TOPICS OF THE DAY
WHAT THE NATION WOULD LIKE.
THE confusion in national affairs grows greater and greater. No man knows where we stand, either at home or abroad, or can say whether the unrest, or rather the menace of revolt, is worse in Ireland or in India, in Egypt or in Palestine. The country is equally uncertain whether there is going to be a dissolution or not ; whether the Government is going to accept the Geddes Report or let it be killed by the powerful bureaucratic interests that are arrayed against it. Nothing, again, is known as to what the future relations of the various sections of the Coalition are to be. Here, indeed, the doubt and the darkness are thick enough to be felt. We doubt if even Mr. Lloyd George himself knows whether he will finish off the Unionist Party which he has so nearly killed, or whether he will set up an entirely new party, a party formed from the Coalition Liberals, to which a certain number of Unionists will have a special invitation, with the single political principle of loyalty to Mr. Lloyd George. Again, there is the possibility that, as an expert in party-breaking, the Prime Minister will now turn to the Labour Party and smash it as he has smashed in turn the Liberal and the Unionist Parties.
The results of all this uncertainty are about as bad for trade and business as they could possibly be. It is true that there has been a certain Stock Exchange revival, and that the general signs are good, but this is no proof that the country likes the present state of things. On the contrary, it is only a proof of how strong are the influ- ences at work for a trade revival. They are actually able to operate even when the country is in the position it is in to-day. It is an illustration of what we have always said—that the essential conditions are by no means bad, and that if we could only put our governmental house in order we should soon see a return of prosperity on a great scale. If we can actually achieve the beginnings of revival when there are uncertainty and mismanagement, and an appalling weight of unnecessary taxation, what would happen if businesslike methods and reduced taxation were allowed to have their healing effect ? It is as easy to answer this question as it is to answer the question that rises to the lips when, in a March blizzard, the golden-hued crocuses are pushing through the snow : "If these flowers can come out even in weather lik-e this, what would they do if the snow were to_ go, the sun to shine, and the air to be warm ? " The whole ground would be carpeted with them !
In conditions so harassing, so tantalising as those before as, it is worth while to consider what the nation would like if it could get outside the enchanted circle woven round it by the politicians and be allowed a free choice in public affairs. There need, be little doubt as to the answer. What the nation _would like, above everything else, would be a period of rest and recuperation—a period in which it would hear little or nothing about abstract politics or so-called reforms and could devote itself entirely • to the task of recovery through a conservative but enlightened handling of our finances. A policy is wanted which would encourage individual enterprise, which would conserve the national energy, which would make it better worth while for people to develop and expand commerce than to spend their time in trying to cut down their expenses, or to escape taxation by taking an ingenious advantage of this or that loop-hole in the armour of the tax-collector.
Rest, time to breathe, time to re-make ruined businesses or to put them at least upon a sound foundation—these are slogans which really appeal to the people. But the nation not only hews what it would like, it !mows how it would like to get it. It would like to get this happy condition in its affairs—this political rest-cure- by means of a Ministry of National Trustees. This would mean, in effect, a thorough investigation of our financial position and the rearranging of our affairs, just as a company, not ruined but in serious difficulties, is brought round, not by recourse to liquidation and the Official Receiver, but by handing it over to "trustees for the shareholders " for the period required for a new start. The country would not only like such a plan, but knows the men it would like to see carrying it out. We venture to say that, wherever men meet, outside what we may call the professional politicians' circle, they complain of the present state of affairs, and the levity with which our affairs are treated by the Government. The talk goes something in this way : "Why can't we sack the lot ' ? Why can't Edward Grey form a Ministry ? He is a quiet, sensible, reasonable, unsensational man, whom the country trusts. It doesn't matter a rap what his pre-war politics were. He understands moderate Englishmen—the people who want a quiet life and a fair deal, and who are not going to job for the Labour people on one side or the Capitalists on the other. There are plenty of people of like mind who are prepared to stand by him and serve under him. One does not want him to give up any principles. If he would give up his connexion with the 'Wee Frees,' and so shake himself free from all strict and selfish party traditions, that would be quite sufficient. By such an act of renunciation he would make it possible, not only for his personal friends and for the non-party people in the country, but for a vast number of Unionists, to come under his banner. There are voters by the hundreds of thousands in the Unionist Party who would be eager to support him, except for the fear that he might bring in his train the old and discredited 'Wee Free' gang—the people who first spoilt Mr. Lloyd George, by giving into every violent demand made by him, and then let themselves be betrayed and kicked out of office by their own spoilt child." For ourselves, we agree with such talkers who are to be heard in clubs, railway carriages, on 'Change, and in every commercial office and institution in the country. We believe that if Lord Grey of Fallodon would cut himself free from all existing party con- nexions and take on the national job in a national spirit, the country would rise like one man to acclaim him. II we are told that Lord Grey cannot govern the country by himself, and it is useless to suggest his name without showing how he could form a Ministry, we are willing to accept the challenge. There are quite enough men to be found who are not hide-bound political partisans to form just the Ministry we desire. For example, there is Lord Milner. As his whole career shows, he is by no means a politician who spends his time in mumbling mere party shibboleths. He is a man who would be invaluable either as Colonial Secretary or at the Foreign Office, for he is an Imperialist without the taint of Militarism or aggressiveness. As his Egyptian Report showed, he is more likely to go too far than too short a way in that recon- struction and reconsideration of our Overseas policy which has become necessary. Lord Milner might be balanced by another statesman in whose character hide- bound partisanship has no share. That is Mr. McKenna. Mr. McKenna has cut himself adrift from ordinary party politics, but, at the same time, he has gained the unbounded confidence of the dty, and especially of the banking world. We do not speak without the book when we say that there would be a sigh of relief throughout the business world of England and Scotland if it became known that Mr. McKenna had come into a Ministry of Rest and Recupera- tion as Chancellor of the Exchequer. To ask him to do that would be to ask him to make a great financial sacrifice, but we believe he would answer the call under the con- ditions we have stated.
Another tower of strength for a Ministry of the kind we are describing is, we believe, to be found in the Duke of Devonshire. It is the proud boast of his house, or rather of the friends of his house, for Cavendishe,.s do not boast, that they care only for power when they can serve or save the State. We have no right to speak for the Duke of Devonshire, but we cannot believe that if he came to understand that the call was the call of duty he would refuse it. There are plenty of other people whom we could name who could undertake the work, several of them at present within the Government or giving it a mild support in the House of Lords or House of Commons. It might, however, at this juncture do more harm than good to name them. Still, they exist of this there is no doubt.
We may safely point out one other source of supply among those who are not politicians. The Geddes Come mittee contains several men of affairs, of high financial and administrative knowledge, who would prove most useful members of the Government of our thought. A Ministry devoted to reconstruction will want powerful financial help, not merely at the Treasury, but in all the great spending departments. Men like Lord Inchcape, Lord Faiingdon, Sir Guy Granet, Sir Joseph Maclay, and Sir Erie Geddes would be just the men required for national administration.
It must not be supposed that, while declaring that this Is what the country would like, and that it would be right In liking this solution of its present troubles, we consider that the party system could be got rid of, or ought to be got rid of, for ever. We believe that in normal times the party system is necessary to the proper working of demo- cracy. When we say the party system, we mean not only a strongly-organized party to support the men who are in office, but also a strongly-organized Opposition ready to take the place of the Government if it blunders or enters into a period of decrepitude, as will all Ministries who hold office too long. The body politic, like the body natural, may sometimes want a rest cure, and, indeed, occasionally nothing else will save it ; but neither can live for ever upon a regime of rest cures. Therefore, our Ministry of Rest and Reconstruction ought not to look to hold office for more than two or three years at the very most. When its work was accomplished we should go back to the old system of Government and Opposition. But we should go back to it strengthened by the feeling that if a Ministry did not behave itself, but acted with the mixture of levity, cynicism, and pure folly with which the present Government has acted, and if the Opposition would not do its necessary work, that Ministry should be replaced by another national trusteeship. At present, when a strong Government gets into power, and for some reason or other is opposed by a weak and distracted Opposition, it becomes absolutely demoralized. When the word has gone round, "There is no alternative to us," all the Departments think they can do what they like. Take away from them the fear of "If you blunder you will be. shown up by the Opposition and very likely lose your job," and there is no limit to Government ineptitude. One word more. We shall not get what the country would like by merely talking about it, or again, by waiting Lill somebody, name unknown, or some body of persons, names unknown, of great importance comes out and calls to Lord Grey to save the country by a non-party Ministry. This is the sort of miracle which does not happen. To be perfectly frank, if Lord Grey were going to save the situation, the only way in which he could do it would be in effect by copying Chatham. He would say, though, of course, he would never say it in such grandiose language, that the country needed saving, and that he believed that he could save it and that nobody else could. He would then ask the people to follow him in the work. If he did that, the country would thrill as instantly to the whisper, "We have found a man at last," as it did in the case of Chatham. The echo of that whisper would again run round the civilized world as it did when Frederick the Great said, "England has been long about it, but she has at last found a man."
But what will Lord Grey do ? We cannot profess to say. Will he let his sense of public duty be overcome by, we will not say false modesty, for that is not his defect, but by that kind of feeling which lurks in the minds of so many men of his temperament, "it is all very fine to talk in this way, but it is imaginative rhetoric, and the world is not governed by that sort of thing " ? That is a senti- ment for which in quiet times we have a good deal of sympathy ; but we venture to say that it is not the last word in politics, and it may be, in circumstances like the present, a very injurious word.
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