The Outlook for the Unionist Party
IT would be easy to make too much of the growing strength of the Liberal vote in the country, but no sane person could deny that three Liberal victories in succession at by-elections are very remarkable after people had fallen into the habit of talking about the Liberal Party as though it were extinct. It would be easy, we say, to make too much of these victories, because there is a well-known tendency with all Governments to lose popularity year by year. The pendulum never ceases swinging. No sooner has a new Government presented its programme than some weakness is revealed. Governments begin to die as soon as they are born.
The loss of by-elections is not, therefore, in itself a sure sign that Mr. Baldwin's Government is going down hill ; but three Liberal victories in succession are, in the circumstances, a very striking phenomenon, and as they happen to coincide with a general feeling that the Government is now pursuing a very different policy from that with which it started, it is reasonable to allow much more significance to these by-elections than would be justified in the ordinary way. It seems, indeed, to be true that a good many electors are turning away from the Government, not because they want Socialism, but because they want some non-Socialistic policy which is not that of the overnment. The Labour Party is no doubt also nereasing its vote, but the Labour stream is running lower than it did, and there seems to be no immediate irospect of its spreading from the industrial areas into he rural districts. If Labour cannot conquer the grieultural mind its chances of obtaining a working ajority are not at all bright. Much the most hopeful hing for Labour would have been the final eclipse of he Liberal Party. There would then have been only lie alternative between Unionism and Socialism, and he Labour Party would certainly have been called pon to form a new Government as soon as the country as sufficiently disappointed with the Unionists. In he normal course of political affairs, that is to say, he Socialists would not have had to wait a dishearteningly 1g time. If the Liberals, however, with the five undred candidates whom they promise to put forward the next general election should win only one seat ut of six or seven attempts, they will once again bc a powerful balancing party—all the more powerful because their personnel exceeds in brain power that of the other parties.
How can we account for the curious transformation which seems to be fairly beginning ? The Unionist Party, under Mr. Baldwin's leadership, promised a national policy which satisfied a large number of ordinary Liberals. It is notorious that at the last General Election the result in many constituencies turned upon their vote. Most of those Liberals, having tried Mr. Baldwin, have now evidently rejected him, and next time they will be building up their own party by their own efforts. They feel that Mr. Baldwin, having been the inspirer of a national programme, has allowed himself to be driven backwards, so that he now relies on a narrower policy.
We shall not inquire into the causes. Mr. Bald win may, as rumour says, have been overruled by less generous-minded colleagues, or he may be the victim of circumstances which are not really shaped by any particular group in the Cabinet, or he may have come to the conclusion that his policy of conciliation had failed so far that it was necessary to try another policy. If he has yielded to colleagues we would only remark that more Prime Ministers have been ruined by an inverted sense of loyalty than by any other cause. Like most magnanimous men, Mr. Baldwin is modest and he has always underestimated his ability to lead. The country would far rather trust to his sense of affairs and hear him speak in the voice with which he spoke to the nation at the last General Election, and at the time of the general strike, than listen to the noisy voices of sonic of those Ministers who by clumsiness or design frequently seem to be trying to unsay what Mr. Baldwin himself has said.
It is not enough for the Unionist Government to be merely Conservative. They must be Unionist in the amplest sense of the word. They must join together all the disunited fragments which have the same general will. They must see, as Lincoln saw, in Walt Whitman's words, that "Unionism is the foundation and tic of all." This Unionism must be progressive and positive, not static ; otherwise those who have voted for the Unionist Party will continue to crumble away at the edges. It is useless to say that the edges do not matter. In time the heart will be reached.
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