MINISTERS' RELATIONS AND GOVERNMENT CONTRACTS. T HE BirminghamDaily Post of Tuesday
contains an interview with Mr. Arthur Chamberlain dealing with our remarks in regard to his position as Chairman of Kynoch's which affords a useful opportunity for discussing the general aspects of the question involved. Before, how- ever, we deal with these matters we must correct one or two rather important misconceptions of the spirit of our note which are made by Mr. Arthur Chamberlain, doubtless unconsciously, in his interview. To begin with, he talks as if we had been foolish enough to suggest that our remarks applied to all companies having any relations whatever with Government. "I doubt," he says, "if there is any large business in any large town that has not such relations, and therefore to suggest that I am to go out of Kynoch's is to suggest that I am to throw up my life's work because my brother has become a Cabinet Minister. And not only I, but all my brothers who are also in business, are to go out and cease their employments for the same reason." This is an absurd travesty of what we said, which was, in fact, that " it seems to us that it is not expecting too much of Mr. Arthur Chamberlain to say that while his brother is in the Cabinet he should refrain from taking an active part in any company which has large commercial dealings with the Govern- ment." That is, we expressly guarded ourselves from appearing to take the unreasonable line that Mr. Arthur Chamberlain attributes to us. Our point, of course, was, though it could not be elaborated in a short para. graph, that when a company had such verylarge and special relations with Government as a company manufacturing cordite must have, it was better that the brother of a Cabinet Minister should not take an active share in its management. Yet on this Mr. Arthur Chamberlain founds the preposterous suggestion that we desire that" when one member of a family goes into politics all the rest of his family are to go out of business." A more serious misrepresentation is made by Mr. Arthur Chamberlain in another part of the interview. "Then what do the Spectator think ? Do they mean the Colonial Secretarycannot be trusted ? Do they be- lieve the Colonial Secretary when he says he has never used any influence or taken any part whatever in the placing of any contracts, or don't they believe him ? If they do be- lieve him, why am I to go out of business? If they do not believe him, why do not they say so ?" " The fact is," he goes on to say later in the interview, " the attacks on the Colonial Secretary, of which this is the last, and a fair sample of all of them, only commenced when be took the line he did over Mr. Gladstone's Irish proposals." Here the innuendo is quite clear. Mr. Arthur Chamberlain evidently means to assert that we have joined in the attacks on his brother's honour, and that we do not believe Mr. Chamberlain's statement that he did not use his influence in the placing of any contracts. That allegation we repudiate with the utmost indignation. We have not only never believed, but have repeatedly'held up to condemnation, the disgraceful attacks that have been made upon Mr. Chamberlain's honour. We believe his record as a man of honour, both in public and private life, to be absolutely untainted, as clear and unclouded as that of any statesman, not only of our day, but in the past,' and we protest against Mr. Arthur Chamber- lain's attempt—an attempt which we admit will be regarded by most people as almost too childish and absurd to be taken seriously—to fasten upon us the foolish charge of joining in that " hunt of obloquy " with which Mr. Chamberlain has been so unfairly assailed. And this merely because we happen to take a view on a public question with which he does not agree We may be wrong, impractical, and pedantic in our view, but at any rate the subject is one worth serious consideration, and we have not the slightest intention of allowing Mr. Arthur Chamberlain to manoeuvre us into such a position that we cannot discuss the relation of the Government to private companies for fear of seeming to asperse the honour of the Colonial Secretary. In truth, Mr. Arthur Chamberlain himself admits the absurdity of his own suggestion, for he goes on to say that we want to " hound " Lord Lansdowne out of the War Office in order to put his brother there. If we believed the accusations against Mr. Chamberlain, as he interrogatively insinuates we do, Mr. Chamberlain would obviously be the very last man we should want to see at the War Office.
But perhaps it will be said that we are taking Mr. Arthur Chamberlain and his remarks somewhat too seriously and too much in earnest. There was not the !slightest reason why he should have imported so much heat into the argument. The matter is not one for vituperation, but for calm discussion. We have never said or believed that Mr. Arthur Chamberlain obtained contracts for his company owing to political pressure, and we have stated our absolute confidence in Mr. Chamber. lain's declaration that he has never used his influence directly or indirectly to help Kynoch's. We did not need his assurance as to this. The whole tenor of his public career was, as far as we were concerned, quite a sufficient warrant. What we did suggest, how_ ever, and what we shall continue to assert unless and until we are convinced to the contrary by the weight of argument, is that it is greatly to be desired that there shall be as little connection as possible between companies and firms regularly employed by or regularly taking Government contracts and members of the Cabinet. It is no answer to say that in a particular case no public disadvantage has resulted. In all such matters it is essential that there should not merely be nothing wrong, but no suspicion of anything wrong. Democracies, more than all other forms of government, are apt to have their minds clouded by suspicion, and such clouding is a great public evil. There is nothing which gives the demagogue a better foothold for his evil work than suspicion, and therefore it is desir- able to create an atmosphere in public life in which it shall be most difficult for suspicion to arise. In the matter of the Judges we all recognise the value of this insistence on what seems, if regarded superficially, a pedantio standard. No one could imagine that any of the Judges now on the Bench would lean on the side of a company in which he held shares, but unless we are greatly mistaken no Judge would try a commercial case in which there was the faintest possibility of any such suspicion. But though the ideal must be to banish the very shadow of suspicion, we admit that in a business nation like ours there are many difficulties in applying the principle. No one would, of course, be so foolish as to suggest that the brothers of a man who had reached Cabinet rank must instantly retire from business for fear of compromising their kinsman. Again, it would be preposterous to expect a statesman to leave public life because he could not induce his brothers to cease directing companies which were in the habit of tendering for Government contracts. We make no such quixotic proposal as that. In amplification of what we said last week, we would point out that what we want is the creation of a vigorous and vigilant public opinion in regard to the whole question. To begin with, we think that when a man attains very high rank in the political world, his brothers or sons, if by chance they should happen to be connected with companies or firms having large business relations with Government, should be expected by public opinion as far as possible to efface themselves on that side of their business, and not to take an active part in obtaining Government contracts. Under such cir- cumstances, a chairman of a company might very well say to his directors : • As long as my brother is in office it will be expected of me that I stand aside in all matters where Government work is concerned, and 1 feel that I should certainly do so. Other members of the board must therefore relieve me of this side of the work.' That would be a way of meeting the difficulty from one side. On the other hand, if and when chairmen and directors of companies with very near relatives in the Government would not consent to stand aside when Government contracts were involved, there might be an understanding in all the Departments of State that, as far as possible, such companies should be avoided in case of Government work. They could not of course be absolutely boycotted, but short of that it might easily be made clear that the Department was anxious to avoid employing companies in which it would come into active relations with a near relative of a member of the Cabinet. The result of this etiquette would soon be that companies largely concerned with Government work would take care not to bring on to their boards men with brothers and fathers already of Cabinet rank, while if by chance the near relative of an existing chairman became a Cabinet Minister they would provide that the Govern- ment work should not be in his hands. No doubt the prevalence of a business and official etiquette of this kind might sometimes impose a certain disability of a not very important kind on the relations of men of Cabinet rank, but we do not think that the nation need feel greatly troubled. Mr. Arthur Chamberlain, we notice, talks about the Spectator being " willing that I should sacrifice my position and my fortune," but we do not think that the circumstances are quite as tragic as that. The number of people who would find themselves in Mr. Arthur Chamberlain's position would be very few, and even in those cases the sacrifice of fortune would be but slight. In truth, the only result of the establishment of the etiquette we advocate would be that men belonging. to political families or families containing a prominent statesman would naturally tend to gravitate, when in business, to companies and firms which did not make their profits out of Government contracts. That would, as a rule, be the extent of the hardship. But even if there were substantial pecuniary injury in a few individual cases, we do not think that the public need mind. It would be infinitely better in the. national interests to injure one or two promising com- mercial careers than not to do everything possible to pre- vent the slightest growth of suspicion in regard. to the public administration. To put a concrete case, we should view with complete equanimity Mr. Arthur Chamberlain asking his Board to appoint a vice-chairman' to deal with all Government contract • work while the present, Cabinet was in office, and to give that vice-chairman - a portion of his salary. Again, we should remain " un- moved in mind " if we heard that some company engaged in manufacturing artillery had told the son of a Cabinet Minister that they would have liked to put him on their Board, but that they thought it " better not " as long as his father was in the Cabinet. We do not think that this is really a cruel and heartless view, or that we find it possible to hold it only because we are not capable of being touched by the pathos of things commercial. On the contrary, we believe the mass of Englishmen would be equally willing to interfere with the freedom of a few chairmen and directors, in order to clear the air of any suspicion of a suspicion. What we have said before we repeat again. We do not for a moment suppose that Kynoch's was ever in any way corruptly favoured by the Government, but we do think it most desirable that no sort of handle should be given for charges of favouritism. In order that this may be so, certain sacri- fices may no doubt be occasionally required from the nearest relations of our statesmen, but we cannot admit that these sacrifices are at all too great to be asked for by the public. Unless the State has a right to ask for such sacrifices, we do not understand the meaning of patriotism.
We may say in conclusion that the Kynoch incident is not one of any very great moment per se. There is nothing behind it, no dark mystery or undiscovered circumstance, and it is outrageous to use it, as it• has been used, as a bludgeon with which to belabour the Colonial Secretary. Nothing, however, could better illustrate our point as to the inconvenience and injury to public interests that arises when near relatives of a leading member of the Cabinet are engaged in securing Government contracts. We are quite sure that no privilege was obtained for Kynoch's by undue influence, and if the person who had been actively directing Kynoch's had not been Mr. Arthur Chamberlain, the allegations in regard to the distribution of the cordite contracts would doubtless have attracted no attention. As it was, however, they have attracted a great deal of atten- tion, and it is very difficult to persuade the man in the street that a point was not stretched in Kynoch's favour. The result is that the influence on public affairs of an able and honourable statesman is to some extent—not a great extent, we admit—injured. This is to be regretted, and we shall certainly do our best to create a public opinion which shall prevent similar inconveniences arising in the future. To be quite candid, we do not mind even if the near relations of Cabinet Ministers are somewhat inconvenienced by the growth of that public opinion. All that we care about is that the position of statesmen who are doing good public service shall not be liable to be impaired, in however small a degree. No doubt in this case the incident is a very trivial one and the injury minute, but some day the injury may be real. The essential thing is, as we have said, to create a state of public opinion which will make it extremely difficult and disagreeable for men in Mr. Arthur Chamberlain's position to be active in securing Government contracts. When once the principle is accepted, things will soon adjust themselves thereto, and without any substantial loss or injury to individuals. •
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