PARLIAMENT AND REGISTRATION. T HE debate in the House of Commons
on the National Registration Bill, superficially regarded, looks dis- creditable both to the House and to the country. Foreigners reading the debate might be inclined to com- ment, regretfully if they were our allies, exultingly if they were our enemies, on the fact that in a time of grave national danger Members of the British Parliament could be found to indulge in such ill-tempered and carping criticism as that which characterized the speeches of opponents of the Bill. Such comments, however, would show almost as great a lack of a true sense of proportion as the critics of the Bill themselves displayed. In reality it is a matter for congratulation to the country that so few people should be found to oppose the Government on a scheme running counter to so many national prejudices. Further cause for congratulation will be found by an examination of the division-list. Among the thirty Members who opposed the Bill there is not one who may be regarded as a typical representative of any part of the kingdom. To put the matter bluntly, the list is made up of temperamental cranks and " pernickety "politicians. Some of the cranks are men whose lives have been spent in denouncing war, and who imagine that they are still justified, now that war is upon us, in acting as if war could be got rid of by verbal protestations. Others, who now claim to be independent, are unfortunately regarded by their colleagues as merely disappointed. Some of them were in the late Ministry and are not in the present ; others hoped that the creation of a National Govern- ment would have proved the opportunity for their promotion. It is impossible to read, and still less to listen to, the debates in the House of Commons since the formation of the National Government without realizing that some of the criticism springs, though no doubt often unconsciously, from personal disappointment. One other question arises on the personal side when the division-list is examined, and that is a question to which Sir Arthur Markham, with characteristic bluntness, gave expression in the House of Commons. Two of the bitterest opponents of the present Bill, because they believe it may lead to compulsory service, are Mr. Ramsay MacDonald and Mr. Philip Snowden. Both these gentlemen are Socialists, and, as everybody knows, compulsion is the very essence of Socialism. Neither of these Members has ever objected to the use of compulsion when it has been applied for the advancement of causes to which they attach importance. Therefore when they now come forward, as they have done both in the House of Commons and in the country, to criticize any compulsory measures taken for the strength- ening of the defences of the 'United Kingdom, we are justified in asking, as Sir Arthur Markham asked, whether these two members of the British House of Commons are friends of Great Britain or friends of Germany.
On the whole, then, there is excellent reason for the country to congratulate itself on the spectacle presented by the House of Commons in this debate, with one excep- tion, and that is the failure of the members of the Govern- anent to take a sufficiently active part in the debate themselves. This is not a now feature of the House of Commons debates ; it is an evil which has steadily been growing of late years. The modern rigidity of the party system has enabled Ministers, once they have attained to power, to despise the House of Commons, for they know that the Whips will see that the party votes straight, and that is all they care about. This is a fundamental mistake, for the House of Commons in war time quite as much as in peace time is, with all its defects, one of the most valuable of our institutions. It provides the machinery for the criticism of the Government under conditions in which that criticism can most effectively be made and most effectively be answered. Newspaper criticism, useful as it is from many points of view, suffers from two defects— first, that it is often made by persons who are not directly in touch with the management of affairs and who certainly have no definite responsibility for that management ; and secondly, that it is directed to a large and undefined body of people to most of whom the actual working of public affairs is more or less of a mystery. On the other hand, all members of the House of Commons get to know some- thing about the way in which public affairs are actually managed ; many of them get to know a good deal, and all of them can be made responsible for what they say and do by an appeal to the constituencies. Therefore a debate in the House of Commons, if properly conducted, is of necessity a more effective means for checking Government blunders than a newspaper debate can possibly be. But the essence of good debate is that it should be taken seriously by both sides, which means that the members of the Cabinet should take the trouble to defend themselves. The chances are that the creation of the Coalition Cabinet will force this necessity upon the members of the Government, and that, instead of destroying the House of Commons, as might have been feared, the reconstruc- tion of our Government system on non-party lines will lead to the rehabilitation of. Parliament as a debating assembly. Nor need the country be, impatient because that assembly, by the necessity of its being, provides a platform for cranks as well as for the exponents of common-sense. It is well that the cranks should have their say, not merely because there is always a chance that they may occasionally be right, but even more because the expression of their extreme opinions, if it is followed by reasoned debate, enables the country to obtain a balanced view of the whole situation.
The basis of the opposition to the National Registration Bill is dislike of the idea of compulsory military service. This opposition cannot be fully met by pointing out, as was done more than once in the course of the debate, that the Bill itself does not provide for compulsory service, and that compulsion cannot be introduced without a subsequent Act of Parliament. One cannot fairly blame politicians for opposing the means when they are opposed to the end, and it would show a lack of frankness on the part of the Government to conceal the fact that the National Registration Bill can be used as a means for establishing compulsory military service. Mr. Walter Long made no concealment on this point. The real answer to the bowl- fide critics of the Bill is that, if the National Register should reveal that there are a large number of young unmarried and physically fit men free to take their choice, and deliberately refusing to enlist in the Army, then the case for compulsion will be overwhelmingly strong. If, on the other hand, the taking of the Register proves that there is no such body of shirkers, the opponents of com- pulsion will have scored a success.
Meanwhile the Bill has quite independent advantages. The mere taking of the Register will itself provide a most valuable mental stimulus to a large part of the community. We are all of us naturally inclined to continue our own course of life. Pew of us when we wake up in the morn- ing put questions to ourselves as to whether a totally different manner of living might not be advisable in the national interest. When, however, such questions are sub- mitted to us by authority and we are compelled to answer them, we begin at once to cast about and to consider how, by changing our own habits, we can assist our nation's cause. There can be little doubt that even the introduction of the Bill into Parliament has had the effect of stimulating many people to consider what they can do to help. The asking of the questions which will be included in the Register will be a further stimulus affecting every householder. Some protest was made in the House of Commons against the compulsion involved in the Register itself, but this objec- tion is conclusively answered by the fact that no census which is to be worth anything can be based upon voluntary replies. As Mr. Henderson usefully pointed out, the voluntary census taken by the Parliamentary Recruiting Committee was a failure because more than half the householders to whom forms were sent did not return them.
If the House of Commons had been a purely business assembly, and not an assembly in which political theories have undue weight as compared with practical considera- tions, stress would have been laid on what is the real objection to the National Register—namely, the danger that when everybody in the country, male and female, has been registered there may be no adequate means of utilizing the information which has been catalogued and card-indexed. Certainly this would be a very real danger if the whole working of the Register were entrusted to the Central Government. In none of the numerous over- grown offices in Whitehall is there any machinery capable of dealing with some thirty million returns. The only way to utilize the information contained in the Register is to entrust the task to the local authorities. Very wisely, the Government have decided to do this, and it is to be hoped that, even before the taking of the Register begins, machinery will be set up in each locality to utilize the information as it comes in. In the final resort it it impossible to redistribute labour without actually seeing the labourers. Somebody in each district must have the responsibility of interviewing the persons who are willing to do war work, and deciding what work they shall do ; and unless the necessary organization for this purpose is created at once very great delay will occur in making any good use of the information the National Register may contain.
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