TOPICS OF THE DAY.
A SORT OF CO-OPERATION."
WE are all grateful, or at any rate we all ought to be grateful, to Sir George Younger for talking plainly and straightforwardly to the great party whose servant he is. He might so easily have said smooth things, and have pandered to the desires of those politicians who want a quiet life, or perhaps we ought to say an easy death, and who would rather do anything than offend Mr. Lloyd George and those of his colleagues who place in him an implicit faith. Sir George Younger, however, has chosen the more honest, but less agreeable, . part. He has made it quite clear that under the kind of conditions which Mr. Lloyd George—whether willingly or unwillingly does not appear—has laid down, the Unionist Party cannot in future stand iu relation to the Coalition Liberals as it has stood up till now. Sir George sees, as does every man who takes the trouble to think it out, that the bond of Coalition must either grow tighter or looser. The Coalition was formed to carry out the War settlement. When the guns had only just ceased firing, or, indeed, were still firing in some parts of the world, the great thing was to " carry on as before " and, at all costs, to prevent a political crisis. 'When, however, that urgent need faded away, we had to consider whether the men who up till then had been combining with the closeness and intimacy required for carrying on Parliamentary government could continue to do so. If they could do so, it was obvious that the time had then come for fusion, or rather incorporation, and for the formation of a homogeneous political party such as we have so often advocated in these columns. It seemed otherwise, however, to Mr. Lloyd George and the inner circle of his colleagues. They decided that no such fusion could take place, and in this decision, apparently, Mr. Chamberlain, the Lord Chancellor and Lord Curzon acquiesced. In other words, the Coalition bond could not be drawn any more tightly. That being so, as Sir George Younger with true intuition at once perceived, the only alternative. was to make the tie looser. That is what he meant when he told us that we should have to fall back upon " a sort of co-operation " between the Unionists and the Liberal supporters of Mr. Lloyd George. That is a fact which we do not think can be challenged by anyone who knows the conditions of our political system.
But " a sort of co-operation " will not, we fear, keep a Government in power, even in a Parliament like this, where there is little or no opposition. In a Parliament such as that which is coming—a Parliament in which there will be a strong Labour Party, a strong Liberal Party, and a strong Die-hard section of the Unionist Party—" a sort of co-operation " must mean a very weak Government perpetually at the mercy of this or that group, or the complete inability of Ministers to carry on the King's Government as it ought to be carried on. What a prospect to put before the nation ! What a hideous, nay, disreputable dilemma ! Can we wonder that the situation makes the blood of the ordinary Unionist boil with indignation? He knows that the vast mass of the people are as sound at heart as ever they were and that the economic situation, though bad, is distinctly improvable and requires only time .and patience. He knows also that we possess all the elements of constitutional stability as well as those of economic development. Further, he knows that if we were allowed the opportunity to assemble them, we should soon have a working and trustworthy machine. But alas ! instead of assembling them the Unionist leaders seem to be planning to let the necessary parts lie about in useless confusion !
We described last week what the nation wanted in the matter of the Geddes Report and of the fiscal situation generally. To-day we want to apply a similar test to the position of our political parties. What the nation, as a whole, wants is a stable, homogeneous, self-respecting, anti-revolutionary, democratic party—a party ready to carry on its work, either in office, or, what is equally important, in opposition—a party which can be useful, both positively and negatively, which can either rule itself or keep other rulers in order and sanity. But there is only one way to get this, and that is to enlist under one banner and one leader, and therefore in a coherent body, all those who wish to maintain the framework of our present Con- stitution and our present social order.
In all probability the majority of this great, but as yet inchoate, party of which we write would like to do this under the leadership of Mr. Lloyd George. But they want him, remember, as the leader-in-chief of a party ruled inside itself on constitutional, and not on dictatorial, lines. They want, that is, to carry on the old tradition of our party system and not to develop a new one, such as we have seen developed during the past three or four years. Those new developments may have been necessary in the War, but they certainly are not a convenience in peace. Mr. Lloyd George, it seems, cannot agree with this view, or, at any rate, cannot see his way to establishing a new homo- geneous party, either by absorption or fusion. The most he can do, to use the language of domesticity, is to propose that he and his immediate followers should come in, or remain in for a time, to oblige the Unionist Party. That there was bound to be disappointment at this decision we will readily admit. We are convinced, however, that it is not the disappointment of despair—the sort of disappointment which makes people say : " Very well, then, do anything you like or can, for anything is better than nothing." On the contrary, we believe that the country takes the matter in the true English spirit. It knows quite well that there is no such thing as a necessary man in politics. If Mr. Lloyd George does not see his way to unite in a proper homogeneous body all the sane and anti-waste elements in the country, then somebody else must be asked to take on the job. Here the attitude, which we believe to be that of the nation, is not in the least inspired by pique or annoyance. It is inspired solely by common sense. The country realizes quite well that Mr. Lloyd George in effect says : " You cannot have me on those terms, but you can have me on what is nearly as good, that is, the old Coalition terms slightly modified. They need not in the least degenerate to what Sir George Younger so crudely and unnecessarily called ' a sort of co-operation.' The sign will be painted a little differently, but it will be the old house and tied as firmly to me as ever it was." Here comes the real issue—the issue that is disturbing what remains of the Coalition, and will, we fear, ultimately prove the rift which will break up not only it, but also the Unionist Party. Mr. Lloyd George's proposal to go on with the old arrangement slightly camouflaged could only be successful if there were the most perfect and absolute trust and confidence felt throughout the Unionist Party in him and also in his closest colleagues, such as Lord Birkenhead, Mr. Winston Churchill, Sir Alfred Mond and Mr. Edwin Montagu. In that small group only one is a Unionist, and he a Unionist of what we hope he will pardon us in describing as of a slightly chameleon- like complexion. To the ordinary Unionist the proposal amounts in plain terms to something like this. " We, the National Liberals and Lloyd Georgeites of the Coalition, want you, the Unionists, to be bound while we are free. You are to support us with your votes at the Elections, and, if you can, must give us more seats than we have in the present Parliament. But, though we must sit by means of your votes, you must not interfere with what we do in Parliament. You must not feel angry with us, or in any way injured, if we find it necessary from time to time to prevent the Unionist Party putting what we hold to be undue pressure upon our Mr. Lloyd George, pressure intended to make him give up certain of those great Liberal principles—we forbear to name them at present—which are still dear to his heart and to our hearts."
This looks candid and forcible on paper, and would, the Unionist admits, be very cogent if the Liberal Coalitionists had any large section of voters in reserve to honour their electoral cheques. As a matter of fact, how- ever, the Liberal Coalitionists are in the constituencies— though not, of course, in Parliament—very nearlya negligible quantity. The men who vote in an anti-revolutionary, pro- thrift and who are generally in favour of a wise Con- stitutionalism and Imperialism, i.e., for peace and stability both at home and abroad, bother very little about party names or political finesse. They like a plain issue, and they like a plain man, and they like them both without " Ifs " and Buts " and other conditions. As a rule, if they cannot get an intelligible policy expounded by an intelligible man they don't vote at all. Certainly that is their mood just now. They have come to dislike and dis- trust the Coalition because of its uncertainty. They would like to have a clear issue put before them by a united and responsible party, on which they could feel they had a hold. If they don't get this, as apparently they will not, they will simply abstain. Of that we are convinced. We are also convinced that the result of this abstention, which again is the result of Mr. Lloyd George's refusal to establish a united party, will be a very serious loss of support at the polls for the Coalition candidates. Yet these doomed candidates, strangely enough, will very often be the men whom the country would like to see successful—men who want to maintain the Constitution, who want Democratic thriftiness and not Socialistic squandering, and who generally desire political rest and recuperation.
If we are right in our diagnosis, as we believe we are, this means, if we look at the matter from the Parliamentary angle, a House of Commons composed of groups. The biggest group will probably still be a Unionist group, but it will not constitute a clear majority of the House. Another important group will be a " Wee Free "group, not a very big group, but twice as big as it is now, a group perhaps of one hundred and fifty or more. Then there will be a National Liberal or Lloyd Georgeite group—a good deal smaller than at present. There will also, we believe, be a group consisting of various types of Independent or freak " members. Their only nexus will be their inde- pendence—i.e., complete freedom from party ties—but they may quite possibly form " a sort of group," numbering twenty or thirty, and may enjoy a certain amount of unsteady influence. Finally, there will be the Labour group, which will, we presume, be next in size to the true Unionist group, but will be able to obtain office only by combining with one or more of the other groups. It will not amount to one-third of the House, but it will approach that size.
That will constitute about as bad a House for conducting the government of the country in a critical period as we can well imagine. It will not, however, be a bad House from the point of view of a political chieftain who wants individual power and individual responsibility—who wants to run the show without tiresome people like Sir George Younger being able to put on the drag or otherwise control the pace. In a word, it will be just the kind of Parlia- mentary situation which Mr. Lloyd George and a portion of his entourage consider will suit them to a T. Mr. Lloyd George will be able to pick out enough groups to form a working majority. He will then found his govern- ment on that alliance or confederation of groups, and, once having got into power, will maintain his position by means of that system of playing off one group against another in which he is unrivalled. In a word, the situation will be very much like that which we constantly see in France or in Italy. We wonder how the ordinary Unionist likes that prospect? Probably he does not believe it possible, for that is the English way. He will simply tell us that this sort of thing does not happen here, that somehow or other it will come all right at the General Election, and that we are taking the whole thing much too seriously. Of course, he may be right. We sincerely hope he is. But if he is wrong, as we fear he is, we shall find ourselves face to face with a very ugly situation—a group system in its most pronounced form. In that case we venture to say that the majority of Unionists, if not, indeed, of Englishmen, will grow very restive and will deal very faithfully with those whom they will consider to be the authors of their misery. The British- in such a mood are not pleasant people.
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