LAST MONTH

II

THE British public, unless I am much mistaken, do not trouble themselves greatly with elaborate investigations as to the electoral vicissitudes, the party conflicts, the Parliamentary debates and divisions which have signalised the Session now numbered with the dead. They are looking forwards, not backwards; they are not over-curious to ascertain the exact balance of Parliamentary profit and loss attaching either to the Ministry or to the Opposition; they are content to accept facts as they are, and they realise that the bottom fact of the situation is that the Unionist Government is still in office, and still commands the support of a formidable, though a diminished, majority. My readers, therefore, will not be disappointed if I do not attempt to discuss at any length the Licensing Bill, the Chinese immigration controversy, the Army reforms, the modification of our educational system, or the minor issues with which Parliament has been occupied, more or less unprofitably, ever since the opening of the Session. I shall content myself with dwelling on the general features of the Session which throw some light on future events rather than on particular incidents of ephemeral interest.

It has always seemed to me that partisans on either side have overlooked the main cause of the decline in popular favour which the Unionist party has undoubtedly sustained. I may, and do, doubt the magnitude of this decline, but I cannot honestly deny its existence. What I contend is that any Government would have suffered a like loss of popularity, whatever might have been their policy or whatever might have been their administrative ability. The plain truth is that we, as a nation, have, since the Boer war ended, been passing through the mauvais quart d'heure of Rabelais. The glamour of the war has passed away, the bill has had to be paid, and the British public, who has had to pay it, is out of temper, complains that the amount is excessive, and lays the blame upon the Administration under whose direction the debt was contracted. If Mr. Balfour had been, as Pitt was called by his admirers, a 'heavenborn' Minister, and if all his colleagues had been statesmen of exceptional ability, the Ministry would still have lost ground whenever the

country was called upon to make good the outlay required to bring the war to a successful termination. Owing to a variety of circumstances, most of which have little or nothing to do with the cost of the war, whether extravagant or otherwise, trade has been exceptionally stagnant for the last three years. Time after time we have seemed to be on the eve of a general recovery of public confidence, and, as a necessary consequence, of the resumption of industrial activity; and on each occasion our hopes have been blighted by some unforeseen occurrence. It is not in human nature to accept these disappointments with equanimity-and the nature of the British public is exceptionally human.

I am personally of opinion that this popular dissatisfaction would not have assumed so acute a form if a somewhat bolder line had been taken by the apologists of the Government both in the Press and in Parliament. Instead of dwelling upon the facts that the absolute necessity for the war had been proved by the course of the campaign, and that no other nation could have brought the war to a successful conclusion more rapidly or at a smaller outlay than was done by England, they took an apologetic tone and sanctioned the appointment of a commission of inquiry, which, in virtue of its composition and of our national dislike to follow the Napoleonic maxim as to washing dirty linen at home,' was certain to call public attention to any errors that may have been committed in the course of the campaign. Thus the country was led to believe that the war in South Africa had been a mistake, or that, even if it had been an absolute necessity, it had been conducted incompetently at an extravagant cost.

I need hardly say that the dissatisfaction of the man in the street' has been taken advantage of by the Opposition to undermine public confidence in the Unionist Administration. The policy adopted by the Liberals was in accordance with the rules of party government, though the party tactics of wilful misrepresentation, deliberate perversion of truth, and unjustifiable personal invective have been carried by Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, his fellow-Liberals, and his Home Rule allies to an extent hitherto unprecedented in our Parliamentary annals. I, in common with my fellow-countrymen, cannot read the accounts of how all party recriminations are tabooed in Japan during the war with Russia, and compare it with the attitude adopted by our Opposition during the war with the Boer Republics, without feeling a sense of shame. For the time being the Japanese seem to have realised the ideal ascribed to the old Romans by Lord Macaulay in his Lays of Ancient Rome, 'Then none was for a party; then all were for the State.' However, I console myself with the reflection that if government by party is once firmly established in Japan, the politicians of the Island Kingdom will soon rise or fallto our British standard of party warfare. Happily, there is a vast amount of what I may call 'suppressed good sense' amidst the British

public. They may be carried away by party clamour, but the aberration is temporary, and when they have been led into error they are not slow to realise and, if possible, to retrieve their mistakes.

The next fact to be borne in mind with regard to the past Session is that it has witnessed the collapse of the endeavour to form a cave within the Unionist party. The attempt of the Duke of Devonshire-or, more correctly speaking, of his personal followers-to bring about a schism in the Unionist party and to join the Liberals in resisting any attack upon the sacrosanct principles of Free Trade has resulted in a complete fiasco. The imbecile proposal to pass a vote of censure on the Government, which marked the end of the Session, must have dispelled any illusions which Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman and his potential colleagues in a hypothetical Ministry may have entertained of securing the co-operation of the Liberal Unionists. Anything more preposterous cannot well be conceived than the assertion that the Ministry deserved censure because Lord Lansdowne and Lord Selborne had accepted seats in the Council of the Liberal Unionist Association as reorganised and reconstructed by Mr. Chamberlain. At the division not more than one professed Liberal Unionist had the courage to vote against the Government. Indeed, the only open deserters from the Unionist cause who could screw themselves up to support the vote of censure openly in the division were the handful of Unionists who had already changed sides and removed their seats from the Ministerial benches. Amongst these malcontents the most prominent was Mr. Winston Churchill. The friends of his distinguished father, amongst whom I may venture to class myself, must feel extreme reluctance to say anything in disparagement of his son and heir; and this reluctance is increased by the fact that there is so much in the look and manner and speech of this 'Will-o'-the-wisp' of politics which recalls vividly to their memory the statesman whose career commenced so brilliantly and ended so tragically. Whatever his defects or failings may have been, Lord Randolph had a touch of genius rarely to be found among party politicians. Genius is not an hereditary possession which passes from father to son; and it would be unfair to disparage Mr. Winston Churchill because he has not as yet displayed the oratorical ability or the political insight which raised Lord Randolph almost at a bound to the leadership of the House of Commons. If I might venture to give advice, I would urge the member for Oldham to emulate his father's power of laborious study, his talent of making himself master of any subject he was compelled to take up, and his art—if art it was-of winning the confidence and the affection of his friends and colleagues. I would also advise him to study not only the causes of his father's success, but the causes of his father's failure. The advice is sound, but I have lived too long in this world of ours to expect that advice, however sound, is likely to be followed. In

this connection I may perhaps be excused if I mention a personal experience. Shortly after the historic brawl in the House of Commons, when manual violence was resorted to by the Irish Home Rulers in order to enforce their contentions, I happened to be staying at the house of a common friend with Lord Randolph. He asked me to read a letter which he proposed sending to the Times on the subject of the attitude adopted by the Government in dealing with the disturbance. The contention of the letter, which, I may add, was singularly clear and well written, was to the effect that the course of procedure employed on this occasion had not been in accordance with constitutional precedents. As I knew that at this period of his career he was extremely anxious to effect a reconciliation with the Conservative party, and to resume office in the Conservative Ministry, I ventured to point out that the appearance in print of such a letter under his own name would, to say the least, not facilitate the objects he had in view. With the curious frankness which characterised his conversation with his friends, he said at once: 'I see you are right. I shall not send the letter.' Then, after a few minutes' silence, he went on to remark: 'I wish to heaven I had shown you every public letter I have ever written before dispatching it.' I may add this was the only occasion during the years subsequent to his resignation of the Chancellorship of the Exchequer that he ever alluded in conversation with me to the letter which he dispatched to the Times without having first communicated his intended resignation to Lord Salisbury. Looking back on the past, I cannot but fancy that when he made the remark I have quoted he had begun to realise that in signing this letter in question he had, personally as well as politically, signed his own death-warrant.

I allude to this incident because the recollection of the Irish brawl I refer to has been revived by the childish demonstration made by the Opposition in the closing days of the Session. Under the new Education Act the Municipal Councils are entrusted with the duty of paying the salaries of the teachers legally appointed in Voluntary as well as Board schools. This is the law of the land, and, while it remains the law, all local authorities are bound to obey its provisions. A certain number, however, of Welsh municipalities resent the discharge of this duty on the plea that they entertain a conscientious objection to paying salaries to teachers in Church schools, as by so doing they may indirectly encourage the spread of Church of England doctrines. If I were to refuse to pay my rates in my parish, because I objected to grants being made out of the rates to various denominational institutions, the views of these demoninations not being in accordance with my own, I should have my furniture seized and sold; and if I offered any active resistance to the officers of the court, I should certainly be fined, reprimanded, and possibly sent to prison. But then I am, unfortunately, an Englishman and not a Welshman,

a member of the Church of England and not a Nonconformist, conscientious or otherwise. In order to remedy a gross public scandal and a grave infraction of the law, the Government introduced a Bill which, to put the matter briefly, gives authority to the Board of Education, supposing the recalcitrant municipalities to remain obdurate, to pay any lawful expenses incurred by the voluntary schools in the discharge of their legitimate functions, and to deduct the amounts so paid from the annual grants made to the defaulting municipalities for the purposes of local education. It is difficult to conceive of a fairer or more considerate solution of a difficulty which must be solved at once, unless the authority of the law is to be openly defied. The Liberal representatives of the Principality, however, are up in arms against this outrage on the Nonconformist conscience, and their cause has been espoused by the bulk of the English Liberals. Every effort has been made to protract discussion and so to obstruct the passing of the Bill. When the closure was applied, the Opposition felt it their duty to make a solemn protest. On the extraordinary plea that sufficient time had not been allowed to discuss the question whether the arrangements for air and light in the Welsh schools were of a thoroughly satisfactory character, the Opposition wasted three mortal hours in wrangling with the Chairman in Committee for declining to prolong the debate after closure had been voted by a majority of eightyfour: a demand which he had absolutely no power even to take into consideration. The brunt of the wrangle with the Chair was borne by Mr. Lloyd-George, who rumour says is to be President of the Board of Trade, if not of the Board of Education, when Sir Henry CampbellBannerman or Lord Rosebery becomes Prime Minister; by Mr. Guest, who was chosen member for Plymouth at the General Election as a staunch Unionist; by his cousin Mr. Winston Churchill; and by Mr. Bright, whose recent election for Oswestry is the crowning achievement of the Opposition. When the division was called, the Opposition refused as a body to leave their seats and take part in the voting. For this violation of Parliamentary procedure a number of members were named by the Chairman. If they had still declined to quit their seats, they would have had to be forcibly removed by the officials of the House. But at this prospect the courage of the Liberal stalwarts oozed away. Mr. Asquith-qu'allait-il donc faire dans cette galère ?— suggested that instead of being removed by force they should march out of the House and take no further part in the discussion’—a sorry ending to a feeble demonstration. During the Chancellorship of Lord Eldon a deputation of dissenting ministers waited upon his lordship to protest against the Test Act. When they had finished a lengthy statement of their objections, the great Tory judge simply replied, 'Gentlemen, you have made your protest, and having made it the best thing you can do is to go home to bed.' Such, I suspect, must have been the comment made in his heart by poor Mr. Asquith