THE REFERENDUM ISSUE.
ASUDDEN, dramatic, and most beneficent change has come over the situation,—a change which will, we believe, exercise an overwhelming influence at the polls. The issue now before the country is plainly seen to be : "In matters of grave moment, is the will of the people to prevail or the will of a. single Chamber ? " The General Election which begins to-day is thus destined to be one of the most momentous in our history. The people are in effect being asked whether they will add the necessary corrective to representative government,—a corrective which will prevent the repre- sentative system under the stress of party ties from degenerating into an oligarchy. Without destroying the representative principle, the Referendum will safeguard the interests of the democracy, and ensure that the will of the majority shall prevail. Lord Lansdowne and the House of Lords, when they adopted the Referendum or direct vote of the people as a means of deciding deadlocks between the two Houses, in fact proposed to place the veto power in the hands of the nation itself. There was a danger, however, that it might not be possible to make - people at the coming Election understand this point owing to the cross-interests involved in the Fiscal and other questions. As our readers know, though we were ourselves prepared at the present crisis to put aside altogether the question of Free-trade and act only on the Constitutional issue, we felt deep anxiety as to whether the mass of the electors could be induced to do this. We felt that there were tens of thousands of voters in the constituencies who, though opposed to the present Government, would be misled by the notion that it would be their duty to vote on the problem of Tariff Reform versus Free-trade, and upon the question of food-taxes. In order to set these voters free to deal with the Constitutional issue, we suggested that the leaders of the Unionist Party should give the assurance that Tariff Reform would not be brought into operation till the people had been consulted thereupon. The reception of the Spectator's suggestion was at first by no means favourable. The leaders of the Tariff Reform Party showed, we admit, personally little or no antagonism to the plan, and amply proved their own good faith in the matter. It was clear that they did not want to snatch an advantage. It was, how- ever, very strongly urged that it was too late to adopt the Spectator's plan. We were told also that the mass of Tariff Reformers in the electorate would not comprehend the proposal, and would imagine that their leaders had run away from a policy in which those voters most sincerely believed. "We dare not," it was said in so many words, "run the risk of damping the ardour of our supporters. There would not be time to make them understand what we were doing, and our opponents would be sure to represent our action as surrender." To this view we ventured to offer a direct negative. We felt sure that the mass of the Unionist and Tariff Reform voters would not be so easily misled, but would fully recognise the reasons for their leaders' action, and would thoroughly approve thereof. English people of all classes appreciate the principle of sacrifice, and would not resent but admire those who asked them, for the general good of the country, to give up temporarily even a most cherished political tenet.
We admit, however, that on17 a week ago we were obliged to conclude, though with intense regret, that our policy had been rejected, and that it was no use urging it further. The decision in the party had apparently gone the other way, and we were prepared to accept it loyally, though we felt that a tremendous opportunity had been missed. To our intense relief, Mr. Balfour, strongly influenced no doubt by the action of Lord Lansdowne and of the Unionist leaders in the House of Lords, has once more shown his courage and statesmanship. At the eleventh hour he decided to run the great risk of changing the whole issue, and of asking his party to do exactly what we had ventured to demand,—namely, to pledge themselves that votes given to Unionist candidates at the coming Election should not be used to pass Tariff Reform, but that this question should be referred to the free, unprejudiced, and direct decision of the people.
Only those who know the innermost workings of party politics will be able to understand how tremendous was the responsibility thus undertaken by Mr. Balfour, and to give him full credit for what he has done. Nor must such credit, and in an equal degree, be withheld from Mr. Balfour's col- leagues. They share the responsibility fora decision which was probably even more difficult for them to take, and they must share the praise for statesmanship and patriotism. Their justification is to be found in the way in which the announcement was received. When Mr. Balfour announced, in words destined to be historical, that the Referendum would be applicable to Tariff Reform—" I have not the least objection to submitting the principles of Tariff Reform to a Referendum"—the reporters tell us that the sentence was scarcely finished before the audience rose to its feet in a tumult of cheering. Once again was shown the instinct for statesmanship of the ordinary Englishman, an instinct to which, we venture to say, it is always safe to trust. In an instant all the talk that the rank-and-file of the Tariff Reformers—the meeting at the Albert Hall was a most typical popular meeting—would never agree to a Referendum on Tariff Reform, would, never understand the situation, and. would imagine that they were being forced to surrender their policy, was shown to be utterly baseless. The bulk of the Tariff Reform Party recognised what was the true policy, and accepted it -with enthusiasm. They saw that Mr. Balfour and their leaders had done the right thing in the right way, and were proportionately delighted.
That the enthusiasm shown at the Albert Hall was nothing accidental or peculiar to London is proved amply by the way in which Mr. Balfour's decision has been received in the Unionist Press. With the exception of the Morning Post, the Unionist Press has endorsed the decision with enthusiasm. In addition, all the reports from the constituencies show that the Unionist Party is in effect unanimous, not merely for the introduction of the Referendum into the Constitution, but on the decision that Tariff Reform ought not to be excepted, but, like other issues of special gravity, should be submitted to the people. The manner in which Mr. Balfour made his momentous announcement was very happy. It shows his appreciation of his countrymen's attitude of mind There is no sounder maxim in life or in politics, and none which is more popular with Englishmen, than the maxim: "If you decide to do a thing, do it hand- somely." Mr. Balfour, as may be seen from his speech, made no attempt to hedge, or to use vague language, or not to commit himself irrevocably on the matter of placing the final word in regard to Tariff Reform in the hands of the people themselves through a direct vote. His words form the most clear and distinct pledge, and as such were at once accepted by his audience and later by the country at large.
Things have moved so fast during the past week that it will be worth while, before we leave the subject of the Referendum, to take stock of the situation and. show exactly how the Unionist Party now stand on this point. The Referendum, or direct appeal to the people, has been adopted by the Unionist Party as their solution of dead- locks between the House of Commons and that reformed House of Lords which it is their desire to establish.
(1) In all matters of grave moment upon which the two Houses cannot agree, the decision of the master of both- i.e., the people—is to be taken.
(2) Provision is to be made to meet the Liberal com- plaint that the Referendum would never be used when the Unionists were in office. Even in cases where both Houses are agreed on matters of grave moment, the Referendum may be invoked either on the petition of a minority, say, of one-third of the House of Commons, or by the petition of a certain number of voters, as in Switzerland. In all probability, however, a petition by a minority of the House of Commons would be the more effective and would be more liked by the Liberals. In the case of popular petitions by large numbers of persons, the identification of the signatories is a difficult matter.
(3) The Referendum must be applied, as in Switzerland, to the definite acceptance or rejection of a specific measure. In practice it would be very seldom possible to get the two parties to agree to putting questions to the electorate in a simple or abstract form. This difficulty does not arise over the question : " Do you wish, or do you not wish, that this Bill shall come into operation ? " That is a question which every man can answer. Whether he will answer it wisely or not is of course another matter, but at any rate it is a question upon which a definite answer can always be given. As to an abstract question, many voters would feel: "I cannot answer this, for it all depends upon the way in which the proposal is worked out in detail."
(4) The direct vote of the people must be given by the voters on the Parliamentary register, and must be given by them under the safe and well-tested conditions which prevail at Parliamentary elections. The voter, that is, must vote under the guarantees for honest voting afforded by the Ballot Act and the Corrupt Practices Acts.
(5) No Bill adopted at a Referendum should be repealed except at another Referendum.
It is sometimes urged that the Referendum would dettroy our Constitution because it would destroy the responsibility of Governments. Nothing could be more absurd than this proposition. There is not the slightest reason why a Government whose Bill had been rejected at a Referendum should resign if they still retain a working majority in the House of Commons. The country would not have said that it had lost confidence in the Government's general policy or in their acts as an Executive, but merely have shown that it did not wish a particular measure to be adopted. No doubt occasionally a Govern- ment might feel constrained to say that the measure put before the country and rejected was BO necessary to what they considered sound administration that they could not go on. But such cases, though they might arise, would be exceptional. As a rule, there would be no need for resignation. Though we have not yet used the Referendum, there are plenty of examples in recent history of Governments not resigning when their measures have been thrown out by the House of Lords, and when the refusal of the Government to appeal to the country thereon has afforded proof that they did not think the nation desired these measures. Take, for example, Mr. Gladstone's action over his second Home-rule Bill. When the House of Lords threw the Bill out, he did not resign, because he and his colleagues were convinced that the country was against them. Again, Sir Henry Campbell-Banner- man's Administration did not resign when the House of Lords threw out the first Education Bill, or when the Liberal Government were obliged to drop the second Education Bill. Ministers have constantly, either directly or indirectly, had to give up legislation which they could not get through Parliament, and yet they have not thought it necessary to resign. Why, then, should they resign if the people, who even the Liberals admit are their masters, decline to assent to a particular measure ? But even supposing we are wrong here, and that Ministers would always think it necessary to resign if they were beaten, this merely means that Governments would take erent care that the legislation which they introduced upon grave matters should be so consonant -with the popular will as to secure the consent of the country. Can it be said that there would be any very great evil in such a result ? The truth is that the people 'who use this argument about the necessity of Governments resigning are not democrats at heart and do not trust the people. What they want is an oligarchy composed of elected persons, not a true democracy.
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