TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE REFERENDUM AND HOME RULE.
ACCORDING to newspaper rumours there are certain members of the Cabinet and a considerable number of ordinary Liberal politicians who are very much in favour of considering Lord Lansdowne's proposal that the Government, instead of dissolving before the third time of asking, should refer the Home Rule Bill to a poll of the electors. The Government by so doing would ask the electors definitely and specifically, not whether they are in the abstract in favour of Home Rule—no man can say that until he knows what kind of Home Rule is proposed—but whether they are in favour of this particular Bill coming into operation. We should prefer a Referen- dum on the Home Rule Bill to a general election. We say this in spite of the fact that for other reasons we are intensely anxious to get rid of the present Govern- ment and the organized hypocrisy which they represent, and in spite of our belief that a general election would go against them. Although from a party point of view we should prefer a dissolution, yet, on grounds of public policy—because we hold the right of popular veto over legislation by a single chamber to be absolutely essential to the national welfare—we prefer the Referendum. In a matter of such vital import as the question of the main- tenance of the Union we desire that the Home Rule Bill should be presented for popular judgment unencumbered by any other considerations.
That the Government and the Liberal Party ought to prefer a Referendum on the Home Rule Bill to a dissolution is, we think, obvious. Such a reference would get them out of untold difficulties. In the first place, it would enable them, if not to solve, yet greatly to simplify, the Ulster problem which is proving so perplexing. If the country is with them as to Home Rule, as they confidently tell us it is, and they therefore get an endorsement of the Home Rule Bill at the polls, the opposition of the people of Ulster, however angry they might be, would be minimized or at any rate be kept within narrow limits. The spirit of the Ulstermen is high, and they are no doubt what their opponents would call reckless in the matter of revolt when what they deem to be their indefeasible rights of citizenship are impaired. Yet even their high courage would be daunted by the deliberate expres- sion of the nation's opinion. They would, no doubt, feel that they had been very badly used by the electors in being forced out of the United Kingdom and under a Dublin Parliament, but they would also feel that the verdict, though unjust, was one which it would be useless to resist. They might feel a bitter- ness which would turn to hate and induce them to join in the future with the most extreme of the Nationalists in order to get rid altogether of the connexion between the two islands, but they would recognize that it was useless to contend any further with the democratic Caesar. After a successful Referendum the Government would find the application of their Bill comparatively plain sailing. If the effect would be great in North-East Ulster, it would be far greater in England and Scotland and in the rest of the Empire. The Unionist Party in England and Scotland would be obliged absolutely to abide by the decision of the electors, and we may be sure that individual Englishmen, however deeply they might resent the injustice to Ulster, would accept the verdict, and say that they could neither subscribe money nor give personal help to the Ulstermen. The part of good citizenship would be to obey. This means that all difficulties in regard to the Army— difficulties which we fear would prove of the most serious kind—would disappear. If the people of England did accept the Bill, and if the Unionist Party leaders were obliged to withhold all encouragement from those who wished to resist it, there would be no further risk of officers throwing up their commissions rather than join in the coercion of Ulster. " England has spoken," would be as dominant a fact as Roma locuta est.
We shall be told, no doubt, that in spite of the obvious advantages to the Liberal Party of agreeing to a Referendum on the present Bill, advantages which were so ably and so sincerely set forth by Lord Lansdowne in his speech in the House of Lords, there is no possible chance of the proposal being accepted. Liberals' dislike of the Referendum on general grounds is said to be so great that they could not and would not accept it even in this exceptional case. Mr. Asquith, no doubt, has always left a door open for an exceptional use of the Referendum, but there are a great number of his supporters, including the Nationalists and the Labour Members, who are deter- mined that in no circumstances shall the people be allowed to exercise a veto over legislation. They hold, probably rightly, that if a poll of the people is once taken its advantages will become so clear that the people will insist on it being made a regular part of the Constitution. Therefore, quite apart from the Home Rule question, any attempt to use the Referendum must be resisted with the utmost persistence. The Referendum will stop progressive legislation. For this reason, whether the Referendum is a. democratic measure or not, it is an institution which all true Liberals and Progressives must oppose—so runs the argument. It would be idle to deny the great potency of this argument in the minds of Liberals. At the same time, it is not for Unionists and for those who believe in. the Referendum to be daunted by it. Our business is to point out in season and out of season that the institution of single-chamber government has made it essential to lodge in the hands of the people themselves the right of veto over legislation. That right of veto need not, of course, be used on every occasion, but it must be used whenever there is a serious and reasonable doubt whether a measure has not been passed under some log- rolling arrangement rather than because it is the true will of the democracy. The Unionist Party is therefore bound by its duty to the people, as well as by its own special interests, to do all in its power to introduce the Referendum.
For that reason we were greatly disappointed that when Lord Balfour of Burleigh introduced his Bill in the House of Lords in 1911 a more serious effort was not made to deal with the problem. We admit that it was probably too early at that time to lay down the conditions upon which legislation should be referred to the electors, but, as we pointed out then, what the Lords should have done was to have taken out of Lord Balfour of Burleigh's Bill the whole of the machinery for holding a Referendum and sent such a. machinery Bill to a very strong committee. Such a committee would, we believe, have found most of the machinery in the Bill sound and useful, but no doubt they would have been able to suggest improvements in detail. Their report, if acceptable to the Lords, as we believe it would have been, might then have been passed to third reading and sent down to the Commons. The machinery Bill thus created by the Lords might have had some preamble stating that if at any time it should be determined that an Act should be referred to the votes of the people before it came into operation, the poll of the electors should be held in the manner prescribed in the Bill. By adopting such a course the Lords would have registered, as it were, a system for holding a Referendum which could at any time be taken up and passed quickly into law, provided the assent of the Commons was obtained.
We do not see why it is too late to adopt that course now. Why should not the Lords next spring, as far as they are able, create the machinery under which a reference to the electors could be held ? Then, if owing to some turn in the party wheel, which is always possible, a decision should be arrived at to hold a Referendum, all that would be necessary would be to take the Lords' Bill out of its pigeon-hole and send it to the Commons. No doubt the Commons would insist on making certain alterations in order to exercise their authority, but at any rate there would be something ready for them to work upon, and so the business of setting up the machinery for a poll of the people would be greatly facilitated.
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