MR. RUNCIMAN'S SEVENTEEN POINTS-AND AFTER M R. RUNCIMAN had prepared for
his Cardiff audience an impressive list of achievements which a grateful country should put 'to the credit of the National Government. The Board of Trade being accustomed to thinking in figures, he had taken the trouble to discover no fewer than 11" reasons for believing that the achievements of the British people, under the direction of the present Government, were "without parallel up to April, 1934." A smaller number would have satisfied us. The Administration may justly claim that it came to power at a moment of chaos, when a weak Government was refusing to face the facts. It faced the facts, re-established confidence, and restored order in the national finances. Moreover, having created an atmo phere unfavourable to party obstruction, it speeded up the pace of public business both in Parliament and outside, and made swift progress with its policy of tariffs, trade agreements, agricultural marketing, debt conversion, unemployment insurance and slum clearance—measures some of which have been open to question, but all of which have been pursued with energy and consistency.
But in Mr. Runciman's list of achievements we find certain items counted twice over and others ominously omitted. The cuts in the Unemployment Insurance Fund count for three—once when they were applied in order to make the Fund solvent, once when they were restored under the new Bill, and once again when the same Bill was introduced. On the other hand, no mention is made of the Ottawa agreements, from which it may be supposed that Mr. Runciman does not regard them with urunixed satisfaction. Nothing is said of the World Economic Conference, and not a word about any item of foreign policy except the trade agreements. He tells us something about the consequences of tariffs, more particularly in regard to the improvement in the iron and steel trade ; but he omits to tell us the one thing about it we wanted to know most—whether, having granted it the advantage of protection, he intended to make it fulfil the promised condition of radical reconstruction.
This is only to say that, whilst the Government deserves the fullest credit for its achievement during the last three years, having enabled the country to stave off economic disaster on the one hand and political upheavals on the other, it would be a great mistake on the part of any of its members to face the future with complacency. The country and the Government have survived a terrific ordeal, and that certainly gives the Ministry a claim to the nation's future consideration. But the first phase, that of averting .catastrophe, is ended ; the second phase, that of reconstruction, should already have begun.. Memories of past services are short. It is more true of governments than of men that :
The evil that men do lives after them; The good is oft interred with their bones.
The Labour Party, it is already evident enough, is beginning to regain confidence and draw into its fold many of those who have either ceased to believe that National Government is necessary or doubt if the present Government is really a natinnal one. The by- election at North Hammersmith, following the London County Council elections, shows that in London at least the atmosphere is no longer that of 1931. Mr. Baldwin's allusions to Labour successes show that he at least is not unaware of the possibility that Labour may greatly strengthen its position between now and the General Election. It is with this danger in their minds that the Conservative leaders in the Government have concerted measures with the National Liberal and Labour ministers to present a united front to the country and put the case for continuing the experiment of National Government.
Others have gone further, and have asked that the alliance should be made permanent. Sir Thomas Inskip has suggested that a new party should be formed, 'Which should be called the National Party, and that it should have the support of a single political organization. Whilst such a change might simplify the problem of some of the local party associations in the constituencies, its certain effect would be to defeat the very objects at 'which it aims. The prestige of the National Government rests on the fact that it has at least some claim to stand above party, including within it men of different party attachments. But the creation of a new organization, to be known as the National Party, drawing its main support, as it must do, from the Conservatives, would merely have the effect of re-naming the Conservative Party, and absorbing elements of other groups. Outside it would be ranged all those groups, Liberal and Labour, which are normally opposed to Conservatism. To create a National Party wOuld be tantamount to abolishing the coalition on which the National Government rests.
The talk about a "Centre Party" is quite a different matter, but hardly more helpful. It is based on the desire, not to absorb the Liberals in a Conservative Party, but to draw the majority of the Conservative Party into a moderate Liberal, or Whig, Party, which would have the Diehards on the right and the Socialists on the left. But parties, after all, are born, not made, and neither a Centre nor a National Party could retain those qualities which have given value to the National Govern- ment. The latter, on its present coalition basis, is indispensable for the great work of next year, that of settling the constitution of India. It is indispensable, also, for other pressing tasks which the nation is expecting the Government to undertake. For if we are right ha assuming that it has successfully fulfilled its first task, that of steering through the financial rocks of 1931, there remains the second and even greater one, that of remov- ing the causes which produced the dangers.
We may be emerging today from the severity of the slump, and may look forward perhaps to a period of com- parative prosperity. But the fundamental conditions are not altered ; though the- next trade boom—should it amount to a boom—is likely to be shorter than the last. The fact is not overlooked that Russia alone in Europe has not felt the world slump, and has steadily increased her production. The Socialists of Great Britain have at least a paper plan by which they claim to be able to avert the recurrent evil of want in the midst of plenty. The present Government, so long as it retains some of the prestige of being a nonparty Government, has a unique opportunity for imposing on industry that fundamental, large-scale reconstruction which is necessary to efficiency and will be the purest safeguard against militant Socialism. Will it, within the next two years, nerve itself for a still greater effort—the second part of the work it has half done? Mr. Runciman has his 17 points. "Give me one im- movable point," said Archimedes, "and I will move worlds." A single frontal assault upon the whole pro- blem of the control of the basic industries—coal, cotton, iron and steel first—in accordance with ideas already familiar to and approved by enlightened industrialists, accompanied by encouragement of constructive schemes which would absorb the unemployed, would do more to establish confidence than .any rearrangement of parties or the most ingenious juggling with political groups.
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