A S U nionist Free-traders, we are bpund to scrutinise the composition
of the new Government with special anxiety, for we cannot conceal from ourselves the fact that it stands between the nation and the adoption of a policy which, as we believe, must end. in national disaster,—in the weakening of the nation at home, and the setting in operation of forces that would ultimately dissolve the Empire. We realise that the nation is instinctively opposed to Protec- tion, and unwilling to abandon the policy of the free market. But at the same time no one can deny that democracies are changeable, and that if the present Government were to prove unworthy of their trust, and incapable of safeguarding the cause of Free-trade, there would be a revulsion of feeling which could only result in the establishment of their rivals in power. If the country were led to say : "These Free-traders are incapable of carrying on the Government," they would be sure to add : "and therefore we must go back to the other men, even if we have to swallow their Fiscal policy." But the new Government have to do more than show themselves capable administrators and legislators. Before they can do that they must win a victory at the polls so sweeping that it will place them in a position of absolute • independence,—a position so strong that they will be able to stand the assaults of two of the ablest of Parliamentary tacticians; Mr. Chamberlain and Mr. Balfour.
Though we are so strongly impressed with the gravity of the situation, and with the tremendous nature of the responsibilities that are before them, we are able to feel that the new Ministry will prove worthy of the occasion, and capable of maintaining the cause for the defence of which they have come into existence. The Ministry is a strong Ministry and a sound Ministry. Not only are its leading men statesmen of conspicuous ability, but they are, we believe, what is still more important, united by the determination to sink minor differences in order to make the Government lasting as well as powerful. They may not be entirely homogeneous in the matter of their political ideas. No modern Government is likely to be that. Certainly the late Government could not claim any such distinction. But they have something better than homogeneity of ideas, and that is willingness to co- operate loyally in the defence of a great principle. For his wise allocation of the various offices in his Cabinet Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman deserves the highest praise.. In his distribution of posts he has shown not merely no trace of personal feeling or of private jealousy—no one, indeed, would have expected that of him—but he has refrained from any attempt to entrench any one section of his party in the great offices of the Cabinet. He has filled the chief administrative offices with the men who were most suited to fill them, and has refused to yield to other and less worthy considerations. As we have noted elsewhere, the Cabinet thoroughly deserves the praise accorded it by the Times of India. The best offices have fallen to the best brains, and, we may add, the best brains have got the work which is most suited to them.
Mr. Asquith should prove an ideal Chancellor of the Exchequer, for, besides a firm grasp of finance and administration generally, he has both character and • judgment. But though be has in the best sense a Treasury mind, he may be depended upon not to allow the Treasury view to prevail where common-sense shows ' that it is inapplicable. His task is indeed a hard one, for during the last three and a half years little or nothing has been done to make good the damage wrought in our finances during the South African War and to restore them to a sound basis. We have had nominal surpluses, but at the same time we have been actually adding to • the total of the National Debt. That is, we have obeyed to the letter the injunction of Artemus Ward to "live within our means even though we have to borrow the money to do it with." Mr., Asquith will have to reduce expenditure without making any sacrifice of efficiency—a difficult but by no means impossible undertaking—and further, he will have to find some new source of revenue which will enable him to reduce the Income-tax, for while the Income-tax remains at a shilling we are wanting in one of the chief sinews of war. In our belief, Mr. Asquith will find, his new source of revenue in the amendment of our licensing system. If Mr. Asquith is an ideal Chancellor of the Exchequer, Sir Edward Grey may with equal certainty be described as an ideal Foreign Secretary. He is essentially a safe and moderate man, but to him moderation of view has never brought, as it sometimes does, anything in the nature of sterility or want of purpose. One feels that he has a coherent and just view of foreign policy, and that, besides knowing what he wants, he blows how to obtain what he wants. He will make us no enemies abroad, either intentionally or—what is a far greater danger—through inadvertence. At the same time, he will know how to hold his own, and, weighing all interests, to preserve those of his own country. Lord Carteret said it was the business of a Foreign Minister to knock together the heads of the Kings of Europe, and to get something thereby for the good. of his own country. Sir Edward Grey will not attempt, we are sure, to knock the heads of the European Sovereigns together, but we are also perfectly certain that he will not allow any of them to knock Britain's head against those of her neighbours. He is not the kind of man whom it will be safe to intrigue against or to try to trip up on side-issues.
Mr. Haldane has perhaps the hardest task of all in the Ministry, but we believe that he will prove equal to it. He comes to an office which through two and a half years of incoherent strivings and distracted counsels has been reduced to a condition of veritable chaos. A mediaeval writer illustrated the darkness of chaos by declaring that there the very cats run against each other. In the darkness and confusion of Pall Mall, Major-Generals, Under-Secretaries, and the Secretary of State himself have of late been doing little else but run against each other. Fortunately, Mr. Haldane is a. courageous as well as a capable man, and we have no fear of his spirit quailing before the appalling task which is presented to him. He brings one admirable quality, derived. both from instinct and training, to his new work. He is not the kind of man to be daunted by experts. He will not, when he is told that military expert opinion declares that such- and-such a course is impossible, consider it necessary to surrender and adopt the attitude, "I cannot fly in the face of expert opinion." As one of the leaders of the Bar, he has had plenty of experience of expert opinion, and knows how essential it sometimes is to reject such opinion when it is contrary to plain reason. A wise man will use expert opinion, but he will always check it by common-sense even on the most technical points. Mr. Haldane, in our opinion most fortunately, is not himself an amateur expert on military affairs. He goes to his post with an open as well as a specially acute and comprehensive mind. If his military advisers are able to convince him of the justice of their view, they will find no chief more loyal or more steadfast. If they are wise, however, they will be wary of trying to represent prejudices as military necessities, for such artifices will not prevail in Mr. Haldane's case. While we are dealing with Mr. Haldane's prospects at the War Office we should. like to enter a caveat in regard to certain sanguine expectations which are likely to be raised in the public mind.. The public must remember that the greater the mess the longer the time required to clear it up. The first call on Mr. Haldane's time and energy will be the clearing up of the dgbris of impossible schemes begun but never finished by his predecessor. Not until that is accomplished must the country expect anything from him in the nature of organic reform. His initial duty will be to put things straight, his next to "carry on" while he carefully considers the possibilities of reorganisation. We have dealt in another article with the great and pressing problem with which Mr. Morley has found himself confronted immediately on his entering office, and will only say here that we believe there is every possibility of Mr. Morley proving one of the ablest administrators who have entered the India Office of recent years. Mr. Morley in home politics holds what may be termed old-fashioned Radical principles, but it must not be supposed. that he will attempt to apply those principles to India. His essential statesmanship will prevent him attempting any- thing of the End. It is possible that he may regret that the British ever established themselves in India, but we are sure that he realises fully that as we are in India the fact must be accepted with its natural and inevitable conse- quences. A capable man—and Mr. Morley is distinctly a capable man—does not manage a particular part of his estate badly because he regrets that his father ever bought it.
We cannot find space to pass the whole of the Ministry in review, but we believe that if the list of the new Govern- ment is carefully and honestly studied it will be found to contain a very high average of administrative ability, and that we may look to the new men in the Cabinet, of whom we may take Mr. Sydney Buxton as an example, to show that their advancement to Cabinet rank is fully justified. It is one of the ironies of the present situation that, though the Ministers are termed Radicals by their opponents, they come into office with what is primarily a conservative task before them, and in a conservative spirit. Not only are they going to appeal to the country for a mandate to preserve our old and well-tried Fiscal policy, but in almost all the Departments of State their task is conservative. It will be conservative in the true sense in foreign affairs, for we may be sure that Sir Edward Grey will never recommend to his colleagues any policy so rash, so unjustifiable, and so unwise as that of the Bagdad Railway, nor will he desire to join with Prince Billow in another Venezuelan venture. As we have already pointed out, the task before Mr. Asquith is entiraly conservative. His duty will be to rebuild the fabric of national finance and to conserve the fiscal resources of the nation. Mr. Haldane for the next year or two cannot hope, as we have said, to do more than pursue a policy of conservative reconstruction. Even on such questions as those of the unemployed and the administration of the Poor Law the Government will, we believe, find that the first thing needful is the application of conservative principles,— principles which received so rude a shock in the passage of the Aliens Bill and the Unemployed Bill. Unless we are mistaken, the country as a whole is beginning to realise this fact. In spite of the babble of the political auction- room, we are convinced that the essential forces of con- servatism in the country will at the next Election operate to support the present Government and against their rivals. Conservatism looks aghast at the crudities of Mr. Chamberlain's propaganda, and finds little consolation in the sophistries of Mr. Balfour.
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