Chapter XXXI: Unofficial Publication of "official" Information 361 (6)

Had I been disposed to press my criticisms on the conduct of the recent negotiations in Paris it would have been that they were so managed that for the first time since the war Britain has been completely isolated at a European conference. That is a misfortune, for it encouraged the French government to rash action. Up to the last conference Britain and Italy had remained in substantial accord even when France and Belgium took a different view, and Belgium had never before quitted any of the gatherings in complete disagreement with Great Britain. So France, always tempted as she was to occupy the Ruhr, hesitated to do so in the face of so formidable an Allied resistance. What is relevant, however, to the subject of this article is the cause of our unwonted isolation on the occasion of the last conference. The British premier started the negotiations by tabling proposals which promised forgiveness of most of the indebtedness of these countries to Britain, but which implied immediate arrangements for beginning repayment of the rest. This suggestion of repayment instantly consolidated opposition to the whole of the British plan. It became clear that existing governments on the continent had no intention, unless firmly pressed, of paying the smallest percentage of the debt they incurred on the faith of a solemn engagement to repay the loan when that was possible, and to pay interest meanwhile. If we point to the fact as we did in the Balfour note, that we have undertaken to repay the United States of America the heavy debt incurred by us on behalf of the Allies, they simply shrug their shoulders and say in effect: "That is your affair. We repay neither Britain nor America, and there is an end of it."

The other unpleasant incident is a speech delivered by M. Poincaré in the French Chamber in the course of which he dealt casually with the subject of inter-Allied indebtedness. The French prime minister then announced categorically that France had no intention of paying her debts until she has first received her share of reparations from Germany. What does that mean in effect? That the France represented by M. Poincaré has no intention of ever paying her debts. When the colossal figure of German reparations is taken into account thirty years is a moderate estimate of the period required for its liquidation. Is the French debt to lie dormant carrying no interest meanwhile? If it is, then the debt is practically wiped out, for the present value of £500,000,000 debt payable thirty years hence is insignificant. The present government of France have therefore declared they do not mean to pay what France owes. Surely the time to dictate the conditions of your repayment of a loan--when you propose to pay, how much you propose to pay, or whether you mean to pay at all--is when you are borrowing and not after you have spent the money.

And yet in the same speech in which M. Poincaré serves up hot platitudes for senatorial palates about the sanctity of national obligations, he dismisses France's faithful ally with the cold comfort that France is too busy collecting the accounts due to her to attend to the debts she owes. I believe in my heart that there is a France of which he is not the spokesman--a great France which will not treat shabbily a faithful friend who stood by her in the hour of despair and who is now staggering under unparalleled burdens incurred in the discharge of the obligations of friendship.

All this makes it more necessary that the situation should be cleared up without undue delay. Having just completed negotiations for liquidating our own war indebtedness to America we are in a position to insist on a settlement with those on whose behalf we incurred that indebtedness. If nothing is done the conditions will harden against us. We shall be assumed to have accepted the Poincaré repudiation. I do not know what conditions the government have made with the United States government as to the marketability of the securities to be created in funding our debt. If they are to be placed on the market the chance of any future deal is destroyed. Ere that be done we must know where we are in reference to our own claims. I trust the government will act promptly. Delay was justifiable so long as we were in the same position in reference to what we owed as what we claimed. The Baldwin settlement has altered all that. If we do not insist on an arrangement now the British taxpayer will have the fate of Issachar--that of the poor beast between two burdens--his own and that of the Allies.

XXIII

THE BRITISH ELECTIONS

It is the duty of every patriotic citizen, in view of the difficulties with which the country is confronted, to assist the government of the day by every means at his disposal. Factious criticism disturbs judgment and tends to unnerve. Governments to-day require full command of mind and nerve to enable them to arrive at sound decisions and to persevere in them. Faction is, therefore, treason to the country.

That does not, however, preclude a calm survey of the elections and their meaning. Quite the contrary, for we must think of the future and prepare for it.

The result of the elections has fully justified those who maintained that no party standing alone could hope to secure the measure of public support which will guarantee stable government. It is true that the Conservatives have succeeded in obtaining the return of a majority of members to the new Parliament. But the most notable feature of the elections is the return of a decisive majority of members by a very definite minority of the electors.

I observe that the prime minister, in returning thanks to the nation, claims that he has received a vote of confidence from the people of this country. Out of a total poll of fifteen millions his candidates secured less than six million votes. Making full allowance for uncontested seats, this figure cannot be stretched out to a height much above six millions.

That means that only two-fifths of the electorate voted confidence in the administration, whilst three-fifths voted confidence in other leaders or groups. A party which has a majority of three millions recorded against it on a national referendum can hardly claim to have received a national vote of confidence.

It might be argued that when the question of confidence or no confidence comes to be stated, the National Liberals having promised co-operation, the votes recorded by them ought not to be placed on the debit side of the confidence account. The basis of the appeal made by the National Liberal candidates for support is practically that stated by me in my Manchester speech:

"The supreme task of statesmanship at this hour is the pacification of the nations, so that the people shall have leisure to devote themselves to the peaceful avocations of life, to fill up the depleted reservoirs from which we all draw.

"My course is a clear one. I will support with all my might any government that devotes itself and lends its energy to that task with single-mindedness, fearlessness, and with resolution--provided it does not embark upon measures which inflict permanent injury upon the country, whether these measures be reactionary or revolutionary. That does not mean that I pledge myself to support inefficiency, vacillation, or infirmity in any government or in any party. But any government that does not pursue that course I will resist with all my might. That is my policy."

I have perused the addresses of many National Liberal candidates and I have addressed many meetings in their constituencies, and I find that their attitude towards the government is defined in these terms, with purely verbal variations. The address of Mr. J. D. Gilbert, who won Central Southwark, is a very fair sample taken out of the bulk:

"If you honour me again with your confidence I will support any
progressive measures brought forward by the present government or
any other government. I shall not offer factious opposition or
nagging criticism while our country is in difficulties at home or
abroad."

There may be one or two who went further, but none expressed confidence.

I have made some inquiries as to the number of Conservative votes polled by National Liberal candidates. I am informed that on an average it represents less than one-third of the total. At the last election 167 National Liberal candidates were put up. They polled an aggregate of 1,652,823 votes, that is, an average of 9,897 per candidate. What proportion of this vote was Conservative? There is a good practical method of testing this question. In sixty-two seats National Liberals were fought by Conservative as well as by other candidates. In these cases the average vote polled by National Liberals was 6,820. That means that where the Conservatives supported National Liberal candidates their votes would represent about 30 per cent. of the poll for these candidates. On the other hand, the number of Liberal votes polled by Conservatives, where a compact existed, at least balances this account, for although the total in each constituency does not equal the figures of the Conservative support in National Liberal constituencies, still, that support was spread over many more constituencies.

The prime minister and his chief electioneering manager both emphatically repudiated the suggestion that there was any pact between Conservatives and National Liberals, and urged that there were only local arrangements made between the candidates of the two parties for their mutual convenience.

As the head of the National Liberal group I expressed grave doubts as to the composition of the ministry, and much apprehension as to the language in which its policy was defined. That represents the general attitude of the National Liberals toward the government. Their support, therefore, cannot be claimed in totalling the votes recorded for the government.

The fact, therefore, remains that those who voted confidence in the government represent only forty per cent. of those who went to the poll and twenty-five per cent. of the total electorate.

I place this fact in the forefront, because it is bound to have a profound effect upon the course of events during--maybe beyond--the lifetime of this parliament. It is the first time, certainly since the Reform Act, that a pronounced minority of the electorate has succeeded in securing the control of parliament and the government of the country.

It would be idle to pretend that in a democratic country like ours, thoroughly imbued with the spirit of representative government, this does not weaken the moral authority of the government of the day. Therefore, if the government is wise it will bear that fact in mind and will not commit itself to policies which challenge the nine millions who between them represent a majority of the people of this country.

It is not a very good beginning to claim these striking figures as a vote of confidence. I sincerely trust it does not indicate a resolve to ignore, if not to defy, what is an obvious and ought to be a governing factor in the policy of the government.

A corollary to this curious working of our electoral system is to be found in the under-representation of the other parties in the present parliament, and unless representative government is to be discredited altogether, the present parliament ought at once to devote its mind and direct its energies to the discovery of some method and machinery which will avert the danger which clearly arises from the working of the present system.

The parliament of 1918 undoubtedly gave a larger majority to the government than the figures warranted. But the majority of votes cast for government candidates was so overwhelming that under any system of voting there would have been a larger working majority for the government than that which the present government can command. So when trouble arose it was not open to any section of the community to object that the government had no authority because it did not represent the electorate of this country.

We are faced with a new danger to constitutional government. What has happened at this election may be repeated at the next--but not necessarily in favour of the same party.

If we are to be governed by a succession of administrations who rule in spite of the protest of a majority of the people, the authority of government will be weakened beyond repair.

The luck of the electoral table has this time favoured the Conservatives. Next time it may turn in favour of the Labour Party. They have at this election secured 55 seats out of a total of 141 by a minority of votes.

The conditions were, in many respects, against them. Their funds were exhausted by the prolonged period of heavy unemployment. The trade union movement was passing through an ebb tide in its prosperity, both in funds and in members. There was a good deal of discontent with the trade union leaders. Many workmen felt they had been let down badly by some of their activities in industrial disputes.

Moreover, Labour has been committed by visionaries to a rash experiment which handicapped it severely in the election. Next time may be the spring tide of Labour. They have learnt their lesson at the polls, and are not likely to repeat the blunder of November, 1922.

This time the votes cast for them have attained the gigantic aggregate of four millions and a quarter. Supposing under those conditions they add another two millions to their poll. Although the other groups may secure between them nine millions of votes, Labour may have the same luck as the Conservatives at the last election and be placed in power by a decisive majority of members elected by a minority of votes.

I am not going to speculate as to what may happen under those conditions; the kind of legislation that may be proposed; the action of the House of Lords in reference to it, provoking, as it undoubtedly will, a fierce class conflict; or the turn given to administration in the various departments of government.

Of one thing I am, however, certain. That is, that as a minority administration in 1922 and onwards will help to discredit government with certain classes of the community, a minority Labour administration would weaken the respect of other classes for representative government, and between them an atmosphere will be created inimical to the moral authority of all government in this country.

I have many a time warned the public that, in spite of appearances, this country is in many respects very top-heavy. It is over-industrialised. Its means of livelihood are in some ways precarious, and depend on conditions over which we have very little control, and once something happens which may have the effect of causing a lean-over either in one direction or in the other, it will be more difficult to recover than in lands where the population depends in the main for its livelihood upon the cultivation of the soil and the development of the natural resources of the country.

I therefore earnestly trust that in the interests of stability and good government, which must be based on the goodwill and co-operation of the community as a whole, this parliament will apply its mind seriously to finding some means of preventing a repetition either in one direction or another of this freak of representative government.

Another feature of the election is the heavy vote polled by Liberal candidates in spite of untoward circumstances.

Whatever the difficulties of the Labour Party might be in this election they were not comparable to those under which Liberalism fought the campaign. It was divided by bitter internecine conflicts. The leaders of one section seemed to be more intent on keeping representatives of the other section out of parliament than on fighting for the common cause. The bulk of their speeches was devoted to attacks on the leaders of the other Liberal group, and there was not much room left for a statement of the Liberal case.

What happened in Manchester is typical. Here the rank and file took the matter in hand and enforced agreement. Lord Grey was brought down to bless it. But the whole of his benedictory speech consisted of a thin and dreary drip of querulous comment on the leaders of the other group, with a distinct hint that the return of a Conservative government would be by no means a bad thing in the interests of the country.

The speech was hailed by a Tory journal with the heading "Lord Grey Supports Mr. Bonar Law." He then went straight to support Mr. McKinnon Wood as candidate with a repetition of the same speech. Thence he rushed off to reiterate the same performance at Bedford in support of Lady Lawson, and he finished off by reciting it for two days at meetings in support of Mr. Walter Runciman.

No wonder that he succeeded in damping Liberal enthusiasm to such an extent that his unfortunate protégés surprised even their opponents in the poverty of the support given them at the polls.

As soon as the coalition broke up the leaders of this Liberal section met to consider the situation. The one positive result of their deliberations was not the issue of a ringing appeal for unity on the basis of Liberal principles, but a peevish intimation through the press that efforts at unity were to be discouraged at the election. It was clearly ordained that the Coalition Liberals should be crushed out. The Conservatives spurned them, and the Independent Liberals gave notice that they had no use for them. They were destined for extinction. Lord Crewe's speech proceeded on the same lines. May I say how sincerely I rejoice in the tribute to the "amateur diplomatist" which is implied in the conferring by a Conservative government of the blue ribbon of diplomacy upon the leader of the Independent Liberals in the House of Lords?

This precipitate and lamentable decision lost at least forty Liberal seats, gave to the Conservatives their majority, and what is equally important established the Labour Party as His Majesty's official Opposition in the House of Commons. The latter is much the most serious practical result of the decisions of the Independent leaders to debar united action at the last election. If Liberals had united when the Coalition came to an end, Liberalism might have polled five million votes. It would have now held a powerful second position in parliament, and the country and the nation would have looked to it in the future as it has hitherto done in the past for the alternative to "Toryism." Instead of that it is a poor split third. How could they expect to win at the polls? The National Liberals were pursued into their constituencies. Thirty-five National Liberal seats were assailed by Independent Liberal candidates. I am not making a complaint, but offering an explanation. Whatever the views of the National Liberal leaders might have been on the subject of Liberal unity they were given no chance to effect it, and although they entered into no national compact with the Conservatives their followers in certain areas had no option but to negotiate local arrangements with the Conservatives for mutual support. The implacable attitude of the Independent Liberals left them no choice in the matter.

What was the inevitable result? No real fight was put up for Liberal principles on either side. The Independent Liberals were tangled by the personal preoccupation of their leaders. They had accumulated enormous dumps of ammunition for the day of battle on the assumption that the main attack would be on the Coalition Liberals, and, although the Conservatives now lined the opposite trenches, anger dominated strategy, and the guns were still fired at their old foes, whilst the Tory government was only bombarded with bouquets. On the other hand, the National Liberal leaders were embarrassed by the engagements into which their followers had been driven by the action of the Independent Liberal leaders and the two warring factions.

The National Liberals, in spite of their enormous difficulties, have not been exterminated. I am not going to enter into a barren inquiry as to whether their numbers are or are not greater than those of Mr. Asquith's followers. Let it be assumed that they are equal. The marvel is that under these fratricidal conditions so many Liberals of any complexion have been returned.

I am not setting forth these unhappy facts in order to prolong the controversy which has poisoned Liberalism for years, but in order to call attention to the vitality which, in spite of these depressing conditions, can bring up 4,100,000 voters to the polls. Electorally Liberalism is the balancing power, and if it casts its united strength against either reaction or subversion its influence must be decisive, whatever the composition of this parliament may be.

It is common knowledge that the Independent Liberals confidently anticipated the return of at least 120 members of their group. The fact that they only succeeded in securing the return of about fifty is naturally to them a source of deep disappointment.

If the failure of high hopes leads to contemplation of the real causes of that failure and a sincere desire is manifested to substitute co-operation for conflict my colleagues and I will welcome it. We cannot force our society on an unwilling company.

During the campaign I repeatedly expressed the hope that one outcome of this election would be to bring moderate men of progressive outlook in all parties to see the wisdom of acting together.

But progressive minds are by no means confined to the Liberal party. I have met and worked with them in the Conservative party, and the election will have taught many men and women in the Labour party that violent and extravagant proposals impede progress. If the limits are not too narrowly drawn, this parliament may witness the effective association of men of many parties who are genuinely concerned in the advancement of mankind along the paths of peace and progress for the attainment of their common ideals. If that end is achieved, the coming years will not be spent in vain.

One word as to the National Liberals. When the dissolution came no party was ever placed in a more embarrassing and even desperate situation.

The Conservatives have at their disposal a great political machine. The Labour party could command the support of all the trade unions, with their elaborate machinery for organising the wage-earning population. The Independent Liberals had in England and in Scotland captured the Liberal machine almost in its entirety, and had spent six years in perfecting it, their leaders having no other occupation.

The National Liberal leaders inherited no political machinery, and were too preoccupied with great world affairs to be able to devote any time to the improvisation of an effective new organisation.

Conservatives, Independent Liberals, and Labour all alike attacked National Liberal seats where they thought any advantage might be gained for their respective parties by doing so. The Conservatives only refrained from attack in cases where they thought there was more to be gained by arrangement. There was a great volume of popular sentiment behind our group. I visited Britain, north, south, east, west, and I have never witnessed such crowds nor such enthusiasm at any electoral contest in which I have ever taken part; but there was no organisation to convert acclamation into electoral power, and you could not build up a vast political machine in three weeks. Our supporters were not provided with an opportunity to test their strength in two-thirds of the constituencies. In nearly three hundred constituencies they could not do so without impairing the chances of Liberal candidates. A compact with Conservatives ruled them out of others.

It is a wonder that, in spite of these adverse and even paralysing conditions our numbers are twice those of the Independent Liberals in 1918.

We have now for the first time full opportunity for placing our case and point of view before the country and organising support for them. It is our duty to do so.

Every month will contribute its justification for the course we have hitherto pursued, and for the counsel we have steadfastly given to a country struggling through abnormal difficulties.

_London, November 20th, 1922._

XXIV

HOW DEMOCRACY WORKS

The startling English by-elections of the last few weeks have called attention to the working of the new electorate in Great Britain and set men pondering about its possibilities in a way a general election failed to make them think. Democracy in the sense of government of a great state by the absolute and unfettered authority of the majority of its own citizens of all ranks and conditions is a modern experiment. The United States of America are the oldest democracy in the world to-day.

How many realise that Britain became a democracy for the first time in 1917? Until then the majority of its adult population had no voice in the making or administration of the laws that ruled their lives.

The United States of America, France and Italy have adopted universal suffrage as the basis of authority for many a year. So have the British Dominions, but Britain herself, the pioneer of representative institutions, until recently shrank from the experiment of adult suffrage. Before the Reform Act of 1832 the total electorate of this country numbered only 3 per cent. of the population. The distribution of power amongst this small percentage was so arranged that even the 3 per cent. represented in effect no more than at best 1 per cent.

A generation of turmoil and agitation, almost culminating in revolution, succeeded in forcing through a measure which increased the 3 per cent. to 4.5 per cent. of the population! It is true that the distribution of votes was more equitable, but even with that improvement to call this ridiculous percentage a democracy would be absurd. Another generation of growing agitation ensued. This also ended in violence. Then Mr. Disraeli, one of the boldest and most venturesome of British statesmen, in 1867 doubled the electorate. His measure increased the number of voters to 9 per cent. of the population.

Disraeli's audacious plunge horrified some of his aristocratic supporters and shocked many Whigs. "Bob" Lowe had already foretold calamities that would follow Gladstone's more cautious proposals. Seven years later saw the election of the first Tory parliament since 1841. So much for the prophecies of the men who always fear evil must flow from justice.

Fifteen years after the Disraeli measure the Gladstone administration added another 7 per cent. to the electorate. The Gladstone proposals, which raised the number of voters to 16 per cent., were so vehemently contested that they nearly precipitated a Constitutional crisis of the first magnitude. Ultimately, however, they were carried, and there the franchise remained until the war.

The electorate that, through its representatives, accepted the German challenge in 1914, and was therefore responsible for involving the country in the most costly and sanguinary war it ever waged, represented one-sixth of the population and about one-third of the adults. The conscription act converted the country to the injustice of this state of things. Millions of men were forced to risk their lives for a policy which they had no share in fashioning. Millions of women faced anxieties and tortures worse than death in pursuit of the same policy, and yet no woman was allowed to express any opinion as to the selection of the rulers who led them to this sacrifice.

It was felt to be so unjust that in the exaltation of war, which lifted men to a higher plane of equity, this obvious wrong was redressed. Hence the greatest of all the enfranchisement acts, the Act of 1917, that for the first time converted the British system of government into a democracy.

How has it worked? It is too early to speak of its results. Mr. Austen Chamberlain in a letter[10] has called attention to one aspect of its operation. He emphasises a fact which is already known to every man who has passed through the experience of a contested election, that nearly one-half the new electorate is unattached to any political party.

If you deduct out of the total the numbers of the old electorate which had already formed ties of a party character, you will find from the result of the elections that more than half the new electorate is free and floating about without any anchor or rudder and ready to be towed by the first party that succeeded in roping them. Millions of the new electors are too indifferent or too undecided about political issues to take sides at the polling booths.

In the hotly contested election of January, 1910, 92 per cent. of the voters went to the poll. At the second election which took place in the same year the percentage was 89. The slight difference between the two elections would be accounted for by the fact that in the second election the register was old. Compare these results with the two elections which have occurred since the 1917 enfranchisement. At the 1918 election 64 per cent. only of the voters could be induced to make the acquaintance of the ballot-boxes. This might be explained by the inevitable political apathy which follows a great war. The pulse of party beat feebly and irregularly. The old party organisations had, through five years of neglect, fallen into complete disrepair--the new party had not yet had time to perfect its machinery. Hence the failure of competitive effort to induce at least 6,000,000 of the new voters to take a sufficient interest in their new privileges to exercise them at the election.

The next four years were a period of growing political activity. The new party was especially energetic. Their chief organiser, Mr. Arthur Henderson, M.P., is one of the most gifted party managers of this generation, and his achievement is an outstanding feature of political organisation in this country. The old parties also had time to repair their machinery; by the time the election was called their organisations were in full working order. The only party which had no organisation worth speaking of was the National Liberal party. The others were ready for the struggle.

Nevertheless, when the election came in November nearly 5,000,000 of the electors were not sufficiently interested in the contest to take the trouble to record their votes. It showed an improvement of 10 per cent. on the previous election, but there still remained nearly 20 per cent.--making allowance for death, sickness, removals, etc.--who stayed at home, and could not be persuaded by personal or public appeal or pressure exercised by three or four great organisations, to walk a few hundred yards out of their way in order to place a simple cross on the ballot paper that was awaiting them.

The municipal elections tell a still more dismal story of apathy. But that is an old story. It was with difficulty that the old electorate, with all its long training, could be cajoled to visit the polling booths where the good government of the towns in which they breathed, lived, toiled, enjoyed themselves, and rested was being determined. At their worst, however, they made a better show than the newly enfranchised voters.

How does the record compare with democracy in other lands? France is no better. On the whole, I understand it is worse. The voting in the United States of America fluctuates according to the interest excited by the particular election. In this respect America does not differ from Britain. I cannot lay my hand on the percentage of the poll at the last presidential election, but I gather it was higher than ours at the general election. The Germans polled at their last election 89 per cent. of their electorate; in Italy the percentage was much lower.

With an unpolled and unticketed electorate of over 4,000,000 anything may happen. They have clearly no interest in the ordinary political conflicts that engage the minds of their fellow-citizens; otherwise, the excitement of two general elections would have roused them to such faint exhibition of partisanship as is implied in the choosing of a candidate out of the two or three who have taken the trouble to send along their pictures.

But one day an issue may arise which will wake up the most lethargic. What will it be? And what view will they take of it when it comes? And who will succeed in catching the eye of the slumbering multitude when it opens? Much depends on the answer to these questions. They may rally to the defence of property menaced by rapacious creeds. They may rush to the protection of their homes threatened by avaricious wealth.

Even those who have already voted are liable to sudden and devastating changes of opinion. Witness Mitcham, Willesden, and Edgehill. These three seats were regarded as being amongst the safest in England, and were selected for that very reason.

Amongst many disquieting factors there is one which ought to be dealt with ere another election arrive. Under the present system a minority of electors may usurp absolute dominion over the fortunes of this kingdom for fully five years.

This is one of the freaks of the group system. The present parliamentary majority has been elected by an aggregate vote which represents something a little better than one-fourth of the total electorate and one-third of those who recorded their votes. If Mitcham and Edgehill are a foretaste of what is to happen at the "General," Labour will be the lucky third. A similar turnover of votes in every constituency would place them easily in that position.

America has brought its vast electorate under what seems to us to be a perfect discipline. But in the process it has passed through much tribulation, including the furnace of a terrible civil war. Italy has been impelled to correct the working of democratic institutions by a display of force. Britain may mobilise and drill its electoral forces with less trouble. But it has a Socialist party, which has grown by millions within less than a decade--and is still growing. This week its most eloquent member has proposed, in the House of Commons, a solemn motion for the abolition of private property. Deputies chosen by four and a quarter million of British electors will vote for this proposal, and if, four years hence, they add another million and a half to their poll, they will be in a position to place that motion on the statute book. Their increase between 1918 and 1922 was greater than that.

FOOTNOTE:

[10] See the _Times_, March 14, 1923.

XXV

POLITICAL REALITIES

A few weeks ago I predicted that the comparative calm which has prevailed in the political seas of Britain during the past few years was coming to an end. Recent parliamentary scenes leave no doubt that the prolonged political depression is to be followed by a period of storms--it may be hurricanes.

No amount of organisation or propaganda can excite real feeling in an electorate over trivial and unreal issues. Why did the coalition of 1915 fall? And why did the Liberal party split in 1916? Who was responsible? Should the general election have taken place in 1918 or 1919? Ought open and declared opponents of the government of the day to have then received government support or at least government neutrality? These are questions which agitate a few who are personally interested, but they leave the nation cold.

The war was real enough. But the war was supported by men of all parties, and, therefore, provoked no political controversy. The minority which opposed it was negligible, and challenged no parliamentary discussion on the question. The treaty of peace was, on the whole, accepted by all parties when it was first submitted to Parliament. The leaders of the opposition parties in the Lords and Commons at the time of its presentation offered no serious criticism of its provisions.

The legislation proposed by the Coalition, although in ordinary seasons much of it would have aroused angry passions, coming as it did after the war had exhausted emotion, passed with no more than a feeble murmur of protest. Take, for instance, such controversial topics as adult suffrage, the enfranchisement of women, the wholesale reductions in hours of labour, representative government in India, and notably the conferring upon Ireland of a measure of Home Rule more complete than any proposed by Gladstone.

Any one of these measures proposed before the war would have led to heated discussion throughout the land. The case of Ireland is perhaps the most significant of the changed temper of the nation immediately after the great war. The conflict over Irish Home Rule has now culminated in a treaty accepted by the nation as a whole and acquiesced in by the most violent amongst its opponents.

But fiercer political passions were stirred up by the struggle between parties over Ireland than by any political question of modern times. The causes underlying the conflict dealt with two of the most powerful motives which make the human heart throb--race and religion. There was the old feud between Saxon and Gael extending over at least seven centuries. It drenched the moors of Ireland with the blood of both races before a keener edge was given to its hatreds by the introduction of an acute religious quarrel.

After the Reformation the religious differences which rent Europe with fratricidal wars added fresh fury to the racial enmities which made poor Ireland a cauldron of perpetual strife. When Mr. Gladstone proposed to settle this raging tumult by wresting supremacy from a race which had been dominant in that island for 700 years and a faith which had been supreme there for 400 years and transferring it to the race and religion which all that time had been in a condition of servitude, and when in order to attain his ends he had to secure the adhesion of men of the ruling blood and creed to his proposals, the passions raised were deeper and angrier than any witnessed in British politics for many a day. It led for the first time in the history of parliament to scenes of physical violence on the floor of the House. It shows what we may expect when there are genuine divisions of opinion which profoundly move masses of men and women in a democracy. Those who recall the tropical heat of parliamentary debates in 1893 naturally regard their voyage through the frigid proceedings of the last parliament as they would a sail through Arctic seas. That voyage is now over, and there are signs that the waters will soon be lashed into fury.

For years political controversy between parties has been suspended in the presence of a common danger. Reaction was inevitable, and the greater the suppression the more violent the rebound. That does not, however, altogether account for the visible omens of a coming struggle unprecedented in its gravity. Fundamental issues have been raised of such moment to millions that they cannot be settled without a struggle that will rock society.

The scene enacted in the Commons a few days ago was by no means as exciting as that which some of us witnessed in 1893. But it gave me an uneasy feeling that the period of calm is definitely over, and that Parliament henceforth must expect gusts and gales--and worse. Emotions are once more welling up, and there are signs of a great stir coming in British politics.

The cause is easily explained. The sense of exhaustion is passing away, and issues containing a serious challenge to the privileges and rights of powerful classes in the community and vital to the interests of all classes have been raised by one of the great political parties that divide Britain. The momentous character of that challenge may be gathered from the terms of the motion submitted by Mr. Philip Snowden to the judgment of the House of Commons:--

"That in view of the failure of the capitalist system to
adequately utilise and organise natural resources and productive
power, or to provide the necessary standard of life for vast
numbers of the population, and believing that the cause of this
failure lies in the private ownership and control of the means of
production and distribution, this House declares that legislative
effort should be directed to the gradual supersession of the
capitalist system by an industrial and social order based on the
public ownership and democratic control of the instruments of
production and distribution."

This motion will receive the full support of every member of the Labour party. A few men outside the Socialist party who have acquainted themselves with the publications of that party were quite prepared for this demand of a complete change in the organisation of society. And as they saw that party grow with startling rapidity they knew we should not have long to wait before these subversive ideas would be formulated in the House of Commons. Still, even for the students of Socialist literature, the actual tabling of the resolution on behalf of the second largest party in the State came as a surprise and a shock. Too much credit was given to the restraining influence of the trade union section of the party. Sir Lynden Macassey, in his informing book on "Labour Policy, False and True," points out that it was in 1885 that the avowed advocates of this proposal for the abolition of private property and for the nationalisation of all the means of production and distribution first stood for Parliament. There were only two candidates standing on this platform, and they polled 32 and 29 votes respectively. Last election the aggregate Socialist poll reached the imposing figure of 4,251,011 votes. The party that secured a majority of members in the House of Commons only polled 5,457,871 votes. Mr. Ramsay MacDonald states categorically that he knows that the Independent Liberal members--exclusive of their leaders--favour nationalisation and the capital levy. If that be an accurate statement of the views of the majority of these gentlemen, and of those who elect them, nearly one-half the British electorate are already prepared to assent to Socialism by easy stages--which is the purport of Mr. Philip Snowden's motion.

On that assumption we are on the eve of greater and more fundamental changes affecting the lives of every class and condition of men and women than have yet been seen in this country. Hence the new sense of struggle with which the political atmosphere is palpitating. Capitalism is to be arraigned before the Supreme Court of the Nation, condemned, sentenced, and executed by instalments--Chinese fashion. The composition of that court is not to-day favourable to the prosecution. But who will be the judge after the next general election? It is customary in political controversy to state that the election which is for the moment impending will be the most epoch-making in history. Without exaggeration, the next British election may well turn out to be so. The British people, with their inherited political instinct, are beginning to realise that grave decisions must then be taken. Hence the greater keenness shown by the voters at by-elections--hence the new interest taken by the public in the proceedings of Parliament. There is still a good deal of apathy and indifference. The average comfortable citizen is still inclined to think these Socialist schemes so crazy as to be impossible. They cannot believe that 21,000,000 of sane people can possibly contemplate giving their sanction to such fantasies.

There are two cardinal facts which are constantly overlooked by the complacent. The men and women who have no property for the State to seize constitute an overwhelming majority of the electors of the country. The second fact to note is the great preponderance of the industrial population over the steadier and more stolid agricultural population. America, in spite of its gigantic manufacturing and distributing industries, still retains 60 per cent. of its population on the land. The same proportion of the French and Italian populations is agrarian. Barely 10 per cent. of the British workers are engaged in cultivating the soil. Most of our workers breathe and have their being in the crowded and excitable atmosphere of factories, workshops, and mines. The air is filled with germs of all kinds, and isolation in these thronging areas is impossible. Hence the rapidity with which the fever has spread.

Can it be arrested? Nothing will be done until the danger is visible to every eye. To vary the metaphor, no one will believe in the flood until it is upon us. Trained weather prophets who forecast its coming will be laughed at or told they have a personal or party interest in ark building. It is an old tale--as old as the dawn of history. "As in the days before the flood, they were eating and drinking and knew not until the flood came and took them all away."

The trouble can only be averted in two ways. One is the systematic inculcation of sound doctrines of economic truth into the minds of the working people of this country. The second, and the more important, is the rooting out of the social evils which furnish the revolutionary with striking and indisputable object-lessons of the failure of the capitalistic system as an agent of human happiness. Without the latter the former effort will be futile. Arguments in favour of the existing order will be refuted by glaring and painful facts. Meanwhile, let the champions of that order take note of the efforts put forth by the Socialists to advertise their eagerness to redress the wrongs of the ex-service men and to soften the asperities of discipline for the soldier. The Socialist leaders have shrewdly taken note of the causes that produced the overthrow of their Italian brethren, and they mean to take such steps as will ensure that if Fascism comes in Britain it will be an ally, and not a foe.

_London, April 16th, 1923._

XXVI

SHOULD WE MAKE PEACE WITH RUSSIA?

I am frankly delighted that negotiations between Lord Curzon and the Soviet government seem to indicate a genuine desire on the part of both parties to establish a more satisfactory understanding between this country and Russia. The Bolshevist episode, like all revolutionary terrors, has been at times a shrieking nightmare which has made the world shudder. It did render one supreme service to civilisation--it terrified democracy back into sanity just at the time when the nervous excitability that followed the war was bordering on mental instability. In our attitude towards the Soviet government we must, however, constantly bear in mind one consideration. What matters to us is not so much the Russian government as the people of Russia, and for the moment the Bolshevist administration represents the only medium for dealing with that mighty nation. As long as it remains the only constituted authority in Russia, every act of hostility against it injures Russia. As we discovered in 1919, you cannot wage war against the government for the time being of a country without devastating the land and alienating its people. You cannot refuse to trade with it now without depriving its people of commodities--and especially of equipments--essential to their well-being. It is the people, therefore, who would suffer, and it is the people who would ultimately resent that suffering. Governments come and go, but the nation goes on for ever.

The Russian people deserve--especially at the hands of all the Allied nations--every sympathetic consideration we can extend to them. Not only because they have to endure the sway of a tyrannical oligarchy imposing its will by ruthless violence, but even more for the reasons that led to the establishment of that tyranny. If the fruit is bitter we must bear in mind how the tree came to be planted in the soil. It may sound like quoting ancient history to revert to the events of eight or nine years ago, but no one can understand Russia, or do justice to its unhappy people, without recalling the incidents that led to the great catastrophe.

Those who denounce any dealings with the existing order seem to have persuaded themselves that pre-revolutionary Russia was governed by a gentle and beneficent despotism which conferred the blessings of a tolerant and kindly fatherland upon a well-ruled household. In no particular is this a true picture of the _ancien régime_. The fortress of Peter and Paul was not erected, nor its dungeons dug, by the Bolshevists. Siberia was not set up as a penal settlement for political offenders for the first time--if at all--by the Bolshevists. In 1906 alone 45,000 political offenders were deported to endure the severities of Siberia. Persecution of suspected religious leaders was not started by the Soviets. To them does not belong the discredit of initiating the methods of Pogromism. Under the "paternal" reign of the Tsars dissent from the Orthodox faith was proscribed and persecuted, and the Jews were hunted like vermin.

Let us not forget also that beyond all these circumstances the revolution was rendered inevitable by the ineptitude and corruption of the old system, and especially by the terrible suffering and humiliation which that state of things inflicted on Russia in the Great War.

Any one who has read the _Memoirs of an Ambassador_, by M. Paléologue, will find a complete explanation in its pages of the savage hatred with which the Russian revolutionaries view all those who were associated in any degree with the old order. He tells the story of how the gallant army found itself at the critical hour without ammunition, rifles, transport, and often without food. No braver or more devoted men ever fought for their country than the young peasants who made up the Russian armies of 1914-15-16. With little and often no artillery support, they faced without faltering the best-equipped heavy artillery in the world. They were mown down by shell fire and machine guns by the million. Their aggregate casualties up to September, 1916, even according to the reluctant admissions of the Tsarist generals of the day, were five millions. In reality they were much heavier. Often they went into action with sticks, as the Russian War Office had no rifles with which to arm them. They picked up as they advanced rifles dropped by fallen comrades. There is nothing in the war comparable to the trustful heroism of these poor peasants. We know now why there were no rifles, or shells, or wagons. The wholesale corruption of the _régime_ has been exposed to the world by irrefutable documentary evidence.

Here are a few extracts from M. Paléologue's interesting book. One extract from his diary reads:--

"The lack of ammunition means that the rôle of the artillery
in battle is necessarily insignificant. The whole burden of
the fighting falls on the infantry and the result is a ghastly
expenditure of human life. A day or two ago one of the Grand
Duke Sergius's collaborators, Colonel Englehardt, said to Major
Wehrlin, my second military attaché: 'We're paying for the crimes
of our administration with the blood of our men.'"

About the same date talking about the deplorable state of things, the Grand Duke Sergius, who was Inspector-General of Artillery, said to the French ambassador, "When I think that this exhibition of impotence is all that our aristocratic system has to show, it makes me want to be a Republican."

When a Grand Duke talked like that early in 1915, what must a peasant soldier have thought by the spring of 1917, after many more millions of his comrades had been slaughtered as a result of the same "exhibition of impotence."

It is no use pointing to the fact that our army was also short of ammunition at that date. The British army was a small army organised on the basis of a maximum expeditionary force of six divisions. The Russian army was a great conscript force organised on the basis of a hundred divisions in the field.