The Prospects of the Election
THERE is, when we write, complete uncertainty about the date of the impending General Election. It does not necessarily hang upon the end of the Session of Parliament. Of one thing, however, we are certain ; the Election will not be fought upon the old three-party lines, but on the perfectly distinct question for or against the National Government, for or against the restitution of the soundness of our economic and financial position in our own eyes and in the eyes of the world. Never has it been more needful to give consideration to foreign opinion. Many members of the Opposition, not least their leader, have done valuable work in the past by teaching the interdependence of nations to-day, and by preaching the need to be " internationally minded " ; they are failing completely to-day to apply their lessons to the serious facts of the last few weeks and to the dangerous and humiliating circumstances in which Great Britain finds herself. The latest lesson must be carefully applied. For various reasons, which we have tried to explain in the past weeks, some sound, others founded on utter misjudgements of us, the foreigner lost all confidence in us and fell into something like panic. We have learnt the disastrous results of this and have had our warning not to let it happen again through any fault or carelessness of our own.
Let us consider the most important reasons for hasten- ing or delaying the election. We need not dwell here on the one that is probably foremost in the minds of the party agents and wire-pullers. No Government whose duty it is to exact more and to spend less can hope to improve its popularity as time goes on. Therefore, " Strike while the iron is hot." This is an inducement to the Government to put the machine in motion as quickly as possible, and it is sensible enough. More weight, however, should be given to another induce- ment. It is of immense importance to have the National Government firmly established, with a larger clear majority than it now has, as soon as possible and with a prospect of staying in power until it has re-established a world-wide confidence that will endure. Until then we shall be distracted from concentration on the work that should engross us. Then, again, there is a consti- tutional reason. We believe that this is the Government desired by the majority of the country, but it cannot yet prove this by pointing to a mandate from the polls, and the sooner it can do so, the better. This may seem pedantic at the moment, but its importance will grow with time.
On the other side, we are bound to give weight to the opinion of those who have best reasons to know the feeling abroad on a dissolution here. This we are told is a feeling of dread. The foreigner takes at their face value the speeches of the Opposition. He cannot judge the feelings of the mass of the people. He thinks it quite likely that an election would give us a Government that would repudiate the efforts of the National Government to make the country pay its way, and the state of panic that we wrote of above may recur with possibly fatal results the second time. Again, there is the Indian Round Table Conference, whose infinitely important work is getting less attention than it might have on account of difficulties at home. There are many obvious reasons why there should not be an election to distract the Government and everyone else during the Session of the Conference, leading to hesitation and to specula- tion on the result. The Conference can hardly finish its work till December. On the whole, then, greatly as we want to get this election behind us, we believe that more than two .months ought to be given to the Conference to work undisturbed and to foreign confidence to settle down after watching the country's efforts to, show its determination to bear its burdens ; we have to prove that the- second Budget was not the result of temporary fear or accepted by the unstable will of the moment.
And on what lines should the National Government fight an election ? Heaven knows that it should be task enough for the candidates to teach the- Constituencies what is the true position, how the Government means to deal with it, and how the bits of policy advocated so far by the Opposition would lead us to ruin. We should like to see the arguments limited as narrowly as possible, and we can safely rule out most discussion of foreign policy, in which continuity is established here and accepted with confidence abroad. If the National Govern- ment really desires to be firmly established by the election, it will seek to -avoid all distractions from the main object of its existence. And yet at this supremely important moment it is courting risks, which it should avoid as the plague, by its treatment of the tariff question.
Let us here say that Mr. Baldwin has deserved well of his country, none better. He has shown, as we expected, throughout the past weeks, that no man puts his country higher or more unequivocally above his Party. We would also point out to those who have in the past said that he was a poor, uninspiring leader, without real fighting qualities, that the country should be thankful that the leader of the Unionist Party has kept the respect, and in many cases the affection, of his opponents. Long ago we realized that if the Unionists had been led by a pugnacious or bitter politician, whom the Labour Party positively disliked, the tone of our politics would have fallen with most harmful results. And lately, if the Prime Minister could not have turned with con- fidence to a man, such as Mr. Baldwin, whom he respected, his difficulties might have been insurmountable. But he and most of his followers are honest Protectionists who seem to think that they must not lose any opportunity of introducing their tariffs. We cannot discuss to-day the merits of Free Trade or the effects at home and abroad of abandoning it, but even if we believed that more taxation at our ports were needed, and that restraint of trade led to prosperity, we would still say that this was not the election at which to put forward tariffs. We see more signs of conversion to Protection in the country than before. Yet, on the whole, Protection will still lose more votes than it will gain, as it always has, and as Mr. Baldwin knows by experience. It gives the chance, which will be taken in spite of Mr. Hender- son's leanings, to say, truly or untruly, " Your food will cost you more." The force of that cry among an electorate, in which women are so strong, may be fatal. The Unionists have no right to take this chance of getting Liberal assent to tariffs, and—far more serious—they have no right in this hour of danger to run the risk of disunion and defeat. And at this moment there is less need than ever for a tariff, because the aims of a tariff will be achieved through the exchange, whether we like it or not. While the pound falls prices of foreign imports must rise as compared with home products. Whether it be good or bad, Protection is thereby thrust upon us. If the Unionists in the Cabinet seek Protection, there is a measure of it to hand, gained without contention at the polls. To seek to add the contentious policy of tariffs is therefore economically unjustified at the moment when the pound is falling ; and in this hour of danger it means courting risks at the polls which threaten the very salvation of the country.
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