MR. BALFOUR.
WE cannot notice without the strongest expres- sion of indignation the attempt which is being made by the Morning Post, and by the papers which follow in its wake, to single out Mr. Balfour and make him the special scapegoat of the Administration. If this were done because Mr. Balfour was known to be in a, peculiar degree responsible for the conduct of the war we should not protest so strongly, but consider- ing that he has only the collective responsibility, which he shares with the whole of the rest of the Cabinet, we regard this "hunt of obloquy" with which he is now being le 'sued with feelings of disgust. If we look below the rhetoric of the attacks, it is pretty clear that what the newspapers are so furious about is not anything Mr. Balfour has done, but what he has said. They are angry, and very naturally angry, at the way in which the war has been conducted, and because Mr. Balfour has happened to be the first Minister to break silence, and because he has not talked about the war in the way his critics thought becoming, he is assailed with a storm of words. It is not a pleasant omen to see a statesman attacked because he has not used the particular kind of verbal sauce which the newspapers think appropriate to the occasion. We may, perhaps, agree that Mr. Balfour did not show any very great oratorical finesse in his speeches, but we, at any rate, shall not blame him for not taking more trouble to sugar his public utterances to the public taste. That he has been unskilful in his political advocacy seems to us a very poor reason for attacking him. We have no ulterior motives for defending him, and much as we admire his character and. his abilities, and much as we think the nation owes him in the past, we should not hesitate for an instant to acquiesce in, or even to demand, his withdrawal from public life if we thought such withdrawal would in the very least degree conduce to a better manage- ment of public affairs. When public interests are involved there must be no thought of private feelings, or even of past services. The only thing to be considered is how best to provide for the adequate conduct of the business of the nation.
But what ground. is there for believing that it is Mr. Balfour who stops the way for better management at the lArar Office or at the seat of war ? We see no reason to suppose that the able men (unnamed) whom the Morning Post and Daily News think could do so much better than Mr. Balfour and his colleagues, would in reality manage public affairs with greater energy or intelligence. If there stood outside the Cabinet a group of administrators —and. it is administrative ability we want—so able and. so experienced that it was universally admitted that they could cope with the situation far better than the present Ministry, we should agree at once that they had better be tried. But where are those great administrators ? Was the last Liberal Government, with its refusal to provide cordite, so great an administrative success that we must turn to it now ? We admit that two men in that Government did. show real power and states- manship when in office, and have shown it since— Mr. Asquith and. Sir Henry Fowler—and personally we would gladly see them asked to bring their force and judgment to the nation's aid. But beyond these two men we cannot honestly say that we think there is outside the Cabinet any greater stock of ability than there is inside it. What we have to consider, and it is the only thing to consider, is how the government of the country can be best carried on. Now, there is an excellent rule against "swapping horses" when one is crossing a stream. We do not say that this can be applied universally any more than any other rule. There might be circumstances when the change would have to take place even in mid- stream, but one must be absolutely certain that such a change would be for the better before it could be thought of. You must be sure not merely that the old. horses have done badly in the last five miles, but also that there is no chance of them being able to do well again for tip next five. Those, then, who are considering whether they shall lend their aid. to the overthrow of Mr. Balfour, and with him of the Cabinet, must ask themselves whether he is not the kind of man who is likely, in spite of the present blunders, to do well in the future. They must not think of his personal feelings, or be swayed by any sense of gratitude for the past. They must think solely of what achievements may be expected from him in the time to come. In our own opinion, Mr. Balfour is the very man to lead the nation at a great crisis, for he has the quietness and the strength, the unfailing patriotism and the willingness to sacrifice himself, which are essential to the conduct of a great war. He is not the man to flinch or to despair, or to he afraid of asking groat sacrifices from the nation. As we saw when he was Chief Secretary for Ireland. be possesses the mens Ee-qua in arduis and is not awed by opposition or flurried by attacks, however violent. Next, he has shown himself a man of strong judgment, and what is more, a man able to make up his mind, and when be has made it up, to stick to his deteimination. The only real fault that Mr. Balfour has displayed as a statesman is one which we deal with elsewhere. He has once or twice yielded to the notion that a Government cannot go beyond public opinion, but must get the country converted before it can move with sufficient weight and authority to accomplish the carrying out of any very momentous scheme. In fact, Mr. Balfour has not. realised sufficiently in the nest the necessity for making the country follow him. But this, though a grave fault, is not one which we believe Mr. Balfonr would repeat. In a great crisis he would not wait for the country to be converted to the right course, but would insist on their following him. Lastly, Mr. Balfour is not afraid of taking responsibility, and while he has a keen and receptive intellect, he is not caught by wild or sensa- tional schemes, or betrayed by over-activity of mind.
For these reasons we believe that Mr. Balfour is not the man to be sent about his business at this crisis because he has blundered, or rather because he has not prevented his colleagnee from blundering, and so rightly shares with them the responsibility for the blunders that have occurred. We hold rather that he is still to he looked upon as the stetessnan best fisted to carry the war thr01101 to the end. What we would do then, is not to dismiss Mr, B ■Ifeur alone, or in company with the bulk of his colleagues, but to make hie position in the Ministry stronger and more prominent. No wise man would wish to deprive Lord Salisbury of power and authority, for his is still the wisest mind in the Empire. Tried, however, as he has been, it is impossible that be can continue to act as both Foreign S.eretary and PrimeMinieter much longer. But it is sim plc impossible for bin] to leave the Foreign Offiers Let him, then, cease to be Prime Minister, and allow Mr. Balfour to be the head of the Administration ; and when Mr. Balfour is that let him act not as printv.e inter pares but as the real Premier,—the man whose will must be obeyed. There is only one more change which we think should be made. Lord Lansdowne should leave the War Office, and should be replaced by a man of exceptional vigour and resource, one willing to take plenty of responsibility, and to try new and even daring expedients, and capable also of taking big steps without reference to the Treasury and on his own responsibility. It is disagreeable to have to refer to Lord Lansdowne, who has done, we are sure, his best, and has not spared himself in the national interests. but no one can say that he is the man for a great crisis, or in any case the kind of man we have described. Those,
then, who think that the man we have described is the kind of man now wanted will not hesitate to declare that Lord Lansdowne should change his office. It is absurd to say that there would be any disgrace inflicted upon Lord Lansdowne. Nobody wants that, or dreams of that
Only a new situation has arisen, and in order to deal with it we want a different type of man. But if Lord Lans- downe is to go, who is to take his place ? We suggested last week that Sir Michael Hicks-Beach is the type of
man who will be wanted to reorganise the War Office, not now, but after the war is over. At present, of course, Sir Michael cannot be spared. The man, then, we would suggest would be Mr. Arnold-Forster. He is full of energy, his youth is in his favour, he has had a business training, he is not afraid of bitting bard, he has no axes
to grind, and he knows the personnel of the Army. Of course such an appointment would be a terrible blow to
many of our soldiers of the rank of General, and, in fact, to all the military Brahmins of Pall Mall, but we are inclined to think that a blow of that kind is at the present moment just what would do them most good.
Before we leave the subject of the exaggerated attacks on Mr. Balfour—attacks which, though they are not, we believe, inspired by any unworthy motive, have in them the worst elements of panic—let us ask our readers to remeuaber that these sort of attacks are always made on statesmen in moments of doubt and difficulty, and often on statesmen who a year or even a month or so afterwards are regarded as national heroes. Ahraham Lincoln, for example, was during one period of the war constantly assailed as an honest but utterly in. competent muddler who misunderstood the situation, political and military, who clung to and shielded official incompetence, and who must be got rid of at all costs if the nation was to be saved. Yet who thinks now that this was a just judgment ? Let the nation keep its head over these attacks on Mr. Balfour, and take action, not on newspaper clamour, but only if it can be shown that Mr. Balfour is incompetent for the work before us, and that there are others ready to take his place who are infinitely more competent.
Previous page
