TOPICS OF THE DAY

YOU must in the first place fight Socialism with the intent to win and the belief that you can win. No other attitude is worth anything. " If I fight, I win," is the best of all slogans. But you will not fight to win against Socialism if you use negative arguments and are thinking of destroying your opponent's case rather than making your own. Criticism, however able, will not help you when you are ranged against people who have faith behind their plans. You must fight their faith with a faith of your own. You must have plans of yo-ex own, and a positive, active, constructive policy based on something which appeals to men's imaginations and hopes. The attitude of " That will never do " or " It's better to bear the ills we have," or " Take care or you'll make things worse than ever," and so on and so on, is not merely useless ; it maddens people who are faced with great evils and who are pas- sionately anxious to find their way out of the labyrinth. They may not like the plans for escape put forward by Labour. Indeed, as we saw at the last election, they instinctively distrust them. But that does not make them like a policy of tepid negation any the better. They want to be told what to do, to be given their direction, to be told specifically how to free themselves from their difficulties, not merely to hear those difficulties harped on as almost insurmountable or merely to hear the other side abused. When he hears nothing but talk of this kind, the Englishman, always inclined to contradiction, is sure to say, " Well, the other man may be wrong ; but, hang it all ! he's trying to do something, while you are simply sneering. Why can't you let him alone and try to think out something of your own ? " What men want from the opponents of Socialism are alternatives and expedients.

What makes the failure of the Unionists to realize this so exasperating is that they have at hand a whole series of constructive, useful, and beneficial measures, which they seem unwilling to use. They look at the pile of good tools at their side, but can only say, with a watery smile, " There may be something useful in that lot. Some people are inclined to think there is. Personally, however, we doubt the value of these panaceas." There is the architecture of failure. We have plenty of ani- mating ideas, and practical projects ready to our hands, but we keep them in the background like guilty secrets, instead of using them as the standards of success. It is useless to answer this plea for action by saying that the Unionists did pretty well on negative lines at the elec- tions, and so " why worry ? " The Unionists won last autumn, not on the merits of their own proposals, for in effect they had none, but because their opponents were distrusted.

This living on your opponent's blunders cannot go on.

The restlessness of the people and the desire for better conditions will grow, and those who have nothing but negatives to offer will be taught a severe lesson. If you are to get action out of human beings, you had better have a bad plan than no plan at all. This being so, I want to put forward once more a series of specific proposals for fighting Socialism.

The first thing, and it is a thing which greatly appeals to the ordinary man, is to make sure that the ConstitutiOn secures us true Democracy—makes the Will of the Majority supreme and prevents minority rule. At present a minority may easily be placed in power, and when in power could quite well turn itself into the greatest tyranny that the world has seen.

We want to make sure that great legislative changes shall not be obtained through a system of log-rolling by Parliamentary groups, and that before they come into operation they shall have the sanction of the popular will. We want to refer momentous changes in the law to the people, that is, to take the will of the supreme sovereign.

This being so, we regret to see that the resolution for House of Lords reform which Lord Selborne approves is worded—see his letter to the Times of last Saturday— in such a manner as to suggest (if we are not mistaken) that the proper way to make our Constitution safe for Democracy is to create a new type of Second Chamber.

It is true that the resolution might be understood to suggest the Referendum (which is not, however, men- tioned), but we feel sure that it will be generally taken as a plan for turning the House of Lords into some kind of Senate.

If we are successfully to resist Parliamentary usurpation and a " Managed Democracy," it must be by reposing a power of veto in the hands of the people, " for use when required." There is no safety to be obtained by means of a new Second Chamber—some House of Notables— or some system of reinforced heredity. If we try such methods we shall merely dissipate our energies and fail to attain our ends. The only Second Chamber strong enough to withstand the Commons would be a popularly elected House. But that would only be the House of Commons over again—another body liable to be the sport of log-rolling and group intrigues. We want protection from certain risks and evils inherent in the representative system, a system per se of immense value and absolutely necessary to political salvation but at the same time by no means perfect.

The only way to insure against these risks is to call in the Will of the People and give it an opportunity to operate. The Will of the People will not be always right, but the people themselves have, at any rate, the legal right to be wrong. Their representatives can claim no such legal right. Therefore, let us banish from our minds schemes for a brand new representative and popular Second Chamber and be content with the House of Commons in that sphere. After all, the Commons have great traditions and a great hold on the people, and only by the people will they ever allow themselves to be controlled—or, as they would be sure to put it, let themselves be robbed of power. Remember the amount of power in a Constitution is necessarily a fixed quantity.

If you give more power to a Second Chamber, as Lord Selborne, in effect, proposes, you must take it away from the House of Commons.

Now let us be specific. Though we would not create a new Second Chamber, we do not propose that there should be no change in the Lords. We would allow any peer to be elected to the Commons if he could find a seat. While a member of the Commons, he could not, of course, sit in the Lords. I suggest next that in future the peer's writ should be issued only to hereditary peers who are able to show previous public service as well as succession to the right to receive a writ of summons. The public service required would not be too exacting, but it would prevent men and women sitting out of mere heredity. The powers of the House of Lords would remain as now.

It is not true to say that such a body would perform no useful part. It would be, as now, extremely useful.

It would be a House full of experts and men of experience of all kinds, though it would not, as now, be open to attack on the ground that it could be invaded at any moment by backwoodsmen, black-sheep, and plutocratic nonentities I It would be the best debating Chamber in the world, and its members, being under no obligations to constituencies or caucuses, would be absolutely free to deliver their minds.

Such a body—no longer a gilded cage for eager, active men, to whom the Commons is a far more suitable field of action—would be quite capable of exercising the function of referring to the electors Bills on which the Will of the People was doubtful.

Probably, however, the House of Commons would call this " veto by the peers," though it would, in reality, be nothing of the sort. The peers would be more likely to be too cautious than too enterprising. In these circumstances the most convenient way would be to give any two hundred members of the House of Commons the right to invoke the Referendum by means of a petition to the King in Council. This would prevent minor Bills from being referred and would be far more elastic than a facultative reference on all Bills dealing with certain specified subjects. In addition, it might be enacted that, if a majority of the voters on the register in two hundred or more constituencies petitioned the Sovereign that a Bill should be referred to the country, it should be so referred.

By these means we should be freed from the risk of minority government and revolutionary action contrary to the Will of the Majority, yet obtained under the guise of a representative system. That is an essential piece of democratic policy, and if put before the people, not with indecision, but with conviction and zeal, it would not only be welcomed, but would prove that the present Government means business. If the Government does not prove that it means business, it is doomed, in spite of a huge majority and a weak Opposition.

J. ST. LOE STRACHEY.