TOPICS OF TIIE DAY.
POLITICAL COMPROMISE.
COMPROMISE in politics m=ans a great many different things. It may mean, for example, a plan under which' men can be shown that differences between them are not, as they supposed, fundamental but only superficial,—differences in degree and not in kind. Again, compromise may mean the act of showing a particular man or group of men that, though they cannot have the particular thing they demand, they may be given something else • which will be in practice a gocaT working substitute for the thing asked for. Or a compromise may consist in showing two sets of combatants that if each will give up a portion of what they have respectively said was essential, peace may be made without loss, or at any rate without loss of honour or what the Chinese call " face." This kind of compromise may be disliked by both sides, and yet accepted because the alternative of war, the result of- which both sides feel to be doubtful, seems even worse than the certainty of a partial loss of what they value. Besides these and other forms of compromise which will easily occur to our readers, it should be noted that a political compromise may easily consist of combinations of any two, or, indeed, of all the forms of compromise which can be set forth. An agreement between opponents may be reached which is partly the result of better understanding, partly the result of what Americans would call. " a trade ' in concessions, and also partly the result on both sides of fears of the alternative. Occasionally, no doubt, a compromise may be so favoured by circumstances that both sides will agree to it with pleasure. A via media is discovered along which every one can walk with satisfaction. It is far more common, however, for both sides to grumble at a compromise, or certainly for the extremists on both sides to do so, and to declare that they have been " sold " by their leaders. Indeed, it is sometimes said that the true test of a satisfactory political comprotnise is that it should be condemned by the rank- and-file of both sides, and that both sets of leaders and negotiators should be denounced for having given away the case of their supporters.
Unless we are mistaken, if a compromise is reached as the result of the Conference which is now about to take place between the leaders of the two political parties, it will be a compromise of this kind,—one which the hotheads of both parties will heartily dislike. We note,' indeed, that the malcontents of the Liberal Party have already met in order to show that they view the possibility of a Conference with grave misgivings, and also that Mr. Wedgwood has already given notice of a Motion which, if it were to gain the support of the majority of the Liberal Party, or even of a large minority, must be fatal to compromise. It takes the most advanced and extreme claims of the Liberals as an irre- ducible minimum, and therefore leaves no room for com- promise, or even for negotiation. No agreement, it states, will be -satisfactory which does not secure for the House of Commons " (a) the absolute control of finance, and (b) such supremacy with respect to other legislation as will enable any Bill which has passed this House in three consecutive Sessions to become law, notwithstanding any dissent on the part of the Lords." The Resolution goes on to lay down that if a Con- ference is not held, or, if held, does not speedily result in a satisfactory agreement, " Ministers should forthwith advise the Crown to take such steps as may be necessary to ensure the passing of the Parliament Bill [i.e., the Veto Bill] into law in the course of the present Session." In other words, the Government are warned that they must coerce the Crown into forcing through by the creation of Peers a Bill which has only been sent up to the House of Lords once ; and this though .that very Bill lays it down that far less important Bills must be presented at least three times before the powers of the Lords are over- ridden. As though this were not enough, Mr. Wedgwood and his friends go on to declare that there must be no dissolution or prorogation of Parliament or any resigna- tion of Ministers until either a satisfactory agreement has been arrived at, or, failing such agreement, the Parliament Bill has become law. The final paragraph of the Resolution cannot possibly be done justice to by a summary. We. must quote it in full :—" (4) That any refusal on the• part of the Crown to act upon the advice of Ministers in connexion with the steps required to be taken in order to secure the passing of the Parliament Bill into law would be inconsistent with the Constitutional doctrine of Ministerial responsibility, and would involve the Crown in political controversies in a manner inconsistent with the. true interests of the Crown." Here, indeed, is a wonderful example of negotiating. Those who profess to regard Lord Rosebery's Resolutions as unconstitutional and anti-loyalist, since they limit the Royal prerogative, now propose 'to turn upon the Crown, which has as yet done nothing and:taken no share 'in -the controversy, and to threaten it with a big stick. We find, in fact, the threat of " You would, would you ? " expressed in all the turgid periphrasis of the amateur Parliamentary draughtsman.
If Mr. Wedgwood had the majority of the Liberal Members of the House of Commons behind him, it would of course be useless to consider the question of compromise any further. The Prime Minister has, how- ever, refused to give facilities for the discussion of the; Resolutions, and there seems every reason to believe that he will be backed up in this course by the great bulk of his followers. We cannot help wondering 'whether it might not have been better policy to have dealt with the Resolutions in another way ; namely, by allowing a day for 'discussion, and meetine. the Resolutions by an official amendment that it is inexpedient to discuss them at the present time,—.'in effect., by moving the previous question. If the Govern- ment.received for such an amendment, as we believe they would, the support of all but a small section of their party, the House would be committed to the attempt to find a via media, and the Government could then negotiate with firmer ground beneath their feet than if such a specific vote of confidence were not given to them. No doubt it will be said that they would run some risks by such a course ; but since those risks must in any case be r m sooner or later, it would, in our opinion, be better to run them at once. We believe it was a maxim of Lord Beaconsfield, one of• the most astute. of Parlia mentary leaders, that in a critical Bill the great thing was to place the chief danger clause as early as possible. As he was wont to put it to the draughtsman :—" I want some-, thing to fight on and .win on in the very first. clause. If I can draw first blood, everything will probably go smoothly."
Though we do not wish to engage in any controversy which may have the effect of embarrassing the. Con- ference, we think it can do no harm to point out the chief points with which the Conference must deal. The point in regard to the control of finance by the House of Commons is, curiously enough, much more difficult in practice than in theory. In theory the Unionists do not desire to challenge the superior rights of the Com- mons in the matter of finance, provided that these rights are properly understood and defined. If some water-tight definition of " tacking," or, to put it in another way, a sound definition of what is an annual Money Bill, can be found, and further, if some competent tribunal can be constituted for deciding what is and what is not within the defini- tion, the difficulty in regard to financial control may bb got rid of. As we said last week, we believe that the definition of a Money Bill, though difficult, is not im- possible, and we hold that a tribunal 'consisting of the Speaker of the House of Commons, the Chairman of Committees in the Lords, and the senior Lord Justice of the Court of Appeal, who is not a Peer, would meet all requirements. We may note that we take the Chairman of Committees rather than the -Lord Chan- cellor because the Chairman of Committees is chosen by the House itself, and is therefore in status akin to the Speaker. The Lord Chancellor, though he- presides in the House of Lords and is the nominal " Speaker of the right honourable House," is imposed upon it by the Ministry which happens to be in power, and thus may be said to be chosen by the majority of the House of Commons just like their own Speaker. In the vast majority of cases the- Speaker and the Chairman of Committees in the Lords would be able to settle any disputed point as to Money Bills by themselves. If, however, they could not agree, the deadlock would be solved by the association with them of the Lord justice of Appeal. If the financial fence is safely got over, as we trust it may be, the Conference will then have to face the even more difficult subject of ordinary legislation. Here the crux of the Constitutional crisis is to be found. The Liberals have hitherto seemed to regard it as essential that the will of the House of Commons should prevail in a single Parliament. Their opponents, on the contrary, hold that it is not the will of the House of Commons that must prevail, but the will of the people. They are willing to say that if a Bill which the Lords have rejected in one Parliament is sent up to them after a Dissolution in the same form, the House of Lords shall have no further claim to reject it. Also they are ready to give statutory authority for what they hold to be already the custom of the Constitu- tion. This question of a Dissolution being necessary before it becomes obligatory for the House of Lords to pass the Bill is thus the dividing point. Will it be possible to find. any compromise in regard to it, or can any other method be suggested ? As our readers know, the method that we favour is a Referendum, a plan which does not involve the interference with the executive machinery of government involved in a Dissolution. A Referendum, indeed, would do much more effectively what a Dissolution in the circumstances named is intended to do,—i.e., take the opinion of the people on the Bill in question. Is the Liberal Party in the country so determined against this essentially democratic solution of the question as is supposed ? In our view, it is not ; but here, of course, we can do no more than express an individual opinion.
Should compromise be found possible on these two points, the Constitutional problem would be to a great extent solved. There would remain over, how- ever, the question of the reform of the House of Lords. We hold such reform to be eminently necessary. We are afraid that the practical result of a com- promise must be to postpone it. Though probably nothing will be said about it in public, we cannot help expecting that one of the unpublished conditions of compromise made by the Liberals is likely to be that the House of Lords is not to be strengthened by reform. We say this in no spirit of cavilling, and we quite understand the party arguments against reform. It would, however, we think, serve no useful purpose to conceal the fact that as things now stand the Liberal Party have come to the conclusion that it would be impossible for them to assent to any scheme one of the results of which would be that the Second Chamber would emerge from the controversy with increased strength.
Previous page
