TOPICS OF THE DAY.
AN APPEAL FOR SIMPLICITY IN LEADERSHIP.
LAST week we described the exchange of messages between the Prime Minister and his three hundred and seventy anxious questioners in the House of Commons on the subject of indemnities as a humiliating transaction. After we had written, another telegram was despatched to Mr. Lloyd George by Colonel Claude Lowther disavowing all disloyalty to the Prime Minister, but asking whether it might be stated on Mr. Lloyd George's authority that whatever sum Germany was called upon to pay in the first instance should be regarded as only a payment on account. This, added Colonel Lowther, would allay all anxiety in the House and all disquietude in the country." As quickly as possible an answer was received from the Prime Minister saying that " the experts will take full account of further possibilities." The humiliating aspect of these negotiations is that it should really be thought necessary to ask a British Prime Minister to assure the nation that when he makes a promise he means it. It can hardly escape the notice of any one who reads these messages in conjunction with the story of the General Election that Mr. Lloyd George follows a policy, which comes to him far too easily, of living from hand to mouth. He scatters assurances right and left in answer to particular demands and to surmount particular difficulties. He never seems to be taking the long view, to be laying down a coherent and far-sighted policy. We are confident that if the nation felt that he was a man of large opinions who had always a clear and definite goal before his eyes, it would be much less prone to criticize him according to the results of his daily actions. As it is, Mr. Lloyd George gives them no other ground upon which to judge him. We all know that when a series of disillusionments and disappointments amount in the aggregate to the breakdown of a guaranteed policy, one of the regular crises arrives, and Mr. Lloyd George is charged with evasion or bad faith. In the circumstances it is generally quite impossible to quarrel with that judgment of his behaviour. But it is a tragic necessity, because if Mr. Lloyd George would be content to war against his natural instincts, and to be simple rather than ingenious, he would not create these continual difficulties for himself.
His genius for overcoming one crisis after another by brilliant strokes of Parliamentary strategy or by glowing rhetoric is well known, but such achievements, though they may satisfy the nation for a time, will not either console it or convince it in the long run. The comments of the Press have not suggested what we arc sure a very large number of people must be feeling, that to tell the Prime Minister in effect that one of his pledges only four months old must be renewed or people will not continue to believe in it at all is a really dreadful reflection upon our political morals. We do not say that such reminders are unneces- sary, for we have freely uttered them ourselves, for instance in connexion with Irish Conscription ; but we do say that they would never be required if the Prime Minister could alter his methods. Once more Mr. Lloyd George faces a Parliamentary crisis. We write under the disadvantage of not knowing what will happen in the debate of Wednes- day, April 16th, as, owing to the occurrence of Good Friday, we go to press this week on Wednesday afternoon. We have not much doubt, however, that Mr. Lloyd George will survive his trial even though he comes out with diminished security for the crisis, as a matter of fact, is not com- parable with others when he triumphantly rode the whirl- wind and directed the storm.
After all, the three hundred and seventy Coalition Members who sent the message to Mr. Lloyd George do not wish Parliament to be dissolved, and the Prime Minister has already threatened that he will make his acts in Paris a question of confidence, and if necessary will appeal to the country. Again, the amazing turnover of votes in the Central Hull election is interpreted in so many different ways that these interpretations may be expected to cancel one another out. The Northcliffe papers, for example, tell us that the Hull election is a warning to the Government on the subject of indemnities ; but so far as we read the speeches of Commander lienworthy, we gathered that he was chiefly concerned that there should be no Conscription and that the German people should be fed. If the Coalition Members themselves are not anxious to bring about the fall of the Government, as we are sure they are not, there is probably no other party in the House strong enough to do it. The Labour Members, although they are the Opposition proper, have neither attended the House very regularly nor convinced the public that they have any striking or urgent policy. The real work of Opposition has fallen upon the Liberal rump under the skilful Parlia- mentary leadership of Sir Donald Maclean. For our part, we are sorry that the Labour Members have not been more in the picture, for no one can ever come to the end of learn- ing the arts and crafts of Parliamentary business ; the Labour Members need more of that learning, and we contemplate the possibility of there being a Labour Govern- ment within a measurable distance of time. We are not among those who regard such a prospect with alarm. When a Labour Government comes in, what will happen, we imagine, will be something like this. The extremists of Labour will tell themselves that the advent to power of a Labour Government is the opportunity for creating a kind of Labour millennium. They will make wild and fantastic demands, assuring the country that they are only asking for what they have a right to expect from a Labour Government. The Labour Cabinet will at once recognize that if they are to keep the nation from bankruptcy, the social machine in working order, and themselves in exist- ence, they will have to resist such demands. But from the moment that they determine upon resistance they will cease to be regarded as a Labour Government in the eyes of Labour extremists. We shall be told that the heads of Labour have gone over to the bourgeoisie and that the proletariat has been betrayed. This process will have the advantage of dividing the sheep from the goats, and, so far from being a disaster for the country, it will probably have a very clarifying and steadying influence. All tl is is only another way of saying that though Labour out- Labours itself, the great stock of British common-sense will in the long run be strong enough to prevail. But can any one pretend that he wants such a process as this to take place now ? All the signs seem to show that the Government have successfully solved the Labour problem for the time being, and the last thing the nation wants is that the signal should be given for a renewed and more furious Labour agitation than ever. If a Labour Govern- ment is neither likely nor desirable as an alternative to the present Government, even less likely or desirable is a restoration of Asquithian Liberalism. The professed followers of Mr. Asquith (though we cannot help thinking that they are doing some violence to Mr. Asquith's saga- cious moderation) demand that there should be a military demobilization on such a scale that,if Germany cared to put up the least resistance, the victorious Allies would not be able to bring their harvest home. The nation will have nothing to do with such madness.
In all the circumstances we hope that Mr. Lloyd George will satisfy the House of Commons; but we hope that he will do so on this occasion, not by some dexterous Parlia- mentary finesse, or by mere rhetorical effects, but by a very simple statement of what he has tried to do and what he is aiming at for a long way ahead. His position is quite strong enough for him to take this line. In some ways-the atmosphere. of the House of Commons seems to have an intoxicating influence upon him. It is the scene of so many of his strokes of Parliamentary strategy that one can easily understand that when he is there he feels as though his foot were on his native heath, and that he has only got to carry on as exultantly as he has done from his Parliamentary youth upwards. But he has now reached the stage where plainness, sincerity, and simplicity will serve him extremely well, and ingenuity and jugglery, extremely ill. The anxiety about how he will reconcile all the large assurances which he freely issued at the General Election with the comparatively moderate payments which the financial experts expect Germany to be able to make reminds us of an incident in Lord Lytton's Pe/ham. Pelham when walking down a country lane came across a philo- sophic pedlar, with whom he entered into conversation. After some talk between them, Pelham remarked that ho supposed the pedlar was both an historian and a traveller. " Why," answered the pedlar, " I have dabbled a little in books and wandered not a little among men. I am
returned from Germany and am now going to my friends in London. I am charged with this box of goods. God send me the luck to deliver it safe I " " Amen ! " interjects Pelham. Presently the pedlar goes on to explain how he has struggled against adversity :-
" I deserve the reputation I have acquired, Sir. I have always had ill fortune to struggle against, and always have remedied it by two virtues—perseverance and ingenuity. To give you an idea of my ill fortune, know that I have been taken up twenty-three times on suspicion ; of my perseverance, know that twenty-three times I have been taken up justly ; and, of my ingenuity, know that I have been twenty-three times let off, because there was not a tittle of legal evidence against me ! "
That is rather the case of Mr. Lloyd George. His ingenuity enables him to convince people repeatedly that there is not a tittle of evidence against him. All the time, however, he is failing to satisfy them that there is any positive evidence for him. The positive evidence required is that he is working for the British Empire and the wider needs of the world sincerely and serenely, and not in a spirit of restlessness and political improvisations which amount in practice to sheer levity.
If one thing more than another causes us misgiving in the exchange of messages between Mr. Lloyd George and his critics, it is that Mr. Lloyd George did not seem to be indignant. Surely if a Prime Minister who acknowledged the traditions inherited by, say, Gladstone and the late Lord Salisbury had been asked to declare that his promises held good, he would have been furious. We can imagine Gladstone's sonorous, solemn, and prolonged rebuke, or Lord Salisbury's shorter, drier, and more sarcastic but righteous indignation. Surely, as Prime Minister of this land, Mr. Lloyd George ought to feel that when such in- sinuations about the reality of political pledges are flung about without provoking surprise or much comment something is seriously amiss with the state of public life. If he feels that he himself is in any way to blame, then he should regard it as an obligation upon himself to change the atmosphere of our national life, choose his political associates with extraordinary care, and generally consult the dignity of his great position. He is the principal servant of the public. But what does the ordinary person think of a servant who when some suggestion is made against his honesty resorts to bland and smiling explana- tions instead of being indignant at such an accusation ? The ordinary man takes the composure of the servant as in itself a sort of admission. We wish that Mr. Lloyd George could look upon the matter in some such light as this. But he is ever intent upon considering how a particular act will look instead of upon how his policy as a whole will serve the nation. This is the very reverse of the character which Lord Morley has attributed to Gladstone. In his analysis of Gladstone's character Lord Morley says :— " He did not look at an act or a decision from the Roint of view at which it might be regarded by other people. 1.welme, the mission to the Ionian Islands, the royal warrant, the affair of the judicial committee, vaticanism, and all the other things that gave offence, and stirred misgivings even in friends, showed that the very last question he ever asked himself was how his action would look ; what construction might be put upon it, or even would pretty certainly be put upon it ; whom it would encourage, whom it would estrange, whom it would perplex. Is the given end right, he seemed to ask ; what are the surest means ; are the moans as right as the end, as right as they are sure t But right—on strict and literal construction."
Mr. Lloyd George's position, we repeat, is quite strong enough for him to take the perfectly simple course. The vast majority of people recognize that, clear though our right is to demand every penny from Germany, we shall not as a matter of fact ever be able to get all that is owed to us. The attempt to do so should destroy Germany's ability to create new wealth and pay within reason. More- over, a nation which is always "Left Centre " in its ideas agrees with Mr. Lloyd George in so far as it believes him to have been labouring for a Peace which shall not sow the seeds of future wars. We hope and trust, therefore, that Mr. Lloyd George will act as a strong man who knows his strength. We confess that if he should not use this occasion wisely, but during the next few days 'or weeks should embark upon another series of entirely unnecessary hand-to-mouth settlements with his critics, we might begin to despair, and have to exchange what is intended to be friendly criticism for outright condemnation. But
let us meanwhile go on hoping. Our appeal is expressed in Ben Jonson's well-known lines :-
" Give me a look, give me a face, That makes simplicity a grace."
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