TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE CRISIS AND THE REFERENDUM.
THE proposal to use the Referendum to obtain a solution of the present Constitutional crisis is dis- tinctly gaining ground. People on both sides are beginning to realise that the Referendum is a solution with limited liability, while a General Election is a solu- tion in which the liability is unlimited. But though public opinion on the question has advanced with extra- ordinary rapidity during the past week, there is still a considerable amount of confusion in the public mind, and even among those who might be expected to comprehend what is and what is not proposed. For example, the Manchester Guardian, which has always been in favour of the Referendum in the abstract, in its leader on Monday asks in a helpless way : " What are we to take a Referendum upon ? " It apparently has never seen, or at any rate has never understood, the specific proposal of the Spectator, which is that the Referendum must be upon the Veto Bill,— the whole Bill, and nothing but the Bill. The people must be asked in respect of a specific enactment whether they wish or do not wish that it should come into operation. The Manchester Guardian seems to think that it is seriously proposed to submit abstract Resolutions to the electorate, and on this notion remarks :— " But such a verdict when given would have no legislative force; it could, therefore, only be conclusive if both sides agreed in advance that it should be so regarded. Further, for how long should such an agreement be held to last, and what kind of majority would be required in order that it might be regarded as a sufficient demonstration of the national will. These questions WO hard to answer."
If the Manchester Guardian would only bear in mind that the proposal is not to ask for a vague expression of the opinion of the country, but to ask whether a definite piece of legislation is or is not to come into operation, it would cease to be troubled by the question it propounds. The Referendum must not be looked upon as a kind of wager between the two parties in which the Liberals say : " We bet you the people will take our view," and the Unionists : " We bet you they will take ours," but, as in Switzerland, as a definite act of assent or of veto on the part of the electors.
Another objection which is raised against the proposal to use the Referendum as a solution of the present Constitutional crisis is to be found in a statement in the British Weekly of Wednesday. The British Weekly, which, as we may remind our readers, takes the lead in opposition to the Referendum, concludes an article on the subject as follows :—" The Irish Party in this, as in other things, appear for the moment to be the true custodians of Liberal principles, for they will have nothing to do with the Referendum. That makes the discussion of the question purely academic or gladiatorial." In other words, the Irish Party will not have the Referendum at any price, and therefore it is absurd to argue about it ! That the Irish Party are determined not to have the Referendum if they can possibly help it we can well believe. They know that, the precedent once established, the Referendum would be sure to be invoked in the case of a Home- rule Bill, and also that a Home-rule Bill would be certain to be rejected by a democratic vote of the whole United Kingdom. Therefore from the Irish point of view the Referendum means no Home-rule. Even if the Referendum went in favour of the Veto Bill, the Nationalist leaders would feel that for their purpose the advantages of the Bill were wholly lost. They would have got rid of the barrier of the House of Lords to Home-rule only to establish a far more insuperable obstacle. But must we assume that the Liberal Party are so absolutely under the dominance of the Nationalists that they dare not even find a solution of a Constitutional crisis (a crisis which, we may venture to point out, causes the better men in that party quite as much trouble and anxiety as it does the Unionists) because the Nationalists take up the position they do ? We can hardly believe that the Irish tyranny is quite so complete as that. In any case, it appears to us that the Lords are not called upon to consider the relations between the Nationalists and the Government. They must leave the parties to that controversy to fight it out among themselves. If the Lords come to the conclusion .that the Referendum is the proper solUtion of the Con- stitutional crisis, it is their duty to do their best to bring about that solution without troubling themselves as to the effect of their action upon the relations between the Government and the Nationalists For ourselves, we may say that we have always foreseen this difficulty in regard to the Irish, and it is for that reason that we have urged the Lords to act by themselves and not to approach the question through elaborate negotiations between the Leaders of the Government and of the Opposition. Such negotiations are more than likely to be shipwrecked by the refusal of the Irish to give their consent. The Government if approached by the Unionists would be almost obliged to say :—" We should like to accept your plan of a poll of the people, and thus avoid the turmoil of a General Election ; but unfortunately we cannot do what we like in this matter. If we offend the Nationalists they will withdraw from us that majority in the House of Commons upon which we depend. Even if you (the Opposition) would undertake not to join with the Nationalists against us if they were to be vindictive because we had accepted the Referendum, such an undertaking would in effect be useless to us. Our programme, even if the question of the Veto Bill were got rid of by a reference to the people, involves matters so controversial that you could not give us your support for more than a few weeks, nor could you prevent the Irish from going into the same lobby with you. Therefore, unfortunately, we are not in a position to come to an agreement with you as to the Referendum."
In our opinion, the only way to meet this difficulty is for the Lords to avoid any attempt at bargaining with the Government. They should pass the Veto Bill when it reaches them without alteration, but with the addition of a clause stating that the Bill shall not come into operation until a poll of the people has been taken upon it under the rules and regulations set forth in a schedule accompanying the Referendum clause. It will then be for the House of Commons to accept or reject the Referendum clause and schedule.—An example of such a clause and such a schedule was set forth in detail by us last week.—If the Commons would not agree to the proposal to let the people decide, nothing would then remain but to proceed to a General Election. The onus of producing a state of things so undesirable would, however, in that case fall upon the Commons. The Lords would have done their best to avoid a General Election, and would have made it absolutely clear to the country, what is perhaps now not altogether clear, that they are perfectly willing, and always have been perfectly willing, that the will of the people shall prevail. If the electors insist upon having single-Chamber government, they must of course have it. All that the Lords demand is that the people shall be quite sure what they are doing, and that single-Chamber government shall not be set up against their will. As a matter of fact, we do not believe that the Commons on a vote to disagree with the Lords' additions to the Veto Bill would take the responsibility of rejecting them. We hold that publia opinion would by the action of the Lords be thoroughly awakened on this point, and would. force the Commons to avoid what the country wishes intensely to avoid,—a General Election. No doubt the Nationalists would be very greatly disgusted at the result, and would declare themselves betrayed ; but, after all, as we have said above, that is not the business of the Lords.
It will perhaps be urged that the Peers will never get the Bill before them, and that therefore they will not be able to add the reference clause and schedule to the Bill. We cannot agree. What we suggest is that when the Resolu- tions come to the Lords they should put them aside by means of a Motion stating that they do not propose to deal with them because there is a Bill on the same subject before the Commons, and going on to express the willingness of the Lords to give such Bill full consideration if it is sent up to them. In the debate on such a Motion for dealing with the abstract Resolutions the Leader of the House of Lords would of course clearly set forth the proposal to pass the Bill subject to a reference to a poll of the people. If that were done, we do not believe that the Government would dream of saying that the Lords should not have the Bill sent to them till they had swallowed the Resolutions.
Another point remains to -be considered. We do not suggest for a moment that it should be left to the Lords to settle alone the exact form of the reference, or the method by which the vote should be taken. Here of course it is absolutely necessary that there should be compromise and agreement as to the method of reference to be pursued. The form of ballot must no doubt be the question whether the Bill shall or shall not come into operation,—i.e., become law. For ourselves, we believe the wisest plan, though we admit that it is not the plan which is most favourable to the Unionists, would be to accept the neutral Parliamentary title of the Bill, and ask the electors whether it is their will that an Act entitled " The Parliament Bill, 1910," should come into operation. Next, it would have to be decided whether the Bill should be rejected by a majority of the votes polled, or by an absolute majority of the voters entitled to vote. In our opinion, a majority of the votes polled should be sufficient. Under any system of voting you have always the risk of coming down to the odd. man, and we should be prepared to settle the matter on these lines. Though theoretically it might be better to say that no Bill should be deemed to have received the assent of the people unless an absolute majority of the electors had voted in its favour, we hold that it would be advisable to accept the decision of those voting. Here, however, is matter for compromise and discussion rather than for party dogmatism.
One word more. It is clear that in the case of the Referendum the principle of " One man one vote " should prevail, and that plural voting cannot be allowed. The main reason for maintaining plural voting at Parlia- mentary elections is that it to some extent makes up for the monstrous inequality in the value of votes which exists under our present system. As long as Ireland has forty Members more than her fair share and London and its suburbs forty less, the proposal to introduce the principle of " One man one vote," but to allow the value of a vote in Ireland to be some five or six times more than it is in London, is preposterously unjust. In the case of the Referendum, however, all votes would have the same value, and therefore the principle of " One man one vote " should prevail.
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