Lord Oxford M EN of all shades of political thought desire
to salute Lord Oxford on his retirement from the leadership of the Liberal Party and to express their deep appreciation of his services to the nation. Fin. these services are in many respects—and in all the most important respects —above the recriminations of faction. If it were our business at this moment to analyse the achievements of the Liberal Party under Lord Oxford's guidance we should have a good deal to say in criticism ; but, happily, we may confine ourselves to the task, at once more agreeable and more comprehensive, of enumerating Lord Oxford's positive political virtues.
From his earliest days he has been a strict and un- faltering Parliamentarian. It might be inappropriate to use the word " passion " of anyone whose methods and oratory have been conspicuously restrained, but if Lord Oxford has had a passion it certainly was for the House of Commons. He steeped himself in its atmosphere ; he revered its traditions ; he studied its procedure. Never by a single word or a single deed his he brought Parliament into disrepute. On the contrary, he has exalted its dignity and has showed directly by precept and indirectly by his example that he regarded Parliament as the norm and the pivot of national life.
This means that Lord Oxford has been, above all things, a good democrat. Nothing seemed to him more infamous than the idea that the nation should arrive at a decision by a short cut. It must reach its end by ascertaining the wishes of the majority ; and when- ever Lord Oxford found that the majority was against him he set to work to produce a better opinion—from his point of view—by persuasion and not by sharp practices or insincere accommodations.
He has been Prime Minister for more years in succession than any man of our time, and throughout that period he was always—even while working to his utmost for the success of his party—personally disinterested, un- selfish, loyal and dignified. For the greater part of the time he held his Cabinet well together. That in itself was no mean performance, for when, in 1908, he succeeded Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman (whose mind was rather more to the Left) it was predicted that he could not possibly unite all the discordant elements of Liberalism. Nothing, however, but .a party inspired by a definite and dominant purpose could have carried through the Parliament Bill and passed a Horne Rule Bill for the whole of Ireland. We say nothing of the wisdom of those measures--we are looking now only at the facts, What was the secret of this success ? It was a very Bimple and a very old one ; but it is a paradoxical truth that only the best among our statesmen invariably adhere to the plain teachings of the past. Mr. Asquith never failed to insist upon the collective responsibility of the Cabinet. The policy of one Minister was the policy of all. The responsibility for the mistakes of one Minister was accepted by all. The only way of relieving the Cabinet of responsibility—if action had' been taken without the sanction of the whole. Cabinet —was for the Minister concerned to resign. It always. seemed grossly improper to Mr. Asquith that a Prime Minister should allow members of the Government to speculate, as it were, in policies of their own invention. and should then take credit for what went well and: disavow responsibility for what went amiss. Lord" Oxford's undoing really came about because in the end he was unable to control one unruly member. • Lord Oxford's oratory has long been a credit to our generation. The construction of his speeches was perfect ; - the choice of the right word was unerring. From every technical point of view he was the equal, and probably the master, of all his contemporaries. His one defect was that on occasions of peculiar import- ance or emotional disturbance he was apparently unable to let his speeches—but perhaps he did not wish to do so—be borne along upon that gale of strong feeling which may throw words into disarray but convinces an audience of the speaker's intensity of conviction. All his great speeches were classical in form as they were classical in derivation. .
No appreciation of Lord Oxford would he complete without reference to what we take to have been his two principal contributions to the safety of the nation. The first was, of course, when as Prime Minister in 1914 he had boldly to accept or weakly. to palter with the monstrous challenge of Germany. The manner in which he arrayed the nation behind him in taking a right but a terrible decision was beyond praise. It was indeed a mercy for us all that a Liberal Prime Minister was at that time in office. A Unionist could scarcely have hoped to command quite the same degree of assent. • The second of Lord Oxford's principal services. was, to our thinking, performed last May when in unequivoca I language he pledged himself and his party to the Govern- ment in resisting the general strike. He had, indeed, as many others had, something to say in criticism of the Government's management of the affair before the strike actually began. He was not convinced that the Government broke off negotiations at the best moment. But with regard to the main issue whether the general strike was or was not political, whether it was or was not a challenge to democratic government, he did not hesitate for a moment. He swept all casuistry . aside.
He believed that any man calling himself a Liberal would be utterly false to . his creed, utterly false to democracy, if he accepted the explanation that the objective of the strike was merely an industrial settlement.
He saw that if the Government were beaten the only alternative body whose writ would run throughout the country would be the managers of the strike—the General Council of the Trades Union Congress. To save the Government was therefore to save democracy, - The party which prospered so long under Mr. Asquith's leadership is now an almost helpless remnant, but we are net among those who think that its star cannot rise again. The great ability of a large proportion of the Liberals in the House of Commons suggests the contrary, The- party has stood for great causes which may yet prove to be imperishable—freedom of exchange, of contract, of service ; " peace, retrenchment and reform." - If the Liberal Party should disappear there would be no buffer such as might be rather urgently required- some day to . ease the shock of a direct clash, between Unionism and Socialism. We hope that the party will find a successor • to Lord Oxford as intent as Ile was on preserving democratic usage,. Cabinet responsibility,- and all the. decencies and loyalties .of a well-ordered public life, _
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