TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE POSITION OF THE GOVERNMENT.
WE dwelt last week upon the possibility of a crisis arising any night which might place the Govern- ment in a minority and lead to their downfall. It is pretty evident that the Government are very much of our opinion. Mr. Asquith announced that the Government intend to adjourn the House on August 2nd or 3rd—a week or ten days earlier than had been previously arranged— and that, to compensate for this, Parliament will meet at the beginning of October instead of the beginning of November. Considering the state of public business and the very little advance that has been made with Government Bills, this change of plan is ominous. It means, if we may put the matter with complete frankness, that the Govern- ment are in a state of terror and want to run away from all their commitments as soon as they possibly can. During the fortnight which is now practically all that remains of the Session they will put down as much uncontentious business as possible, and endeavour to invite the minimum of controversy, and so avoid the risk of a " regrettable incident." No more is to be heard of Home Rule, Disestablishment, or the Franchise this summer. Whether this is only staving off the evil day and whether when Parliament reassembles in October things may not be as bad as, or worse than, now remains to be seen. Probably, however, the cynics of the Cabinet would say : " We shall, at any rate, have lived another two months. Things cannot be worse and may be better. At all events the House will be less jaded—a con- dition always worse for the Government than for the Opposition—and there is some possibility that the heated feelings of the Labour men on the one side and of the central Liberals on the other may have cooled down." In fact the Cabinet are going to apply the watchwords of the great opportunist who leads them : " Wait and see" ; " Something may turn up." Who knows what may have happened in two months' time ? Certainly from the purely opportunist point of view a good deal can be said in support of this view. Look at the situation as it stands to-day and consider what might happen in the first week in August if Parliament were still sitting. In the first place the first week in August would probably prove to be the worst moment of the bureaucratic blizzard which is dignified by the name of " the administration of the Insurance Act.' That things are pretty bad even now we admit, but in all probability it will be possible to stave off an actual exposure during the next fortnight on the ground that the Commissioners must have time to consider this or that puzzle with which they are sure to be posed. Under such a plea Ministers will be able during July to escape to some extent from the shower of questions with which they will be plied. There is, however, a limit to this form of delay, and it will probably be reached at the end of the first fortnight of the administration of the Act. When Parliament is up and members are dispersed all over the country the persistent and ingenious interrogators of the Opposition will be muzzled. They will, to change our metaphor, be unable to stir the cauldron and drop into it points of controversy which may cause it to boil over. If, then, it was only on the ground of the Insurance Act one could well imagine the Government wishing to get through their troubles alone and unwatched by unsympathetic and derisive opponents.
But the path of the Government is haunted by worse spectres than even the Chimaera of the Insurance Act. There stalks beside them the gaunt figure of a betrayed female holding in her fingers a flag inscribed with " Votes for Women." The Ministry as a collective unit have a very unfortunate history in her respect and cannot hear her reproaches without a blush of shame deeper than that of Sigismund. When she talks of breach of promise and, in accordance with her political views, demands in stentorian tones that the Ministry, or rather the Liberal Party as a whole, shall " name the day," one does not wonder that its members have come to the opinion that the only thing for them to do is to pack their portmanteaux and fly to moorland, or seashore, or " the untrampled deserts where the snows are," and seek to hide their heads from the phantom which so many of them helped to call into existence. But it is not merely the spectres of the Insurance Act and of " Votes for Women who point minatory fingers at the Treasury Bench and hiss, " You are the men." Equally formidable is the spectre of Labour. For many years political men of the world within the Liberal Party have been wont to boast that they had " got the Labour Party quite tame," and that by the aid of a little flattery and a promise or two its mem- bers would " feed from the hand," and would act as a kind of political Calibaus for their masters—hew wood and draw water and generally do all that could be demanded of the most reasonable party hack. " They grumble and fret a bit occasionally, but, take them as a whole, they are the most biddable set of people in the world " has hitherto been the comment of the Liberal Tapers and Tadpoles. Now, how- ever, the Labour Party is beginning to make itself exceed- ingly disagreeable and to ask the party managers to do what they will never do except on compulsion, that is, give up Liberal seats to Labour men.
There is yet one more principal spectre. It bears the face of Mr. Henry George, and carries across the political footlights, if not the scent of the hay-field or of the open prairie, at any rate that of " a town lot " divested of all buildings and improvements and given over to dead cats, old tin cans, weeds, sections of packing-cases, and bits of broken bricks. At present the Liberals are inclined to think that the monster is a "good monster" and one that will swallow any promises that are offered to it without a murmur. -Unless, however, we are very much mistaken it will soon make a fourth to the other three spectres we have named. Behind these principal haunters of the arena are a dim crowd of gibber- ing forms that squeal and mutter—disillusioned miners, ruined strikers, forms without speech and spectres without form. And amid this tumult are heard voices prophesying war and shouts of " The Right to Work," " The Minimum Wage," " The Nationalization of Railways, Mines, and Land," and " The Social Revolution." When an adjournment will, for a. time at any rate, lay all these dreadful shapes, can we wonder that the Ministry take the shortest way to a little peace and quiet ? Even though they know that the phantoms will revive in October, and once more dance round the political cauldron, at any rate two months' comparative quiet can be secured. Possibly by then the nerves of the Administration will be braced to face the Inferno which, even though chiefly of their own creation, is ever " with dreadful faces thronged and fiery arms."
Only one bright spot in the picture is even alleged to exist—the good temper and consideration of the Nationalists. Nothing could apparently be more docile and more accom- modating than they are. The production of the Home Rule Bill seems to have acted like a spray of chloroform or ether, and while they make no irritating demands upon the Government they are always at hand to fill the lobbies when required. Yet even here, if the matter is more closely examined, there is not really much comfort to be had, for hovering over the anaesthetized Nationalists is the fiery spirit of Ulster. This spirit, the Government recognize, must be somehow or other got rid of, but how no man can tell. But that is a matter which even the boldest Cabinet Ministers dare not think about— unless it be to thank Heaven that the House of Lords will, at any rate, make it unnecessary for them to face the Ulster problem in earnest for two years. Why fret oneself to fiddle-strings thinking what may happen two years hence ? That way madness lies I
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