TOPICS OF THE DAY.
A NATIONAL GOVERNMENT.
WHEN we wrote last week there seemed little possibility that our hopes for the formation of a National Government would be fulfiller!. Yet on Tuesday a National Government was in process of construction. We shall not attempt on this occasion to describe the causes which have led to so great a change. Far more important than those causes are the effects. We have reached what we hope may be the first stage in that national concentration which alone can give us victory. The late Government, the Opposition, and the Labour Party have acted with the patriotism and good sense -which British politicians, in spite of personal feelings and party ties, always show at a moment of imminent peril. They have come together to serve and save the State. Each body of politicians has had to make great sacrifices. The sacrifices of the retiring members of the Govern- ment may seem for the moment the greater, for at such a time to resign power and the opportunity to do work in one's country's cause is no small thing. But if less obvious, the eaff-abnegation of those members of the Unionist Party who take office and those who do not is hardly less great.
We have used the words "National Government" advisedly. This is no Coalition Cabinet of the kind which the nation is believed to abhor. It is rather the placing of supreme power during war in the hands of a group of men chosen irrespective of party ties. We have followed the Roman example. We have named a Dictator—but we have put the Dictatorship in commission. Till the war is over there must be, and will be, no thought of who is a Liberal and who a Unionist, or of what the Liberal or the Unionist elements in the Cabinet desire. The Administration will have but one thought and one aim—the saving of the nation and the destruction of our enemies. As we write the new Ministry has not been constituted. All we know is that Mr. Asquith will be Prime Minister and Sir Edward Grey Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs—two appointments in which the country will acquiesce as wise, nay, necessary. For the rest, every other office will be allotted so as to secure the maximum of power and efficiency. As the Prime Minister has said, no man who takes part in the new National Government will sacrifice or surrender in any way any of his political views. The Ministry is a War Ministry and nothing else. For the time the Liberal Party, the Unionist Party, and the Labour Party are merged. And here we may add that the inclusion of Mr. Henderson, the bead of the Labour Party, in the Cabinet may be regarded as certain. The distribution of poste will no doubt be made by Mr. Asquith in consultation with one or two of his most trusted colleagues and with the leaders of the Unionist Party. The task will not be easy, but at any rate it will be cleared of those personal difficulties which beset ordinary Cabinet-making. We assume, as we are sure we may, that the only consideration will be efficiency, and not the finding of a good post for this or that man who has "claims which cannot be ignored "—i.e., who will try to wreck any Cabinet from which he is excluded.
We are not going to say anything about the mistakes of the past. They are not merely dead. They are buried. We have got to think only of the future. It is obvious that the construction of a National Government, however ideal in appearance, will be a mockery unless that Govern- ment are prepared to face the new situation in a new spirit. Without that we might just as well have gone on with the old Government. The nation will be mocked if things are to go on just as before, and will never forgive the men who have mocked it. Unless the new Cabinet can awaken the nation, or, rather, can utilize the energy of the awakened nation—for it is awake, though its eyes are still dim and its purpose uncertain—and can obtain that national concentra- tion in regard to which there has as yet only been talk but no action, we shall be witnessing nothing better than a solemn political farce. There are three immediate and practical things to be done, and the new National Govern- ment will be judged by its ability to accomplish them. The first essential is the provision at a much more rapid rate than at present of the chief munitions of war, and especi- ally of high-explosive shells. We must have a supply of shell, not equal to what the military pedants bold ought to be sufficient (" provided the supply is not wasted "), but a supply so abundant that if necessary we can fire two shells for every one fired by the enemy. That is not impossible if we bend our minds and our bodies to the task. Nothing will ever persuade us that such an ideal is beyond the industrial and moral capacity of the nation if it is properly roused for the task before it. Next, and this of course is quite as important, though for the moment not so insistent, is the supply of men. We cannot make sure of winning unless we can keep our armies in the field supplied with trained men and meet the awful wastage of modern war with fresh levies. But there is one way, and only one way, now left us of supplying men in adequate numbers, and that is compulsory service. As we have explained elsewhere, we must muster and array the nation for the great task before it, assigning to each man in the nation, as we are now assigning to each man in the Government, the work which he is best able to perform. Our older men must join and train themselves as Home Guards in order to free more and mom men for the war. Our lads must begin their training early, for who knows how long the war may last ? Our men of military age (from seventeen to forty) who are medically fit must be called upon either to take their place in the firing line or else in the munitions factory, or to do some other part of the necessary work of the nation. There must be no doubts, or hesitations, or half-measures. The National Government must let the nation know what is required of it. If they do so, we have not the slightest doubt as to the answer. " Tell us what we must do, and tell us before it is too late," is the demand of the country. The third thing that the National Government have got to do is to see to it that their war policy is clear, well defined, and involves no wastage of effort. Hitherto there has been little or no co-ordination between our seven campaigns. If a piece of strategy has seemed good per se, it has been adopted with very little thought as to what its effect may be upon schemes already in action. There must be no more of such haphazard work. The only way to avoid this is either by appointing a War Council, not, of course, for the direction of operations in the field, but for the prose- cution of the war as a whole, or else by making the Cabinet small enough and coherent enough to speak with a single Take. We expect that the Small Cabinet, or formalized and acknowledged Inner Cabinet, will be the plan adopted. If the Prime Minister, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Minister for War, and the First Lord of the Admiralty were to form a Cabinet War Council, there would be far less waste of energy than there is now. The bigger Cabinet could continue to supervise the general administration, but in all matters affecting the war its powers would be delegated to the Cabinet War Council. But, after all, this, important as it is, is machinery. The only thing for the outside public to insist upon is that the nation is arrayed for war, and that every man shall be appointed, or, if you will, compelled, to do what he is best fitted to accomplish.
We shall only deal here with one or two points regarding the personnel of the new Government. We hope the rumour is true that Mr. Balfour is to become First Lord of the Admiralty. We also hope that Mr. Lloyd George will become either Secretary for War or will be entrusted with a special office for the stimulation of the production of armaments. Mr. Lloyd George has shown that he has the true fighting spirit and the true spirit of national self-sacrifice. He has got courage, moral and physical, and the sense of leadership and power. He is at the moment one of the greatest of our national assets. The question of how best to use Lord Kitchener's great powers is a paramount question. There is a good deal to be said for reviving for him the old office of Commander-in-Chief, as proposed by Mr. Garvin, and making Mr. Lloyd George Secretary for War—it being of course understood that the essential duties of the Secretary for War would be the production of men and material. No man would array the nation better than Mr. Lloyd George. Further, we hold that he would more easily be able to accomplish this tremendous task in the old office of Secretary for War than in a new one created ad hoe. If, however, it is thought better that Lord Kitchener should remain where he is, then by all means let Mr. Lloyd George be Minister of Munitions.
Previous page
