THE INSURANCE BILL : WHY NOT A POLL OF THE
PEOPLE?
IF the people of this country desire that the principle of compulsory insurance shall be carried out in the manner laid down in the National Insurance Bill, then unquestionably their will must be fulfilled. It is, how- ever, of vital importance that a Bill of such magnitude and with such-far-reaching financial and social results shall be the Bill desired by the people. In other words this is exactly the type of measure upon which the people ought to be given an opportunity to exercise their veto if they wish to exercise it. Needless to say if all the indications were to the effect that the people of this country not only wanted compulsory insurance, but wanted it in the form invented by Mr. Lloyd George, it would be most foolish to demand a Poll of the People on his Bill. We say, however, without fear of contradiction, that no honest man can assert that there are clear indications that the scheme embodied in the Bill, especially in the Bill as it has recently been amended, is the scheme of which the country as a whole approves. On the contrary no fact has been more marked at recent by-elections than that the Government scheme is unpopular with a very large section of those whom it is primarily meant to benefit, and who will be directly affected by it. The Labour candi- dates who have stood recently have been quite as critical as, nay, in some cases more critical than, the Unionist candidates. Take, for example, the last by-election at Oldham. Here undoubtedly the figures of the by-election show that the majority of the electors at Oldham were not favourable to Mr. Lloyd George's scheme, though very possibly—indeed most probably—favourable to some other and different scheme of national insurance. To judge, again, by the discussions which have taken place in South Somerset and by the hurried way in which the Government have altered their Bill in order to conciliate working- class opinion in South Somerset, Mr. Lloyd George's scheme is equally unpopular there. In these circumstances it seems to us that the House of Lords, if they are to stand true to the function which the Constitution accords them, should make sure that before the Bill comes into operation the electors have a chance of voting upon it and of vetoing it if they consider that the principle of compulsory insurance is not adequately and beneficially carried out by its provisions. We do not suggest that the Lords should take upon themselves the responsibility of throwing the Bill out altogether and of assuming that the country does not want the Bill. They have always said, and they have always, as far as possible, acted on the principle, that their business is not to kill Bills on their abstract merits, but to refuse to pass import- ant Bills until it is clear that it is the will of the people that they should pass. In the present case the proper way of making sure of this is to add a Referendum clause to the Bill, under which a Poll of the People will be taken whether or not the Act, though passed by both Houses of Parliament, shall come into operation. The introduction and the printing of Lord Balfour of Burleigh's Referen- dum Bill, a measure well drafted and well thought out in every particular, makes the action by the Lords which we suggest comparatively easy. All that the Peers would have to do would be to add a Referendum clause to the following effect :- " This Bill shall not come into operation until a Poll of the People shall have been taken thereon in the manner set forth in the Schedule to this Bill, and unless at such Poll of the People a majority of the persons voting shall have voted in favour of the said Bill being put into operation. The said Poll shall be taken on or before February 10th, 1912."
The Schedule presents no difficulties. Any draftsman or, indeed, any person at all conversant with the ways of Parliament could in half an hour make the omissions and alterations required to convert Lord Balfour of Burleigh's Bill into the aforesaid Schedule. On previous occasions we have printed such a model Schedule and need not repeat it. We may, however, set forth the voting-paper which the returning officers would have to submit to the people. It would run as follows :— Poll of the Parliamentary Electors of the United Kingdom, 1912.
BALLOT PATER.
Counterfoil No. If you wish the Act, the short title of which is "The National YES. NO.
Insurance Act, 1911," to come into operation on 1st July,1912, place a cross under the word " Yes." If not, place a cross
under the word " No."
We have given already sufficient reasons why the Bill should be referred to a Poll of the People. If, however, any further arguments are needed they are to be found, first, in the extraordinary confusion of the Bill which has resulted from Mr. Lloyd George's determination to have a Bill at any cost. This determination has led him to make concessions first in one direction and then in the other—always concessions which add new burdens to the public purse, and very often concessions which are either in conflict with previous concessions or else destructive of the original principles of his measure. Next and even more important is the fact that the Bill has not been pro- perly discussed in the House of Commons. As almost always happens in the case of a Bill under the closure and the guillotine, trivial points have been debated at great length, while matters of vast importance have been passed without adequate discussion or, indeed, any discussion at all. Probably if discussion had taken place in regard to these matters concessions as far-reaching as those made in the parts of the Bill discussed would have been secured. It has been a sort of toss up whether the chance of the guillotine would or would not allow sufficient pressure to be brought upon Mr. Lloyd George to force him to agree to changes in his scheme. In the general confusion the Bill has become a welter of ill-digested and undiscussed inconsistencies. No doubt by the mechanical operation of the party system and the ardent pressure of the Whips it will pass its third reading by a handtome majority, but that dces not in the least alter the duty of the Lords to see tp it that the people have an opportunity of saying whether they really do wish that this amazing product of the Government quick-legislating machine should be fastened upon the neck of the private citizen and on our home industries, great and small.
Party hacks and those vehement anti-democrats who regard the Referendum as the greatest of evils will no doubt declare that our proposals are impracticable and insiveere. They will assert that what we are doing is merely to suggest that the Lords should throw out the Bill in an indirect manner. We must know, they will urge, that the Government would not dream of allowing the House of Commons to accept the Bill with a Referendum clause if it were sent down to them, and that, therefore, we are in effect proposing the rejection of the measure. We are doing nothing of the kind. Our proposal is a perfectly serious one, and one which we make quite as much, as advocates of the Referendum, as opponents of the present Insurance Bill. We are most anxious that the electors should see a working example of a system which bears such good fruit in Switzerland, America, and Australia, and we could not choose a better occasion than a Bill in regard to which there is so much doubt and difficulty. We are certainly not going to be frightened by being told that the Government will regard the addition of a Referendum clause as rejection. No doubt they will say so, but we are by no means sure that they would really dare to act on their threats. We think it highly probable that if the Lords took the bold course we suggest there would be such a strong outburst of feeling in the country in favour of a reference that the Government would be forced to yield. In any case it is not the duty of the Lords to be swayed in their action by the Government's intense dread of the most democratic of political institutions. If they think the Bill ought to be referred to the final decision of the people, let them refer it. Any other course is inconsistent with the claim of the House of Lords to be the faithful trustees of the people in the matter of legislation. Certainly they have no cause to shelter the Government and protect them from the infer- ence which must be drawn if the Government refuse to let the Bill go to the people—the inference that they think the Bill would be rejected—and, further, that they dare not even in a particular and specific case accustom the people to exercising the right of veto over the Parliament- ary vagaries of log-rolling legislators.
Before we leave the subject there is one other argument in favour of the Lords taking the step we have described which should be noted. It is quite clear that when the Bill reaches the House of Lords there will not be adequate time to discuss it before the prorogation of Parliament, which must take place before Christmas if the tired legislator is to get any rest before entering on a Session already mortgaged to three such tremendous projects as the destruction of the Legislative Union with Ireland, Disestablishment, and the addition of some two or three million electors to the register, coupled with a general redistribution of seats. Considering the mess into which Mr. Lloyd George and his patient majority in the House of Commons have got the In- surance Bill, the Lords, to do their work adequately, would want four or five weeks in Committee to get into order the tangle of clauses, sub-sections, and schedules hurled at their heads by the Commons But everyone knows they will not be allowed half that time. In these circumstances it seems to us that the only safe thing for the Lords to do, granted that they do not reject the Bill altogether—which, in our opinion, would be a mistake—is to pass it without amendment, and exactly in the form in which it left the Commons, subject only to the Referendum clause. The Lords would in effect say : "You have sent us a bad Bill, a thoroughly inefficient piece of legislation, and have not given us time to make it workable even on your own lines and principles. Therefore we refuse to take any responsibility for the Bill. All we can do is to secure to the electors the opportunity to veto it if they wish so to do. The people must take the responsibility of acceptance, not we. We are not going to make a few hurried and ineffective attempts at amend- ment in the meagre time afforded us, and then, when the inevitable break-down of the Bill comes, be told that we are as much responsible for it as the House of Commons, for we not only let it pass into law, but actually amended it in certain particulars. The matter is one on which the people ought to decide."
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