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Page 7
I am not speaking of Ministers individually. Granted that some of them
have done excellent work at the heads of their several departments--I
think it would not be fair to deny that. I am thinking of their
collective policy, and especially of their legislative efforts. For
monuments of clumsy opportunism, commend me to the legislative
failures, and, for the matter of that, to most of the legislative
achievements, of the last two years.
So far so good. Unionists cannot complain of what the Government is
doing for them. And on the negative side of policy--in their duty as
a mere Opposition--their course is clear. It is a fundamental article
of their faith to maintain the authority of the Imperial Parliament in
Ireland. But that authority can be set aside by the toleration of
lawlessness just as much, and in a worse way, than by the repeal of
the Union. And such toleration is the rule to-day. There may be no
violent crime, but there is open and widespread defiance of the law
and interference with the elementary rights of law-abiding people. It
is a demoralising state of affairs, and one to which no good citizen
in any part of the United Kingdom, however little he may be personally
affected by it, can afford to be indifferent. Once let it be granted
that any popular movement, which is not strong enough to obtain an
alteration of the law by regular means, can simply set the law aside
in practice, and you are at the beginning of general anarchy.
Unionists have to fight for a restoration of the respect for law in
Ireland in the interest of the whole kingdom. And they may have to
fight also, it appears, against the abrogation of our existing
constitution in favour of a system of quinquennial dictatorships. For
that and nothing else is involved in the proposal to reduce the House
of Lords to impotence and put nothing in its place. I am not concerned
to represent the present constitution of the House of Lords as
perfect. I have always been of opinion that a more representative and
therefore a stronger second chamber was desirable. But that we can
afford to do without any check on the House of Commons, especially
since the removal of all checks upon the power of those who from time
to time control the House of Commons to rush through any measures they
please without the possibility of an appeal to the people--that is a
proposition which no man with any knowledge of history or any respect
for constitutional government can possibly defend. To resist such a
proposal as that is not fighting for a party; it is not fighting for a
class. It is fighting for the stability of society, for the
fundamental rights of the whole nation.
I say, then, that on the negative side, in the things it is called
upon to resist, the Unionist party is strong and fortunate. But are we
to be content with that? Should we not all like to feel that we
appealed for the confidence of the people on the merits of our own
policy, and not merely on the demerits of our opponents? That, I take
it, is the feeling at the bottom of what men are saying on all hands
just now--that the Unionist party ought to have a constructive policy.
Now, if by a constructive policy is meant a string of promises, a sort
of Newcastle programme, then I can well imagine any wise statesmen,
especially if they happened to be in Opposition, thinking twice before
they committed themselves to it. But if by a constructive policy is
meant a definite set of principles, a clear attitude to the questions
which most agitate the public mind, a sympathetic grasp of popular
needs, and a readiness to indicate the extent to which, and the lines
on which, you think it possible and desirable to satisfy them--then I
agree that the Unionist party ought to have such a policy. And I
venture to say that, if it has such a policy, the fact is not yet
sufficiently apparent to the popular mind, or, perhaps, I should say,
speaking as one of the populace, to my mind.
Many people think that it is sufficient for the purpose--that it is
possible to conduct a victorious campaign with the single watchword
"Down with Socialism." Well, I am not fond of mere negatives. I do not
like fighting an abstract noun. My objection to anti-Socialism as a
platform is that Socialism means so many different things. On this
point I agree with Mr. Asquith. I will wait to denounce Socialism till
I see what form it takes. Sometimes it is synonymous with robbery, and
to robbery, open or veiled, boldly stalking in the face of day or
hiding itself under specious phrases, Unionists are, as a matter of
course, opposed. But mere fidelity to the eighth Commandment is not a
constructive policy, and Socialism is not necessarily synonymous with
robbery. Correctly used, the word only signifies a particular view of
the proper relation of the State to its citizens--a tendency to
substitute public for private ownership, or to restrict the freedom of
individual enterprise in the interests of the public. But there are
some forms of property which we all admit should be public and not
private, and the freedom of individual enterprise is already limited
by a hundred laws. Socialism and Individualism are opposing
principles, which enter in various proportions into the constitution
of every civilised society; it is merely a question of degree. One
community is more Socialistic than another. The same community is more
Socialistic at one time than at another. This country is far more
Socialistic than it was fifty years ago, and for most of the changes
in that direction the Unionist and the Tory party are responsible. The
Factory Acts are one instance; free education is another. The danger,
as it seems to me, of the Unionist party going off on a crusade
against Socialism is that in the heat of that crusade it may neglect,
or appear to neglect, those social evils of which honest Socialism is
striving, often, no doubt, by unwise means, to effect a cure. If the
Unionist party did that, it would be unfaithful to its own best
traditions from the days of "Sybil" and "Coningsby" to the present
time.
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