PARTIES AND BENCHES
By VISCOUNT IIINCHINGBROOKE, M.P.
FROM the two speeches which the Prime Minister has made on the rebuilding of the House of Commons it is obvious that he contemplates that the organised party system, which has success- fully operated democracy in this country for many generations, will again prevail when this war is over and the country has settled down to its peace-time ways. There are, of course, many advantages in this system, and British democracy during the long era of the Pax Britannica was supreme under it. But we live in a very different world now:
There are two revolutions in progress today—the physical war between nations, and the ideological war of causes now being fought out on the Continent between resistance groups with arms and here at home by political groups with words. When the former war is concluded, the latter will go on, powerfully reinforced by the impact of applied science on worid economics. We have to consider whether the two-party system and its reflection in the seating arrangement of the House of Commons can continue under the stresses imposed by the war of ideas. If we come to the conclusion that the two-party system cannot survive, we are, by putting back the House of Commons in its old shape, merely building a sand castle before a rising tide, and should seriously consider—what the Prime Minister has hitherto rejected out of hand—the conception of a semi-circular Chamber, in which, as he said, Members and groups can gravitate from Right to Left and Left to Right as their ideas change and experience grows.
In fact, today, although the present Chamber is rectangular, its political and ideological groupings are more than semi-circular ; indeed, on occasions one wonders whether they are not completely circular in character. There have been times when I have specu- lated whether the element of extreme liberty or licence in the revolutionary ideas of the left wing of the Labour Party does not effectively join hands with the same element in the financial ideas of some members of the National Liberal Party, and I have wondered if, in offering hospitality in the Conservative Party to those of the National Liberal persuasion, if that is what we are going to do, we might not just as well stretch a point and include the Hon. Member for Ebbw Vale and his friends. That would seem to indicate the building of a circular Chamber.
The absolute prerequisite for a return to the two-party system is the recognition by both parties that the Government of this country must be based upon what constitutes a British interest. That was the case in the hey-day of the Victorian era. Foreign Affairs and, to a very large extent also, Home Affairs were carried on by both Parties in that tradition. Britannia knew that she was well cared for arm-in-arm with either spouse. The Liberal Party gave prospect of interest and entertainment on the morning consti-
tutional ; the Conservative Party gave prospect of security and well- being on returning home. To vary the metaphor, the national polity was upheld upon the twin pillars of Freedom and Order—both of them solid and substantial structures—either of which in its integrity and strength could uphold the arch for a span of years. The plinth of each pillar rested upon secure foundations of conviction in the hearts of millions of our people. Those whose thoughts were biassed towards Freedom had a profound appreciation of the virtues of Order, and those whose inclinations lay towards the secure life were conscious of the importance to the community of liberty of the spirit.
But on looking round the House of Commons today we find divisions, not on vertical lines as in the old days, but on horizontal or class lines. We find all the instincts for Order in the more solid sections of the Labour Party, and we find a desire for extreme forms of Liberty among those who are soliciting the favours of the Tory Party. Indeed, I go so far as to say that if members are to take their seats in the new Chamber in five years' time and do justice to the Prime Minister's claim that that Chamber should shape their attitudes, it is necessary that they and their successors in the next Parliament should undergo some swift political re-orientations. The Labour Party has now attained its great objective of securing a large measure of economic freedom for the masses. The fault lies at the door of both the Conservative and Liberal Parties that the Labour Party was ever necessary. There are many Labour members so biassed in their ideas towards Planning rather than Individualism as to place them ideologically in the Conservative Party, whose portals should always have been kept open for them. There are some members who sit on Conservative benches whose ideas on moneyed Liberty puts them outside the range of true Conservatism.
I see no future for the normal working of the two-party system until these transformations have taken place. Let us hope that adherence to the rectangular structure will hasten them forward. It is vitally important, meanwhile, that the Coalition should be maintained, in order to present a united front to the world until the right changes have taken effect naturally and quietly behind the scenes in full accord with British evolutionary methods. It would be disastrous to return precipitately to party politics after the war on the present basis of conflict as between policies of the Right and the Left, the Right standing for overlordship, money and stability and the Left for the underdog, mass action and change. In fact, upon those philosophies we shall never take our seats in the new Chamber at all. We shall be fighting in the streets.
We are threatened with a break-down of law and order over the greater part of Europe. The repercussions of this Most colossal of all wars will reverberate through Europe, and perhaps three-quarters of the world, for many years to come. The horrors of the Thirty Years War are again upon us. It is enough to consider the holocaust of lives, the devastation, the hungry, the homeless and the bereaved. It is enough to watch the spirit of revenge brooding over engendered hates. It may well be that British-American democracy, with its ideals, will have to retrace its steps many decades in the history of its development. It may ,well be that salvation by the ballot-box is altogether beyond the comprehension of those millions with whom we shall have to deal. The political good sense of our people will have to be brought into full play if we are to inoculate ourselves against the general contagion, and insulate ourselves altogether from civil strife. In 1640 we failed, but this time the omens are far more propitious.
The concept of National Government took root many years before the need for it was presented in a military sense as it is now in the liberated countries, in France, Belgium, Italy and Hungary. To break the compound of National Unity into its constituent elements, Right and Left, would be to precipitate an explosion. The only safe analysis is the Victorian analysis. We are wise, therefore, to rebuild the parliamentary laboratory on its old site, and with its old equip- ment. But at the rate we are moving at it will take many years before we are ideologically fitted to occupy the building now about to be constructed.
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