WEATHER AND POLITICS.
THE instability of mortal things has seldom come home to us more vividly than in the contrast between the summers of 1912 and 1911. Last year Englishmen were slowly learning to adapt themselves to the conditions of life in the tropics. Their clothes, their customs, and most of all their drinks were gradually being remodelled. Enthusiastic prophets foretold a long succession of similar seasons, and one or two, reluctant to believe that such heat could ever be followed by frost and snow, sought to prove scientifically that the climate of England was really changing, and that invalids might safely look forward to wintering at home as safely as in Egypt. Here and there might be found some unhappy being to whom what brought joy to others meant only a limp and listless existence, in which the shelter of a darkened room was unwillingly exchanged for the shady side of the street, and to whom, when that was to be had, even London seemed cooler than the pitiless grit of the motor-haunted country roads. But for the most part the wonderful weather brought enjoyment tempered by an occasional sunstroke, and only a few hearts sank at the thought that we might be only at the beginning of a cycle in which even Englishmen would grow accustomed to eating and even sleeping out of doors. This year the worst conceptions of English weather have triumphantly reasserted themselves. The summer of 1912 is in its way quite as remarkable as the summer of 1911. There has been no revolution in the climate. It is still what it has always been—an infinite succession of variations. This year we sit over the summer fire quite as grate- fully as we are accustomed to hug its winter edition. Little by little we have crept back into our winter clothes, and celebrated the bicentenary of the umbrella by only putting it down when the wind is too high to keep it up. The social chronicler has had nothing to tell of the dresses at Ascot and Goodwood. He has been reduced to the honest admission that they were all hidden under mackintoshes. The ordinary machinery of summer goes on indeed, but we need only turn over the pages of Mr. Punch to learn amid what constant and disastrous interruptions it has had to work. The moor and the sea-beach are still visited by hopeful sportsmen or by resigned parents, but at both the gloom of the sky is only varied by an occasional thunderstorm or by hail which has to be swept up by shovelfuls.
The aspect of the weather has its counterpart in public affairs. The triumphal progress of each Session is followed by a summer of discontent. This time last year Ministers were at the topmost pinnacle of their prosperity. They could. point to the Constitution lying in fragments at their feet, and say with just pride, " This was our doing." By no other hands than theirs has the Government of England been made a Single Chamber Government. They and they only have decreed that when Philip has recovered from his debauch he shall be denied any opportunity of proving himself once more sober. A House of Commons may do what it likes, and there is no one to call it to account. It has only to begin its misdeeds early enough to be sure of reading the record of them in the Statute Book. There was no difficulty then about getting the supporters of the Cabinet to a division. In that happy year the motors of the Ministerialists never broke down, nor did their owners ever find themselves shut out through being a minute too late. The majorities hardly varied from evening to evening, and, so far as the votes of its supporters went, the Govern- ment was as safe in August as it had been in February. Nor was it only in the Constitutional region that Ministers did what they pleased. The Insurance Act, the strangest instance of miscalculation that ever a group of experienced politicians put their hands to, was welcomed at its first appearance with universal applause. If ever the Chan- cellor of the Exchequer had feared that his bill might be unpopular he must have been at once reassured. Whether he is visited by intervals of depression we do not know. If he is he is no doubt speedily relieved by the vision of a new tax. But if he did in the first instance watch the clouds and wonder what they had in store for his pet measure, they soon " broke in blessings " on his head. On the happy 4th of May, we read in the veracious and impartial Whitaker, " Mr. Lloyd George appealed to all parties for help to strengthen his proposals ; and Mr. Austen Chamberlain, Mr. Redmond, and Mr. Ramsay MacDonald having uttered benedictions, the measure was brought in amid general cheers." This year the only thing that could have evoked general cheers would have been an. announcement that the day when it would come into force was postponed. By the admission even of Ministerialists a more unpopular Act has never been framed. Whether this change can be set down to the weather we will not undertake to say. It has had the unusual fate of being as much discussed since it has become law as while it was still in the making, and it must be admitted that this revolution in public opinion has coincided with what threatens to be the most disastrous harvest of recent times. This may go some way to explain the extreme hostility which the Act is encountering in the agricultural districts. When the crops are rotting on the ground even a small addition to the weekly labour bill is unwelcome to the farmer, and it is made none the sweeter by the further annoyance of having to stop his labourers' contribution out of their wages, instead of leaving them to pay it for themselves. Possibly if the present summer had been like the last, and the farmers had got in an abundant harvest, these annoyances might have been little noticed, though even then a new tax would hardly have been welcome. But when the first payments have to be made by men who have something very like bank- ruptcy hanging over them the unpopularity of the Act is assured. Each storm of rain must increase Mr. Lloyd George's regret that the Insurance Act has been associated so closely and so widely with his own name. Perhaps the character of this and some other Government measures would of itself account for the difficulty the Whips have experienced in keeping the majorities up to their normal strength. But there may also be a physical explanation. When a member begins to -wonder whether voting with the Government may not be a cause of weakness rather than of strength in his next canvass, he may almost insensibly be more unwilling to go back to the House after dinner when there is a tempest blowing than when the air out of doors is a pleasant change from a heated room. " He that observeth the wind shall not sow " may be as true in politics as in farming, and a Ministerialist who suspects that his chiefs are not going the right way to win at the next election may find the weather as good an excuse as any other for staying away from a division.
There is another aspect of this wet summer that may have indirect political consequences. The crusade directed against the present distribution of landed property depends for success on an assumed desire on the part alike of the country labourer and of the town workman to become tenants of the State or of a Municipality. When either of these classes reads in his newspaper—and in these days every one sees a newspaper—the sad story of the failure of one crop from spring droughts and of the destruction of another from summer rains—both disasters coming in the same year—he can hardly fail, however much bent he may be upon becoming a working farmer, to ask himself what his condition would be if the Bill enabling him to make this change had become law last year. This might then have been his first year on his new holding, and where would have been the profits to which he would have been looking forward ? If he lives in the country or is there on a holiday, he can answer this question for himself. He has merely to keep his eyes and his ears open. The air is full of the forebodings of farmers and of the need they are under of dismissing labourers for whom they have no work. If the intending tenant distrusts his ears he can go out into the fields and examine the state of the crops for himself. His own observation will only confirm the tale that has been told him. But when he goes home will he be as anxious as he was last summer to see Mr. Lloyd George's new venture reduced to shape? He sees to-day what a bad year would mean to him if he took to farming, and that something more than willingness to work is needed to make a successful agriculturist. There are those who will count the chances and decide to run the risk, but they may not be numerous enough to give the Chancellor of the Exchequer a new term of power. The fall of the rains may fight against him as effectively as the courses of the stars.
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