TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE CONSTITUTIONAL cirrsis.
wE publish elsewhere a letter from Lord Hugh Cecil dealing with the Constitutional crisis. Anything on a political issue which comes from Lord Hugh Cecil's pen is bound to be weighty and thoughtful and to demand the most careful consideration. Again, any view which is put forward by Lord Hugh is certain to be presented with the maximum, of persuasiveness and dialectical skill. No case that he takes up ever suffers by his presentment of its merits. That being so, it is imperative, when one thinks Lord Hugh Cecil in the wrong, to put the other side as quickly and as strongly as one knows how. With a great deal in his letter we are in full agree- ment. It is rather from his practical conclusions, and from the spirit in which he proposes to meet the crisis, that we differ profoundly. We agree, for example, when he says that the character of the Parliament Bill makes it subject to considerations which do not apply to ordinary Bills. Next, we agree that if the Ministry do advise the creation of four or five hundred Peers in the existing circumstances—that is, if they reject all compromise and concession—they will be acting in a revolutionary spirit. No one can detest more than we do the notion of setting up single-Chamber government, and we are certain that it cannot bring any- thing but unrest, anxiety, and confusion. We agree also that the preponderance of national opinion in support of the Parliament Bill is not sufficient to justify the Govern- ment in using the violent methods which it is understood they propose to use to force it through Parliament. Unfortunately, however, likes and dislikes cannot control the situation. We have to deal with facts, and very ugly facts, and we shall not make them less ugly by refusing to look them in the face.
What we have got to consider is not what the Govern- ment would do if they were ready to act in the spirit of enlightened and patriotic statesmanship, and not even what they would do if they were in an independent Parlia- mentary position and supported by a homogeneous party. We have got to remember that we have a Ministry in power with a large Parliamentary majority, but a majority which is made up of two violent sections. One section con- sists of members of the Socialistically inclined Labour Party, and the other of Irish Nationalists. The Govern- ment can only retain office if they satisfy the demands of these two sections, and the two sections are agreed on one thing, even if on nothing else, and that thing is the Veto Bill. No doubt if the Government allow themselves to be forced by these two sections into violent action of which they do not at heart approve, they will ultimately be destroyed by the Nemesis which always overtakes states- men who act on the revolutionary principle : " We are their leaders, and therefore we must follow them." But that is a, matter for the future, not the present. We must consider the facts of the hour as they are and not as we should like them to be.
The willingness of the Government to retain office in humiliating dependence upon the Nationalist vote is a dis- agreeable, nay, a perilous, circumstance, and it is rendered far worse by another circumstance,—namely, that the Government have twice within twelve months appealed to the country without their opponents being able to place them in a minority. Here is the fact which controls the whole situation. Resistance, no matter how drastic, to the proposal of the Government to alter the Constitution fundamentally and to establish single-Chamber govern- ment, in spite of the damning precedent of the Long Parliament, would be justified if there were a reasonable prospect of success, but at present we see no such prospect. Lord Hugh Cecil very properly says nothing in regard to the action of the King. Nevertheless, if his argument is accepted, it is only too likely to induce men to accept the conclusion that they would be justified, should things come to the worst, in putting pressure —the pressure which the public opinion of so large a section of the nation as that which belongs to the Unionist Party can undoubtedly exert—upon the King to induce his Majesty to refuse to create Peers. That is a condition of Unionist public opinion which we most earnestly hope will not come into being. We have no right, of course, to assume that a very strong, or even a unanimous, expression of Unionist opinion could in any way influence the action of the King. In all probability it would not. Undoubtedly, however, such an expression of opinion must hamper his action, and make it more difficult for him to act and to maintain that role of impartiality which we may be certain be is above all things anxious to maintain. If strong attempts were made to influence his decision, and the country were to become violently divided upon the question of how the King should act, circumstances would necessarily oblige him to take up a position which would look like siding with one party in the State and acting against the other. But that is what we have a perfect right to assume the King most desires to avoid. It is clear, as we have so often pointed out in these columns, that the King must wish to act automatically and impersomilly,—to let the mecleinical operation of the Constitution guide his action, and not to side either with the Unionists or with the Liberals on the merits. Butif the kind of pressure which we speak of is to be put upon him, he will be forced, at any rate, to appear to be saying either that the Unionists or the Liberals are in the right. Above all things, it is to be desired that. no man should have an excuse to say in the present or to feel in the future that the "King at a critical moment went against this party or for that.
Let us, however, put aside these considerations for the time and assume, though, as we have said, we have no right to make that assumption, that the Ki g could be induced by a great display of Unionist opinion to tell his Ministers that the condition of things in the country would not allow him to take their advice to make Peers. Even if this could be achieved by expressions of opinion like those of Lord Hugh Cecil, we say deliberately that not only would nothing be gained, but a great deal would be lost. We are sure that the Unionists would do no good to their own side, and, further, would do nothing to save the country from a most dangerous situation, could they by the means we are discussing prevent the creation of Peers. Think for a moment of what must follow. On the rejection of the Cabinet's advice the Ministry would instantly resign, and a new Ministry would take office,—a Ministry com- posed either entirely of Unionists, or half of Unionists and half of non-party politicians. (The King would not of course dream of rejecting the present Cabinet's advice as to the creation of Peers unless he was assured that another Cabinet would be ready to take its place and carry on his Government.) Simultaneously the House of Commons, doubtless in a state of wild excitement, would pass a Resolution which would in effect be a vote of censure upon the King as well as upon the new Ministry, even though couched in. Parliamentary language. Instantly there must be a state of high war between the Ministry and the King on the one side and the House of Commons on the other, a state of war which must at once lead to a Dissolution. Now does any one suppose that in these circumstances a more reasonable or more moderate House of Commons would be returned ? In our opinion, and we believe that it coincides with that of most calm observers„ the Unionist Party would do distinctly worse at the polls than they did in December. Then our cause suffered from a good deal of misunderstanding on the part of the leas clear-headed electors, and such misunderstanding would be infinitely aggravated. Thousands of voters would be swept off their feet by the cry that the House of Lords and the Crown were combining to deprive Englishmen of their ancient liberties, and that every other consideration must be put aside to vindicate the right of self-government in the English people. That, of course, would be a ridiculously unfair way of putting the question, but it would nevertheless affect a great many voters. In our view, then, it is most undesirable that an atmosphere or public opinion should be created which might possibly lead to such dangerous, nay, destructive, results. We must not throw the Monarchy after the House of Lords.
No doubt it will be said that we are exaggerating, and that what would really happen would be that Mr. Balfour would take office ; that the moderate section of the Liberals, combining with the Unionists, would secure him Supply and, the passage of the Army Bill and the Naval Discipline Bill, and so forth ; and that an opportunity would be given him to unfold his scheme for a reasonable and just development of the Constitution on democratic lines by the renovation of the Second Chamber and the addition of the Referendum. Then would come, it is urged, the Dissolution and a triumphant verdict for the new Administration. If we believed there was any possibility of such a state of things resulting, our view might no doubt be altered ; but we are perfectly certain that it is idle for the Unionists to rely upon the help, direct or indirect, of any section of moderate Liberal opinion in the present House of Commons. Even if such moderates exist, of which we are somewhat doubtful, they would make no show whatever during a heated Constitutional crisis. On the contrary, they would be far more likely, in order to save their seats and their position in the party, to out-Herod Herod in declarations that they would never consent to the flouting of the deliberate will of the people as expressed through the House of Commons. Laying all the blame for any revolutionary results that might ensue upon the shoulders of the Unionists, they would rally round Mr. Asquith and his colleagues, and assure them that they could be trusted as securely as the most vehement Radicals.
The notion that any solution of the question is to be found in the acceptance of office by Mr. Balfour and an attempt to govern with a minority in the House of Commons, even for three or four months, is a delusion and a snare. In these circumstances, we come back to what we have said in these pages ever since the result of the elections was made clear. The Unionists have one valuable card. This they have a perfect right to play, but beyond that they cannot go. They have the power to compel the Government to create five hundred Peers. They must not of course compel them to such action unreasonably, but they can and ought to do so if Ministers will consent to no sort of compromise or arrangement in regard to the threatened Constitutional revolution. It might seem at first sight that if this is their sole power of resistance, it will not be of much avail. Happily, however, that is not the case. Undoubtedly the Liberals extremely dislike the notion of making five hundred Peers. They know that such action not only involves the necessity of at once dealing with the Upper House, but also that it is bound to cause before long a very strong reaction. On the other hand, they are aware that the majority of the Members of the House of Lords are not frightened by the thought of five hundred new Peers. They have already abandoned not only all hope but all wish to maintain the House of Lords in its present condition, and have become sincerely anxious to put an end to the existing state of things. The creation of the five hundred Peers has become in their eyes only one of many alterna- tives for getting rid of the status quo, and an alternative which they do not specially dread. Certainly they are not half so much alarmed by it as by the prospect of membership in a degraded and emasculated Second Chamber which is now presented to them.
We sincerely trust, then, that all thoughtful Unionists will refrain from any action or language which can tend to produce a public opinion in the Unionist half of the nation intended to influence the King to refuse the creation of Peers, and therefore calculated to embarrass his action and to force him to take sides. As we have said again and again, we are the Constitutional party, and we must act Constitutionally, and not set an example of violent or factious action to our opponents, an example which they are only too ready to follow. Unionists must never forget that however black things may look for the moment, their time is sure to come. They must remember also that the inevitable reaction -will not be hastened but postponed by violent action on their part. Their obvious plan is to give the Liberals rope enough to bang themselves,—not to throw obstacles in the way of the strangulatory process. Caution, patience, and con- servatism in the best sense will always have their reward ; but if these virtues are to have their full effect, it is essential that those who profess them should also practise them. Above all things, the patient, the cautious, and the con- servative must face facts, however disagreeable, and refuse to found their policy upon paradoxes, illusions, and chimeras.
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