Chapter IV: Part 4

All I suggest is that in negotiating with Afghanistan, we should remember these things and should not attempt to browbeat a proud and sensitive ruler, who, however inferior in the ordinary equipment for regular war, holds such valuable assets on his side. And my own experience is that the Afghans are not unreasonable. Like every one else, they will "try it on," but if handled courteously, kindly, with geniality, and, above all, with complete candour, they will generally see reason. And remember one thing. In spite of all that has happened, our mistakes, our bluster, our occasional lapses from complete disingenuousness, the Afghans still like us. Moreover, their hereditary mistrust of Russia still inclines them to lean on us. We have lately concluded a treaty with Afghanistan--not by any means a perfect treaty, but the best certainly that could be secured in the circumstances, and we have sent a Minister to Kabul, Lt.-Colonel Humphrys, who was one of my officers on the frontier. A better man for the post could not, I believe, be found in the Empire. Unless unduly hampered by a hectoring diplomacy from Whitehall, he will succeed in establishing that goodwill and mutual confidence which between Governments is of more value than all the paper engagements ever signed. One word more of the Afghans. There is an idea that they are a treacherous and perfidious people. This, I believe, is wicked slander, so far as the rulers are concerned. In 1857, during the Indian Mutiny, the Amir Dost Muhammed was true to his bond, when he might have been a thorn in our side; and during the Great War the late Amir Halilullah, in the face of appalling difficulties, maintained the neutrality of his country, as he promised, and was eventually murdered, a martyr to his own good faith to us.

INTERNAL UNREST

Let me now turn to our second question: internal political unrest. In clubs and other places where wise men in arm-chairs lay down the law about affairs of state, one constantly hears expressions of surprise and indignation that there should be any unrest in India at all. "We have," say the die-hard wiseacres, "governed India jolly well and jolly honestly, and the Indians ought to be jolly grateful instead of kicking up all this fuss. If that meddlesome Montagu had not put these wicked democratic ideas into their heads, and stirred up all this mud, we should have gone on quite comfortable as before." But if we face the facts squarely, we shall see that the wonder is not that there has been so much, but that there has been so comparatively little unrest, and that India should, on the whole, have waited so patiently for a definite advance towards self-government.

What are the facts? They are these. Partly by commercial enterprise, partly by adroit diplomacy, partly by accident, largely by the valour of our arms, we have obtained dominion over the great continent of India. We have ruled it for more than a century through the agency of a handful of Englishmen, alien in creed, colour, and custom from the people whom they rule--men who do not even make their permanent homes in the land they administer. Now, however efficient, however honest, however impartial, however disinterested such a rule may be, it cannot obviously be really agreeable to the peoples ruled. This is the fundamental weakness of our position. That our rule on these lines has lasted so long and has been so successful is due not to the fact alone that it has been backed by British bayonets, but rather to the fact that it has been remarkably efficient, honest, just, and disinterested--and, above all, that we have in the past given and secured goodwill.

Superimposed on this underlying irritant, there have been of late years a number of other more direct causes of unrest. Education, which we gave to India and were bound to give, had inevitably bred political aspiration, and an _intelligensia_ had grown up hungry for political rights and powers. Simultaneously the voracious demands of a centralised bureaucracy for reports and returns had left the district officer little leisure for that close touch with the people which in the past meant confidence and goodwill. Political restlessness had already for some years begun to manifest itself in anarchical conspiracies and crimes of violence, when the Great War began. In India, as elsewhere, the reflex action of the war was a disturbing element. High prices, stifled trade, high taxation, nationalist longings and ideas of self-determination and self-government served to reinforce subterranean agitation.

But throughout the war India not only remained calm and restrained, but her actual contribution to the war, in men and material, was colossal and was ungrudgingly given. She had a right to expect in return generous treatment; but what did she get? She got the Rowlatt Bill. Now, of course, there was a great deal of wicked, lying nonsense talked by agitators about the provisions of the Rowlatt Bill, and the people were grossly misled. But the plain fact remains that when India had emerged from the trying ordeal of the war, not only with honour untarnished, but having placed us under a great obligation, our first practical return was to pass a repressive measure, for fear, forsooth, that if it was not passed then it might be pigeon-holed and forgotten. India asked for bread and we gave her a stone--a stupid, blundering act, openly deprecated at the time by all moderate unofficial opinion in India. What was the result? The Punjab disturbances and the preventive massacre of the Jallianwala Bagh. I do not propose to dwell on this deplorable and sadly mishandled matter, save to say that so far from cowing agitation, it has left a legacy of hate that it will take years to wipe out; and that the subsequent action of a number of ill-informed persons in raising a very large sum of money for the officer responsible for that massacre has further estranged Indians and emphasised in their eyes the brand of their subjection.

THE RISE OF GHANDI

To India, thus seething with bitterness over the Punjab disturbances, there was added the Moslem resentment over the fate of Turkey. I was myself in London and Paris in a humble capacity at the Peace Conference, and I know that our leading statesmen were fully informed of the Moslem attitude and the dangers of unsympathetic and dilatory action in this matter. But an arrogant diplomacy swept all warnings aside and scorned the Moslem menace as a bogey. What was the result? Troubles in Egypt, in Mesopotamia, Kurdistan, Afghanistan, and the Khilifat movement in India. Hindu agitators were not slow to exploit Moslem bitterness, and for the first time there was a genuine, if very ephemeral, _entente_ between the two great rival creeds.

It was in this electric atmosphere that Ghandi, emerging from his ascetic retirement, found himself an unchallenged leader. Short of stature, frail, with large ears, and a gap in his front teeth, he had none of the outward appearance of dominance. His appeal lay in the simplicity of his life and character, for asceticism is still revered in the East. But his intellectual equipment was mediocre, his political ideas nebulous and impracticable to a degree, his programme archaic and visionary; and from the start he was doomed to fail. The _Hijrat_ movement which he advocated brought ruin to thousands of Moslem homes; his attack on Government educational establishments brought disaster to many youthful careers; non-co-operation fizzled out. Government servants would not resign their appointments, lawyers would not cease to practise, and title-holders, with a few insignificant exceptions, would not surrender their titles; the "back to the spinning-wheel" call did not attract, and the continual failure of Ghandi's predictions of the immediate attainment of complete _Swaraj_ or self-government, which he was careful never to define, like hope deferred turned the heart sick.

From being a demi-god Ghandi gradually became a bore, and when he was at last arrested, tragic to relate, there was hardly a tremor of resentment through the tired political nerves of India. The arrest was indeed a triumph of wise timing that does credit to the sagacity of the Government of India. Had the arrest been effected when the name of Ghandi was at its zenith, there would have been widespread trouble and bloodshed. As it was, people were only too glad to be rid of a gadfly that merely goaded them into infructuous bogs.

I apologise for this long excursus on the somewhat threadbare subject of the causes of unrest in India. But I want those here present to realise what potent forces have been at work and to believe that the Indian generally is not the ungrateful, black-hearted seditionist he is painted by the reactionary press. India is going through an inevitable stage of political transition, and we must not hastily judge her peoples--for the most part so gallant, so kindly, so law-abiding, so lovable--by the passing tantrums of political puberty.

THE PRESENT SITUATION

As things stand at present, there is a remarkable lull. It would be futile to predict whether it will last. It is due in part, as I have suggested, to general political weariness, in part to the drastic action taken against the smaller agitating fry, in part to the depletion of the coffers of the extremists, in part to the fact that the extremists are quarrelling amongst themselves as to their future programme. Some are for continuing a boycott of the Councils; others are for capturing all the seats and dominating the legislature; others are for re-beating the dead horse of non-co-operation. Meanwhile, with disunion in the extremist camp, the Councils conduct their business on moderate lines, and, so far as one can judge, with marked temperance and sanity.

The work of the first Councils has indeed been surprisingly good, and augurs well for the future. India has not yet, of course, by any means grasped the full significance of representative government. The party system is still in embryo, although two somewhat vague and nebulous parties calling themselves the "Nationalists" and the "Democrats" do exist. But these parties have no clear-cut programme, and they do not follow the lead of the Ministers, who are regarded, not as representing the elected members of the Council, but as newly-appointed additional members of the official bureaucracy. There will doubtless in time be gradual sorting of politicians into definite groups, but there are two unbridgeable gulfs in the Indian social system which must always militate against the building up of a solid political party system: first, the gulf between Hindu and Moslem, which still yawns as wide as ever, and second, the gulf between the Brahman and the "untouchables" who, by the way, have found their fears that they would be downtrodden under the new Councils completely baseless.

There are and must be breakers ahead. Some we can see, and there are doubtless others still bigger which we cannot yet glimpse over the welter of troubled waters. What we can see is this: first, there is a danger that unless Government and the Councils together can before the next elections in 1923-24 take definite steps towards the industrial development and the self-defence of India, the extremist party are likely to come in in full force and to create a deadlock in the administration; second, unless the Councils continue to accept a fiscal policy in accordance with the general interests of Great Britain and the Empire, there will be trouble. The fiscal position is obscure, but it is the crux, for the Councils can indirectly stultify any policy distasteful to them, and this too may mean a deadlock; third, there is a danger that the Indianisation of the Services will advance much more rapidly than was ever contemplated, or than is desirable in the interests of India for many years to come, for the simple reason that capable young Englishmen of the right stamp will not, without adequate guarantees for their future, accept employment in India. Those guarantees can be given satisfactorily by one authority alone, and that is by the Indian Legislatures voicing popular opinion. For a complex administration bristling with technical questions, administrative, political, and economic, it is essential that India should have for many years to come the assistance of highly-educated Britons with the tradition of administration in their blood. The Councils will be wise to recognise this and make conditions which will secure for them in the future as in the past the best stamp of adventurous Briton.

Finally, the Montagu-Chelmsford scheme, though a capable and conscientious endeavour to give gradual effect to a wise and generous policy, has of necessity its weak points. The system of diarchy--of allotting certain matters to the bureaucratic authority of the Viceroy and of the Provincial Governors and other matters to the representatives of the people--is obviously a stop-gap, which is already moribund. The attempt to fix definite periods at which further advances towards self-government can be considered is bound to fail: you cannot give political concessions by a stop-watch; the advance will either be much more rapid or much slower than the scheme anticipates. Again, the present basis of election is absurdly small, but any attempt to broaden it must tend towards adult suffrage, which in itself would appear impracticable with a population of over 200 millions.

OUR DUTY TO INDIA

It is a mistake, however, in politics to look too far ahead. Sufficient unto the day. For the time being we may be certain of one thing, and that is that we cannot break the Indian connection and leave India. Both our interests and our obligations demand that we should remain at the helm of Indian affairs for many years to come. That being so, let us accept our part cheerfully and with goodwill as in the past. Let us try to give India of our best, as we have done heretofore. Let us regive and regain, above all things, goodwill. Let us not resent the loss of past privilege, the changes in our individual status, and let us face the position in a practical and good-humoured spirit. Let us abandon all talk of holding India by the sword, as we won it by the sword--because both propositions are fundamentally false. Let us realise that we have held India by integrity, justice, disinterested efficiency--and, above all, by goodwill--and let us continue to co-operate with India in India for India on these same lines.

EGYPT

BY J.A. SPENDER

Editor of the _Westminster Gazette_, 1896 to 1922; Member of the Special Mission to Egypt, 1919-1920.

Mr. Spender said:--The Egyptian problem resembles the Indian and all other Eastern problems in that there is no simple explanation or solution of it. Among the many disagreeable surprises which awaited us after the war, none was more disagreeable than the discovery in March, 1919, that Egypt was in a state of rebellion. For years previously we had considered Egypt a model of imperial administration. We had pulled her out of bankruptcy and given her prosperity. We had provided her with great public works which had enriched both pasha and fellah. We had scrupulously refrained from exploiting her in our own interests. No man ever worked so disinterestedly for a country not his own as Lord Cromer for Egypt, and if ever a Nationalist movement could have been killed by kindness, it should have been the Egyptian. Nor were the Egyptian people ungrateful. I have talked to Egyptian Nationalists of all shades, and seldom found any who did not handsomely acknowledge what Great Britain had done for Egypt, but they asked for one thing more, which was that she should restore them their independence. "We won it from the Turks," they said, "and we cannot allow you to take it from us."

This demand was no new thing, but it was brought to a climax by events during and after the war. When the war broke out, our representative in Egypt was still only "Agent and Consul-General," and was theoretically and legally on the same footing with the representative of all other Powers; when it ended, he was "High Commissioner," governing by martial law under a system which we called a "protectorate." This to the Egyptians seemed a definite and disastrous change for the worse. Throughout the forty years of our occupation we have most carefully preserved the theory of Egyptian independence. We have occupied and administered the country, but we have never annexed it or claimed it to be part of the British Empire. We intervened in 1882 for the purpose of restoring order, and five years later we offered to withdraw, and were only prevented from carrying out our intention because the Sultan of Turkey declined, at the instigation of another Power, to sign the Firman which gave us the right of re-occupying the country if order should again be disturbed. In the subsequent years we gave repeated assurances to Egyptians and to foreign Powers that we had no intention of altering the status of the country as defined in its theoretical government by Khedive, Egyptian Ministers, and Egyptian Council or Assembly. And though it was true that in virtue of the army of occupation we were in fact supreme, by leaving the forms of their government untouched and refraining from all steps to legalise our position we reassured the Egyptians as to our ultimate objects.

In the eyes of the Egyptians the proclamation of the Protectorate and the conversion of the "Agent and Consul-General" into a "High Commissioner" armed with the weapons of martial law seriously prejudiced this situation, and though they acquiesced for the period of the war, they were determined to have a settlement with us immediately it was over, and took us very seriously at our word when we promised to review the whole situation when that time came. The truth about the "Protectorate" was that we adopted it as a way out of the legal entanglement which would otherwise have converted the Egyptians into enemy aliens when their suzerain, the Sultan of Turkey, entered the war against us, and we did it deliberately as the preferable alternative to annexing the country. But we have neither explained to the Egyptians nor made clear to ourselves what exactly we meant by it, and in the absence of explanations it was interpreted in Egypt as a first step to the extinction of Egyptian nationality.

AFTER-WAR MISTAKES

Had we acted wisely and expeditiously at the end of the war we might even then have avoided the trouble that followed. But when Egyptian ministers asked leave to come to London in December, 1918, we answered that the time was not opportune for these discussions, and when the Nationalist leaders proposed to send a delegation, we said that no good purpose could be served by their coming to Europe. This heightened the alarm, and the Nationalists retorted by raising their claims from "complete autonomy" to "complete independence," and started a violent agitation. The Government retaliated by deporting Zaghlul to Malta, whereupon the country broke into rebellion. Lord Allenby now came upon the scene, and, while suppressing the rebellion, released Zaghlul and gave him and his delegation the permission to go to Europe which had been refused in January. It was now decided to send out the Milner Mission, but there was a further delay of seven months before it started, and during all that time agitation continued.

When the Mission arrived it quickly discovered that there was no possible "Constitution under the Protectorate" which would satisfy the Egyptians, and that the sole alternatives were further suppression or the discovery of some means of settlement which dispensed with the Protectorate. The Mission unanimously came to the conclusion that though the first was mechanically possible if the cost and discredit were faced, the second was not only feasible but far preferable, and that the right method was a treaty of Alliance between Great Britain and Egypt, recognising Egypt as a sovereign State, but affording all necessary guarantees for imperial interests. Working on those lines the Mission gradually broke down the boycott proclaimed against them, convinced the Egyptians of their goodwill, induced all parties of Egyptian Nationalists to come to London, and there negotiated the basis of the Treaty which was described in the Report. The main points were that there must be a British force in the country--not an army of occupation, but a force to guard Imperial communications--that there must be British liaison officers for law and order and finance, that the control of foreign policy must remain in the hands of Great Britain, and that the Soudan settlement of 1898 must remain untouched, but that with these exceptions the Government of Egypt should be in fact what it had always been in theory: a Government of Egyptians by Egyptians.

Had the Government accepted this in December, 1920 (instead of in March, 1922), and instructed Lord Milner to go forward and draft a treaty on this basis, it is extremely probable that a settlement would have been reached in a few weeks; but Ministers, unhappily, were unable to make up their minds, and there was a further delay of three months before the Egyptian Prime Minister, Adli Pasha, was invited to negotiate with the Foreign Office. By this time the Nationalist parties which the Mission had succeeded in uniting on a common platform had fallen apart, and the extremists once more started a violent agitation and upbraided the moderates for tamely waiting on the British Government, which had evidently meant to deceive them. The situation had, therefore, changed again for the worse when Adli came to London in April, 1921, and it was made worse still by what followed. The negotiations dragged over six months, and finally broke down for reasons that have never been explained, but the probability is that Egypt had now got entangled in Coalition domestic politics, and that the "Die-Hards" claimed to have their way in Egypt in return for their consent to the Irish settlement. The door was now banged in the face of all schools of Egyptian Nationalists, and Lord Allenby was instructed to send to the Sultan the unhappy letter in which Egypt was peremptorily reminded that she was a "part of the communications of the British Empire," and many other things said which were specially calculated to wound Egyptian susceptibilities.

The Egyptian Prime Minister resigned, and for the next five months Lord Allenby endeavoured to govern the country by martial law without an Egyptian Ministry. Then he came to London with the unanimous support of British officials in Egypt to tell the Government that the situation was impossible and a settlement imperative. The Government gave way and British policy was again reversed, but three opportunities had now been thrown away, and at the fourth time of asking the difficulties were greatly increased. The Nationalists were now divided and the Moderates in danger of being violently attacked if they accepted a moderate solution. It was found necessary to deport Zaghlul Pasha and to put several of his chief adherents on trial. Suspicions had been aroused by the delays and vacillations of the British Government. A settlement by treaty was now impossible, and Lord Allenby had to give unconditionally the recognition of sovereignty which the Mission intended to be part of the treaty, putting the Egyptians under an honourable pledge to respect British rights and interests. In the circumstances there was nothing else to do, but it is greatly to be desired that when the constitution has been completed and the new Assembly convened, an effort should be made to revert to the method of the treaty which particularly suited the Egyptian character and would be regarded as a binding obligation by Egyptians.

THE HOPE OF THE FUTURE

In regard to the future, there is only one thing to do and that is to work honestly to its logical conclusion the theory now adopted, that Egypt is a self-governing independent State. Egyptians must be encouraged to shoulder the full responsibilities of a self-governing community. It would be folly to maintain a dual system which enabled an Egyptian Government to shunt the difficult or disagreeable part of its task on to a British High Commissioner. Whatever the system of Government, there is no escape for either party from the most intimate mutual relations. Geography and circumstances decree them, but there is no necessary clash between the imperial interests which require us to guard the highway to the East that runs through Egyptian territory, and the full exercise of their national rights by Egyptians. Egyptians must remember that for many years to come the world will hold us responsible for law and order and solvency in Egypt, and we on our part must remember that Egyptians have the same pride in their country as other peoples, and that they will never consent to regard it as merely and primarily "a communication of the British Empire." In any wise solution of the question any sudden breach with the past will be avoided, and Egyptians will of their own free will enlist the aid of British officials who have proved their devotion to the country by loyal and skilful service. The hope of the future lies in substituting a free partnership for a domination of one race by the other, and with a genial and good-humoured people, such as the Egyptians essentially are, there should be no difficulty in restoring friendship and burying past animosities. But there must be a real determination on both sides to make Egyptian independence a success and no disposition on either to give merely a reluctant consent to the conditions agreed upon by them and then to throw the onus of failure on the others.

I deeply regret the schism between the different schools of Nationalists in Egypt. As we have seen in Ireland, Nationalism is threatened from within as well as from without, and it is a great misfortune that in settling the Egyptian problem we missed the moment in 1920 when the different Nationalist parties were all but united on a common platform. Extremist leaders have the power of compelling even their friends to deport them and treat them as enemies, and I assume that Zaghlul put Lord Allenby under this compulsion, when he decided that his deportation was necessary. But Zaghlul was one of the few Nationalist leaders who were of peasant origin, and his followers stand for something that needs to be strongly represented in the Government if it is not to take its complexion merely from the towns and the wealthy interests. The fellah is a very different man from what he was in the days of Ismail, and it is improbable that he will again submit to oppression as his forefathers did but it is eminently desirable that there should be in the Government men whom he would accept as leaders and whom he could trust to speak for him.

Above all, it is to be hoped that, having conceded the independence of Egypt, we shall not slip back into governing the country by martial law with the aid of one party among the Egyptians. That would be merely an evasion of the difficulty and a postponement of troubles. There are a good many difficulties yet to be overcome, and the progress of events will need careful watching by Liberals in and out of the House of Commons, but if at length we steer a straight course and bring political good sense to the details of the problem, there is no reason why we should not satisfy the Egyptians and put Anglo-Egyptian relations on a good and enduring basis. In dealing with Egypt as with all Eastern countries, it should constantly be borne in mind that manners, character, and personality are a chief part of good politics. To a very large extent the estrangement has been caused by a failure to understand and respect the feelings of the Egyptian people, and here, as in India, it is important to understand that the demand of the Eastern man is not only for self-government, but also for a new status which will enable him to maintain his self-respect in his dealings with the West.

THE MACHINERY OF GOVERNMENT

BY RAMSAY MUIR

Professor of Modern History in the University of Manchester, 1913 to 1921.

Mr. Ramsay Muir said:--One of the most marked, and one of the most ominous, features of the political situation to-day is that there is an almost universal decline of belief in and respect for our system of government. This undermining of the confidence that a healthy community ought to feel in its institutions is a perturbing fact which it is the plain duty of all good Liberals to consider seriously. We need not be deterred by the old gibe that Liberalism has always cared more about political machinery than about social reorganisation. The gibe was never true. But, in any case, no projects of social reorganisation have much chance of success unless the political machinery by means of which they have to be carried into effect is working efficiently. Moreover, since most of the projects of social reform which are being urged upon our attention involve an enlargement of the activities of the State, it is obvious that we shall be running the risk of a breakdown unless we make sure that the machinery of the State is capable of meeting the demands which are made upon it. We must be satisfied that our engine has sufficient power before we require it to draw a double load. In truth, one reason why the engine of government is not working well is that it has been required to do a great deal more work than it was designed for. The time has come to consider carefully the character and capacity of our machinery of government in view of the increased demands which are certain to be made upon it in the future.

Our national political system may be divided into two parts. On the one hand, there is the working machine, which goes on, year in, year out, whether Parliament is sitting or not, and which would still go on quite well for a time if Parliament never met again. We call it the Government, and we habitually and rightly hold it responsible for every aspect of national policy and action, for legislation and finance as well as for foreign policy and internal administration. On the other hand, there is what Burke used to call "the control on behalf of the nation," mainly exercised through Parliament, whose chief function is to criticise and control the action of Government, and to make the responsibility of Government to the nation a real and a felt responsibility. The discontents of to-day apply to both parts of the system, and I propose to deal with them in turn, first inquiring what is wrong with the working machine of government and how it can be amended, and then turning to consider how far the control on behalf of the nation is working badly, and how it can be made more efficient.

In what I have called the "working machine" of government there are two distinct elements. First, there is the large, permanent, professional staff, the Civil Service; secondly, there is the policy-directing body, the Cabinet. Both of these are the objects of a great deal of contemporary criticism. On the one hand, we are told that we are suffering from "bureaucracy," which means that the permanent officials have too much independent and uncontrolled, or imperfectly controlled, authority. On the other hand, we are told that we are suffering from Cabinet dictatorship, or, alternatively, that the Cabinet system is breaking down and being replaced by the autocracy of the Prime Minister. There is a good deal of _prima facie_ justification for all these complaints.

THE GROWTH OF THE CIVIL SERVICE

First, as to bureaucracy. It is manifest that there has been an immense increase in the number, the functions, and the power of public officials. This is not merely due to the war. It has been going on for a long time--ever since, in fact, we began the deliberate process of national reconstruction in the years following 1832. In itself this increase has not been a bad thing; on the contrary, it has been the only possible means of carrying into effect the great series of reforms which marked the nineteenth century. And may I here underline the fact that we Liberals, in particular, have no right to criticise the process, since we have been mainly responsible for it, at any rate in all its early stages. When our predecessors set up the first Factory Inspectors in 1833, and so rendered possible the creation of a whole code of factory laws; when they created the first rudimentary Education Office in 1839, and so set to work the men who have really moulded our national system of education; when they set up a bureaucratic Poor Law Board in 1841, which shaped our Poor Law Policy, and a Public Health Board in 1848, which gradually worked out our system of Public Health--when they did these things, they were beginning a process which has been carried further with every decade. If you like, they were laying the foundations of bureaucracy; but they were also creating the only machinery by which vast, beneficial and desperately needed measures of social reform could be carried into effect.

And there is yet another thing for which Liberalism must assume the responsibility. When Gladstone instituted the Civil Service Commission in 1853, and the system of appointment by competitive examination in 1870, he freed the Civil Service from the reputation for corruption and inefficiency which had clung to it; and he ensured that it should attract, as it has ever since done, much of the best intellect of the nation. But this very fact inevitably increased the influence of the Civil Service, and encouraged the expansion of its functions. If you put a body of very able men in charge of a department of public service, it is certain that they will magnify their office, take a disproportionate view of its claims, and incessantly strive to increase its functions and its staff. This is not only natural, it is healthy--so long as the process is subjected to efficient criticism and control.

But the plain fact is that the control is inadequate. The vast machine of government has outgrown the power of the controlling mechanism.

We trust for the control of the immense bureaucratic machine, almost entirely to the presence, at the head of each department, of a political minister directly responsible to Parliament. We hold the minister responsible for everything that happens in his office, and we regard this ministerial responsibility as one of the keystones of our system. But when we reflect that the minister is distracted by a multitude of other calls upon his time, and that he has to deal with officials who are generally his equals in ability, and always his superiors in special knowledge; when we realise how impossible it is that a tithe of the multifarious business of a great department should come before him, and that the business which does come before him comes with the recommendations for action of men who know ten times more about it than he does, it must be obvious that the responsibility of the minister must be quite unreal, in regard to the normal working of the office. One thing alone he can do, and it is an important thing, quite big enough to occupy his attention. He can make sure that the broad policy of the office, and its big new departures, are in accord with the ideas of the majority in Parliament, and are co-ordinated, through the Cabinet, with the policy of the other departments. That, indeed, is the true function of a minister; and if he tries to make his responsibility real beyond that, he may easily neglect his main work. Beyond this consideration of broad policy, I do not hesitate to say that the theory of ministerial responsibility is not a check upon the growth of bureaucracy, but is rather the cover under which bureaucracy has grown up. For the position of the minister enables him, and almost compels him, to use his influence in Parliament for the purpose of diverting or minimising parliamentary criticism.

A CHECK UPON BUREAUCRACY

How can this growth of inadequately controlled official power be checked? Is it not apparent that this can only be done if a clear distinction is drawn between the sphere of broad policy, in which the minister both can be and ought to be responsible, and the sphere of ordinary administrative work for which the minister cannot be genuinely responsible? If that distinction is accepted, it ought not to be impossible for Parliament without undermining ministerial or cabinet responsibility, to devise a means of making its control over the ordinary working of the departments effective, through a system of committees or in other ways.

The current complaints of bureaucracy, however, are not directed mainly against the ineffectiveness of the machinery of control, but against the way in which public work is conducted by government officials--the formalism and red-tape by which it is hampered, the absence of elasticity and enterprise; and the methods of government departments are often compared, to their disadvantage, with those of business firms. But the comparison disregards a vital fact. The primary function of a government department is not creative or productive, but regulative. It has to see that laws are exactly carried out, and that public funds are used for the precise purposes for which they were voted; and for this kind of work a good deal of red-tape is necessary. Moreover, it is essential that those who are charged with such functions should be above all suspicion of being influenced by fear or favour or the desire to make profit; and for this purpose fixed salaries and security of tenure are essential.

In short, the fundamental principles upon which government departments are organised are right for the regulative functions which they primarily exist to perform. But they are altogether wrong for creative and productive work, which demands the utmost elasticity, adaptability, and freedom for experiment. And it is just because the ordinary machinery of government has been used on a large scale for this kind of work that the outcry against bureaucracy has recently been so vehement. It is not possible to imagine a worse method of conducting a great productive enterprise than to put it under the control of an evanescent minister selected on political grounds, and supported by a body of men whose work is carried on in accordance with the traditions of the Civil Service.

If we are to avoid a breakdown of our whole system, we must abstain from placing productive enterprises under the control of the ordinary machinery of government--Parliament, responsible political ministers, and civil service staffs. But it does not follow that no productive concern ought ever to be brought under public ownership and withdrawn from the sphere of private enterprise. As we shall later note, such concerns can, if it be necessary, be organised in a way which would avoid these dangers.

THE CABINET

We turn next to the other element in the working machine of government, the Cabinet, or policy-directing body, which is the very pivot of our whole system. Two main functions fall to the Cabinet. In the first place, it has to ensure an effective co-ordination between the various departments of government; in the second place, it is responsible for the initiation and guidance of national policy in every sphere, subject to the watchful but friendly control of Parliament.

Long experience has shown that there are several conditions which must be fulfilled if a Cabinet is to perform these functions satisfactorily. In the first place, its members must, among them, be able to speak for every department of government; failing this, the function of co-ordination cannot be effectively performed. This principle was discarded in the later stages of the war, when a small War Cabinet was instituted, from which most of the ministers were excluded. The result was confusion and overlapping, and the attempt to remedy these evils by the creation of a staff of _liaison_ officers under the control of the Prime Minister had very imperfect success, and in some respects only added to the confusion. In the second place, the Cabinet must be coherent and homogeneous, and its members must share the same ideals of national policy. National business cannot be efficiently transacted if the members of the Cabinet are under the necessity of constantly arguing about, and making compromises upon, first principles. That is the justification for drawing the members of a Cabinet from the leaders of a single party, who think alike and understand one another's minds. Whenever this condition has been absent, confusion, vacillation and contradiction have always marked the conduct of public affairs, and disastrous results have followed.

In the third place, the procedure of the Cabinet must be intimate, informal, elastic, and confidential; every member must be able to feel that he has played his part in all the main decisions of policy, whether they directly concern his department or not, and that he is personally responsible for these decisions. Constitutional usage has always prescribed that it is the duty of a Cabinet Minister to resign if he differs from his colleagues on any vital matter, whether relating to his department or not, and this usage is, in truth, the main safeguard for the preservation of genuine conjoint responsibility, and the main barrier against irresponsible action by a Prime Minister or a clique. When the practice of resignation in the sense of giving up office is replaced by the other kind of resignation--shrugging one's shoulders and letting things slide--the main virtue of Cabinet government has been lost. In the fourth place, in order that every minister may fully share in every important discussion and decision, it is essential that the Cabinet should be small. Sir Robert Peel, in whose ministry of 1841-6 the system probably reached perfection, laid it down that nine was the maximum number for efficiency, because not more than about nine men can sit round a table in full view of one another, all taking a real share in every discussion. When the membership of a Cabinet largely exceeds this figure, it is inevitable that the sense of joint and several responsibility for every decision should be greatly weakened.

MODERN CHANGES IN THE CABINET

I do not think any one will deny that the Cabinet has in a large degree lost these four features which we have laid down as requisite for full efficiency. The process has been going on for a long time, but during the last six years it has been accelerated so greatly that the Cabinet of to-day is almost unrecognisably different from what it was fifty years ago. To begin with, it has grown enormously in size, owing to the increase in the number of departments of government. This growth has markedly diminished the sense of responsibility for national policy as a whole felt by the individual members, and the wholesome practice of resignation has gone out of fashion. It has led to frequent failures in the co-ordination of the various departments, which are often seen working at cross purposes. It has brought about a new formality in the proceedings of the Cabinet, in the establishment of a Cabinet Secretariat.

The lack of an efficient joint Cabinet control has encouraged a very marked and unhealthy increase in the personal authority of the Prime Minister and of the clique of more intimate colleagues by whom he is surrounded; and this is strengthened by the working of the new Secretariat. All these unhealthy features have been intensified by the combination of the two strongest parties in Parliament to form a coalition; for this has deprived the Cabinet of homogeneity and made it the scene not of the definition of a policy guided by clear principles, but rather the scene of incessant argument, bargaining, and compromise on fundamentals. Finally, the responsibility of the Cabinet to Parliament has been gravely weakened; it acts as the master of Parliament, not as its agent, and its efficiency suffers from the fact that its members are able to take their responsibility to Parliament very lightly.

All these defects in the working of the Cabinet system have been much more marked since the war than at any earlier time. But the two chief among them--lessened coherence due to unwieldiness of size, and diminished responsibility to Parliament--were already becoming apparent during the generation before the war. On the question of responsibility to Parliament we shall have something to say later. But it is worth while to ask whether there is any means whereby the old coherence, intimacy and community of responsibility can be restored. If it cannot be restored, the Cabinet system, as we have known it, is doomed. I do not think that it can be restored unless the size of the Cabinet can be greatly reduced, without excluding from its deliberations a responsible spokesman for each department of government.

But this will only be possible if a considerable regrouping of the great departments can be effected. I do not think that such a regrouping is impracticable. Indeed, it is for many reasons desirable. If it were carried out, a Cabinet might consist of the following members, who would among them be in contact with the whole range of governmental activity. There would be the Prime Minister; there would be the Chancellor of the Exchequer, responsible for national finance; there would be the Minister for Foreign Affairs; there would be a Minister for Imperial Affairs, speaking for a sub-Cabinet which would include Secretaries for the Dominions, for India, and for the Crown Colonies and Protectorates; there would be a Minister of Defence, with a sub-Cabinet including Ministers of the Navy, the Army, and the Air Force; there would be a Minister for Justice and Police, performing most of the functions both of the Home Office and of the Lord Chancellor, who would cease to be a political officer and be able to devote himself to his judicial functions; there would be a Minister of Agriculture, Industry, and Commerce, with a sub-Cabinet representing the Board of Trade, the Board of Agriculture, the Ministry of Mines, the Ministry of Labour, and perhaps other departments.

Ministers of Public Health and of Education would complete the list of active administrative chiefs; but one or two additional members, not burdened with the charge of a great department might be added, such as the Lord President of the Council, and one of these might very properly be a standing representative upon the Council of the League of Nations. The heads of productive trading departments--the Post Office and the Public Works Department--should, I suggest, be excluded from the Cabinet, and their departments should be separately organised in such a way as not to involve a change of personnel when one party succeeded another in power. These departments have no direct concern with the determination of national policy.

On such a scheme we should have a Cabinet of nine or ten members, representing among them all the departments which are concerned with regulative or purely governmental work. And I suggest that a rearrangement of this kind would not only restore efficiency to the Cabinet, but would lead to very great administrative reforms, better co-ordination between closely related departments, and in many respects economy. But valuable as such changes may be, they would not in themselves be sufficient to restore complete health to our governmental system. In the last resort this depends upon the organisation of an efficient and unresting system of criticism and control.

THE HOUSE OF COMMONS

In any modern State the control of the action of Government is largely wielded by organs not formally recognised by law--by the general movement of public opinion; by the influence of what is vaguely called "the city"; by the resolutions of such powerful bodies as trade union congresses, federations of employers, religious organisations, and propagandist bodies of many kinds; and, above all, by the Press. No review of our system would be complete without some discussion of these extremely powerful and in some cases dangerous influences. We cannot, however, touch upon them here. We must confine ourselves to the formal, constitutional machinery of national control over the actions of Government, that is, to Parliament, as the spokesman of the nation.

An essential part of any full discussion of this subject would be a treatment of the Second Chamber problem. But that would demand a whole hour to itself; and I propose to pass it over for the present, and to ask you to consider the perturbing fact that the House of Commons, which is the very heart of our system, has largely lost the confidence and belief which it once commanded.

Why has the House of Commons lost the confidence of the nation? There are two main reasons, which we must investigate in turn. In the first place, in spite of the now completely democratic character of the electorate, the House is felt to be very imperfectly representative of the national mind. And in the second place, it is believed to perform very inefficiently its primary function of criticising and controlling the action of Government.

First of all, why do men vaguely feel that the House of Commons is unrepresentative? I think there are three main reasons. The first is to be found in the method of election. Since 1885 the House has been elected by equal electoral districts, each represented by a single member. Now, if we suppose that every constituency was contested by two candidates only, about 45 per cent. of the voters must feel that they had not voted for anybody who sat at Westminster; while many of the remaining 55 per cent. must feel that they had been limited to a choice between two men, neither of whom truly represented them. But if in many constituencies there are no contests, and in many others there are three or more candidates, the number of electors who feel that they have not voted for any member of the House may rise to 60 per cent. or even 70 per cent. of the total.

The psychological effect of this state of things must be profound. And there is another consideration. The very name of the House of Commons (Communes, not common people) implies that it represents organised communities, with a character and personality and tradition of their own--boroughs or counties. So it did until 1885. Now it largely represents totally unreal units which exist only for the purpose of the election. The only possible means of overcoming these defects of the single member system is some mode of proportional representation--perhaps qualified by the retention of single members in those boroughs or counties which are just large enough to be entitled to one member.

The main objection taken to proportional representation is that it would probably involve small and composite majorities which would not give sufficient authority to ministries. But our chief complaint is that the authority of modern ministries is too great, their power too unchecked. In the middle of the nineteenth century, when our system worked most smoothly, parties _were_ composite, and majorities were small--as they usually ought to be, if the real balance of opinion in the country is to be reflected. The result was that the control of Parliament over the Cabinet was far more effective than it is to-day; the Cabinet could not ride roughshod over the House; and debates really influenced votes, as they now scarcely ever do. The immense majorities which have been the rule since 1885 are not healthy. They are the chief cause of the growth of Cabinet autocracy. And they are due primarily to the working of the single-member constituency.

The second ground of distrust is the belief that Parliament is unduly dominated by party; that its members cannot speak and vote freely; that the Cabinet always gets its way because it is able to hold over members, _in terrorem_, the threat of a general election, which means a fine of £1000 a head; and that (what creates more suspicion than anything) the policy of parties is unduly influenced by the subscribers of large amounts to secret party funds. I am a profound believer in organised parties as essential to the working of our system. But I also believe that there is real substance in these complaints, though they are often exaggerated. What is the remedy? First, smaller majorities, and a greater independence of the individual member, which would follow from a change in the methods of election. And, secondly, publicity of accounts in regard to party funds. There is no reason why an honest party should be ashamed of receiving large gifts for the public ends it serves, and every reason why it should be proud of receiving a multitude of small gifts. I very strongly hold that in politics, as in industry, the best safeguard against dishonest dealings, and the surest means of restoring confidence, is to be found in the policy of "Cards on the table." Is there any reason why we Liberals should not begin by boldly adopting, in our own case, this plainly Liberal policy?

REPRESENTATION OF "INTERESTS"