11-is, WORK OF THE UNIONIST PARTY.
THEmore enthusiastic Tariff Reformers are using the regult of the Canadian elections to try to press their cause rapidly forward. The Canadians are represented as more Imperialistic than Great Britain, and we are bidden carefully to learn the lesson they have taught us. We very much doubt whether if the Conservative vote in Canada were analysed it would be found to be based on any sort of strict economic argument. Imperial Preference was not before the people as a Conservative proposal, for it was Sir Wilfrid Laurier who introduced it. Yet Tariff Reformers here assume that the question was implicit in the election. The fact is that Canadians, just because they are proud of being Canadians, are very jealous of their neighbours the Americans ; and when they discovered that by some of the less responsible American statesmen the acceptance of reciprocity would be interpreted as a drawing away from Great Britain and a closer political approach to the United States they decided to have none of it. It will be seen that such a sentiment— such an emotion we might call it—is very different from an economic doctrine. The Canadians wished to show their independence, and so far as that goes we most heartily admire them for it. The decision is always for them to take alone in the exercise of perfect freedom of judgment without officious advice from Great Britain. Freedom is greater than Free Trade. We need not go back on the Canadian elections, however; the only reason we mention them again now is because of their noticeable repercussion upon Unionist policy. We do not grudge Tariff Reformers the moral which they deduce from the elections; and we certainly have no thought of delivering an attack on Tariff Reform. Every opponent of the present Government ought in our opinion ungrudgingly to co- operate with Tariff Reformers, who form the majority of the Unionist Party, because in the Unionist Party, of course, lies the sole hope of turning the tables on the Government and restoring to the country the equivalent of the Constitution which has been destroyed. But we do appeal to Tariff Reformers not to forget at this moment that there are many things before the nation which are for the time being of infinitely greater import- ance than Tariff Reform.
There are questions which will not wait. If they are solved in the wrong way the opportunity of saving the country from dangerous or oppressive measures will be gone for ever. The temptation to press Tariff Reform into the front of Unionist policy is very great no doubt, but we earnestly represent that the temptation should be resisted by those who put country before party. Home Rule, the Insurance Bill, the redress of the Con- stitutional revolution by means of the Referendum, Redistribution, Welsh Disestablishment — all these matters wait for the undivided and undiminished labours of Unionists. The Unionist Party cannot afford to dispense with the aid of a single person who is willing, in Parliament or in the country, to do what he can to check the Government in the game of playing with loaded dice which they are just beginning. There are many thousands of moderate people, not strictly bound to either party, who will fight on the Unionist side if the resistance to obvious and imminent dangers is not deferred to a bigoted system of purging the party by insistence on a particular test question. There is no evidence that the electorate is more ready than before to put up with food taxes. On the contrary, we venture to say that owing to the universal rise in the cost of living the proposal would be repelled more emphatically than ever.
The Government have made up their mind to pass the Insurance Bill without adequatifdiscussion. We hold that the time has come for Unionists to resist this measure with all the energy at their command. To educate the country as to what the effect of the Insurance Bill would be if it is not drastically amended is a heavy under- taking in itself. It is all the heavier because the strong inclination of Unionists at first was to bless the Bill and create in the constituencies a feeling that it might be safely accepted as one of those non-party boons which occasionally grab r the whole political world. We ourselves have long pleaded for the principle of compulsory insurance, and it is with real regret that we now recognize that it is offered in a Bill which would do on the whole much more harm than good if it were forced through in the manner which Mr. Lloyd George threatens. Mr. McKenna has followed the example of Mr. Lloyd George and has urged his constituents not to throw away the chance of getting " 9d. for 4d." This is simply an appeal to the pocket, which is thoroughly vicious in itself, but it further happens that the sum which the working-man will get will not compare with what he now gets from a good friendly society. And for a pitiful result the friendly societies, with their splendid record of sacrifice and loyalty and noble thrift, are to be turned into agents for a scheme of Government charity—a scheme that will rob the societies of the traditions that have given British working-men unique qualities of dignity and proper pride. Even more important than opposition to the Insurance Bill is opposition to Home Rule, which the Government intend to introduce next year. We hold that one of the first steps in opposition should be the formulation of a demand for the separate treatment of North-East Ulster. Ireland has no more title to a separate government than Lancashire or Yorkshire; she is an essential part of the natural administrative area of the British Isles ; but if the right of self-government be conceded then there is no logical reason whatever which the Government can offer for refusing to listen to a demand for self-government from North-East Ulster. This demand can only be made rightly in Parliament and only refused in Parliament. Till it has been made and refused there is no sanction for the esta- blishment of a Voluntary Government in North-East Ulster independent of the Dublin Government. Sir Edward Carson and other Unionists are busily preparing a scheme of Voluntary Government, but we sincerely trust that they will not allow the Government the easy opportunity of saying that they have taken rebelliously what they had never asked for constitutionally. A demand made in the proper way in the House of Commons would have the effect of bestowing a sanction on the creation of a Govern- ment in North-East Ulster if in the last resort it were necessary to make a practical protest against Belfast being ruled by Dublin. As for the rest of the policy of the Unionist Party, the House of Lords ought, of course, to be reformed and the Liberals should be kept to their promises in this respect ; but reform of the Lords, who in any case have little enough power left to them under the changed Constitution, is by no means the first thing necessary in the immediate future. The first thing necessary is to give the people the power of absolutely declining to have legislation thrust upon them against their will. This can be done most simply and effectively by the adoption of the Poll of the People, or Referendum. It would automatically put an end to rule by caucus and redress the balance of the Con- stitution. It is a policy which fortifies and embraces all other Unionist policy. Next, the present inequalities of representation in the House of Commons must be amended, and this object would. be enormously helped by the intro- duction of Proportional Representation. But the Poll of the People, we repeat, would be the solvent of all Unionist diffi- culties. If Tariff Reform were in due course embodied in a. Bill, passed by Parliament, and submitted to the judgment of the people we do not hesitate to say that if the country approved of it Unionists who are not Tariff Reformers would loyally accept it. They indeed pledged themselves to as much as this when Mr. Balfour's promise of the Referendum was made before the last General Election. And we do not believe that the Tariff Reformers who then, with fine courage and frankness, took their political lives in their hands for the sake of their Party will go back on their part of the bargain. In the constructive programme of Unionism, therefore, the Referendum ought to have, beyond dispute, the first place. Without it the Unionist Party cannot advance very far and cannot be sure of an undivided allegiance. To put any other measure in the first place is to consent to be helpless in the face of our enemies when there is no need whatever to be helpless.
Previous page
