CABINET AND COUNTRY
THE Press and Lobby discussions on the Government's future ebb and flow. Rumours improbable in varying degree are given currency, and promptly and with perfect veracity denied. 'jut to assume that all is well with the Government, and that if an election took place tomorrow, with the Cabinet's personnel and programme unchanged, it would result in certain victory for the MacDonald administration, is plain non- sense. Nothing could be less certain. Every by- election points to a reversion- to the position of 1929, when Labour, as the largest party, took office, but without a clear majority, . The National Government is in a stronger electoral position today than the Con- servative Party was then, and by-elections are in some respects a fallacious index, but the danger that when the test comes the National Government will at the best find itself dependent on the support of its extreme Right is very real. If that happened it would be a disaster for the country. Reactionary policies forced on the Cabinet as the price of die-hard support would alienate the sympathy of all left-centre progressives and at the same time provide invaluable propaganda for the Communists and Left-wing Socialists. A Cabinet that so ordered its affairs as to invite that fate would deserve neither sympathy nor mercy.
. Yet the case for a continuance of the National Govern- ment system for a further term—not indefinitely—is unanswerable, if only because of what the alternatives are. The world is still plunged in uncertainty and instability. This country has problems of the first magnitude facing it in Europe and Asia. International trade is barely stirring from its stagnation. In some directions, indeed, new obstacles to its flow are still being devised. Partly, but not solely, as a consequence the unemployment total still stands at well over two millions, and increased by nearly a quarter of a million in January. The term emergency is best reserved for occasions that incontestably demand it, but no one will deny that highly abnormal conditions, involving special dangers and calling not only for effort but for unity in effort, still prevail. A National Government is needed to cope with them, but if it shows itself incapable of its task it has no hope of survival. Moreover, in such a matter as this to seem incapable is as bad as being it. Let the electors get the impression that the Cabinet has settled down into its groove and that the more adven- turous and enterprising among its members are held back by the hesitation and inertia of their colleagues, and they will rightly refuse to lift a finger to . prolong its life.
The character of the next Government will be deter- mined by the votes of -several million electors of the centre who will support it if, and only if, they think it worth supporting. Most of them are Conservatives, some are Liberals who feel that the circumstances still demand the suspension of party conflicts. The Govern- ment has a year or so yet to establish a claim on their votes, and it will get them only on certain conditions. They are obvious, and in the main well recognized, but that does not necessarily mean-that they will be fulfilled. Briefly, there must be new leadership, reconstruction and an infusion of new vigour into the Cabinet. With that the Government may survive. Without it disaster is certain. Personal questions are, of course; involved. The Prime Minister played an essential part in the con- struction of the present Government. He preserved a measure of continuity between the old and the new r he brought a certain number of Labour votes into the general pool ; he was accepted as head of the Cabinet by its Liberal members (of both sections), as a Conservative at that time would not have been. But- the mOment when that service was indispensable is past. Mr. MacDonald is a tired man—five years of Premiership in Such condi- tions would tire most men--and tired men make bad leaders. Mr. MaeDonald'is believed to recognize that him- self, but he will serve his Government ill if he postpones the transition much longer. His natural, but not inevit- able, successor is Mr. Baldwin. There may be other possi- bilities, but none that looks more propitious has been suggested yet. Most men have faults, and the Conserva- tive leader, is perhaps not conspicuous for the qualities of initiative and decision which the present situation demands, but he inspires more confidence in the country than any other leading statesman, and his record on the whole justifies the verdict, omnium consensu copal; imperii quia imperavit.
Mr. Baldwin, moreover, might be expected to select a Cabinet very definitely more to the Left than the present. That is the essential need. Imagination and vigour in domestic- affairs, imagination and courage in foreign, are called for in a degree in which they are not forthcoming today, The country will refuse vehemently and rightly to tolerate indefinitely the shame of unem- ployment above the two million level, and Ministers who declare, like the present Chancellor of the Exchequer, that they intend simply to go on as they are going and refuse to consider a public works 'policy as a remedy for unemployment, are doing more than they know to ensure the return of a Labour Government, which will pledge itself to reduce unemployment, at whatever ultimate cost to the country's finances. The temper of the country in this matter is disturbing. The unemployed have shown amazing patience year after year.- But the Public Assistanee Board agitation is significant. It has gone beyond- what the facts justify, and it will not easily be assuaged, for complaints will persist under any system of relief. On every ground, social, economic and humane, the Government must set itself resolutely to provide more work, not higher doles. Of course, many forms of relief work are extravagant and provide a minimum of employment, but is that a reason for rejecting a policy of public works expansion wholesale ? This is the moment for adding to the national capital in the matter not only of houses, but of roadsand bridges and public buildings and aerodromes ; of diminishing public dangers in the abolition of level-crossings; of foreseeing what the needs of the country ten years hence will be and beginning to supply them now. Interest and amortization on the sums involved would be no greater than the unemployment insurance payments saved. - That is only one sphere, though the most important, in which a new spirit and a new approach are imperative. And to generate the new spirit there must be an intro- duction of new blood. Amateur Cabinet-making is a futile pastime, but only a blind man could fail to see some of the points of weakness in the present Cabinet, and some of the sources outside from which it could draw strength. It is a gross waste of talent that a man like Mr. Ormsby-Gore should be left stranded in the .office of Works, or a man like Lord Eustace Percy be outside the Cabinet altogether. Sir Kingsley Wood may desire to cohtinue the admirable work he is doing at the Post Office, but the ability he has displayed there qualifies him for a higher post. Mr. Eden should, of course, be inside the Cabinet-room instead of on its ! doorstep. And the elevation of some of the more pro- gressive back-bench Conservatives at least to the position of Under Secretary would be a demonstration that the administration had abandoned the conviction that it was incapable of improvement.
As to Mr. Lloyd George's place in the scheme of things that is a separate problem. But this at least is certain, if the Cabinet remains unreconstructed, and Mr. Lloyd George's campaign continues on its projected lines, it will be a beaten Cabinet when the electorate's votes are counted.' That need not be. The Government has a great deal to its credit, but it cannot live merely on its past. If in a new guise it can gain the confidence of that mass of unattached voters, ready to support a National Government, but only a Government ready to risk something in .the fight against unemployment at home, and to risk something for the collective system abroad,' then, it will get its new lease of power, and the country will get the administration it most . needs.
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