TOPICS OF THE D.Y.
THE CRISIS AND ITS SOLUTION.
LORD LANSDOWNE'S Bill, in regard to the very strik- ing merits of which we have spoken in detail elsewhere, offers an opportunity for a solution of the crisis. Whether that opportunity will be seized is, of course, another matter. What we can venture to declare is that, if common sense and a desire to avoid revolutionary action prevail, a way out will be found. When we say this, we do not mean to infer that the solution will be good per se, or can in itself be considered satisfactory by the Unionist Party. We should not be treating our readers with sincerity if we pretended to hold any such view. All we have a right to assert, and all that we do assert, is that there is now a chance for making the best of a very bad job. What the Unionist Party have got to do, as we have said a hundred times in these columns, is to face the facts and to look with open eyes at the realities of the situation. The first of these facts is that the Government are absolutely determined to pass the Parliament Bill as it stands, without making con- cessions that are worth anything to the Unionist Party —concessions, that is, which will really improve the Bill or rob it of its oppressive and revolutionary character, or will prevent what is in effect the establishment of Single-Cham- ber Government. We need hardly say that to state this fact is not to excuse the action of the Government in insisting on their pound of flesh. We hold their scheme in abhor- rence and consider it to be unworthy of statesmen who aspire to a national position.
The Government, of course, could make a reasonable compromise, and ought to make such a compromise, but we know quite well that they will not, and we also know wby they will not. They will not because to make a bona-fide compromise would mean the immediate destruction of the Ministry. If the Government were to make any concession really worth having on the Parliament Bill, they would be put in a minority next day and forced to resign. No doubt if they were a courageous body of men, if they were a really far-seeing body of men, or, at any rate, if they were a body of men who preferred to lose office rather than lose independence, they would declare that it would be better to resign than to kiss the rod of the Nationalist and Labour Party. The plain fact is, however, they are willing to be the drudges of these groups. They are not going to risk being turned out of office, and therefore they are not going to make any compromise. In these circumstances it is merely blinking facts for Unionists to assume that the Government must make concessions because they are reasonable men who believe in Two- Chamber Government, and so on, and so on. On the essential provisions of the Parliament Bill there will be no concessions whatever. That is the ugly fact which it behoves all Unionists to remember.
But though the Government will make no concessions, the fact remains that they are very unwilling, if they can avoid it, to create peers. That being so, it is by no means impossible that they might agree to the passage of Lord Lansdowne's Bill through the Commons provided that they were assured that this would secure the passage of the Parliament Bill without the creation of peers. The Government and the Liberal Party have another reason for not merely not objecting to, but for favouring, the passage of Lord Lansdowne's Bill : it will free them from the diffi- culties in their own party caused by the Preamble. No doubt the Preamble, both in the Cabinet and in the party, has a good many friends, and, undoubtedly, as soon as the Parliament Bill is passed, and if there are no changes in the Lords, there will be developed a very strong and determined effort to make good the promises of the Preamble by setting up a strong and elected Upper House. But this is the last thing wanted by the Radical section of the Liberal Party, who are genuine Single- Chamber men. They know that if a popularly-elected Second Chamber were to be set up, even if it were small in numbers, and even if it were to be swampable by the device of a joint sitting with a much larger Lower House, such an Upper House would ultimately develop into a very considerable check upon the House of Commons. In popular opinion it would soon come to be re- garded as of co-ordinate authority. But if Lord Lansdowne's Bill were to be allowed to go through it would be very difficult for the advocates of an elected Second Chamber to insist on the matter being re-opened. The plea that it was better to get on with social reform than to waste more time over mere tinkering with the Constitution would be a very powerful one. As the Radicals would put it, as long as the Parliament Bill is in existence it does not matter to them what is the composition of the House of Lords. Indeed, many of them would quite sincerely say that though the reconstructed House would not be an ideal House, it must be admitted to be a considerable advance on the present House. To sum up, the Liberal Party by the arrangement we are suggesting would not only get the Parliament Bill through Parliament without further loss of time and without the surgical operation which they greatly dislike—the creation of peers—but would also free themselves from the embarrassments of meeting the Preamble promises, which a year, or a couple of years, hence may become a source of no small amount of internal strife.
Perhaps it will be said by Unionists : " We can see the advantages which would accrue to the Government from coming to an understanding that if the Parliament Bill passes, so shall Lord Lansdowne's Bill. But what are the advantages to the Unionist Party ?" The advantages to the Unionist Party are as follows : The Parliament Bill will pass in any case—if not without, then with the creation of the peers. What, therefore, we have to consider is—which is the best of these three evils: (1) The Parliament Bill and no change whatever in the House of Lords ; (2) The Parliament Bill and no change in the House of Lords except the creation of five hundred peers ; (3) The Parliament Bill without the creation of five hundred peers, but with the addition of Lord Lansdowne's Bill ? Surely there can be no doubt that the third is the best of the three evils. If we get that, we shall have a much better foundation upon which to build what has become the essential condition for a stable and sound Constitution—the Referendum. If we can only get the Referendum we have obtained security against Jacobin legislation—that is, legislation which is not wanted by the country, but which is obtained by log-rolling arrangements between groups. A popular veto over the acts of the Legislature is secured to us. We have obtained, also, an automatic repeal of the Parliament Bill, and put an end to Single-Chamber Government. The Poll of the People, as Mr. Balfour's speeches clearly prove, has become the essential measure which the Unionist Party mean to work for. But it is clear that one of the difficulties in the way of converting the country to the Referendum is the argument—it is not an argument with which we ourselves agree, but it is very widely held—that the existing House of Lords is not a fit body into whose hands to entrust so great a function as the putting in operation of the Referendum. But this argument does not apply to the Upper House as constituted under Lord Lansdowne's Bill. No one could fairly say that the reconstructed body would be a body constitutionally unfit to call the Referendum into existence, and to ask the country when the two Houses differ to decide between them. In other words, Lord Lansdowne's Bill is a very important step towards the realisation of the Referendum. Therefore the Unionists have a very strong reason for preferring the Parliament Bill plus Lord Lansdowne's Bill, and minus the creation of peers, to any other solution.
Perhaps we shall be told that we are mistaking the conditions under which a compromise could come into existence. If any such arrangement were to be dis- cussed the Liberals would say : " If you give us our Bill and we give you yours, you must also pledge yourselves never to interfere with the settlement created by the Parliament Bill." Clearly the Unionist leaders could not do this. If they were to agree they would be acting ultra vires, and their promises would be of: no avail. The Unionist Party are pledged to the Referendum, and if the assent of the country is given to it, as we believe it ultimately will be given, no abstract promises on the part of the Unionist leaders could prevent its adoption. The Liberals must obviously recognise this fact, and therefore we cannot believe that there would be any serious attempt to pledge the Unionists not to repeal the Parliament Bill. Besides, such a pledge, even if made, would be valueless. As long as the Referendum remains the chief plank of the Unionist Party, they will not want to repeal the Parliament Act. What they will do when they return to office is not to interfere with that Bill, but to in- troduce a Constitutional instrument which will act as a sub- stitute for the procedure established by the Parliament Bill. The Parliament Bill in fact, though not in name, provides a method for settling deadlocks between the two Houses. That method is the simple and tyran- nical one of declaring that the will of the Commons shall prevail. A Referendum Bill would decree that dead- locks should be settled by allowing the will of the people to prevail. We can only end as we began, by saying that by the passage of the two Bills the political crisis can be solved— not in the best way, not in a good way, not even in a tolerable way, from the point of view of reason, but, at any rate, in a better way than the only other way which remains open. It is a choice of evils. We say again, without hesitation, that the Parliament Bill, plus Lord Lansdowne's Bill, minus the creation of peers, is distinctly the least evil of the three courses now open. We advocate that compromise, therefore, not because it is good in itself but merely lest worse things should befall. No doubt angry and muddle-headed people, because we take this line, will accuse us of supporting a thoroughly bad measure. Reasonable men, however, when they come to think out the matter, will see that all we are doing is to suggest that it is better to flounder through a morass up to one's middle than to fall over a precipice and break one's legs.
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