TOPICS OF THE DAY.
LORD BALFOUR'S BILL FOR A POLL OF THE PEOPLE.
TjORD BALFOUR has done the nation a notable service by showing it in black and white how the machinery for Parliamentary elections may be used without friction or difficulty to secure a poll of the electors, and also by showing the simple and elastic way in which the Referen- dum may be called into operation without an undue disturbance of our political institutions. The opponents of the proposal are always raising bogies and creating pre- judice in order to prove that the Referendum could not possibly be applied in this country. Lord Balfour's intro- ductory speech, and still more his Bill when it is printed, will be found to contain answers, and perfectly satisfactory answers, to the conundrums put forth on behalf of the official Liberals. Before dealing with these conundrums we will summarise Lord Balfour's account of his measure. The voters will all vote on the same day, and each man will only have one vote. They will vote under the safeguards of the Ballot Act and the Corrupt Practices Act, so far as these enactments apply, exactly as they vote now. The only difference will be that, instead of voting for Mr. Smith or Mr. Jones, they will vote " Yes " or" No" whether a particular Bill which has already been discussed in Parlia- ment shall or shall not come into operation—i.e., be presented for the Royal Assent. That is simple and clear enough, and equally simple and clear are the occasions on which a poll of the people is to be resorted to. The prime and essential object is to solve deadlocks between the two Houses of Parliament. If the two Houses cannot agree upon a Bill, then the Bill in the shape in which it was finally agreed to by the _House of Commons is to be presented to the popular veto. If the people veto it, the Bill drops. If they accept it—but acceptance must be by a majority not merely of one but of at least two per cent. of the negative vote—the Bill becomes law.
It will thus be seen that the predominant power of the House of Commons in legislation is preserved. All that the Lords will have a right to do, if Lord Balfour's Bill is passed, will be, in cases where they cannot see their way to agree with the House of Commons, to give the people an opportunity of vetoing the Commons Bill if they are so disposed—that is, the Commons can legislate over the heads of the House of Lords, but only if they receive the assent of the people. This use of the function of the House of Lords, we may say in passing, is exactly consonant with the evolutionary development of the Constitution. For the last fifty years the Lords have not claimed any greater power than this. There has, however, been wanting the proper machinery for putting into operation the Lords' demand that the electors— the masters of the predominant as well as the subordinate partner in the Legislature—shall decide be- tween them when they differ. This, as we have said, is the essential part of Lord Balfour's Bill. He meets, how- ever, and meets, we think, very properly, the complaint that under the working of our Party system only Liberal Bills would in fact be referred to the people under a Deadlock Solution Bill. Accordingly he proposes that a minority of 200 members of the House of Commons may, whenever they think fit, petition the Crown that a Bill shall not re- ceive the Royal Assent—i.e., come into operation—until it has been referred to a poll of the electors. Since only the Leader of the Opposition can, in fact, command 200 votes there is no likelihood under this clause of there being frivolous references to the people by small minorities. The Leader of the Opposition is not likely to demand a reference unless he is pretty sure of the result. No party cares to risk unnecessary defeats. Another auto- matic check against a frivolous use of the poll of the people is provided by the fact that a Bill once accepted at a reference can only be repealed by a popular vote. Party leaders will in most cases prefer to wait for repeal or amendment under the ordinary conditions. Mr. Runciman, in his speech on the Veto Bill on Wed- nesday, raised a great many of those questions which, as we have said above, are intended to create prejudice against the Referendum. For example, he asked, "How would the Referendum have been applied to the Education . „ Bill of 1906 ? " After asking the question, he went on to talk about the impossibility of putting in twenty clauses the points on which the two Houses disagreed. Imagine, he asked, this kind of question : "Are you in favour, in clause 3, p. 5, line 16, of 'they also if they think fit' being inserted instead of the word ' shall ' P" If Mr. Runciman will look at Lord. Balfour's' Bill when it is printed he will see that no Unionist or otheri advocate of the Referendum has ever been so mad as toi suggest the putting of questions of this kind. In the case l of a deadlock—that is, of a Bill on which it is found that no agreement on certain of its provisions can he reached between the two Houses—the difficulty will be solved by' asking the country whether the Commons Bill shall or shall not come into effect. A purist might say that this is not fair to the House of Lords, as they will have no chance of having their legislative proposals put before the country. Lord Balfour, however—and here he is upheld by the vast majority of the advocates of the Referendum—considers (and the experience of Switzerland certainly supports him) that only one proposition, and so only One Bill, demandi g the answer " Yes " or" No "can be usefully put to the electorate. As the House of Commons is the predominant partner in the Legislature, it is the Bill as passed by the Commons which ought to be put. No equality of powers is asked for by the Lords. They do not claim to veto Bills themselves nor to assume co-ordinate rights of legislation. They merely ask that the country shall decide whether a disputed Bill shall pass or not. Thus all that is claimed for the Lords under Lord Balfour's Bill is that they may have the power to insist that in certain cases the people shall be asked whether they desire that a particular Bill, which has been thoroughly discussed in Parliament and on which , the country knows the opinions of its leading politicians, I shall or shall not come into operation. .
Mr. Runciman went on to raise another bogey. "Lord Curzon had declared some years ago that you could not apply the Referendum to a Home Rule Bill ; you could apply it in regard to the phrase 'Home Rule,' but you could not apply it to the measure." Whether Lord Curzon really said anything of this kind we do not know ; but if he did, all we can say is that he made a capital error. A Home Rule Bill, as the experience of Switzerland, of I America, and of Australia shows, is just the kind of problem you can refer to the electors. It would, on the other hand, be quite useless to refer to them an abstract proposition, such as, "Will you have Home Rule, or will you not ? ' To that the prudent elector can only reply, "What do you mean by Home Rule ? Tell me that first, and I can tell you. If I do not know that, I must abstain from giving you any reply." A Home Rule Bill tells the elector what the proposers of that Bill mean by Home Rule, and therefore he can always vote for it or against it, " Yes " ' or "No." As we have so often said in these columns, the essential thing about the Referendum is that the questions put shall be questions to which the answer can only be "Yes" or "No." But a sane man can always answer the question whether on the whole he wants or does not want a parti- cular measure, just as he can always answer the question whether on the whole he does or does not want Mr. Jones or Mr. Smith to be returned to Parliament. One has only to think out the question of referring a matter to the people to see that the only safe and sound plan, the only practical plan, is to use the Poll of the People as a popular veto—i.e., to give the people the right of saying whether on the whole they do or do not approve of the solution of some legislative problem which their representatives are prepared to pass. This, as we have said, is what common-sense teaches plain men in regard to the Referendum. It is also the lesson which is taught by practical experience. The Swiss people have been working this form of Referendum— the veto form—for the last forty years with perfect success. They never put forward abstract propositions, and they never put two Bills before the country, as Mr. Runciman suggested we should have to do. What they do is to refer a definite legislative Act to the electors and to ask them, in effect, "Is it your wish that this law shall come into operation, or is it not ? " That, as we have said, is a question which can always be answered, and is always answered, by the Swiss people. No doubt it is quite open to argue that the electors always or generally answer wrong, but that is another question. At any rate, they decide the matter as they think best. if they like a, law, they let it come into operation. If they dislike it, they veto it.
In this context we may note the argument so often raised that, though these things are possible in Switzer- land, they would be quite impossible here. One would really suppose that the Swigs people were endowed with some angelic political gifts which we do not possess here. Much as we admire the Swiss we cannot claim for them such a monopoly of political wisdom. When the English tourist takes his walks in the Engadine or the Bernese Oberlanci we would advise him to consider the question in the forests and on the Alps. Solvitur amInclamio, as Mr. Asquith would. say in his pro- fessional way. Can it really be said that the porter who carries your Rucksack over a glacier pass or the man who drives you in an Einspanner or a sledge is so vastly more intelligent than the English working man that he can do what our working man cannot— decide whether he wants a certain piece of legislation or does not ? Those who are driven from this absurd position often take up another equally absurd—namely, that Switzerland is a small country, and that, though the Referendum may do for small countries, it certainly will not do for big : a point which should not have been omitted from " Noodle's Oration." Is it suggested that small countries have simpler legislative problems ? If it is, we should advise the opponents of the Referendum on this plea to look at the list of measures which have been submitted to the Referendum in Switzer- land during the last forty years. It will be seen that they are exactly the same sort of problems in essence as ours, though different no doubt in complexion. Problems of tariff, problems of national defence, problems involving socialistic considerations,problems of Constitutional reform, are not British monopolies, but worry the Switzer as they do the Britisher. Because a country is small it is not absolved from any of the ills to which human and political flesh is heir. One feels, indeed, inclined, after reading some of the sapient contentions that what will do for Switzerland will not do for us, to ask : " Hath not a Switzer eyes ? Rath not a Switzer hands, organs, dimensions,senses, affections, passions ? " Is he not exactly like other examples of the konto politicus or free citizen, even if he does live in a small country ? Mr. Runciman went on to ask what is to happen to Parliament when a Referendum is being taken. Is the House to keep on sitting, or is it to rise ? The answer is not difficult. A Referendum will be taken on one and. the same day throughout the whole country. Probably the House would prefer to adjourn on this day, as members would. want to vote; but there is no reason why the de- . liberations of Parliament should be further interfered with. Next he raises the difficulty whether a matter is to be decided if only 20 per cent. of the electors go to the poll. If he will think of the question as a practical proposition, he will soon see the answer. It is "Yes." Suppose a re- ferred Bill is accepted? What harm is there in that ? The election will have shown that there cannot be any very great opposition to the Bill, since so few people took the trouble to vote against it. But remember that, in spite of this, the Bill will not be in any sense a raw Bill. The fact that it has passed through the House of Commons. and been accepted by a majority there, ought, to Mr. Runciman at least, to be sufficient proof that it is fit to become law. No doubt it will have been rejected by the Lords, but that, again, is not a matter upon which Mr. Runciman. can be allowed to raise objection. His assent to the Veto Bill stops him. On his own showing he would be quite prepared to force the Lords to accept the Bill or to pass it over their heads. Therefore he at any rate cannot grumble at it getting a small majority in the country. Take next the case of a Bill being rejected though only 20 per cent. of the electorate vote. We do not admit that the case is likely to occur, but, if it does, all we can say is that it is very much better that a Bill which awakens so little interest in the country should be rejected and the status quo maintained. Mr. Runciman, we may remark here, bases his argument that people will not trouble to vote at a Referendum on the fact that they do not take the trouble to vote at municipal elections or pre- sumably at municipal polls of the ratepayers. Our answer • is, that greater willingness to vote is shown in the case of Parliamentary elections, and that therefore we may very well assume that more interest will be taken at references of Bills affecting the whole country. In any case, it does not lie with Mr. Runciman as a Parliamentarian to talk about important measures being passed when very little interest is shown in their discussion or in the divisions in regard to them. It is well known that Bills involving enormous sums of money and very great questions of principle often receive the scantiest possible attention from the mass of Members of the House of Commons, and are passed in Houses so meagre as to scandalise the more earnest representatives of the people. The divisions are similarly attenuated, or only swelled by Members who rush in and vote without having the least idea what they are voting upon. Mr. Runeiman and his fellow enemies of the Referendum accept with perfect equanimity a Bill which the House of Commons has passed with empty benches. What is sauce for the Parliamentary goose is certainly sauce for the electoral gander—a principle which may also be remembered when people ask how is it possible for an elector to vote upon a complicated measure. The answer, of course, is that members of the House of Commons do it every time they vote on a third reading, and that many of those who vote on this third reading have no knowledge and no views about the complicated sections and sub-sections of the measure. They merely make up their minds as to whether they like or dislike the general principle of the Bill or follow the leadership of persons in whom they trust who have, or are believed to have, a know- ledge of the details. Why a Parliamentary voter should not be able without discredit to act in a similar way has always passed our comprehension. Finally, Mr. Runciman asked the question : Are you going to have a Referendum only when the House of Lords wants it ? If Mr. Runciman will look at Lord Balfour's Bill when it is printed he will find, as we have shown above, a complete answer to his final attempt to prejudice the proposal. No sane Unionist proposes any- thing of the kind. We fully admit that legislation might very well pass both Houses and yet be not only undesirable in itself, but be greatly disliked by the nation as a whole. It is therefore proposed that a minority of 200 members of the House of Commons shall have the right of demand- ing that a Bill which has been passed by both Houses shall, before it comes into operation, be submitted to a poll of the people. There is, of course, no magic in the number 200. It is merely put at that number to meet the criticism that if we do not take care we shall have too many refer- ences to the people. As a rule the Leader of the Opposition can command 200 supporters in the House of Commons. That being so, the 200 regulation would in fact give the Leader of the Opposition power to demand a reference if he thought it at all possible that he could throw out the Bill.
If, however, the opponents of the Referendum think that this number is too large, there is not the least reason why they should not propose that it should be 150. They are not likely to find any very strong objection from the advocates of a poll of the people.
Before we leave the subject of a. Referendum we must find space to say a. word in regard to the very able, weighty, and important speech of Sir William Anson. Sir William Anson is the most cautious and careful of jurists, but it is clear from his speech that he sees no practical difficulties in. the way of a wise and reasonable use of the Referendum in our Constitution.
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