POLITICAL APATHY.
IN everyday conversation it is a matter of common remark that the country is less excited about the Homo Rule Bill of 1912 than it was about the measures of 1893 and 1886. That this opinion is justified there can be no doubt. Nor can the comparative apathy of the public be explained by the fact that on all hands it is anticipated that the House of Lords will summarily reject the Bill, for exactly the same anticipation existed in the ease of the Bill of 1893. And yet public interest in the 1893 measure continued unabated all through the long debates in the House of Commons up to the final dramatic ending when the Bill was rejected in the House of Lords by a majority of ten to one. It is true that in 1893 the Government majority in the House of Commons was only forty, and to that extent the fate of the Bill in the lower House was more precarious ; yet, on the other hand, it was generally recognized that the Government majority would hold together, and the Bill, however absurd its provisions might be, would pass through the Commons. Thus the Par- liamentary situation, so far as the Bill itself is concerned, is practically the same now as it was nineteen years ago. We must look elsewhere for the explanation of public indifference. It cannot be found in the situation in Ireland, for though there is good reason to believe that the mass of the Nationalist population is less enthusiastic for Home Rule than it was on the previous occasions, there is absolutely no doubt that the Ulster opposition is if any- thing even more resolute. Finally, no one can seriously contend that the present Bill is less hurtful than its pre- decessor. On the contrary, it is obviously a worse and more injurious Bill. The financial clauses alone would justify this view. We believe that the apathy, which every one notices, is less due to the ignorance of a new generation with regard to the importance of the issues raised than to a general condition of public indifferentism, the results of which may be so serious as even to overshadow the disastrous effects of the Home Rule measure itself. Careful observers have' noticed this political apathy growing for several years past. To some extent no doubt it is due to an increase in the number of other interests which the public now possesses. Music-halls and theatres have been multiplied ; there are more horse races, more athletic contests of every kind; there are motor cars and aeroplanes and an immense increase in the output of fiction. These factors alone would possibly by themselves suffice to diminish the interest which the public takes in political struggles ; but there is another factor far exceeding these in importance. If any political observer takes the trouble to cast his mind back a dozen years, or even less, he will recall that it was then the tradition of parliamentary government that only one big measure should occupy the scene each session, and upon that single measure were concentrated the interests of both the great political parties and of their backers throughout the country. The present Liberal Government has changed all this It has been in such a hurry to rush through a vast number of new legislative proposals that each session has been choked up with three or four big measures jostling one another as rival claimants for the public attention. The result has been that all of them have suffered. The human mind is so constituted that it cannot possibly give keen attention to a multitude of different issues at the same time, and if it is asked to do so it either neglects most of the issues in order to concen- trate fiercely upon one, or in the more usual case it becomes indifferent to all. This applies not only to the outside public, which cannot be expected to follow political move- ments with the same close and keen interest as those whose lives are devoted to politics, but it applies also to members of Parliament themselves. A member of Par- liament, as many would confess, is expected nowadays to give attention to such a multitude of subjects that ho ends by attending closely to none. As illustrations of the way in which the present Govern- ment has by its management of public business destroyed public interest in politics we may mention, first of all, the Old-Age Pensions Act of 1908. Here was a measure introducing a social change of tremendous importance. Merely on the financial side it was sufficiently huge to require the most careful consideration, for its authors in their own first estimate put the cost at £6,000,000 a year, or the equivalent of an addition of more than £200,000,000 to the National Debt. As we have often pointed out, this estimate has now been more than doubled. But apart from the financial cost, the Bill was of tremendous import- ance for the effect which it must have upon the social life of the country. One of its effects, namely, the effect upon the financial relations between Great Britain and Ireland, is only now beginning to be generally appreciated, though more than one critic at the time foresaw what is now happening. In any event, so large a measure ought to have been practically the only measure of the session in which it was introduced, and ought to have been allowed a full complement of Parliamentary time for its discussion. Instead, although there was not the slightest reason to anticipate obstruction, because the Bill was only opposed by an insignificant minority, this far-reaching measure was subjected to the system of closure by compartments which absolutely prevented any possible discussion of many of its provisions. That was scan- dalous enough, but the treatment by the Government of the far more complicated measure of national insurance last session was an even greater scandal. The success or failure of a system of compulsory national insurance must turn upon details, and when a Government proposes to pass into law a measure compelling over 14,000,000 people to insure themselves in a particular manner it is of the utmost importance that the provisions of such a measure should be fully discussed in the Council of the nation. Here again, however, Mr. Asquith's Government, because it had overloaded its programme, was driven to prohibit the discussion of a large part of the measure by means of the Parliamentary guillotine. It may be answered that even if this Bill had been the sole measure of one session it could not have been adequately discussed even if Parliament had sat from January to December. We fully agree. But there was absolutely no reason why the Bill should be disposed of in any one session. A measure of such tremendous importance as this, probably affecting more closely the inhabitants of the realm than any measure ever introduced into Parliament before, might well have been spread over two or three sessions.
This was the course adopted in the case of the German National Insurance Bill, which, whatever its defects or merits, has at any rate stood the test of more than twenty years' experience. 'When the German Governxnent was considering its scheme of national insurance it spent nearly two years in public inquiries before the scheme was pro- duced, and two years more were devoted to Parliamentary and public discussion before the scheme was passed into law. When legislation is conducted in this cautious manner—which every one would adopt in dealing with his own affairs—the nation has the leisure and opportunity of giving its full attention to the subject, and thus in the truest sense of the phrase is able to govern itself. Under the present Liberal Ministry the power of self-government is being taken away from the British people. The pro- visions of important measures are settled by committees of the Cabinet, are hurriedly adopted by the Cabinet as a whole, are forced through Parliament without debate, and passed into law before the general public has even heard of them.
When these are the conditions under which our govern- ment is carried on it is not surprising that the general public should grow indifferent to politics. We are in fact approximating to the condition of those autocratically governed Eastern countries where the people by long tradition look upon government not as a matter for themselves but as a matter for their rulers. The average Englishman is becoming tempted to say : "'Why should I bother about politics at all ? the Government, not for me." Thev are a matter for However keen a man may naturally be with regard to politics—and English- men come, it must be remembered of a race in which self-government is traditional—he quickly learns that the moves of the game are beyond his ken : they are carried on in secret, and are, he suspects, inspired by other motives than the public interest. At any rate, he neither knows what is being done nor has power to control the course of events, and therefore he prefers to watch games that he does understand or, better still, to play them himself.
Nor does the evil end with the indifference of the public. It extends to the capacity of the Ministers. We are willing to assume that all our present Ministers are men of exceptional ability, but, however great their ability may be, they cannot individually form any sound opinion upon all the multitude of questions which they force through Par- liament, and we shrewdly suspect that most of them have long given up even trying to understand half of the measures for which collectively they are all responsible. While the public has been growing indifferent the members of the Cabinet have been growing stale. They have put too great a, strain upon the human brain, and as a consequence they have wearied themselves as well as repelling the public. As one flagrant instance of the difference between the present method of government and that which prevailed half a generation ago we may mention the fact that when Mr. Gladstone was responsible for a Home Rule Bill it was the only measure of the session. Mr. Asquith is trying to force Home Rule and Welsh Disestablishment through Parliament in one session, and talks of throwing in some big measure of franchise reform. Along these lines both good govern- ment and national self-government are impossible.
Previous page
