought."
That is sound sense. As sound are the remarks which follow :— " But, Sir, if a Conference is to be summoned, we must re- member that it is a two-edged instrument, for if it be abortive it may do much more harm than good. If the delegates assemble in the expectation that Great Britain is prepared to tax or narrow its supplies of food, it is very likely to lead to disappointment and to reaction. Nor, indeed, can it do good unless it be desired by the outer Britains as well as by the home country. It would, indeed, be best th.Lt they should signify an anxiety for such a Conference before it be summoned. Further, there should be a clear basis for the Conference, drawn up in conjunction with the Colonies, a basis agreed to by both parties. And, lastly, the British representatives should be not merely partisan or official, but men of national weight. Even under these conditions, a Conference, it is obvious, cannot undo the evil of the last fourteen months, but with the suggested safeguards it should bring the controversy to a practical issue. Only let me repeat my firm con- viction that, unless it be desired by the Colonies, and assembled on a plain basis arranged beforehand, and freed from the party taint, it may do more harm than good."
To these most important and ably stated considerations, which do not seem to us to be in any way met by Mr. Chamberlain's answer to Lord. Rosebery in Thursday's Times, we must add a word of warning to those Free- traders in both parties who are also loyal supporters of the Empire, and who, if we mistake not, constitute the great majority of the British public. They need not think that if they do not rush into some sort of a Conference at .Mr. Chamberlain's bidding, they will be misunderstood by the Colonies, and seem to inflict a rebuff on the daughter-States. Of this there is little risk. The Colonies may be young communities, but, thanks to the possession of representative institutions, they take a very sane and just view of the political situation at home. They under- stand, also, perfectly well all the moves in the party game, and distinguish without difficulty between Mr. Chamberlain the statesman with a real desire to help the Empire, and Mr. Chamberlain the partisan and party politician chiefly anxious to score off his opponents. They will certainly be amused—perhaps some of them will be a little disgusted —to see the• idea of a Conference used so cleverly in the game ; but they will be at no loss to understand why it has been brought forward at the present juncture.
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