THE POLITICAL CRISIS.
THE Third Reading of the amended Parliament Bill in the Lords on Thursday marks another stage in the Constitutional crisis, and we venture to think makes it more improbable than ever that the Unionist Party will be so unwise as to take the advice which, the Observer tells us, Mr. Chamberlain has given to them, namely, "to fight to the end." To tell people to fight to the end sounds in the abstract very brave and noble, but when translated into action in this particular case it means nothing more or less than forcing the Government to make 300 or 400 peers. A few political dreamers seem to have persuaded themselves that the sudden swamping of the peerage would not only do no harm but might posi- tively do good. With the statesmen of this school we do not propose to argue in any detail. We may, however, once more run over the chief facts of the case. They have only got to be stated to show the unwisdom, or perhaps we should say the perilous irrelevance, of Mr. Chamberlain's policy. That the Parliament Bill will pass practically in the shape in which it was introduced into the Commons is now an admitted fact. No one seriously believes that, bad as the Bill is, it can be got rid of or amended in such a way as to make it tolerable. It cannot be prevented from passing, bezause no Ministry can be found to take the place of the present Ministry. That would mean a. Dissolution, and a Dissolution would mean the ruin of the Unionists. In other words, the only Government avail- able for the moment refuses to remain in office unless the Bill is passed. Granted that the King's govern- ment must be carried on, there is therefore no alternative to the passage of the Bill.
The only question which remains open is the manner in which the Bill is to be passed.. It can be passed. by the Lords' bowing to the inevitable, after placing on record, not only their protest against such unjust legislation, but also their determination to reverse it as soon as they can—to reverse it by calling in the poll of the people to redress the balance of the Constitution. The only other way to pass the Bill is by a creation of peers—a creation which can undoubtedly be forced by the Unionist Party if they so desire. But the result of such a, course is now seen by the vast majority of reasonable men to be very much worse for the Unionist Party, for the country, and for the House of Lords than the other course which we have named. We should. get the Parliament Bill, but we should get in addition the destruc- tion of the House of Lords and, what is even worse, the destruction of the peerage as a national institution. Also we should vastly increase the power of the existing Govern- ment and facilitate the passage of their evil legislative projects. If the Lords give way they will at any rate have the right to insist on two years' delay, during which injurious legislation might be explained to the country. After a creation of peers the Government would for the time be masters of the Lords as well as of the Commons. We dismiss as idle the notion that if the Government once begin to make peers they will allow the Opposition to dictate the number of peers to be created. —the notion that the Government will count as hostile only the pears who happen to have been put into the lobby on a particular night to insist on the Lords' amendments. The Government will, of course, do nothing of the kind, but will base their action on the normal Unionist majority. As we have said from the beginning, as soon as men think out this situation they must see that it is far better that the Bill should pass without the Lords insisting on their amendments than that the peers should be created. The question is whether it is more dignified for, the House of Lords and more in the interests of the Unionist Party to bow at once to the inevitable or to do what is called "forcing thel Government to show their hand," either by an immediate creation of, say. fifty_ neers or by some public announcement that this Government have received the consent of the King to make sufficient peers to secure that the Bill shall pass. It is argued that the Opposition will somehow gain by forcing the Government to show their power to take revolutionary action. Quite apart from the danger which always exists, of those Radical extremists who desire a creation of peers just because it will destroy the peerage getting the upper hand, it seems to us that this insistence that the Government should give the Peers a smart blow on the head with a cudgel in order to make them eat the leek is most unwise. If one has got to swallow the leek it. is better to swallow it with the minimum of noise or at any rate without first swearing that one will not swallow it, or insisting upon a blow as a hors-d'auvre. To say, "I will only yield if you will first hit me on the head and show publicly that you have got the power to coerce me," and to think this is going to injure and embarrass your opponent seems to us to involve a complete misunder- standing of ordinary human nature. Surely no Unionist wants to strengthen the present Government or to increase theirprestige. But unquestionably in theworld of politics as elsewhere nothing succeeds like success. Nothing more surely strengthens the position of a Ministry than a great public advertisement of their power. When we look back at history we now all recognize that the Duke of Wellington was a wise political strategist, because, having taken the measure of his enemy's strength and having seen that it was not to be resisted by any force at his command, he ultimately advised retreat rather than a. defeat in the open. Disregarding all the foolish talk about the white feather and the white flag he yielded to the inevitable. If some necromancer could call him from the grave to attend the meeting of the House of Lords next Thursday who can doubt what would be the advice he would give to the Peers ? He would tell them that the dominating fact of the situation is that the King's government must be carried on, and that as there is no one in a position to carry it on but the present Ministry it is inevitable that that Ministry should have its way. Unquestionably he would not advise the Peers to stand upon punctilios, to force the point of honour, or to pretend that it is more dignified to yield with grumblings and curses than to yield in silence. He would, we may be sure, give no support to the childish notion that you can injure your opponent by forcing him to give you a blow which you are not in a position to return.
Before we leave the subject of how the Peers should act, we desire to revert to Mr. Chamberlain's advice to fight to the end, advice which, as we have said, if it means anything means forcing the creation of peers. We feel sure that we are saying nothing unfair in pointing out that in giving this advice Mr. Chamberlain, whether mis- taken or not, is giving it, not in the interests of the peerage and of the House of Lords, but in the supposed interests of the Unionist Party. Let us judge it by this standard alone and not in regard to the special position of the Peers. Would it be a good thing for the party, considered merely as a party, to force the creation ? We have already said quite enough to make it clear that we hold it would be as bad for the Unionist Party as for the House of Lords and the peerage. Without, howevee, rearguing that point we would ask Unionists to consider whether the advice they have obtained from Mr. Chamberlain during the last five or six years would lead them to regard him as a wise and safe counsellor. To begin with, did Mr. Chamberlain give the party good advice during the struggle over Tariff Reform and Free Trade ? We say nothing whatever as to the merits of that controversy. Let us assume indeed that the abstract merits were all with Mr. Chamberlain. All we want to ask is whether he was wise in the way in which he advised that Tariff Reform should be placed before the country. His insistence on the Food Taxes ruined the party at the polls in 1906, and produced a. Parliamentary disaster of unparalleled dimensions. It is no secret that in 1910 Mr. Chamberlain advised the rejection of the Budget by the Lords, while at the same time refusing to make any compro- mise in regard to the taxation of food. The result of his policy was an instant check on the reaction which had been setting in against the Government, and setting in so strongly that what might and would under other conditions have been a victory was turned into a defeat. The unpopularity of the Budget was at once obscured by the Constitutional issue that had been so disastrously raised. Not content with hanging the Food Taxes round the neck of the Unionist Party, Mr. Chamber- lain and his supporters hung the unpopularity of defending the Lords for dealing with what the country had always regarded as the prerogative of the Commons, i.e., the power of the purse. The issue was so twisted that the natural conservatism of the country, both as regards the taxation of food and the Constitution, was very largely made to serve the purposes of the Radicals. The party of revolution was allowed to masquerade as the party which was playing the conservative role of maintaining the status quo, both fiscal and Parliamentary, and thus a wholly factitious advantage was given to our opponents. Now comes Mr. Chamberlain's latest piece of advice that the party of conservation and anti-revolution is to adopt a policy which will force a revolutionary coup—a policy which cannot prevent the injury done to the Constitution by the Parliament Bill, but will add to that evil the even worse evil of the destruction of the peerage. We shall argue the point, no further, but shall merely ask whether, if judged by the past, the acceptance of Mr. Chamberlain's advice is likely to benefit or to injure the Unionist Party. Though we have felt bound to draw attention to this aspect of the question, we have little fear that Mr. Chamberlain's advice will ultimately be followed. As we have said so often our only fear now is lest the party should sacrifice its dignity and prestige unnecessarily, and that the inevitable should be accomplished with the maximum instead of the minimum of lose of power and influence. That is the issue. The Parliament Bill will pass, and will pass without a creation of four hundred peers. All that is now at stake is the prestige of the Unionist Party. It is our ardent desire that that prestige shall. not be sacrificed uselessly and unnecessarily.
In case of any possibility of misunderstanding, let us once more assure our readers that we do not point, out the danger of following Mr. Chamberlain's advice from any desire to use this occasion to prejudice Tariff Reform. We recognize that the situation is far too serious for arguments prompted by such motives. As our readers know, we hold that the Tariff controversy must be subordinated to the greater issue, and for that reason at the last two elections we did all in our power to secure the return of Tariff Reform candidates, and of a Tariff Reform Govern- ment.
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