TOPICS OF THE DAY.
" HE WHO WILLS 'I±E END WILLS THE MEANS." -FrE who wills the end wills the means." Lord Lansdowne and Mr. Balfour recognize that a creation of peers means disaster. Therefore they are determined to do their best to prevent the House of Lords insisting on their amendments, for that is equi- valent to forcing a creation. On the other hand Lord Selborne, Mr. Austen Chamberlain, Lord Hugh Cecil, Mr. F. E. Smith, and their followers (Lord Halsbury is, as be himself says, only a figurehead) are determined to force a creation of peers. Whose will is to prevail ? Is it to be the will of Lord Lansdowne and. Mr. Bal- four, or the will of Mr. Austen Chamberlain and Mr. F. E. Smith ? The two last named politicians assert that they can count on the support of a larger number of peers than the Liberal Government can. This means that if Lord Lansdowne and his followers merely abstain the Lords' amendments will be insisted upon. The revolters will accomplish their purpose, and the crea- tion of peers will take place. That creation, it is now clear, will not be of just a sufficient number, but of a number sufficient in all probability to give the Liberal Government command of the House of Lords for several years to come. One has only to state these facts to show that there is one and only one way by which the creation of peers can now be avoided, that is, by Lord Lansdowne and Mr. Balfour announcing publicly that if Mr. Chamberlain and Mr. F. E. Smith direct their followers in the Lords to maintain the Lords' amendments, they, the real Unionist leaders, will ask a sufficient number of the loyal Unionist peers to vote for the Bill. In other words, Lord Lansdowne and Mr. Balfour can, if they like, prevent the creation of peers by putting into the lobby a loyal Unionist peer to cancel the vote of every Chamberlain-Smithite peer. There is no doubt as to the ability of the Unionist leaders to do this. Enough Unionist peers have expressed unsolicited their willingness, if such is the desire of their leaders, to vote for the Bill rather than permit a creation to be forced by the revolters. The question then is narrowed down to this. Should Lord Lansdowne and Mr. Balfour ask a sufficient number of their followers to knock the pistols out of the hands of Mr. Austen Chamberlain and Mr. Smith, and make the will of the Unionist leaders operative ? After considering the question with all the seriousness and anxiety which it requires, we can only answer that Lord Lansdowne and Mr. Balfour, in the interest of the Unionist Party, quite as much as in that of the Constitution and of all that is meant by Conservatism, must insist that their will, and not that of the revolters, shall prevail. The other policy of letting the will of the revolters prevail would not only be dis- astrous in its immediate consequences, but would certainly be regarded in the country as equivalent, in fact if not in name, to the deposition of Lord Lansdowne and Mr. Balfour.
That is the conclusion at which we have arrived, and at which, if they will only think the matter out, we believe that the vast majority of Unionists will arrive, however much they may hate the Parliament Bill—they cannot hate it more than we do—and however loth they may be to take strong action against any section of their fellow Unionists. We see to the full all the dangers and diffi- culties, and we recognize the terrible evil of fighting among ourselves in the face of the enemy. Further, we recognize that in a case like this it is no good to call people names or to tell the revolters that it is all their fault and not ours. The situation is much too perilous for recrimina- tions. It is, again, from no gust of passion, nor from any desire to knock our opponents on the head, nor to teach the insurgents their place, that we venture to give the counsel we are giving. It is because we have con- sidered the alternative to the action which we recommend that we are convinced that such action, disagreeable and likely to be misunderstood for a time as it may be, is the only path of safety. If our leaders and the main body of the party will only concentrate their thoughts on the alternative, that is, on the result of allowing the will of the revolters to prevail, they cannot fail to recog- nize that Lord Lansdowne and Mr. Balfour must ask a sufficient number of Unionist peers to vote if necessary for the Bill. We say " if necessary " advisedly, for we think it more than probable that if the Unionist leaders will at once announce their determination to meet the revolters vote by vote in the .House of Lords the Chamberlain-Smithite peers will not carry their purpose into execution, but like sensible men will yield to the inevitable. But though we may be convinced that this is what would be the result of an unmistakable declaration by the Unionist leaders, we do not for a moment propose to base our advice on the ground that the revolt will never come to action. We are not going to meet bluff by bluff. We are quite willing to assume, and we will and do assume, that nothing but putting a hundred or whatever may be the actual number—it is probably a good deal less than a hundred—loyal Unionist peers into the lobby to outvote the revolters will suffice. It is on that hypothesis—the hypothesis that the revolters will insist on voting whatever happens—that we are content to argue. We shall not restate our contention that the creation of peers would be a disaster of the first magnitude, would ruin the House of Lords and destroy the peerage—an insti- tution which it is not fashionable to defend at the moment, but which we believe to be a national asset of the greatest possible value. When the revolters tell us that the creation of three hundred or four hundred peers would not ruin the House of Lords and the peerage but improve them, and would not damage the Unionist Party but strengthen it, we must decline further debate. We cannot argue against what to us, at any rate, seems like the prepossession of persons temporarily bereft of their senses through the delirium of partisanship. Of the Unionist who sees no harm but rather good in three hundred or four hundred new Liberal peers we can only say in the words of the witty Frenchman : " C'est impos- sible de causer ayes nn monsieur comma ca." We shall put such disputations altogether aside and confine ourselves now to two other points of great importance, one of which has been too much ignored. This latter point has to' be faced, and we are glad to see that Mr. Walter Long—a statesman for whom we entertain, as must all sensible men, the highest respect—has had the courage to face it in a letter which appeared in the Press on Thursday. Mr. Long deals with the position of the King :— " The action of the Government has forco3 upon him a most invidious task, the performance of which may easily embitter the rest of what we hope will be a long and glorious reign. Surely in face of the fact that we cannot prevent the passing of this Bill we ought to relieve his Majesty, by the only means now left open to us, of this odious responsibility, and concentrate our whole endeavours upon preparation for the battle of the future, turning our weapons, not against each other, but against the Government and the party that are seeking to bring this degradation on the Monarch and to inflict this grave injury upon the Constitution."
Clearly these are considerations which ought to move those who for the moment have been carried away by the special pleading of the Unionist revolters. It is of importance to note that Mr. Long is here, unconsciously no doubt, following almost exactly in the steps of the Duke of Wellington. If we look back to the last speech made by the Duke of Wellington in the Reform Bill debates in the House of Lords, it will be seen that he dwelt in the same spirit on the terrible position in which the King would be placed if a creation of peers were to be forced. The King has no option but to take the advice of his Ministers because they are the only Ministers who can carry on the King's government. If no other argu- ment can affect those who at the moment have persuaded themselves to follow the lead of Mr. Austen Chamberlain and Mr. F. E. Smith this should surely prevail. If they succeed in forcing a creation of peers the King must suffer, and suffer in a manner which may have the gravest con- sequences to the position of the Monarchy. We hate to say it, but it must be said. Those who want to stand by and help the King in this crisis must see to it that the wilt of the revolters does not prevail. In our opinion Unionist leaders like Mr. Long should have thought of this point some weeks ago, but it is no good crying over spilt milk. Even now it is not too late to insist that we must not in the heat of this bitter controversy forget the position of the King. Our next point must be to meet an objection to our counsel to the Unionist leaders, which is, we admit, of very great importance, and made in perfect good faith by many Unionists. We are told that if Lord Lansdowne and Mr. Balfour come to the point of asking a sufficient number of their supporters to neutralize the action of the revolters by actually voting for the Bill, they would destroy the Unionist Party. We cannot agree. On the contrary, we believe that so signal a proof of the power and determi- nation of the Unionist leaders instead of breaking up the party would in the end consolidate it. Remember that though the revolters may talk they cannot really revolt for more than a week or two. Revolts are only serious when the revolters can join the enemy. But everyone knows that it is impossible for the Chamberlain-Smithites to do that. The very worst they could do would be to sulk for a few months. But sulking during the Parliamentary holidays will do little or no harm. The moment battle is joined over the Home Rule Bill, as it will be joined in February next, it must bring them back to the Unionist standard. No one is going to be so cruel or so unfair as to suggest that the revolters are not as determined as the main body of Unionists to defeat the Home Rule Bill. Therefore by the force of circumstances they must stand shoulder to shoulder with us the moment the Home Rule Bill is re- introduced. It is absolutely inconceivable that Mr. Austen Chamberlain or Mr. Smith will get up in the House of Commons next spring and say that he is not going to help save the Union because Lord Lansdowne and Mr. Balfour refused to allow him to force a creation of peers this summer. Temporary revolts of a section of their followers may mean ruin to a Government. No such destruction follows a revolt in an Opposition. Lord Lansdowne and Mr. Balfour run no risk of destroying the party by acting as we suggest.
If further proof is needed it is to be found in the speeches at the Halsbury dinner. There almost every speaker declared continued loyalty to the leaders and merely claimed the right of independent action during the coming fortnight. Well, if they can claim such independ- ence of action, so can the main body of the Unionists. To argue that they may take whatever line they like in regard to the Parliament Bill while the main body of the Unionists cannot do so without treason to the party is childish. If no disloyalty is involved in making the will of the Chamberlain-Smithites prevail how can it be in- volved in making the will of our leaders operative by sup- porting the Bill rather than by merely abstaining ? To abstain is to give a half vote. But the Unionist leaders are surely not going to allow themselves to be defeated on a. punctilio between a half vote for preventing the creation of peers and a whole vote for preventing it.
We shall conclude by a footnote to history, which we feel sure will be recognized by our readers as of no small importance. The Duke of Wellington decided that of two evils he would choose the lesser, and that therefore be must advise his party to let the Reform Bill pass without a creation of peers. He at once found himself faced with the problem which now faces Lord Lansdowne and Mr. Balfour. The manner in which he met it is told by a correspondent of the Times, whose letter, headed " A Tradition and a Moral," runs as follows :- "My father, who was a young man at the time of the passing of the Reform Bill, was fond of relating a political tradition in regard to the Duke of Wellington which I think he got from his cousin Charles Buller. It was to the following effect:—When the Duke of Wellington made up his mind to let the Bill pass he watched its passage through the House of Lords with a body of trusted and loyal followers. He and they were determined if the Bill was endangered by a rush of irresponsible peers to vote for it. Yet the Duke hated the Reform Bill more than even Lord Lansdowne hates the Parliament Bill. Is not this a lesson for to-day " Another correspondent of the Times adds a dictum of the Duke about the attacks which were made upon him for " raising the white flag " :- " In the present crisis may I recall to mind the very words which the Duke of Wellington used when confronted with a similar dilemma to that of the Unionist peers to-day P 'They'll say we are afraid. I don't care if they do. I don't care a twopenny damn if they do.'" Lord Sherbrooke said of the late Duke of Devonshire when he was Lord Hartington : "What I like about Hartington is his 'you-be-damned-ness.'" Let us trust that in future the Unionists will be able to say the same of their present leaders.
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