TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE POLITICAL CONFUSION : THE REFERENDUM REMEDY.
NOTHING is more remarkable than the confusion of the public mind over the conflicting policies and personalities that occupy the political stage. The individual elector may have fairly dear views about ''ree Trade, Protection, Socialism, the Capital Levy, Foreign Policy, Dominion Preference, Imperial Develop- ihent, and about the remedies most suitable to unemploy- ment. He may even have deliberate opinions on the Currency. Lastly, he may have distinct predilections as to our party leaders, desiring that this man should be recalled to public life, and that other one be compelled to remain in exile, or again that this or that party should be reformed, or reunited, or absorbed.
The trouble begins when the elector seeks to apply his principles and wishes to the actual situation, and to ask himself the question, " For whom shall I vote ? " Then he finds that as at present constituted our representative institutions allow him little freedom of choice. He sees himself bound hand and foot by a rigid party system applied to single-membered constituencies. And his want of freedom is not to be found only in the selection of the candidates ; he has even less choice in regard to the principles which, as soon as the votes are counted, will be said to have been decided at the General Election.
Take an example. A is against the Capital Levy. " Then let him vote Unionist." But he is also a Free Trader. " Then why not vote Liberal ? " He is, however, a strong Unionist and Imperialist as regards the Empire and is also strongly in favour of maintaining an efficient Army, Navy, and Air Force. " Then in Heaven's name let him vote Unionist as already suggested, and have done with it ! " But he is dissatisfied with the Foreign policy of the Unionists. He wants stronger action taken to prevent the French laying waste half Germany and letting the torches of revolutionary anarchy be lighted throughout Central Europe. " Then he had better abstain altogether." What ! abstain and help to give the impression that the British people have decided in a certain way, when, in fact, they have probably decided in quite another way ! He cannot sterilize himself politically by Voting' for no one. " Well, don't bother me about A. I have plenty of troubles of my own. I haven't decided how I am going to vote, and I am pretty sure that I shall be wrong whatever I do ! "
Such conversations and searchings of heart are going on in every constituency in the country, and very often in the minds of the most earnest and thoughtful of the voters. What is the remedy ? In our opinion it is to be found in the Referendum. That, and that alone, will set the elector free to vote for the party which on the whole he prefers, or for the best man, and will save him from being impaled on the horns of the dilemma—" If you vote for Smith and Free Trade you will also be reckoned as having voted for Smith and a Capital Levy."
The Referendum, remember, does not destroy a party or kill the representative system of Government, or prevent complicated measures being " thrashed out " in Committee, or " the accumulated wisdom of our Members of Parliament being applied to legislative projects." What it does is to give a certain suspensive power to the voter. It enables him to vote for Smith with reservations. Instead of putting himself entirely in Smith's hands, he can say : " Yes, I like the party programme which you represent except in one or perhaps two particulars. On these I should like a -chance of reconsideration. I am a Free Trader, but I would not veto every form of Tariff Reform. If the country as a whole wants it, and if it were proposed to apply it in a moderate and tentative way, I .should not greatly object: I do, however, want to see the actual proposals when worked out, and then be able to consider the .matter again, and not decide in the unholy scramble of a General Election. In a word, I want the final form of the Tariff policy referred back. to me and the country as a whole. And if I want the Referendum for the Tariff, still more do I want it for such a mad measure as the-Capital Levy."
Next, can anyone say that this reserve power accorded to the voter is going to weaken the power or the responsi- bility of our Governments, and make them " the mere tools and delegates of the odd man" ? and so on and so on. Instead of binding Governments in fetters, the Referendum will free them just as it will free the elector. Under present conditions our Governments are slipping into the hands of log-rolling combinations of groups. If, however, the Referendum becomes a part of our Constitution, we shall have knocked the " jemmy " out of the hands of our political burglars. A Government who are held up in Parliament by a combination of groups can avoid the process of coercion without causing a political crisis by pointing out to their blackmailers that they will be forced to send the Bill in dispute to the electors. There will be sure to he tai o hundred Members, or one-third of the House of Commons, willing to demand a Poll of the People. And thus the log-rolling bandits will be foiled. They will know that their Bill would not stand a chance of being accepted.
The change that has come over, or, at any rate, is coming over the country at large in respect of the Refer- endum is most remarkable. It has come exactly as such changes always do in English public life. There seems perfect indifference to some great and important proposal, and then suddenly the plan is accepted. The national habit of catching the train in the last minute and a-half prevails. Certainly it looks as though that is what is happening now. A year ago—even a month ago—one could get no one to listen when one talked or wrote about the Referendum. Now there are eager readers and listeners throughout the country. The only obstacle which is seriously mentioned is that it would be very difficult, almost impossible, to erect the machinery for taking a Poll of the People. To meet this objection, we have this week printed the operative parts of a Bill (not only in existence but in print and obtainable at the Stationery Office for 20.). That is the Bill of -Lord Balfour of Burleigh which was introduced and read a second time in the House of Lords in -1911. One has only to read the text of the Bill to see how simple it is. You can just as easily refer a complicated measure to the electorate as you can refer a complicated man.
We have one word more to say. We trust that the millions of electors who have been awakened on this point will when Parliament meets insist on their repre- sentatives considering and passing a Referendum Bill. Members of Parliament might show their belief in the remedy by adding to it a clause declaring that in any case, whether accepted by both Houses or not, and without any need for a petition of one-third of the House of Commons, " this Bill shall, before it is presented for the Royal assent, be submitted to a Poll of the People in the manner ordered and set forth in this Act." Then we should finally know whether the country did or did not want to have the Referendum. We are prepared to say that the Referendum Bill would pass at a Poll of the People by an enormous majority. Then, both in the ease of the Tariff and the Capital Levy, an appeal -to the electors
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