TOPICS OF THE DAY.
POLITICAL DISCRETION.
WE have always held that the leading statesmen in a Democratic State like ours—a State, that is, in which private wealth is not recognized as one of the requirements " for high office, and in which poor men can, and do, serve the nation as ably and as honourably as the rich—should be well paid. They should be paid also in the way which relieves them as much as possible from the strain and worry of official life. They must be given that opportunity of leisure which is absolutely essential to the best work. For this reason we welcomed with a special satisfaction the magnificent, sympathetic and well-thought-out gift of Lord and Lady Lee. By creating the trust which holds Chequers for the use and enjoyment and repose of the Prime Minister, they provided him with the peace of mind and body which goes with a beautiful, well-ordered and yet not too huge country house. In his haven of quiet amid Buckingham- shire oaks and beeches, the Prime Minister has time to think at ease, and to confer without distraction. And he can do it—nay, is thoughtfully obliged to do it—in most respects as the guest of the Chequers Trust, unem- barrassed by the thought if he is a poor man that he ought not to live so easily. For the same reasons we have always desired that the nation should not merely throw the great rambling, pleasant, but ungainly and expensive town house-10 Downing Street—at the head of the Prime Minister and leave him and his bewildered family to sink or swim among the debris of the past Premiers who have picnicked in the halls of Walpole's urnnodernized house or washed themselves in squalid splendour in its single bathroom ! The State, besides the salary allotted to the First Lord of the Treasury, ought to provide him with a really free house—one in which, not only the rates and taxes should be paid out of the public purse, but one in which light, heat, water-supply, upkeep of furniture and all that makes a house habitable—habitable under modem conditions—should be " found " for the occupant. The Prime Minister should, as it were, be the tenant of a furnished house in London, lent him by the nation free of all overhead charges during his term of office, just as under the Chequers Trust he is provided with a furnished and equipped country house. In a word, " an official residence " should be a reality, not a sham, a worry-saving and money-saving device, not a burden. _Further, we have always insisted that an ex-Premier (and possibly his chief colleagues also) should, by a half-pay pension, be placed, if Leader of the Opposition, in a position ,of financial security and independence. The thing is ..done already in Canada. The Leader of His Majesty's , Opposition is, in fact, a public official, a pillar of Society ; and he is a labourer in every sense who is worthy of his hire. Finally, we have always urged the necessity of giving the Prime Minister, the Foreign, the Colonial, and the Indian Secretaries of State, and also the heads of the War Office and the Admiralty, adequate entertainment allowances.
These were the views urged by us upon every Par- liament during the past twenty years. We went further and insisted that if the State continued to underpay its chief servants and refused to provide for their welfare the results would be bad in every way. In order to enforce that high standard of delicacy and discretion which the 'nation expects and should exact from Ministers of State, it must make a better provision for their peace and comfort. This, we held, was specially necessary in the case of the Prime MinisterL--the ForeMan of the Works in the great firm of John Bull and Company. If not, we argued, the- Prime Minister would be 'liable, unconsciously, to be placed under obligations to private individuals—men who would often mean no sort of harm but who could not be permitted to have even the appear- ?? nee of having obtained an influence over the Prime Minister through material means. The only persons who can be permitted to " oblige a Prime Minister— unless the obligation is one which takes the form of a permanent endowment of the office after the Chequers precedent—are the people as a whole. We held this view, not because we felt any fear of corruption, but because we wanted to make certain of the highest possible standard of delicacy and discretion in our public life, and because, as men of the world, we realized that you cannot maintain that standard intact unless you supply Ministers with the things which anxious and generous but indiscreet friends are certain to force upon them.
Why have our common-law judges been above all sus- picion of want of delicacy and discretion. Because they were very well paid and because, when they went on cir- cuit, care was taken that they should br well lodged at the charge of the nation, and not be dependent upon the hospitality of the rural or urban magnates. A judge who had to try a case connected with, say, an enclosure, or a strike, could not be beholden for his entertainment to the great landowner or cotton-lord or iron-master or mine-owner, though the invitation might have been inspired by no intention to influence the judge. The rich man's wife might have only said to her husband : " Whatever you say we must have the judges here this winter. The only decent hotel in Mudborough is closed, and it would be a disgrace to the county,- and all of us, if they had to put up at the ' Bell and Dragon.' The place is not even clean, and the food, I hear, is beyond words." Hence the proviSion of judges' lodgings free of charge during assizes.
What has happened during the past week is exactly what we felt must sooner or later happen to some Prime Minister of small private means, but up to his eyes in important work and with every hour of the day mort- gaged for weeks ahead. It has happened in a way which might almost be described as pathetic for its ineptitude, muddle-headedness, and blindness. The words that inevitably rise to one's lips when one contemplate s Sir Alexander Grant's gift of 30,000 preference shares in the donor's company and Mr. MacDonald's acceptance are " 0 sancta simplicitas ! " It seems, at first, ur.- believable that two such well-meaning and thoroughly honourable and uncorrupted men should blunder straight and unlured into the muddy ditch in which they now find themselves. And yet, on reflection, it is easy to see how a want of worldly wisdom on both sides and also, on one side, of want of leisure to think the thing out by himself, or talk it over with his friends, produced the tragi-comedy of the Daimler. We do not doubt that, as an efficient business man and a taxpayer, Sir Alexander Grant was genuinely shocked to see the Prime Minister, a man of delicate constitution and grossly and yet inevitably overworked, trying to get through his' day without a motor-car—the Londoner's best time-saver. Things, he argued, could not go on like that. He must throw himself into the breach. He must stop it at all costs. He would not have his old friend, with his mind fraught with all the dearest interests of the country, and, indeed, of humanity, without the obvious convenience accorded by every large enterprising firm, including, no doubt, MacVitie's, to half a dozen of their staff. The Prime Minister would dine with him, or stay with him on -a visit, why should he not accept motor, as well as table and bed, hospitality ? So came about the transfer of the 30,000 preference shares! That Mr.- MacDonald was guilty of a- great political indiscretion no• impartial man can doubt. The defence of sancta simplicitas is true, but it is inadmissible. It is also, true that the State is gravely to blame for providing no motor-car for its Prime Minister while ample provision for rapid and comfortable transport is made for the Army Council, and the Staff of the various Commands. What is, -in a major-general's case, a plain necessity, is in. a Prime Minister's case apparently held by Parliament to be a gross and unwholesome luxury, or, at any rate, a pecuniary. crime.
But, once more, we cannot admit that the Prime Minister or Sir Alexander did the right thing. They did a very indiscreet thing and set a bad example in the matter of "obligations "--especially owing to Sir Alexander's well-earned honour. We must remember, however, that they have made no attempt at secrecy, told no lies, and invented no plausible excuses. There was no corruption and there was no trickery—only a want of appreciation of the wise worldly maxim that a ruler of men must never expose himself to suspicion, however unjust and unfair. He must remember also that the maintenance of dignity, discretion, delicacy of action and the avoidance of, dependence, and even the appearance of dependence are essential to high office. " Was the Prime Minister to go without his motor, and be, a strap- hanger, or stand in queues at underground stations, and waste the time that was meant for mankind by slow transport ? If he couldn't afford a car, and if Government wouldn't give him one, was he to refuse the loan of a Daimler by a friend ? " Certainly, he might accept such a loan. But he and his friend should have, chosen the right way and not the wrong way of arriving at the desired and rightly-desired conclusion. Sir Alexander Grant should have followed the Chequers precedent and endowed the office of Prime Minister with a car, a garage, and a chauffeur, just as the Lees endowed the office with a country house, a housekeeper and a butler. He might have made a similar endowment for the Leader of the Opposition. No one could have objected to, or even smiled at, so sound and beneficent a scheme.
Again; if for any reason Sir Alexander Grant did not want to do this and stuck to his own plan, Mr. MacDonald, last March or when he received the shares, should in Parliament have set forth the whole story of the proposal, should have frankly told the Commons that he needed a car, and that he should like to take it from a very old friend under romantic and touching ties of a boyish friendship. As, however, it was inevitably a matter of great delicacy, he refused to have the shares placed in his name unless the transaction was sanctioned by the House of Commons.
We undertake to say that Parliament and the country would have been deeply touched by such frankness, and that the universal verdict would have been " That's perfeetly fair and square. As the country neglected to do the proper thing there is no reason why it should not be done by Sir Alexander Grant."
Instead of this compelling openness and publicity, things were allowed to drift anyhow, and a painful situation was voluntarily yet quite unnecessarily created at a moment when the world was acclaiming Mr. Ramsay MacDonald as one of the 'greatest of living statesmen !
Is it too late to put matters right ? We do not think it is. Why should not Sir Alexander Grant abandon his original scheme and adopt ours ? Let him endow the office of Prime Minister with a car, a garage and a chauffeur. When Mr. Ramsay MacDonald goes out of office and becomes Leader of the Opposition he can then carry out the other side of the scheme suggested.
J. ST. LOE STRACB:EY.
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