TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE ROAD TO REVOLUTION.
SOME months ago in writing on Political Vampirism and Mr. Lloyd George we declared that the time must soon arrive when the Unionist Party, and also the uncove- nanted upholders of moderation and common-sense, would come to themselves. They would realize that unless the present Ministry freed themselves from the domination of one who was neither a Unionist, a Moderate, nor a man of common-sense, but the " Father of Opportunism," they would lose completely the confidence of the electorate. There are signs that the moment we thus foreshadowed is rapidly approaching. Men are beginning to realize that if the country is to be extracted from the position of peril in which it now finds itself there must be a complete change of policy, direction, and inspiration in the present Government. It is no good mincing matters for fear of frightening people when they ought to be frightened. We have taken the wrong path, and have already gone a stage down the road to Revolution. Unless we stop, turn round, and retrace our course to the sounder if rougher road of Reason, the future will be dark and precarious indeed. Of the proofs that the country is getting alarmed, none is more significant than the very able and sensible letter sent by Lord Salisbury to the Times of Friday, January 9th. The letter is written in the best spirit of moderation, and is essentially sound and liberal in its point of view. To this letter, however, we may apply the old formula that there are three things to be noted in a speech—" what is said, how it is said, and who says it, and that of these the third is by far the most important." Lord Salisbury by heredi- tary strain, by training, and by temperament is a states- man and a man of intensely patriotic feeling—a man who would never dream of putting the interests of his class or order or his personal political interests above the interests of the whole community. Again, Lord Salisbury is in no sense a " viewy " man or a man unduly anxious or per- turbed about things political. He is the very last man in the world to shout Nous sommes trahis 1 or to think that the country is undone because men of his kind or of his particular views are not henceforth to have a semi- privileged position in the matter of ruling the nation, but are to be largely replaced by men of a different social status. No man ever was less inclined to hold the view of the Divine Right of the Cecils or of anybody else to govern this country. Though determined to be guided by conscience and principle in his political action, no man is more willing to obey the decisions of the majority, until by persuasion and legitimate political action he is able to convert that majority to his own opinion. Again, he is not the kind of politician who is thrown into a passion or a panic when things do not go just as he would like them to go, or to be frightened by political bogies or hysterical cries about ruin and revolution. He is not prejudiced by personal ani- mosities, nor are his mind and judgment distorted by the infirmities of personal ambition. In fine, it is no part of Lord Salisbury's political metier to shout " Wolf " What do we find him saying in regard to the present situation ? We will quote the principal parts of his letter verbatim, lest we may appear to exaggerate his attitude. After a generous reference to the war work of the Coalition and to the country's confidence in that work, this is how he sums up the present position :-
" Their foreign policy is gravely compromised ; their position in Russia, in Egypt, and in India is beset by anxiety ; they have not yet succeeded in housing reform ; their fiscal legislation has failed ; their dealings with national economy and with Labour are open to the severest criticism ; their mismanagement of Ireland is indescribable ; and the popular judgment upon these mistakes of administration is reflected in the by-elections. Make what allowance you like for the undoubted difficulties of the position, so far the popular judgment is right."
Lord Salisbury then goes on to point out that the failure of the Government is due to a mistaken conception of political conduct. " It is impossible to govern success- fully without. principles, and the Government apparently think otherwise." Political consistency may become a fetish, and all sensible men may modify, and ought to modify, their views. " But the process of repeatedly sacrificing your principles becomes a habit, and ends in your having no principles at all " :— " No one knows whether the Government are in favour of private enterprise or of nationalization, in favour of intervention in Russia or against it, in favour of law and order in Ireland or of governing Ireland according to Irish ideas, in favour of Dominion Home Rule or partition or federation or any other policy. Is it surprising that the electors have lost confidence in them ? "
Lord Salisbury next comes to what, as we have always realized, was unhappily the foundation-stone of the Coalition : Panic. Mr. Lloyd George—it is no good to pretend that the Government are anything but him- self with ornaments—is trying to persuade the nation, or at any rate a very large section of it, that he is the necessary man, and that he alone can save us from Revolution. As Lord Salisbury puts it :— " Many of my friends tell me that we had better put up with the Coalition Government, because the only alternative is Mr. Smillie. This is what keeps the Government in office. Personally, although I am glad to say that twentieth-century Conservatism is anxious to do a great deal for the workers in the spirit which the workers themselves desire, I have no sympathy with Mr. Smillie nor with what is called the official policy of the Labour Party, but what I would say to my Coal- itionist friends is that unless they are very careful the Coalition will make the triumph of Mr. Smillie's policy inevitable. It is neither fair nor safe to force the electors to a choice between opportunism and Mr. Smillie. Opportunism does not deserve support. You can no more govern a free people without principles than you can cook a dinner without:food. Principles are not, as some seem to think, a useful decoration, where possible, to the line of least resistance, but the very substance of which the true policy consists ; and if the Labour Party have principles, and the Coalition in many respects have none, you run the risk of enlisting the forces of justice and sincerity against the Coalition Government. In the war the Government struggled, indeed, for a great principle. They were followed by general support and triumphant success. The contrast is thus explained."
Lord Salisbury ends by declaring that Ministers must either think out their principles afresh and give up sacrificing them, or else make way for " a homogeneous Government." And then he adds what is perhaps the most essential thing in his letter :
Let them make way for a homogeneous Government— I mean homogeneous as to conviction, not rigidly according to old party connexion—which possesses principles and knows its own mind, and we shall have something to offer to the country as an alternative to the official Labour policy, something which will lead public opinion, and not follow it, and will deserve the confidence of all moderate men."
It is in the passage which we have just quoted that is to be found the antidote to Mr. Lloyd George's bogy " slogan," " My Ministry or the Deluge." There is no such sole alternative. It is not even necessary, as some people hastily assume, to condemn all Coalitions because the present Government are called a Coalition, or to think that moderate men of all parties can never co-operate at a crisis, and must always be weak and unstable because the present Government are weak and unstable. If we probe the matter to the bottom, the trouble with the present Government is not that they are a Coalition, but rather that they are not one. To put it in another way, the Government have failed because they are a badly con- structed Coalition—a Coalition based not upon a mutual forbearance in the immediate application of political principles, but a Coalition founded upon opportunism and buttressed by timidity.
If the Government had been a true Coalition, we should have seen among their members the saner and more moderate portion of the Liberal Party. Instead, with one or two minor exceptions, the Liberals in the present Coalition, and first and foremost the Prime Minister, are what we must term the professional political bravoes of the Liberal and Radical groups. We are not going into the question of the in- ability of the first Coalition to carry on the war success- fully. We hold indeed that in all probability that first Coalition was too war-weary to continue without reorgan- ization—that it was time it made room for a new set of men, just as Lord French had to make room for Lord Haig. But Coalition did not succeed Coalition. What really happened was that Mr. Lloyd George suddenly abandoned his old Party and made a bid for the support of the Unionist Partv, which was then the strongest Party in the House, and which as Unionists we are proud to say was also the most patriotic and the least hungry for office. But the methods by which Mr. Lloyd George effected his Parliamentary coup d'etat disgusted the best men amongst his old colleagues, men like Lord Buckmaster and Mr. McKenna. The only Liberals he was able to take over with him at once, or as soon as he could convince them that he was a stayer, were either men of damaged political reputation and doubtful political origin like Mr. Winston Churchill, or men of a cryptic type of Machiavellism like Mr. Montagu, or again persons of like political levity with himself—persons, in short, who belonged to the Liberal Party because, after Tariff Reform had broken the Unionist Party, it was so evidently the best place for the men who wanted office and power quickly. To these restless and calculating Parliamentary Condottieri must be added the great clan of would-be Peers, Baronets, Privy Councilors, and Knights among the Liberals, and those humbler political flat-fish haunters of muddy estuaries and shallow waters who are more than willing to bite at any baits thrown to them by the Whips—the Codlins and Shorts of the faction and party. Of the so-called. Labour representatives in the Coalition we need say nothing special. Good men as some of them are, it will be remembered that they were forced to leave the Labour Party when they took office under Mr. Lloyd George.
Mr. Lloyd George belongs to no man's party but his own, though he has the local and temporary support of a certain number of personal henchmen or House earls, whose nexus to each other and to their chief is mainly that described by the American politician as " the cement of public plunder." Unquestionably, since the country needs it, a new Coalition or Ministry of Reconstruction composed of the moderate elements in the State could easily be formed to take the place of the present Administration. A nucleus, and a large nucleus, of good and wel.;aLrieal men ip to be found in the present Administrae P*4 it reconstitution with fresh blood—i.e., with na 'st and wide-minded like Lord Robert Cecil, to men..., anly one name—could easily be effected. The formation of such an Administration of National Trustees would not only stay us on the road to Revolution, but could carry on the essential work of reconstruction with safety and success.
By this we do not mean anything in the way of reaction, or of nonsensical ideas as to appointing " Saviours of Society." All we want to do is to stop the coach tearing down the road to Revolution in order to escape from Revolution.
The country is beginning to get seriously to work, and there are plenty of signs of better heart and better inten- tions in the masses of the people. All that we want now is steadiness and good sense at the helm, and the deter- mination not to do the most foolish and most infamous of all things political. By this we mean what is done when a Government consent to carry violent and revolu- tionary measures, not because they believe in them, but because they are in a panic and think they can stave off even more extreme action by paying blackmail. But those who pay blackmail either in public or in private life always come to ruin. If we are to have Revolution, let us have it at the hands of people who believe in it, and not at the hands of those who do not, but are,so much demoralized by fear that they dare not give an honest " No " to any demand.
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