SOLDIERS AND POLITICIANS
By VERNON BARTLETT, M.P.
IT is well known that one of the reasons for the existence of cats is to be kicked by husbands who have quarrelled with their wives. The human being, naturally but regrettably, vents his anger on somebody or something not directly the cause of it. Why, then, should we be surprised if bored and embittered men and women in the forces curse the House of Commons and feel better for having done so? In one way the politician should be reassured by the discovery that so many of the curses are directed at him— people in uniform are evidently not so uninterested in politics as they are supposed to be. A few weeks ago I followed an Army truck for ten miles or so along the road from Eindhoven to Louvain. It rained incessantly on the men in the truck. If one could judge by their faces, they alternated between resentful gloom and a slightly artificial joy induced by songs that were excessively bawdy or excessively sentimental. My companion suddenly gave expres- sion to my own vague thoughts by saying: " I wonder what they really think about war, peace and all that."
Some of their doubts and fears, suspicions and hopes, have been printed in the columns of this paper, to the alarm and despondency of some of its readers. But why should one expect starry-eyed enthusiasm from men whose lives are so often acutely uncomfort- able, deadly boring or grimly frightening? Since war is only a form of politics, the politician must expect to be blamed for the fact that the soldier has things to grouse about. The sergeant-major along the trench or the brass-hat back at the base may be responsible for some particular piece of misery, but those so-and-sos in West- minster and Whitehall are responsible for the major misery—that the soldier is a soldier at all and not a civilian with a family, a job, and a pint of beer waiting for him in the pub at the corner.
It is a tragedy that the House of Commons was already tired mid unrepresentative when the war broke out. Elected in 1935 on the basis of a Government pledge to enforce collective security, its reputation had sunk with each attempt by that Government to avoid fulfilling that pledge. The Hoare-Laval Pact, the Spanish Non- intervention Committee, the surrender of Czechoslovakia to Hitler, were millstones around its neck. Thus weighted, most of its un- fortunate members were certain to be submerged by the flood of hostile votes at the forthcoming general election. Many of them, indeed, would not even have troubled to face the electorate.
But in many of the letters printed in The Spectator there is an undertone of contempt which cannot entirely be explained away by the soldier's discomforts or the politician's murky past. There is contempt not only for the individual Member of Parliament, which does not greatly matter, but also for Parliament as an institution, which matters a very great deal. The Parliamentary system, it is argued, has not been successful in preventing any kind of freedom from want or from fear. " It must never be forgotten,"
wrote " Ex-Pilot " in The Spectator last week, " that these young men grew up under the economic depression. If they were not them- selves actually turned out of school to go on the dole—and many of them were—they were surrounded through their most impression- able years by families and friends for whom, apparently, the com- munity had no use. . . . Can it be wondered that they have no faith in the competence or honesty of government? They contrast the frustrated and meaningless society of their boyhood -with the purposeful organisation of totalitarian countries, which at any rate knew where they were going and set some value on their populations."
Not every young man who makes this contrast stops to reflect how inevitably these totalitarian States were going towards war, and how entirely the value they set on their populations was a military one. The men were to become more efficient and the women were to become more prolific solely in order that cannon- fodder of the best quality should be available in the greatest possible quantity. But reason and reflection play only a small part in politics, and it is quite clear that freedom of speech and freedom of election—the two basic freedoms in any non-totalitarian and non- sheeplike community—have lost their appeal.
And yet—let's face it—there are only two systems of government in the world. There is government by force and government by consent. The former can satisfy only the Fiihrer himself—the other important-looking leaders have to pay by a humiliating sycophancy for their unhealthy and dangerous right to exploit and control their fellow-men. The method of government by consent must be slower and less sensational, for each measure is a com- promise. During this war the great reforms that will become necessary after it are drafted, first, as White Papers which are debated and modified, and, second, as Bills which are again debated and modified. The final Act of Parliament may be depressingly, even dangerously, delayed, but it is one which has taken into account minority opinions. It is an example of government by consent.
One wonders for how long the critics of Parliament would be happy without it. They should remember this. Few Members have the time to sit through long debates on subjects about which they have no expert knowledge. They have no time, because they are busy in the Library dealing with their correspondence, the amount and diversity of which are almost unbelievable. And almost every letter deals with some individual case of difficulty or hard- ship on which advice or help is sought. With a nation mobilised for total war almost every letter affects directly or indirectly one of those men or women in the forces who are so ready to curse Members of Parliament and all their works. Grievances about pay or leave, medal ribbons or polished buttons, will be debated on the floor of the House and reported by the newspapers and the B.B.C. But the thousands of minor problems and hardships that worry the community are dealt with in endless and unadvertised correspon- dence with Government Departments. There is no injustice which cannot be brought before a Member of Parliament by anyone from the humblest to the highest citizen ; there is no injustice which can safely be made the subject of protest in a dictator State. Even during the gravest crisis of 1940 the safety valve which is provided by Question Time still operated.
Attacks on Parliament come from two sides. Its Members are accused either of being yes-men or of criticising and delaying the Government when it should be left to its job of winning the war. The leaders of the second form of attack are seldom consistent, for they are ready enough to complain when• the Government offends them and Parliament does not protest. Nothing can be done about them ; either the ending of the war will modify their view that Government is above criticism or they will turn openly to Fascism. They will be influential only if they win the support of men in the first category, and they will not do so if these men are given more chance of playing a part in government. " It is the essence of the political system which we have built up over a great many centuries," sad Lord Cranborne recently, " that the British are not governed—they govern themselves." That, unfortunately, is not as true as it should be. Reforms of our political machinery might help to make it true. All local government elections might be held on the same day throughout the country, so that they would arouse the same sort of interest as is now aroused by a general election (and they play so large a part in government that they certainly merit that interest). The governors of the B.B.C. or other public utility companies might be elected by some form of public ballot and given more power after election. The Parliamentary vote itself might be enhanced in value by some kind of voter's test, based not, of course, on money, but on evidence that one was socially alive. (This last suggestion contains such obvious dangers that I would rather withdraw it than be called upon to defend it). Candidates might be forbidden to spend a penny in their own constituencies, so that the electorate would learn to pay more attention to their real qualifications.
Any number of such reforms will suggest themselves. But in the last resort the distrust of Parliament is due, I believe, to the fact that opinion has been changed by blitz and mobilisation more rapidly outside the House of Commons than inside it. Too many of the Members are old and tired ; too many of the young ones are themselves away in unlorm. And in consequence we are in grave danger of neglecting the words of that earlier President Roosevelt, Theodore. " A great democracy," he once said, " must be pro- gressive. Otherwise it will soon cease to be either great or a democracy."
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