The Political Situation at Home
THE present popularity of the Labour Government is one of the oddest of Time's revenges. For our part, we never supposed that when a Labour Government came into office for the second time they would be able to do, even if they wanted to do, a tithe of what they had " threatened " or what their opponents had feared. Indeed, we ►;ave often enough pointed out that an advanced Administration in any country, at any period of history, has always failed to please those who were foolish enough to look upon words as the equivalent of acts. It usually happens that a Government who have weighed themselves down with promises are, after all, sobered by departmental advice, or by the dread of a financial deficit and so on, and in the outcome are denounced by their wilder supporters. When this process goes on long enough there is a split ; a seceding group forms a new party, and though in the meanwhile politics may have been speeded up enough to annoy the diehards, no catastrophe has happened.
Of course, the present Government have a more specific reason for caution than any we have yet mentioned. Being a minority Government, they can produce the unanswerable excuse at. every convenient moment that to do all that they promised would mean a summary end to their existence. Personally, we think it only common sense for them to emphasize that excuse. There is a vast field of operations that can be covered by a common or national policy. When all has been said, however, the popularity of the Government with those who like a Government " to stand up to the foreigner " is air unexpected phenomenon. This popularity may do the Government good or it may do them harm. If it goes to their head they may try once too often Mr. Snowden's formula. If they remember the saying " Woe unto you when all men shall speak well of you" they may use their popularity in the right way as no more than a cautionary influence which will save them from resorting to any policy that even reasonable and peace-loving men could describe as damaging to their own country.
So far the Government have built up their popularity on their foreign policy. Their home policy consists at the moment in widespread but vague promises. Mr. Baldwin, in the only formid communication which he has made to the country since the General Election, has said truly enough that all that the Labour Government have achieved abroad was planned by the Unionist Government. Unfortunately the Unionist Government were content with planning. No doubt if they had survived they would within a few years have done what Mr. MacDonald has done quickly and done well. All the steps which Mr. MacDonald has taken had become inevitable, but somehow or other Sir Austen Chamberlain would not plant his feet in the places which not only events but his own principles had traced for him. We fancy that if Mr. Baldwin had himself been Foreign Secretary he would have moved faster, but he could never bring himself to find serious fault with a colleague—a charming kind of loyalty which unhappily never seemed quite so charming to those who did not personally benefit by it. Mr. Baldwin alone among the late Ministers nevertheless has fairly and honestly told the truth about the present situation. He said that if he had been returned to power he would have visited the United States. There is no doubt that he would have done so, for he was a strong believer in the necessity of statesmen taking control of the experts —a necessity which he did not enforce upon his colleagues —and in the supreme importance of personal contact with Washington.
Unfortunately he waited a little too king, and in this case, as in several others, the Labour -Government are gathering in the credit. It has been easy for them to do so and we cannot see that they have yet made any mistake abroad. Unionists who want to put their party right with the country can acquire -a reputation for fairness, which is one of the most valuable of all- assets in a political appeal, by acknowledging the facts as Mr. Baldwin has done. The wrong way to go about it is to use such arguments as Mr. Churchill has used in an article in the Daily Telegraph in which he explained that the riots in Palestine were the direct result of the "dismissal" of Lord Lloyd in Egypt. Mr. Neville Chamberlain similarly chose the wrong way when he said, in a speech last Saturday, " All that section of the Press which every day used to abuse the late Government for what it was doing and what it was not doing are to-day beslobbering the Socialists with nauseating flattery on their wisdom and courage and on their moderation, though . these mean a departure from their own [socialist] principles." Any uninformed person reading such words would suppose that the newspapers to which Mr. Chamberlain was referring were deliberately taking some risk of helping the Socialists in order to spite the late Government, whereas the truth is merely that the late Government did not move fast enough in foreign affairs for a great number , of their followers. When Mr. Chamberlain seems to suggest a slower pace in. foreign policy for the future he is doing harm to his own cause. Mr. Chamberlain's great Local Government Reform Act will, however, live long after a mere tactless speech has been forgotten. We are confident that the derating of industry, which came into effect on Tuesday, will be a potent tonic for unemployment which no Labour Government, though the Labour Opposition talked much nonsense about it, will ever snatch away from the lips of industry.
Mr. Baldwin has always felt the pulse of the country much more accurately than any of his colleagues, and we are sure that in his temperate bearing towards the Government he is right again. He will not ridicule them on the present evidence because he recognizes obvious causes for their popularity. He will wait for a sounder opportunity for attack.
What will that opportunity be, and when will it come ? No one can say with confidence, but Mr. J. H. Thomas prophesied to the Labour Party Conference on Tuesday that the fight would come over unemployment. He seemed to suggest that the Conservative Opposition would " go bald-headed " for the Government for having failed to improve the unemployment figures. We see what he means and what he fears, but we very much doubt whether under Mr. Baldwin's leadership the Unionist Opposition will do anything to upset the Govern- ment so long as the Government are introducing schemes which contain any sort of hope for the reduction of unemployment. It is fairly clear from all that Mr. Thomas has said that he is coming more and more round to what Labour speakers derisively call " the Treasury point of view," namely, that specially devised schemes for employment do not really cure unemployment, because they involve an expenditure of money which would have been better bestowed upon a natural expansion of trade. In fine, Mr. Thomas believes in the old- fashioned view that the only remedy in the long rim is Finding new markets for our goods and increasing the productivity of existing industries. His severest critics, apart from the Liberals who are bitter at the almost contemptuous rejection of their panacea, will be found in the Labour Party itself. It is not to be supposed that Mr. Baldwin is going to help Mr. Maxton in this matter.
After all, Mr. Thomas has received the authority of Parliament to spend £25,000,000 for development works at home, as well as the interest on £25,000,000 to help private enterprise, and £1,000,000 a year for Colonial development.. Whatever dissatisfaction the Conservative Opposition may express, therefore, will be concerned with the spending of the money and not with the amount to be spent. We do not see Conservatives joining with the Labour extremists in voting against the Government on some spendthrift scheme of " full main- tenance," as an alternative policy to the provisional' work.
The other most vulnerable point in the armour of the Government will be their coal policy. The coalowners have met the wishes of the Government promptly in regard to the marketing scheme, but still disavow their ability to discuss wages and conditions with the miners as a whole. That is to say, they refuse to consider a " national " scheme. In this respect their position has a certain tactical strength because the Government are not likely to try to compel them to recognize a single or national trade-union—in this case the Miners' Federa- tion. To do so would be to run counter to the recorded wishes of the General Council of the Trades Union Con- gress. The best card for the Government to play, if they are really intent upon peace, is to work for inter- national regulation at Geneva of wages and conditions. The plea of the British owners that they cannot continue to pay the present wages and cut down hours and yet compete with foreigners is really unanswerable unless the answer is an international arrangement which, as near as may be, will equalize the conditions. Both employers and men would probably put up with their fair share of temporary disappointment if they were assured of a better time to come.
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