11:11, MEETING OF PARLIAMENT.
PARLIAMENT, which met on Tuesday, has great duties before it. Will it accept these duties and carry them out, not perfunctorily and not under the auspices of the mere party spirit ? Will it recognize its responsi- bilities to the nation and insist on regaining its old position ? Will it refuse any longer to be only a body for the registration of the edicts of the Cabinet, which in turn only registers the edicts of its autocratic chief ? In a word, will the House of Commons assert itself ?
We shall be told, of course, that there is no need for adjurations of this kind. " The House of Commons is as powerful as ever, and it is nonsense to talk about Cabinet rule or the autocracy of the Premier when every- body knows that a vote of the House of Commons passed in ten minutes may not only deprive the whole administra- tion of power, but call another Ministry under another Prime Minister into office." Theoretically, no doubt, that is the legal and constitutional theory ; but the facts are otherwise. The House of Commons, though still the source of all power, has, by a series of what can only be described as delicate and insidious encroachments, been placed in the position of an Oriental autocrat. Such an " autocrat " is so imperceptibly involved in the meshes of etiquette, law and custom, and still more paralysed by the dire influence of seclusion from all executive business, that he becomes an idol in a gilded shrine rather than a man. The Mikado could at any moment have destroyed the power of the Shogun, just as at any moment the Merovingian sovereigns could have destroyed the power of the Mayors of the Palace. In both cases there was a long period of time in which the supreme power never functioned. There was always some excuse, some ground for saying that the end of the world would come if the sovereign used his powers. Therefore, though at first he was restive, he soon fell into a way of life best repre- sented, by the soldiers' motto, " Grumble and carry on." The House of Commons, though it is as powerful in theory as the most autocratic Eastern monarch, and can change its " Grand Vizier " at any moment, is, till the change is made, practically impotent. Unless it is prepared to take the great responsibility of throwing over the Vizier," all it can do is to nod assent to his proposals. That is becoming its one function.
In theory, no doubt, it still has the power of demanding that all great measures and all new policies shall be fully explained to it and discussed before it. As a matter of fact, however, the rules of the House can be so manipulated that questions lose a great deal of their power and vitality, or rather, shall we say, that Ministers are allowed by the general consent of the Members of the House of Commons to give answers to questions which are no answers. Again, often—we admit not always—Ministers are allowed to camouflage facts in debate in such a way that there is little or no true enlightenment obtainable. If we have drawn a true picture of the way in which power is now distributed in our Constitution, as we believe we have, how is Parliament to break the spell and once more obtain some of its old authority ? How is it to receive that consideration which it used to receive at the hands of the Government ? Everyone knows, of course, that Parliament cannot act directly, that it must delegate its powers to Ministers, and that it must, when it gives its confidence to a Government, decide on wide and general grounds rather than attempt to check it and perhaps ruin its whole policy by interference with minor details. The House of Commons, nevertheless, though it must reign rather than govern, should insist upon being treated . with the respect that is its due. It ought to insist, as successful, constitutional monarchs always have insisted and always should insist, on being told the truth and on knowing exactly what is being done. " Strike, but tell me," is the Royal motto. Parliament may on the balance of evils have to allow things to be done of which it really disapproves ; but it must never be kept in the dark or, worse still, live in a fools' paradise through being told untruths.
Clearly, the first thing necessary for maintaining this right to know is a strong Opposition. Till we get a power- ful, well-organized Opposition that knows its own mind and is not always feebly fishing for a little extra strength the House of Commons will not regain that respect which is its chief need. It is not necessary to have a large Opposi- tion. One or two men who speak with knowledge and authority, and who are not feverish nor factious, can soon make their voices so powerful that no Ministry, however bloated its majority on paper, will dare to fob them of with excuses or to ignore them. Remember what the Fourth Party did, although it only had four members. If Mr. Asquith was as vigilant and determined as he is able, he could do all that is required with the forces at his command. So, too, could the leader of the Labour Party. It is not want of voting power that makes the Labour Party so impotent in the House of Commons, but its want of sincere and effective, and above all conscious, leadership.
It must not be pleaded that a well-inspired Opposition cannot do these things because it can be voted down at any moment. The process of voting down people when they are in the right in an argument, or have exposed a scandal, never really pays a Government. For a time or two the mechanical majority will obey the Whips and vote black is white, but there is nothing that the rank and file hate so much as having to do this. Too many of these victories soon weaken a Government past repair. So long as an Opposition is careful to be in the right, asks for infor- mation which it is reasonable that it should ask for, insists upon the Government explaining its actions and its motives, and, finally, does not allow administrative scandals to be treated with a shrug of the shoulders or a laughing apology, it can do an enormous deal to regain respect for the House of Commons. If it is too late to ask the Liberals to pro- vide an Opposition of this kind, or if they are too lazy or too much engaged in fighting with each other to make the Government show a proper respect for Parliament, and if similar causes produce a similar impotence in the Labour Party, surely it is not too much to ask that in the new Session a vigorous Opposition should be provided by the independently minded section of the Unionist rank and file ! After all, the Unionist Party is the strongest party in the House. Though it has been snubbed and ignored by Ministers and made to sacrifice most of its principles lest the timid majorities of the Coalition should be diminished, and lest the Liberal wing of the Coalition should be piqued, it must still contain a dozen men of independence and ability who can perform the functions of an Opposition, insist upon the Government making its regular confession to the House and the nation, and, when things have gone wrong and absolution is asked for, require true and not sham declarations of repentance. Apart from this, the House of Commons as a whole should insist on every penny of expenditure being wisely laid out, and also upon every penny taken from the pockets of the people by taxation, either direct or indirect, being justified. Here inquiry must be searching to the last degree. Further, fresh attention must be given to a subject which has hitherto been treated in the most cavalier manner. Nothing is clearer in the world of public finance than that it is useless to increase the rate of taxation if that increase raises, not more, but less than the lower tax. Whenever that happens the Government stands convicted of something which can only be called a fiscal crime. If you cause embarrassment and impediment to trade, and thus general impoverishment, by, say, putting up the postage from ld. to 2d. and.get not more but less revenue thereby, you have done a deed the evil of which can hardly be exaggerated. The same thing may be said of Income Tax, Super Tax, Death Duties and other direct taxes. In the deplorable situation in which we are now placed, we admit it is necessary to raise those taxes as far as it is possible to go without paralysing trade, but the most anxious care ,and attention must be paid to the question, " Are we drying up the sources of national wealth by over-taxing in this or that direction ? Here, indeed, is a matter into which the House of Commons should insist upon inquiring by means of a Select Com- mittee.
Another fiscal matter where Parliament must insist not only upon the fullest inquiry, but upon an examination of principle s, is the question of the expenditure of public mcney on the unemployed. Of course, in the last resort, Parliament and the local authorities must prevent starva- tion. We cannot let people perish or allow any suffering to take place which it is possible to allay. But remember that you may kill people morally as well as physically. If you are stupid, lavish, and indiscriminate in the pay- ment of doles, you may do what is one of the greatest of human wrongs—you may make a man into a pauper. We have done it before now, and only just saved ourselves from the consequences by a timely reversal of the spirit of the Poor Law. In the last few years we have abolished the restraints of the new Poor Law and gone back to the evils which prevailed for the forty years before 1834. We produced then, as we are in danger of producing now, the most hideous demoralization. Now, as before 1834, as is shown by Mr. Geoffrey Drage in his admirable letter published in the Times of Friday, October 14th, we are getting to the condition where land is going out of cultiva- tion and houses are becoming worthless because the rates have become equal to or greater than the rent. Indeed, in some ways things are worse than they were in 1834.
It is now said that out of a population of forty-eight millions there are no less than thirty millions who are beneficiaries from public doles. These figures are probably not exactly accurate, but it must be feared that an accurate computation would make the final results worse, not better, than was supposed.
The tendency to unemployment is by no means exhausted, and if it is known that there are plenty of doles going, such unemployment will soon be greatly increased. To say this is not to accuse the working man in general of malingering. What could be more natural, considering how important it is to the working man to keep up, if he can, the standard of wages, that if a good dole is offered to him he should prefer unemployment to a temporary lowering of wages ? He is by nature an optimist ; he does not understand the laws of economics, and therefore he argues that it would be far better to be tided over a bad time by a good dole till good times come again than to accept temporarily a lower scale of pay. He does not, that is, realize that the sure way to prevent good times coming again is for one half of the nation to live on doles provided by the other half. In truth, the country may have, and will have, as many unemployed as it cares to pay for.
If Parliament is wise it will sternly set its face against the manufacture of paupers. Say what we will and be the excuses what they may, a pauper is a man who lives upon State doles. But State doles are the road to ruin. We are on the edge of the precipice. It is the business of Parliament to see that we are not driven over it.
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