TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE NEWMARKET DIVISION AND THE ORGANIZED HYPOCRISY.
WE are not surprised at the Newmarket election, for we have never shared that ridiculous—we had almost said shameful—pessimism which has of late come over so many representatives of the Unionist Party. Even up till last Saturday Unionists in all parts of the country were taking a kind of morbid delight in declaring that the party was in a hopeless state and that they could see no signs of the country supporting them, and so on and so on. Yet all the time the electors of the New- market division were quietly preparing to show us what the country thinks of the present Government and its policy. The electors have begun to realize that the present Government is what we have called it again and again, an organized hypocrisy. But when once an organized hypocrisy is found out by Englishmen, its fall is sure to be rapid and complete. If once we can get the true facts about the Government into the heads of the electors, we shall get verdict, judgment, and execution. The country, when it once understands what extinct volcanoes Ministers are and how hypo- critical has become their political attitude, will not trouble in the least about our own alleged weakness either in men or measures or our so-called want of a social policy. They will give their judgment not on our demerits, or supposed demerits, or on our supposed want of a pro- gramme, but on the demerits of our opponents, upon the whole of that shoddy structure of shams and sophistries, of humbug and pretence, of fraud and delusion, which now goes by the name of the Liberal Party. We are by no means sure, indeed, that at the moment the fact that the Unionists have no tumid electoral programme, no pompous political prospectus, to put before the country is not, if they only knew it, one of their chief sources of strength. The country is sick of political promises that come to nothing, or of what is worse, jerry-built projects and social reforms which fall, like the Insurance Act, in ruins on the heads of those they were supposed to help and shelter.
The nation, like the Lady of Shalott, is "half sick of shadows" and make-believes. What it is hungering for is a body of men who are politically honest, who mean what they say, and mean the country to understand what they say. They want men who will not, either as individuals or collectively, try to prove that local self- government can be applied in one part of Ireland and denied in another with perfect justice ; who will not declare that the State can be secularized in Wales and the Church despoiled without any injury being done to the principle of establishment in England or Scotland. They desire men who do not assert that the democratic principle of trusting the people and allowing them to decide what measures they will have and what measures they will not, is consistent with single-chamber government such as we have under the Parliament Act, and with the refusal to consult the people over a Bill like the Home Rule Bill, a Bill about which even the House of Commons was not con- sulted as far as half the clauses go—a Bill whose sections and sub-sections were turned out like sausages from a machine by the mere grinding of the party handle. What the country now wants, first, last, and all the time, is to get rid of the present holders of office. They have been in power too long. They have fed themselves and the country too long upon the emasculating food of political sophistry. They have become as a Ministry flat, stale, and unprofitable. The best of them know the fact quite well, though they may not acknowledge it in public, and only excuse themselves for clinging to office, as cling the most abandoned of place- hunters, because of the supposed weakness and inefficiency of their rivals. They are like the self-sacrificing little boy who did not really want to have another helping of tart, but took it because if he did not it would be eaten by his naughty brother, who "didn't deserve it," and for whom it was "very bad."
That what we are saying is fact and not fiction is shown by the Newmarket election. The great turnover of votes at that election is not due merely to the Insurance Act or to the Marconi scandal or to the proposal to force Dublin rule upon Ulster, or to single-chamber government, or to dissatisfaction with the result of the land taxes, or to the profligacy which has marked the handling of the nation's resources, but to each and all these things and many others taken together. When Mr. Gladstone was turned out of office in 1874 a cynical colleague is said to have remarked, " Thank God, the reign of earnestness is over." What the country is now beginning to say, and what the voters of Newmarket have already said, is, "Thank God, the reign of political hypocrisy will soon be over."
Though some of the Liberal papers have tried to minimize the Newmarket election, others, partly because of the way in which they plunged before the election, and partly, we may hope, from a belated sense of political honesty, have admitted the seriousness of the reverse for the Government. The Star of last Monday in a leading article, for example, put the dots on the i's quite as strongly as was done by any Unionist paper. It begins by quoting its own statement before the election that Newmarket was an " index election," and then declares that it is not disposed to alter its opinion now that the election has gone against it. " The defeat of Mr. Nicholls means that for some reason or other the agricultural labourer distrusts the Liberal Party, and does not believe in its land programme." The Star next proceeds to try to explain the election somewhat more in detail. We are told, for example, that an " index constituency " is specially apt "to obey the great law of swing-swang."
"Further, it is a sporting constituency. A racing man is more popular than a non-racinc, man. In that respect Mr. Denison- Pender had a solid advantage over Mr. Nicholls, a poor man with nothing but his democratic ideals to commend him. At one of his meetings the audience were given a tip for a race on the following day, and Lorenzo duly won the race Human nature is human, and this picturesque incident helps to explain much that puzzles us in the election. Other things being equal, a sporting candidate has a strong pull in a Newmarket election."
As an example of unconscious humour this passage would be hard to beat. If we look at it in detail it may, indeed, be said to explain the whole secret of the Cocoa Press—of that astonishing system under which Liberals who tell us that they loathe betting above all other vices maintain the biggest gaming table in the country—the biggest organization for furthering gambling on horse-races. " A racing man," says the Star, " is more popular than a non-racing man." That is just the opinion we should expect from those members of the Cadbury and Rowntree families who control the Star, for have they not shown us that they are strongly of opinion that a racing paper is more popular than a non-racing paper ? Therefore they have determined that, conscience or no conscience, they must have a racing paper. We are told above that Mr. Denison-Pender had a solid advantage over Mr. Nicholls because Mr. Nicholls was a poor man "with nothing but his democratic ideals to commend him." The members of the Cadbury and Rowntree families in question several years ago decided that they at any rate were not going to let a journalistic enterprise in which they were interested languish under this disadvantage—the disadvantage of "having nothing but its democratic ideals to commend it." Therefore, in spite of the belief that betting is a far greater curse even than drunkenness [see Mr. George Cadbury's statement to the Sunday at Home],* they have kept " Captain Coe " and " Old Joe " and their " Naps," and other furious incitements to poor men to bet, well in front of their evening paper. They, at any rate, are not going to let the Star lose by having " nothing but democratic ideals."
Look, too, at the Star's practical application of the electoral wisdom which it preaches. The Star leader in effect commends the Unionist candidate for his good sense in giving a tip for a race at one of his meetings, a really good tip too, one after the heart of the Star and " Captain Coe," for, as they tell us, " Lorenzo duly won the race." Here it is amusing to note that the voice of "the earnest Liberal," which " Captain Coe " quite often allows to be • "'But I put betting on quiti another basis,' he continued, 'for I am faced with the undoubted fact that millions of good Christian people, of whose Christianity there can be no doubt, think it right to take strong drinksin moderation, but I never heard of an earnest Christian worker who indulged in betting. Therefore under careful restrictions it may be well to supply drink. I would rather they could procure it in Bournville for consumption at home than they should go to some vice-ridden drink shop outside ; but I would snake no compromise on betting. As you know, I make the exclusion of betting forecasts from its columns a condition of my connexion with the 'Daily News." [Interview with Mr. George Cadbury in the Sunday at Home.] heard in the later editions of the Star,* is for the moment hushed. The Star leader-writer has nothing but admira- tion for these splendid political tactics. " Human nature," we are reminded, " is human," and it is added that " this picturesque incident [i.e., the tip of Lorenzo] helps to explain much that puzzles us in the election." This, no doubt, is a hint that the picturesque incident of members of the Cadbury and Rowntree families owning the most energetic and successful of betting newspapers is the explanation of much that puzzles us in Liberal journalism. Just as " other things being equal a sporting candidate has a strong pull in a Newmarket election," so other things being equal a betting newspaper has a strong pull in the Liberal Party. We never expected to see the policy of the members of the Cadbury and Rowntree families who control the Star, and who give us betting tips in the evening and good moral advice in the morning, put forth so clearly and so naively. We thought we had already sounded the depths of Chadbandism, but it appears that we had not. It is probably " bottomless."
As might be expected, the Star in the third paragraph of its leader plucks up heart again. If only the Liberals will start a good sound land policy all may yet be well. If they do not, and " if the present policy of passive negation goes on, the Liberal Party may as well say good- bye to the English counties. We must do more than talk. We must act." In spite of these bold words, we do not believe that any land programme, however sensational, can now save the Government. The country is thoroughly tired not only of their talk but of their acts. There has been plenty of action as well as of talk about the Insurance measure, and what has been the result ? The agricultural labourer with 13s. a week has not been made to contribute towards the system of National Insurance in accordance with his means, after the manner of the income-tax, but in accordance with the comparative wealth of the town artisan with his 30s. or £2 a week. The working man regards his contribution of 3d. a week not as a premium of insurance, but as a wages tax, and he is perfectly right in doing so. Any payment which is extorted from a man by the operation of the law, and is therefore a payment which he cannot avoid, is a tax. But an income-tax which is at the same rate for a man with £34 a year as a man who has £150 a year is a most unjust and unfair tax. It violates the true principle that in cases of obligatory contributions a man should pay in proportion to his income, and not at-" a flat rate." Everyone would recognize the gross injustice if a man with £1,000 a year was made to pay exactly the same sum for income-tax as the man with £4,000 a year. Why is it not unjust when it is a question of tens, not thousands ? It is idle to say that the labourer with 13s. a week gets as much benefit as the man with -23 a week. That is only an answer when the payment is voluntary. The moment the Government has made a payment compulsory that payment becomes a tax, and must be judged by the maxims of taxation. Argue as we may, the burden of providing larger benefits for the well-paid town artisan has in fact been placed upon the back of the poorly-paid agricultural labourer. How this gross injustice is to be remedied when once it has been perpetrated it is very difficult to say, but this is no consolation to the agricultural labourer, and unless we are greatly mistaken he intends to put the blame upon the shoulders of those who ought to bear it, upon the Liberals who told him that they were bringing him " rare and refreshing fruit," when instead they were providing him with Dead Sea apples.
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