M R. CHAMBERLAIN'S speech at Bristol has proved an epoch-making pronouncement.
Its delivery was followed by two inspired leading articles, one in the Times and one in the Daily Telegraph, in which the writers, both evidently in touch with the Prime Minister, deliberately throw up the sponge, and. declare that after the line adopted by Mr. Chamberlain at Bristol it is impossible that Mr. Balfour can continue in power, and that the only thing left for him to do is to resign. It is to be noted, however, that both papers write more in sorrow than in anger. Though they regret that Mr. Balfour has had to fall under the weight of Mr. Chamberlain's non possuraus, they make it clear that he is not going to hit back, but is prepared "to take it lying down." The notion that there is any friction or illwill between the two leaders is scouted. as a Free-trade libel, and. we are given to understand that the differ- ence between them is only one of degree. Mr. Cham- berlain is unable to meet Mr. Balfour's wishes in regard to union, and cannot admit that it is worth while to halt nine-tenths of the party in order to keep in touch with one-tenth, but this fact is represented rather as his and the party's misfortune than as his fault. One might imagine, indeed, from the Times leader that the Ministerial crisis .produced by the Bristol speech was due rather to some upheaval of the forces of Nature than to any personal action on the part of Mr. Chamberlain. Just as Mr. Chamberlain never suggests that Mr. Balfour is in dis- agreement with him on essentials, so the spokesmen of the Prime Minister in the Times and Daily Telegraph assume that there is no vital difference between the states- men whose personal relations they handle so gingerly. It is only a question of tactics. The skilful card-players have each a different plan for winning the game, but one wants to win quite as much as the other. In a word, though the crisis has become acute, there is no ground. for the assertion that Mr. Balfour and Mr. Chamberlain have fallen out on the main issue.
So much for the facts of the crisis. It remains to deal with the astonishing suggestion that Mr. Balfour, who would not resign when he was beaten in the House of Commons, should resign now because Mr. Chamberlain is not willing to make such great sacrifices for party unity as is the Prime Minister. Disagreement with Mr. Chamberlain might be a good enough reason for dissolving and asking the party to express at the polls its views as to the rival tactics, but as a reason for resigning it is ludicrously inadequate. It must be pointed. out also that it is not enough for Mr. Balfour to resolve to leave office. In the political world. it takes two to make a resignation. If Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman and. his colleagues refuse to form a Government before a Dissolution, there is no power which can compel them to do so. They can say, and say with the certainty that they will have the full support of all unprejudiced minds : We did not bring about this erisis, and therefore no one has :a right to say to us that we ought to help to bring it to an end.' The liberal leaders will, in fact, be entirely within their rights if they refuse to accept office because Mr. Balfour has offered to resign. If he wants to leave. office, his proper way is through the' door marked "Disso- lution." But it is not only clear that the Liberals have a Constitutional right to refuse to take office before the General Election. It is equally clear that they should exercise that right. To yield to the temptation to snatch at power would be the gravest of errors. What the Liberals should say respectfully to the King, if he asks them whether they are prepared to form an Administration, ought to be something of this kind :—' We are at present in a small minority in the House of Commons. After the General Election we shall in'all probability be in a. great majority. It is therefore desirable that our Administration should be based, not on the minority that is, but on the majority that is to be. We cannot secure for a Liberal Government its proper composition till we see in what our majority consists. 'Again, there is at least one important Liberal leader who has expressed his determination not to take office until he is assured that his party have a clear majority over the Unionists and Irish combined.' Such a refusal- is, we are sure, the only wise and dignified course for the Liberals to pursue,—the only one also consistent with their duty to the King and the country. It must not be supposed: that such refusal need in any way embarrass the King or: make his position difficult. The various steps are quite' clear. Mr. Balfour will ask the King to allow him to. resign. The King will tell him that his ability to do this must depend upon his being able to find any other body of men who are at the moment willing to relieve him, of, the responsibility of carrying on the Government. If it turns out, as we believe it will, that none are to be found who are willing, the King will summon Mr. Balfour and inform him of the fact. Then Mr. Balfour must either go on as before, or else seek relief by advising a Dissolu- tion as soon as such appeal to the people can be arranged. The King will clearly not withhold his sanction, and the Dissolution will take place. From his present position Mr. Balfour has no other retreat, provided the Liberal leaders stand firm. People sometimes talk as if Ministers could at any moment throw down the seals of office and. walk away, leaving the King to pick them up and to find some one else to take them. In reality that is by no means the procedure. The men who hold the seals must keep them till the Sovereign can find another set of men willing to take them. If, how- ever, his search is in vain, he does not, of course, keep his unwilling Ministers indefinitely chained. to their posts. He dissolves as soon as possible, leaving the existing Ministry in power till the Dissolution is over, and the people have, in effect, decided. who is to form the next Government. It has been said that in a Constitutional, Monarchy like ours the one independent function remain- ing for the Sovereign is the function of Dissolution. 'What we have just said illustrates this fact. When the King is face to face with one set of politicians who want to go, and with another who are not willing to replace them, he cuts the knot by an appeal to the electors. He cannot, even if he wishes, force unwilling men into office, but he can make a Ministry in power continue to serve him and. the country during the few weeks required for a Dissolution.
We cannot leave the subject of the Ministerial crisis, and the break-up of the Unionist party in disorder and recrimination, without noting the irony of the situation which is to be found in the fact that Mr. Balfour's main object during the last two and a half years has been to keep the party together. To this he has sacrificed. everything,— including the party itself. His action, indeed, is like that of the Irish agent in a well-known story. His employer was very anxious to preserve an ancient castle upon his estate from destruction. Accordingly he ordered a wall to be built round it. When next he visited his property he found the greater part of the wall finished, but, unfortu- nately, the agent had pulled down and entirely destroyed. the castle in order to provide stones for the wall that was to safeguard it. That is just what Mr. Balfour has done to the Unionist party. Again, his defence of his conduct when he says that if he had taken any other course the party would have been destroyed may be likened to that once made by M. Thiers. After the Revolution of 1848, a friend asked him why he had not taken a certain course. Upon this M. Thiers exclaimed with indignation : "If I had done that the Monarchy would have fallen!" He forgot that, though he did not take it, the Monarchy fell, and that, therefore, his argument was valueless. Mr. Balfour cannot be allowed to say that if he had acted otherwise than he has acted the party would have been ruined, for it has been ruined as it is.
Into the details of Mr. Chamberlain's speech we do not propose to enter here, for we have dealt with them elsewhere. We may say generally, however, that Mr. Chamberlain is still indulging in the old policy of paradox. He is still bent on giving us that wonderful fiscal system which will both keep out foreign goods and let them in. The keeping out of the goods by his general tariff will produce more employment. The letting them in at the same time will raise revenue. Finally, the same admirable taxes will be available in order to frighten the foreigner into adopting Mr. Chamberlain's ideal of "Free- trade all round," and to increase the revenue. Let us take a concrete case and see how it will work. We will take that of those foreign motor-cars whose incursions into this country are known to wound so deeply the feelings of such staunch Tariff Reformers as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. First, the tax on foreign motor- cars will help us by keeping them out, and so giving employment to the men who make motor-cars in England. Secondly, the Custom-duty on motor-cars will enable us to tax the foreigner. Next, we shall be able to use the tax in order to retaliate,—that is, we shall have a tax which we can take off when the foreigner agrees to take off some of his taxes on our products. [Remember, a tax put on for retaliation purposes only succeeds when it has been taken off, and the retaliation has thereby proved effective.] Finally, the tax on foreign motor-cars will fill the Treasury, and help us to reduce taxation on such articles as tea and tobacco. Truly there never was such a lucky system of tart- tion as that devised by Mr. Chamberlain. We feel sure that if Swift had been more thorough in his investigations, he would have found it at work in the kingdom of Laputa,.
Another remarkable passage in Mr. Chamberlain's speech was his complaint that ready-Made doors came into the port of Bristol and injured the Bristol car- penters. As we have pointed out elsewhere, this argu- ment was met by Mr. Chamberlain twenty years ago with admirable force and good sense. Mr. Chamberlain may have only been the mouthpiece of Sir Thomas Henry Farrer when he made his Free-trade speeches, but at any rate the mouth uttered excellent sense. Another curious irony of the ready-made-doors incident is that they come from Canada, and unless we are to prohibit door-making in Canada, the Bristol carpenters can have no relief under the Chamberlain policy.
THE SULTAN AND THE POWERS.
91HERE may be trouble ahead in Turkey very soon. _11- Our people have always had a difficulty in attending to more than one subject at a time, and just now, besides a Cabinet crisis, they are studying the developments of the Russian revolution ; but there are grave symptoms of unrest in Turkey also. Matters may, of course, grow quiet for the moment, for the Sultan may, at the last moment, yield to European pressure; but he also may not, and he is being pressed by forces other than those of the European Embassies. His own people, the eminent Turks who surround the throne, and would con- trol it but for their master's strange genius for cunning government, are evidently doubtful whether the time has not arrived for resisting Europe. Their great enemy, Russia, is for the moment paralysed; their next enemy, Austria, is most reluctant to do anything decisive till the internal conflict with Hungary has been settled; France is in one of her peaceful moods ; and Germany would rather postpone the execution of projects which in the end the Turks will not approve, but which for the present they think can be ' utilised to divide the Powers. Were it not for Great Britain, the time would be most opportune; and it is quite possible that the Turks, though perfectly aware that their Empire, as Mr. Glad- stone pointed out, is cloven in two by a narrow seaway, think that Great Britain will not move except as part of the European Concert. They are therefore inclined to run the risks of resistance. They have believed for the last thirty years, on very good evidence, that their European dominion would gradually be extricated from their hands, and have made up their minds that when it goes Europe shall learn by a terrible lesson what it is to provoke Mohammedans to despair. They have threatened. over and over again that if the Christian Powers, whom an inexplicable Providence has allowed to grbw so strong, should ever reclaim Constantinople—the Empire city of the present Khalifs—they should recover nothing but a heap of ruins more saturated with blood than they were when the last Palaeologus fell fighting in the breach ; and in claiming the financial control of Macedonia the Powers are drawing very near to that final expulsion from Europe which the Mussulmans fear. The great Turks are by no means wanting in keenness of perc,eption, and they have seen that for the best part of a century Europe has never made a demand without some province being with- drawn from their control. Sooner or later they must fight or retreat into Asia, and they are men who by nature, as well as by religious conviction, are induced to prefer the former alternative. They never quite lose the secret hope that Providence may declare upon their side, or their secret conviction that it is a duty, by offering
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