TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE MID-DEVON ELECTION.
IT would be idle to attempt to minimise the significance of the Mid-Devon election. Captain Morrison-Bell is a sincere Tariff Reformer, and made no concealment of his views, though no doubt he placed himself before the constituency as a loyal supporter of Mr. Balfour, and used Mr. Balfour's very guarded Birmingham formula as to the conditions which must regulate the imposition of new indirect taxes. Take it as a whole, however, the Tariff Reformers are entitled to say that they made Tariff Reform the main issue and that they won. But though we acknowledge this, we are by no means prepared to admit that the Tariff Reformers scored a victory because they had managed to convert a large number of electors to their views. We believe that the real cause of Captain Morrison-Bell's success and of Mr. Buxton's defeat was something very different. Let us try to look at the facts a little closer. The essential circumstance is that a very large number of electors who at the General Election just two years ago voted for the Liberal candidate, voted on the present occasion for the Tariff Reformer. What was it that induced them to change their attitude? If we can find the answer to this question, we have read the riddle of the Mid-Devon election.
As we have just said, the Tariff Reformers tell us that the cause is to be found in the conversion of many electors to their views. We, on the other hand, hold it to be the dissatisfaction of those whom we may term non- party electors with the actions and recent develop- ments in policy of the Liberal Government. To put it in a concrete form, we believe that there were in Mid-Devon, as there are throughout the country, a large number of men who find themselves very much in the position occupied by the Spectator. They are as convinced now as they were two years ago of the advantages of Free-trade, but they have been forced into an attitude of strong antagonism towards the present Administration owing to the Government's action in Ireland, and owing to their adoption of a Socialistic programme, especially in matter of old-age pensions. Possibly, if the balancing electors of our thought were forced to choose between the actual adoption of Tariff Reform and the support of a Free-trade Liberal Government, they would vote for Liberal candidates as the lesser of two evils. At a by- election, however, this dilemma is not forced upon the non-party Free-trader. He knows that, for the present Parliament at any rate, Free-trade is perfectly safe, and that he can without injury to the cause he has at heart show his strong disgust at the doings of the Ministry in Ireland, and at their yielding to the demands of the Socialists. In other words, he will deal with the Pro- tection or Socialistic-Liberal dilemma when it arises, but meantime he feels free to let Sir Henry Campbell- Bannerman's Government know what he thinks of them.
Although we are quite unshaken in our belief that Free-trade is essential to the national welfare, we are bound to say that we feel no little sympathy with the position of the balancing elector as we have just described it. We will go farther, and say that we are exceedingly glad that the Government should have had so sharp a reminder of what must inevitably come of their Irish administration and of their ruinous policy in regard to old-age pensions,—a policy which they term laying the foundations of old-age pensions, but which is in reality laying the foundations of a general tariff. It is good, too, that our rulers should be taught that the British people will not countenance such an abomination as cattle-driving, involving, as it does, the ruin of one of Ireland's few prosperous industries and the infliction of misery on thousands of innocent people, and that they should learn also that, although we are a democratic people, it does not follow that the electors are to be bought over by Socialistic doles. And here we may note that the Mid-Devon election at any rate shows the futility of those who have argued that even if old-age pensions are objectionable per se, they ought to be given in the interests of Free-trade, and in order that the Free-trade policy shall be popularised amongst the working classes and not made to appear antagonistic to their claims. Mid-Devon may be regarded as the first by-election after the policy of old-age pensions has been finally and irrevocably adopted by the Ministry and the electors have been made to realise that the Government are determined at all costs to carry out that policy. Yet, instead of old-age pensions making Free-trade candidates accept- able to the working man and keeping him from being seduced by the Tariff Reformers, it would appear to have had the very opposite effect. Instead of buying votes for the Liberals, it has alienated them. But really this is the history of all the attempts made by Governments to get support for themselves by an appeal to the pocket. Mr. Gladstone in 1874 offered the middle-class electors, who dominated our politics at that epoch, to abolish the Income-tax if he were returned to power, and many experienced politicians thought that so potent an appeal must succeed. But Mr. Gladstone and his party suffered a ruinous defeat at the polls. Again, Mr. Chamberlain's policy of "three acres and a cow" did not move the voters a hair's-breadth. The British elector may no doubt often contemplate and do foolish things, but of one thing we are convinced. If he supports a certain body of politicians, he will do so because he thinks they are in the right, and not because they have offered him a political bonus.
Close observers of the Mid-Devon election state that a dread of the Government's policy in regard to the liquor trade exercised a very important influence, almost all the publicans in the division, whatever their personal politics, working heart and soul against the Liberal candidate. It is hardly necessary for us to say that if this is the fact, it is a very unsatisfactory one, for no one can desire less than we do to see the liquor trade able to exercise a determining power in elections. Still, it is wise to face facts, however unpleasant, and we fear that there can be little doubt that the trade does possess a very great deal of electoral influence. To sum up, we hold that the Mid-Devon election proves the truth of an assertion made by us immediately after the General Election, and which we have since repeated,—namely, that the victory won in 1906 was not a victory for Liberalism, but a victory for Free-trade. This being so, the Government, we have always held, should regard themselves, not simply as a Liberal Administration with the right to do what they will with their own, but as in a special and peculiar degree the guardians and trustees of Free-trade,--men under bond not to do anything which will be injurious to the cause of Free-trade. The Government have chosen to disregard this view of the verdict of the electors of 1906 as ridiculous, and apparently hold that they are entitled to claim that the country placed them in power, not to save it from Protection, but to carry out the Radical and Socialistic programme. Now the country is beginning to let them know their mistake, and to tell them in plain terms :—" We gave you your immense majority because we were determined to defeat Protection. We would have you know, however, that when we defeated Tariff Reform we did not mean you to tolerate disorder and misgovernment in Ireland or to give Socialism a free hand in our internal legislation. If you have forgotten the implied terms of the bargain, it has not been forgotten by those who, by a transfer of their votes, gave you a victory in three-fourths of the constituencies."
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