TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE UNIONIST PARTY.
THE Unionist Party at their meeting decided to drop Protection as a plank in their platform. That this decision was a reality, not a sham, and was made in sincerity and good faith, we are convinced. Mr. Baldwin has proved to have many faults as a leader and as a statesman, but his good faith is for us beyond the shade of a shadow of suspicion. He and his supporters meant us to receive from their words an assurance that Protection, Tariff Reform, and a General Tariff have ceased to be live issues and will not be revived till the country changes its mind. That there was no equivo- cation intended is proved by Mr. Amery's letter. He tells his party and the country in general quite plainly that, whatever others may do, he individually is not going to drop the full Protectionist programme. He stands now where he and Mr. Chamberlain stood in 1906, though he probably thinks the need for a General Tariff more, not less, urgent. Now, it is obvious that he would not have written this letter if he did not feel that Protection had been dropped, i.e., had ceased to be an item of Unionist policy.
But though the Spectator may be, and is, satisfied that Protection is not a live issue and will not be revived till the nation has suffered a change of heart, and that therefore we are back in the old position of 1922-23— save only that we have lost nearly ninety Unionist seats —we are anything but confident that the electors as a whole understand or accept this assurance as we do. They take short views, and, if you like, coarse views of a delicate situation, and argue that if there had been a real change of view, the Unionists would have changed their leader and not given him an enthusiastic vote of confidence. They look at the party and its leaders and -compare them with the party which took the fatal plunge at Plymouth, and can see no difference—except that the Protectionist whole-hoggers have been strongly reinforced. They note that the new men who have gone into the Unionist Shadow Cabinet are led by Mr. Austen Chamberlain and Lord Birkenhead, both ardent Pro- tectionists. It is no use to tell the plain man that all this is accidental and has no significance, and to insist that the essential facts in the situation are (1) Lord Balfour's admirable speech, (2) the attitude of Lord Younger, and (3) the acceptance of the dropping of Protection as bona fide by the Lancashire anti-Tariff group. He calls all this "eye-wash," and.goes on repeat- ing that if the Tories ever come in again, the first thing they will do is to bring in Protection.
It will be urged, no doubt, against this pessimistic view thitt the type of opinion we are talking about is immaterial. It is the opinion, we shall be told, not of Unionists, but of Liberals and non-party men, and other unimportant persons, and that as long as the party is sound, united, and has confidence in itself and its leaders, all will be well. "Nothing else matters but loyalty and an honest leader, and that we have got."
We wish from the bottom of our hearts that we could take this rosy view of the situation—a view simple to the point of innocence. Unfortunately, we can do nothing of the kind, and for the following reasons. We do not think that -the Labour Government as at present constituted and conditioned are a wicked Government, an unpatriotic Government, or a dangerous Government. We do hold, however, with Lord Balfour, that they are a Government and a party based on a series of political principles, fallacious and unstable to the point of danger, principles which. if carried out (and carried out they- hey will will be if and when Labour is in power as well as in office) will do grave, maybe fatal, injury to the -State.
Above all, they will defeat that social betterment to which Labour desires to attain. In other words, we are convinced anti-Socialists ; we want to show the country a better way, and we want to see a strong, intelligent, sincere, and well-thought-out and well-based opposition to the Socialist Party. This means that we want to beat the Socialists at the polls, to be able _tc take their place in the Administration, and be able also to gain and keep the general confidence of the country. How does the Unionist Party stand in this matter of gaining the confidence of the country ? It certainly did not gain it at the last election. It lost it. And how did it lose it ? It lost it by antagonizing the non-party voters, the left-centre men, the moderates, and the essential conservatives—using that word in its original and not in its derivative sense. These persons rallied to the Unionists in the 1922 election, and all through 1922 they were ranging themselves under the Unionist banners, believing that the party was in process of becoming that Centre Party for which so many English- men have longed in the past twenty years. Now, the Unionist Party will not regain the confidence of
the nation and be what it ought to be till it has regained
these lost legions. To put it with the brutal frankness of a Parliamentary Whip, the Unionists have got to recruit, at the very least, half a million recruits to make victory certain. Probably they will want a million more votes, since in the constituencies, whatever may happen in the House, there is beginning a serious leakage of Radical and advanced Liberal voters to Labour. Labour is getting to be the fashion among a consider- able section of men whose chief political aspirations are contained in the vague word "Progress." How are the Unionists to get this million of recruits ?
Our answer is that we must make the centre-minded and anti-revolutionary and anti-Socialist men and women in the country feel that the Unionist Party is their political home, their strong fortress, their defence, their refuge. Next comes the question how we are going to make them feel this, as unquestionably we were beginning to make them feel it, up to the fatal days of last November. The first thing is to assure them that the Unionists are not planning to carry Protection, or to placate their Die-Hards, or to conciliate the Syndicated Press, or even to be kind and generous to an honest and upright leader "who did it for the best," but are deter- mined on one essential thing, and that is to unite the anti-Socialist forces and to play a great part on the political stage in a great way. In our opinion, we are running a serious risk of failure in this respect, because of the choice made in leadership, but the die is cast and we shall say no more on that point. We do not mean to sulk, still less to help our forebodings of evil to come true by insisting on them. We shall support the Unionist cause as long as we can do so without feeling that we are compassing the ruin of the principles for which we stand.
The next thing, the imperative thing, now that Pro- tection has been dropped and the question of leadership decided, is for the Unionist Party to put forth a coherent, comprehensive, and bold policy of social reform. That policy must not be timid, or perfunctory, or pedantic, or compromising, but must offer a series of bona fide and practical alternatives to Socialism.
The root of the matter was in Lord Balfour's speech. He never spoke better or more to the point, and we commend his words to all who desire to save Unionism from sterilization, ignominy, and defeat.
• - J. ST. LOE STRACHEY.
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