TOPICS OF THE DAY
MR. BONAR LAW.
MR. BONAR LAW'S admirable speech at a gathering of Unionist women at the Queen's Hall on Tuesday suggests the consideration of his qualifications as leader
of the Opposition at this most critical moment in the fortunes not only of the Unionist Party, but of the nation as a whole. When Mr. Bonar Law was chosen as the chief of the Unionist Party, though we regretted that the Unionists should lose a leader so able and so devoted as Mr. Balfour, we ventured to express the opinion that the choice did great credit to the political instincts of the party, and that Mr. Bonar Law would prove himself in every sense worthy of the confidence reposed in him.
Though his power of command and his judgment had not then been proved, we did not hesitate to say that these qualities would be found in the new head of the Unionist Party. We can now record that our prediction has been made good by the facts. At the beginning of the year the Unionist Party and their leader found them- selves in a position of extreme difficulty. How their difficulties arose, and whether they might have been avoided by an earlier and plainer expression of opinion on behalf of Mr. Bonar Law's most prominent followers, we shall not attempt to discuss on the present occasion. What we do say, however, without fear of contra- diction, is that when the tempest was at its height and the ship was in great danger nothing could have been better than the conduct of Mr. Bonar Law. He showed character and courage, honour and sincerity, and, what was almost as important at the moment, he showed also not the slightest trace of that sense of wounded amour propre which is too often displayed by political leaders in a difficulty—the sense of self-pity and the desire to prove themselves in the right at the expense of their supporters. When things go wrong the temptation to put one's own case strongly or to show how one has been " let in" is very great, especially when to these natural feelings is added, as must often be the case, a feeling of personal soreness and injury—the feeling which makes a man say, often with perfect truth, that he did not seek the position in which he has been placed, that he only took it out of loyalty to a cause or to oblige his colleagues, and that he is disgusted at the want of con- sideration that has been shown to him and at the lack of moral support that he has received. In a word, the political leader in a fix is apt to recriminate and to let it be known that his feelings have been deeply injured.
Mr. Bonar Law, in the troubles of last January and February, passed through this fiery ordeal " with unsinged hair." Not a trace of the smell of the furnace remains upon him. He was tried as severely as a man could be tried and he was not found wanting. To mix the metaphor, an offence of which Lord Curzon has been accused, but from which he has so ably defended him- self, Mr. Bonar Law was caught in a tremendous gale. But instead of troubling as to whose fault it was that he was so caught, he set himself doggedly to the duty of keeping the ship's head to the waves and thinking of nothing else. He has had the reward of good faith and good temper all the world over. The wind has blown itself out, and men are now beginning to realize how much they owe to the pilot who has weathered the storm. They know that they have got a man who when there is trouble thinks not of himself but of the ship, not of his personal feelings or his personal ambitions, but of the cause. Hence they have a con- fidence in him which nothing but this trial of storm and stress could have given. We do not hesitate to say that he met Parliament this week in a position as strong within his own party as that occupied by any Unionist leader in the last fifteen years. It is of good omen that this recognition of Mr. Bonar Law's high qualities of leadership should be coincident with a well-marked change in public opinion. Just as his political reputation has risen, and just as the country is gaining confidence in him, his political opponents are being found out for what they are—the patentees and maintainers of the worst example of an organized hypocrisy that the country has ever seen in its political history. A great breach has become apparent in the walls of the enemy's citadel—witness the splendid victories at Newmarket and Altrincham—at the moment when the Unionists have begun to realize that their
captain is so eminently capable of leading them to victory. Mr. Bonar Law's powers of speech both on the platform and in House of Commons debate have been fully
recognized for many years, and we therefore need not deal with this part of his qualifications as a political leader. He has, however, something better than the power of
trenchant speech and lucid exposition. He possesses political judgment and a sense of political proportion, the instinct which tells him which are the big questions, the ques- tions that are worth taking up, and upon which the party ought to concentrate. The way in which he has treated the Home Rule problem is an excellent example of what we mean. He has seen that here the essential point, and also the point which the country can be best made to understand, is that of Ulster. Ever since the Government made their famous bargain with the Nationalist members in order to retain office, and so made Home Rule the great political question of the hour, we have warned our readers that it was on the Ulster issue that the question must ultimately be fought and decided. It was evident from the moment Mr. Bonar Law was made the leader of the party that he fully recognized this fact. In season and out of season he has never failed to take up his parable in regard to it. He never made the mistake made by a certain number of Unionists in England and also in Ireland that it would not do to fight the battle on the Ulster question lest it might seem like a desertion of the southern Irish. He recognized early and clearly that the true way to help the southern Irish, and the true way to fight their battle, was by insisting that on their own showing and their own principles the Liberals had no right to coerce the local majority in North- East Ulster and to force them against their will under a Dublin parliament and a Dublin executive. He dismissed with scorn the miserable plea that they had a right to play fast and loose with their principles because, forsooth, Ireland was an island and the United Kingdom was not. That plea had for them already been con- futed by their announcement that Home Rule for Scotland and Home Rule for Wales were to follow Home Rule for Ireland. The Liberals could not urge that an island was an indivisible political entity when they proposed to establish three, and possibly a dozen, Parliaments within the island of Great Britain.
But in handling the Ulster question Mr. Bonar Law, like a wise man, never rested his case solely on an abstract argument. He has always insisted that the threats of resistance by the people of Ulster are real threats, and cannot be met by the Government thrusting its head into the sand and protesting that what it wilfully refuses to see does not exist. Further, Mr. Bonar Law has always pointed out that if the Government mean to coerce Ulster the only proper and legitimate way of doing so is through a General Election. In effect he has said to them, as we have said so often in these columns, 'Before any attempt is made to coerce Ulster by force of arms the Government must try the coercion of a general election. Till they have attempted to obtain from the country an assurance that it is the will of the electors that Ulster shall give way, they must, if they insist upon North-East Ulster being driven from the United Kingdom, be guilty of bloodshed in no rhetorical, but in the most real sense.'
A less far-seeing and less able politician than Mr.. Bonar Law—or shall we say a more cynical politician ? —would have " left it at that," and allowed the Govern- ment to draw what conclusions they liked from his statement. Mr. Bonar Law, however, was not willing to leave the slightest doubt as to his meaning or as to the consequences of his protests. He openly told the Government in the House of Commons that if they would dissolve before the Home Rule Bill became law, and if they obtained the sanction of the country for their measure, and so in effect for the coercion of any part of the United Kingdom which resisted that measure, he would not only do nothing to promote resistance in Ulster, but however bad and unjust he might think the decision of the country, would refrain from encouraging the people of North-East Ulster in their refusal to be driven out of the United Kingdom. But lie warned the Government, and he repeated the warning last Tuesday, that if they would not adopt the proper way of coercing Ulster, i.e., by obtaining, if they can, a specific mandate from the country, he and his party would back up Ulster to the last. In truth, the Government's present attitude in regard to Ulster is the best possible proof that they know that it is not the desire of the electors that the will of the local majority shall be allowed to prevail in the south of Ireland, but shall be denied at the point of the bayonet in the north. It is obvious that the Cabinet only refuse to use the true and the right way of coercing Ulster because they know that the country would never give them a mandate to shed the blood of Ulster in the name of local self-government. We have given an example of Mr. Bonar Law's capacity for political judgment and of his sense of political proportion. Many others might be added, but we have only room for one more. In our opinion that political judgment could not be better proved than by the way in which Mr. Bonar Law has realized that it is the part of a leader of Opposition not to spin new programmes out of his inner consciousness, but to deal, though it may appear less interesting and less attractive at the moment, with the faults of the enemy in front of him. The immediate business of an Opposition is to oppose, to turn out the Government, to destroy, not to construct. Its leader must show that the Ministry to which he is opposed is not worthy of the confidence of the House of Commons and of the country. That is the question upon which the electors will give judgment. If it cannot be shown that the Government is unworthy of office there is not the slightest likelihood of the country making a change and bringing in the Opposition. The habitual attitude of the British nation towards its government is that the status quo ought to be maintained unless good reason can be shown for its altera- tion. The nation, as it were, realizes that it is perpetually crossing a stream, and that it is not wise to swap horses merely because somebody swears that he has got a much better team ready for the traces than the old horses. It is going on with the old horses unless it can be proved that they are dead beat, or foundered, or vicious, and therefore dangerous. When their unfitness is established, but not till then, the country will try the other team—unless, of course, it has some reason for believing that there is literally no alternative to the horses which are in the traces. It certainly has no such knowledge now. It does not of course love the Unionist Party any more than it loves their rivals, but we may be sure that if once the electors are convinced that the team in power has broken down it will be quite content to try the other side.
Mr. Bonar Law with the true instinct of a statesman has recognized this, and therefore he never wearies his hearers with hypothetical statements of the grand things which he would do if be were put into office. He concentrates upon the business of exposing the weakness and the folly of the administration, and of proving how little worthy they are of the confidence of the country. All he need do, and ought to do, is to assure the voters in general terms that he has a team of good fresh horses ready and waiting to do the work, and to do it well the instant the call comes. This is the old way of Opposition and it is also the true way, and it is an earnest of Unionist success in the future that Mr. Sonar Law, though he has never held Cabinet office, has seen so clearly and seized so strongly the true tradition. The Unionist Party has a great asset in Mr. Bonar Law, and we venture to prophesy that within six months' time what we are saying now will be said by Unionists throughout the length and breadth of the land.
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