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POLITICUS.
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PARTY
NOT FACTION.
The Necessity for National
Govemment.
The Need for Coalition.
BY
POLITIGUS.
Published at 25-27, Old Queen Street, 8.W. 1.
^
I'iZO
CONTENTS.
P^ Introduction
5^ I. — Party in the War
, II.— The General Election
Qi III. — The Achievement of the Coalition
*" IV. — Some Criticisms Considered
V. — All Government a Species of Coalition
VI. — Party Composites
^/II. — Summary and Conclusion
C3
^Index
page
2
4
7
14
23
30
35
43
49
19595)
38G7'8i:
A 2
ANALYSIS OF THE ARGUMENT.
The object of this pamphlet is to show that it is our
duty to support the Coahtion Government, not only as good
Britons but also as good party men, Liberal, Conservative,
or for that matter, Labour.
The writer begins by explaining the origins and motives
of Coalition in the war. He denies that there is a hard and
fast hne to be drawn between the politics that make for
success in war and in peace. — (Chapter i.)
He proceeds to indicate the hidden dangers that threatened
the country at the Armistice and to show that in holding
an early General Election and in continuing the Coalition
Mr. Lloyd George followed the only course consistent with
honour and national safety. The pohcy of the Coalition is
discussed and it is shown that Mr. Lloyd George was morp
faithful to Liberal principles than their official representatives.
— (Chapter 2.)
In the next Chapter the writer passes in review the achieve-
ments of the Coalition both at home and abroad and reaches
the conclusion that the work of the past two years has been
greater and more beneficent than that of any Government in
our history. — (Chapter 3.)
The writer then deals with certain general charges that have
been brought against the Government, and shows that no
t party Government could have accomplished the task or
have given us peace at home or abroad. — (Chapter 4.)
He proceeds to vindicate the principle of coaHtion in
politics. He shows that no Government but a Coalition,
no Coahtion but this Coalition, is possible. He discusses
other varieties of Coalition and incidentally criticises the
constitution and policy of the Labour party. Finally, he
demonstrates that all Government is a form of Coalition and
that the real alternatives are between coahtion that is secret
and camouflaged and coalition that is open and honest like
the present. — (Chapter 5.)
In the next chapter he makes a rapid sketch of party
history showing how much of the great work in our history
has been done by Coalition and how both the older parties
are composite in their character. Disraeli is shown to be
the Tory-Radical, Gladstone the Liberal Tory. A some-
what new view is presented of the place of Radicahsm
ahke in the Conservative and in the Liberal party, and
there are judgments passed on Chatham and Pitt, Chamberlain
and the present Prime Minister, whom he regards as
representatives of the Radical spirit that is the bond of
connection between the Liberal and Conservative parties. —
(Chapter 6.) *>
A final section summarises the whole argument. —
(Chapter 7.)
PARTY, NOT FACTION.
' INTRODUCTION.
The Comradeship of Party.
Coalition is often charged with disloyalty to party and to-
party principles, and the charge is a grave one, especially in
this country, where so much value is rightly attached to the
discipline and comradeship of party. In no country is the joy
of the fight so keen as in this, or invested with so many and
such estimable moral virtues, and nowhere else are its obliga-
tions considered so binding. It is nature's corrective of the
individualism of the race, which otherwise might seed to
anarchy, that this should be so, and that' in all our contests,
whether of field games or politics, the side is rightly held to
count for so much and the individual, comparatively, for so
little. And a great part of our educational system is designed
to encourage this same spirit of unselfishness and loyalty.
Coalition the guide not the enemy of party loyalty.
But it is not true that coalition undermines the
obligations of party and of what party stands for. If it
were so, and a combination formed for the general good could
be proved to be inimical to party, then so much the worse
for party which by that argument would be setting up its
own interest against that of the State. But in fact the most
important motive of coalition is that it is a more effective
instrument of policy than any one party has at its
command. And not of national policy only but of party
policy too. Even party principles may have a better chance
in the keeping of a coalition than in the splendid isolation of
one party. True, a coalition supersedes a great deal of party
controversy but only as the husk is rejected in order to get
at the kernel.
Our countrymen w\\i with difficulty give up the conception
of politics as the noblest of all contests, nor, if only we purge
it of its follies, is there any reason why they should. When
pure and ardent souls complain of party warfare, it is not
because they want to get rid of parties, or could do so if they
would, but because they want new parties ; not that they
dislike conflict, but because they want the conflict ration-
alised ; not tliat they are indifferent to party as an instrument
of good, but because they want its issues to be remodelled and
brought into closer relation to reality- Alike fo youthful
ardour about to apply itself to politics and to party veterans
anxious to re-temper their steel, coalition has its message
of encouragement. To the one it offers a freer choice of
ideas and method? and a simpler litany of service to the
country ; to the others a new edge to their principles and
more effectual methods of advancing them.
The need of Revising Party Issues.
For there is no final revelation in politics, and one good
principle in public affairs, like one good custom in morals,
may corrupt the State, Without periodical revision of
their issues, party politics lose aU their dignity and
degenerate into faction. Hume observes of the British that
in their European wars they were such ardent fighters that
they commonly forgot wiiat they were fighting for, and went
on flirting after the original subjects of quarrel had long been
decided. It is true also of our domestic wars. Sometimes
the fighting is for fighting's sake, a mere biting of thumbs by
one half of the nation at the other half. Sometimes the party
principles round which the combat is engaged are so divorced
from the realities of public life that the very word " prin-
ciple '* falls into contempt — a mere danger signal that
some egregious nonsense is approaching. Sometimes party
controversy is only the blowing up of dying embers by idle
men to keep their old bones wami, sometimes it is a merely
concerted sulking without any discoverable subject of real
quarreL This is the sort of party warfare that coalition
seeks to end. But of part}'' in the sense of Burke's definition
of it, as a bodj^ of men seeking by their joint endeavours to
sen'e.vthe national interest upon some particular principle on
which the3v'' are all agreed, coalition is not the destroyer but
the fulfilment-
The Theme of this Pamphlet.
The object, then, of these pages is to show that Coalition
satisfies Burke's definition of party, that it is the indis-
pensable instrument of national v/elfare, and that it
comes nearer to wiiat the majority of Liberals and Con-
servatives and perhaps the majority of" Labour men want
than aiiything tiiey can find within their seveiai it^ilies.
(9595) "
4
I.
PARTY IN THE WAR.
Why the First Coalition was formed.
For several years before the war party controversy had
been running high, but the outbreak of hostilities imme-
diately stilled it. A few there were who still clung to our
old isolation from European conflicts, but they remained
silent when the war had begun and their views, it is to be
noted, were not distinctively Liberal or Conservative, but
were a survival from the old principle of non-intervention,
which in the eighteenth century was Tory, was after the end
of the Great War adopted by the more advanced wing
of the Liberal party and was from time to time acted
on quite impartially by both Liberals and Conservatives,
From beginning to end of the war there was not a single issue
of the old party controversies that gave any trouble. Was
it because they were dead or dying ?
The first Coalition was formed not because the old
subjects of quarrel were emerging,'but because it was thought
that a combination of parties would give more drive to
the conduct of the war. It was all done in the cause of
efficiency and national unity, and Mr. Asquith, then Prime
Minister, not only consented to the Coalition, but professed
eagerness for its formation. " It was on my advice," he
said at Glasgow just before the Armistice, " that, a little
more than three years ago, a Coalition Government was
formed. I think it was good advice." The occasion of the
formation of the First Coalition was the discovery that the
war was likely to last a long time, and would be a war fought
not only by soldiers but by the workmen of the country.
It was Mr. Lloyd George who first grasped the principle
which, though obvious enough now, was novel to our
countrymen then, that in such a war there were no
civilians but only two kinds of belligerents, industrial
and military. It was little more than an incident in this
portentous discovery that the British High Command, still
absurdly sanguine of the early termination of the war, chose
to throw on an insufficient supply of high explosive shells
the blame for the failure of our premature attempts to break
through the German lines of 19 15. The first Coalition arose
out of the perception of the truth that in such a war there
could be no spectators but all must be workers, just as the
present Coalition rests on the conviction that peace after
such a cataclysm demands united effort like the war, and
that the problems of peace, though different in kind, are as
difficult and as dangerous as those of war.
Conscription and^the Paris Resolutions.
The formation of this first CoaUtion had two sequels.
If all were belligerents, it followed that whether they were
employed in the military army or in the industrial army was
a question not of principle but of convenience and efficiency.
Sir John Simon, who made conscription a question of statistics,
had no place in a war Government and very properly left
it. The other sequel was the economic resolutions of the Paris
Conference from which it appeared that even business could
not, any more than human beings in the trenches in France
or in. the factories at home, survey the war from an opera
box. Mr. Runciman, an ardent Free-trader, recognised that
quite clearly ; indeed not to have done so would have been
to place Cobdenism on a pinnacle higher than victory and
security after the war and to love economic theory more
than flesh and blood.
Unity and Efficiency the Motives of the Second
Coalition.
When towards the end of 1916 the Second Coalition
Government was formed it was again for no reasons of
party but for the more efficient prosecution of the war.
New issues were emerging which made it desirable that
more rapid and clearer-cut decisions should be taken
than was possible in a large Cabinet meeting, where the
variety and diversity of views made for delay and ineffectual
compromise. All of them were comprised in the single
conception of unity — not mere agglutination of parties
but organic unity in which all local and sectional differences
were fused — unity in the decisions of the Cabinet, unity
on the western front between the &-itish and the French
armies, unity between the claims of the East and West.
It was the ideal of the Coalition internationalised and so
to speak raised to the square and the cube. It was odd
that Mr. Asquith who approved coahtion of domestic parties
should have looked so coldly on the same policy applied to
the military problems of the war, and even have seemed to
encourage particularism in our strategical direction and the
competitive rivalry of the different theatres of war. , As
though the vested interests and unrestrained competi-
tion which Liberalism condemned in the civil order were
not even more dangerous in the ghastly community
of war ! Except that Mr. Lloyd George carried out more
remorselessly that resistance to sectional usurpation which
Liberalism had so often preaclied, and that his Liberalism
was more thoroughgoing, there were no political differences
between him and Mr. Asquith. Differences of temperament
(9595) b2
and methods there were. Mr. Asquith conceived his office
as that of chairman and arbitrator between opposing sections.
Mr. Lloyd George on the other hand knew that a hybrid
compromise is commonly barren, and sought unity by the
mastery of a single idea. If there were further differences,
they arose out of the fact that Mr. Lloyd George had less
faith in the old bureaucracy and attached gi'eater importance
to new men and new methods — in other words, that he had
the admixture of Radicalism in his political composition
which Mr. Asquith lacked.
Peace in War aind War in Peace.
It is not irrelevant to the purpose to remind ourselves
of these war- difficulties, for it is part of the case for the Coali-
tion that there is no hard and fast line to be drawn between
the politics that make for success in war and in peace. Wai"
itself as we have learned in the. last five j^ears, is won as much
by civilian virtues as by those that are commonly regarded
as purely military ; and, conversely, peace too is a war
upon evil and, though its metliods and incidents fortxmately
differ, it has a sti"ategy of its own, and makes the same demand
for union in the face of the enemy between these who have
a common desire to serve. Why should we concede as the
monopoly of war the qualities of energy, directness and of
loyalty between all good citizens that will make for
victory in that war against domestic evil which is peace
politics? Why deny to love of one's o^nni people what
we yield so freely to hate of a foreign enemy ?
Coalition principles won the War.
Undoubtedl}^ the principles of Coalition, directing the
energy of the Allied armies and navies, won the war. Tliere
could have been no victory in the land war but for the unity
of front and (for this was a corollary) the unity of commandL
There could have been no victory at sea over the submarine
campaign but for the rationing system and the Ministries of
Food and Shipping. Nor, seeing that no nation ever lost
a war but by believing it to be lost, would our endurance
have lasted so long if the union of parties had not organised
our faith in victory and prevented any doubts in the justice
of our cause. * For throughout 1917, the critical year of the
Second Coalition, the Germans were active in their attempts
to snatch a favourable peace b)^ dividing the Allies or by
insinuating pohtical and moral doubts ; and against this
danger the Coalition was the only sure fortification.
Who did and who did not follow the British example.
It was in this countrj^ thanks to Mr. Lloyd George, that
coaHtion was most complete and that its logical implications
were most clearly understood. All parties were asked to
join the Coalition and except the Irish Nationalists all were
represented in the Government. Many other countries
followed the British example — Canada, Australia, New
Zealand, France, Italy and later even countries like Denmark
and Sweden which, though neutral, were near the track of the
storm. But other countries did not and their example was a
warning. One of them was the United States, with results
that will be seen presently. Another, and a terrible example,
was Russia which not only did not form a coalition of
parties, but of set purpose and in furtherance of a political
theory established a tyranny of one section of the people
over the rest. In consequence she suffered both defeat
and disgrace and prolonged the miseries and ruin of war by
two years. Yet another example was Germany herself.
Germany was in process of military defeat when she sued for
an armistice, but her defeat was far from complete, and, if
war were merely a trial of physical strength she might doubt-
less have kept up the struggle for some months longer. But
defeat is moral long before it is physical, and what was
wrong with Germany and forced her leaders to anticipate
by negotiation her complete physical breakdovv'n was that
her people had lost all hope of victor}^, all belief in their
cause, and all confidence in their masters. There is a sense,
if not his sense in which Ludendorff was right in maintaining
that the causes of the German breakdown were political
and moral. Had the German constitution admitted a
coalition Government the breakdown might have been post-
poned, and perhaps the first indication of the internal maladies
that ensured her defeat was given in the corrupt mis-
management of her rationing system which sowed the seeds
of disloyalty between classes and of revolution later,
II.
THE GENERAL ELECTION.
The hidden dangers of National Union.
Meanwhile underneath the Coalition there was a great
deal of subterranean activity. It was the work of minorities,
but no one could be sure how powerful they were or would
become when peace released the taboo under which they lay.
In the Labour Party there was a minority, strong in
ability if not in numbers, which did not believe either in
the possibility or in the policy of military victor^' and
favoured a peace of accommodation. There was further a
rudimentary party in the country which hoped for revolution
on Russian principles. There were Liberals in whose simple
eyes Mr. Lloyd George had committed an unforgiveable sin
by allying him.self with Conservatives even for the higher
cause of the countr}^ and there were other Liberals who,
while in general sympathy with Coalition, wished to bring the
Prime Minister back to the Party as a lieutenant or,
failing that, to exclude him from the goodwill of the
Liberal name. No one could gauge the strength of these
currents of feeling or guess to what strange extremes the
rebound from the strain of war might not carry the
country. The Armistice brought no relaxation of
anxiety, but merely changed its geography.
Why the Asquithians came to grief at the
General Election.
Most of the critics were willing to concede that Coalition
was necessary during the war and had justified itself in the
result. But the price of this grudging certificate of good
service was that it should now expire and be no more heard of
for good or ill. On this view the sins of the Coalition began
with the Armistice. With the cessation of hostilities the
excuse for its existence disappeared and the primary duty of
politicians was to "get back to normal conditions," which
apparently ' meant ringing out the new world and ringing in
the old. That at any rate seems to have been the view taken
by the Asquithian group after the General Election. But
just before the Armistice Mr. Asquith had used these
words : Negotiations and the arrangements for peace
will raise a crop of the most delicate and difficult questions.
In my judgment it is all important — as important as it has
been at any stage in the prosecution of the war — that we
should continue, until it is all over, to preserve an unbroken
national front." What had happened between these words
and the definite breaking of the national front by the re-
appearance of the Asquithian group as a Party of opposi-
tion ? The General Election. On Mr. Lloyd George was
laid the responsibility for the debacle of the Asquithians in
that election. But why on Mr. Lloyd George }
There had been differences of opinion between the Prime
Minister and the Asquithian group on the conduct of the war,
but none of the old Party issues which the war had sent to sleep
had yet awakened. There was apparently nothing at issue
except the fact that one group was called Liberal and the
other Coalitionist. But while no one was asked to cease to
be a Liberal (or a Conservative) as a condition of member-
ship of the Coalition Party, membership of the Asquithian
group was confined to those who abjured the name of
Coalitionist. The plain cause of the official Liberal disaster
was that whUe the country wanted union and identified
the Coalition Party with that union, the Asquithians went
into the election believing that neither did the country want
union nor if it did that it identified the Coalition with union.
It was one of the greatest tactical blunders ever made in
politics. It was also bitterly unjust both to Mr. Lloyd George
and to the Liberal cause. He had proved the vigour and
sincerity of his political faith, and if he was also working
with Concervatives in a cause which all parties had equally
at heart that was no reason why Liberals should decline
to help but the best of reasons why they should stand by his
side. Official Conservatives did with perhaps less to gain
than the official Liberals had ; and there was nothing apparent
to prevent the Asquithians from doing the same. Many did
not. Wliat was the reason ? A genuine conscientious disbelief
in union ? Or the exclusiveness of a priesthood, who
interpreted their great faith as bigots interpret their Koran,
taking all the blessings to themselves and flinging all the
curses to their neighbours ?
Objections to Delaying the General Election.
It is interesting to examine the alternatives that were
before the Prime Minister after the Armistice. He might,
in the first place, as M. Clemenceau did in France, have
concluded the Peace before consulting the electorate,
and on grounds of mere party and personal convenience there
was much to be said for that course. It would have had
ob\4ous advantages to wait until political issues shaped
themselves more clearly and the main tendencies of the
people's peace mind were apparent. But to this course
there were grave public objections. " We have a House
of Commons," said Mr. Asquith in September, 1918, " in
whose arteries and veins the old blood is drying up and the
new blood is not free to flow. It is through no fault of its
own a growingly impotent body in which even criticism
is severely restrained and there is no place for constructive
power." Was Mr. Lloyd George, at a time of grave
domestic difficulty, with the defacement of war visible on
every buttress of the State and a new political alchemy at
work in men's minds to leave the country without a policy
and without a Parliament that could speak for it ? That
would have been treason to representative government
and might have discredited it for ever. But supposing he had
adopted this plan and had deferred the election until the
peace had been concluded, was the Treat}^ to be submitted to
the old Parliament, made more decrepit by another bed-ridden
10
year, or to the new ? In the first alternative, what was its
approval of the Treaty worth ? And in the second, would
it not have been a direct encouragement to the Germans to
dispute the authority of the Supreme Council in the hope
that the break up of the party union would give them their
opportunity ? That was what happened in the United States.
The case of America.
True, there was no Coalition in the United States, for
Mr. Wilson went to Paris after having declined to accept the
suggestion that he should take with him some representative
of the Republican party from the Senate, and it may be said
that Mr. George, being the hea.6 oi a Coalition party, need
not have feared that the Treaty would be the subject of a
party controversy. Perhaps not, if tliKS Coalition had endured.
But surely the sole motive of those who wished to postpone the
election until after the Peace was that the hope that the
Coalition would not endure and that the election would be
fought on the old party lines. In that case, there was (from
the national point of view) a risk ; (from the partisan point of
view, a hope) that what happened in the United States would
happen here, and that what the unity of the Coalition had
done the triumph of party faction would undo, leaving to our
Allies the responsibility for executing a Treaty which we
had helped to draft, and even to impose upon them against
their wishes.
" These things are not done."
So little concealment was made of the hope that the
Coalition would break up if the election were delayed that
Mr. Lloj^d George has even been blamed for not himself
demolishing the house he had built. The idea apparently
was that, with or without an immediate General Election, he
should have broken up the Coalition into its component parts,
and said " Good-bye " to those who had worked with him to
\yin the war. Mr. Lloyd George in his Manchester speech
in December, 19 19, had a memorable passage on that strange
suggestion : —
" Would he (Rlr. Asquith) have gone to his Unionist coUeagiies
and said to them ' You have he'pf d me to win the war. You have
served the country faithfully. Now, I need you no longer, and
therefore I would asli you to go. The time has come for resuming
party war. You have done well. You have served England well
and truly. Give it up. I want it' for Liberals.' "
And, having said that to Unionist colleagues, was Mr. Lloyd
George then to go to his Asquithian friends, and say to
them,
II
" Forgive mc, I have strayed outside the inner circles
of your venerable temple to fight the enemy and I have made
friends even with the outer barbarians. With their help I
have defeated the enem}', saved my country, and incidentally
saved your temple. I am no more worthy to be one of j^ou.
Now make me as one of the servants of your Urim and
Thummim. I bring my repentance, and in token of it I
have thrown down the High Places where I worshipped the
false gods of National Unit}^ and Political Reason. Let me
lay at your feet the trophies of my labours in partibus
infideUnm."
What they might have done.
These things are not done. But, on the other hand,
would it not have been easy for Asquithians to go to Mr.
Lloyd George and say " You have not only served your
country but in doing so you have also saved our Liberal
faith, here and all over the world, from strangulation. Your
methods were not ours, but they have succeeded. If we
can help 3'ou in the difficult times that lie ahead to make the
world safe for freedom, and thereby serve both our country
and our party, we will." They did not. The Conservatives,
^^dser in their generation, did. V/as the cynic who observed
that the worst of high principles was that their possession
made it unneeessary to act upon them thinking of the
Asquithians ? Faith without works is dead.
Clearly the alternatives of postponing the election until
the Coalition had broken up, or of breaking up the Coalition
immediately and then holding a general election were un-
thinkable. Mr. Lloyd George followed the only course con-
sistent with honour, with logic, or with the interests of the
country. He had the general election as soon as it was
possible to design the foundations of a Peace Coalition,
and by doing so was able to go to the Peace Conference
as the representative not merely of a Government but of
the people's will. If Asquithians suffered, it was by
their mismanagement, not by the Prime Minister's fault.
Mr. Lloyd George saw to it that Liberal principles did
not suffer.
The Coalition Manifesto of November, 1918.
It was otie of the drawbacks of an immediate appeal to
the countPy' that the policy of the Third Coalition could
only be laid down in outline. Yet it was neither vague nor
indefinite, and it is worth while examining the joint manifesto
which Mr. Lloyd George and Mr. Bonar Law issued on Novem-
ber 22nd on behalf of the Coalition. This manifesto embodied
(9595) c
12
the heads of agreement set out in a letter written by Mr. Lloyd
George to Mr. Bonar Law on November 2nd, and first made
public at a meeting of the Unionist Party on November 12th.
It began by declaring that the unity of the nation which had
won the war must not be relaxed in peace if the problems
that the war had bequeathed were to be handled with the
courage and promptitude demanded by the times. The
Asquithians never seemed to grasp the fact that this was not
amiable commonplace, but was meant in deadly earnest.
They thought that if they subscribed in a general way to
the principle of unity that was as much as ought to be asked of
them. They had done as much during the war, but it had not
prevented them from aiding, so far as they were able, the
particularism of command which nearly lost us the war, and
from resisting that conception of the war as one single front
which won it. But unity which was only a loose tacking
together of elements that would catch on any snag, and tear
asunder was, however magnificent the names it might give
itself, mere selfish opportunism, and Mr. Lloj^d George had no
use for it. The unity that the times demanded must be
organic and there must be some guarantee of permanence,
at any rate until the back of the task had been broken. Other-
wise it would be a patent sham. That some Liberals to whom
unity was not a passionate ideal but a verbal toy should still
have thought that they had claims upon Mr. Lloyd George and
tried to offset purely personal and party considerations against
a lofty conception of national duty, shows what deep inroads
the spirit of faction had made in the political life of the nation,
and how flimsy and frivolous the stufi of purely party politics
was in danger of becoming.
The programme of the third Coalition may be exhibited
under some five heads. The first was demobilisation and
the care of returning soldiers and sailors. This was
acknowledged as a "primary obligation of patriotism," and
special industrial training and land settlement were promised
for returning soldiers and sailors.
The second head was the making of peace and the pro-
visions of guarantees for its permanence. Chief amongst
these guarantees was the reduction of armaments and the
formation of a league of Nations " which may serve not only
to ensure society against the calamitous results of militarism
but to further a peaceful mutual understanding between the
associated peoples."
Then, thirdly, having by these means secured the founda-
tions of liberty at home, the new Government declared its
belief in self-government for Ireland and for India.
" The Cabinet has already defined in unmistakable language
the goal of British policy in India to be the development of
responsible government by gradual stages. To the general
terms of that Declaration we adhere and propose to give
effect."
Of Ireland the manifesto wrote that until is problem was
settled there could be no political peace either in the United
Kingdom or in the Empire. Two paths were barred, separa-
tion from the Empire and the forcible submission of the six
counties to a Home Rule Parliament, but all other paths to
self-goveriunent were to be explored.
Fourthly, domestic, social and political reforms
were promised. The constitution of the House of Lords
was to be changed so as to make it more truly repre-
sentative and to give it direct contact with the people, and
all existing inequalities of the law as between men and
women were to be removed. The amelioration of their
lot was promised to those who lived by manual toil — more
and better houses, larger opportunities of education,
improved conditions of employment, and application
of the experience of the war to the. regulation of the liquoi
traf&c.
Lastly, under the fifth head came a number of items of
reform, all designed to increase the wealth and prosperity
of the country and to redeem the losses of the war. In-
creased production must necessarily be the basis of all
schemes for the improvement of the condition of the people
and with this object Government control of industry
was to be removed at the earliest possible moment, and
waste was to be redeemed by economical production of
power and light by organisation of the railways and by a
number of other economical investments. Agriculture
v»as to be developed. The fiscal policy of the country was
to remain unchanged subject to the application of the lessons
of the war to key industries, to the prevention of dumping
and to the grant of a preference to the colonies on existing
duties and on duties subsequentl}^ imposed. At the same
time there was to be no fresh taxation of food or raw
materials and therefore no preference on these articles.
Such in outline was the policy of the new Coalition. Two
observations are to be made upon it. The fi st is that it
does not profess to do more than state the principles on
(9595) .02
14
which the new Government proposed to act. It was im-
possible to do more immediately after the Armistice than in-
dicate principles and briefly how they might work out. The
execution must depend on circumstances and to criticise the
Government because it was unable to see in detail how they
would work out is to apply a standard never applied to any
Government in the past. Secondly, the programme was not
an eclectic compromise between the two party plat-
forms, but a new programme. Fiscal policy, it is true,
was avowedly a compromise, for Mr. Lloj^d George remained
a Free Trader and Mr. Bonar Law a Protectionist t^ but it
was a compromise that ceded the victory to neither of the
two opposing views, and did not profess to be more than
provisional until such time as the country had got back to
its normal state. For the rest, not only the bottles but
the vintage itself was new.
Ill
THE ACHIEVEMENT OF THE COALITION.
The mere catalogue of the Government's work since the
General Election might easily run to a length that would
unduly delay the argument of these pages. It is sufficient
for the purpose to show that the Coalition has been loyal
to the policy of the Manifesto, that, tested by the volume
of work, it has been the most efficient instrument of
Government ever known in this country, and that
throughout Mr. Lloyd George has not only done nothing
that the most earnest Liberal should not have done,
but far more than he or any other Liberal could have
done except as head of the Coalition.
The Coalition ahead of its Schedule.
It is less than two years since the Third Coalition Govern-
ment came into power, and the programme of work given
out in the Manifesto was intended to cover the normal life
of a iParliament. Already with an expectation of life of
three years the Third Coalition has attacked all the problems
indicated in the Manifesto except the Reform of the House
of Lords and its liquor legislation. It is well ahead of its
schedule, and if the plan of work mapped out in the Manifesto
is not completed within the life of the present Coalition it
will not be through the default of the Government, but
because the principles of the Coalition have shown such
fertility and its methods have so impressed the country by
15
their efficiency that the work will necessarily have to be con-
tinued to prevent a grave set-back in the evolution of our
politics.
Half a World in Ruins.
It is characteristic of heroes that they do not know
how great their deeds are, and are never conscious of the
spacious romance of their days. The British heroes who
fought in the war underrated alike the magnitude of their
sei-vices to their country and the immensity of the destruction
they dealt amongst their enemies. They literally pulled
down half the world, and yet when flatterers told them that
the world would be as before', only better, after a night's
rest, they believed them — a modesty which, however becoming
to the individual hero, was very unjust to the statesmen who
had the building up of the ruins for their task. And what
ruins ! Of all the charges made against the Supreme Council
and the British representatives upon it that of dilatoriness is
surely the most unreasonable. Austria, ->the decadent
descendant of Old Rome through the Holy Roman Empire,
was broken into fragments, Turkey the destroyer of the
Roman Empire of Constantinople had at last paid the
penalty of her crimes and her treachery, Germany who
had aimed at the overlordship of the world, was, if not
prostrate, on her knees, and broken in spirit if not in
resources. So terrible was the penalty of challenging the
might of Britain and affronting the conscience of liberty !
1815 AND 1919.
As though that v/ere not enough, Russia seemed about to
break up into her component parts and to perish under
anarchic tyranny. In the state of Europe and Asia in the
year following the Armistice you could see the strata of a
thousand years of history jostled and jumbled as though by a
gigantic earthquake. By comparison, the havoc wrought by
the Napoleonic Wars was local and superficial. Napoleon
abdicated on April 4th, 18 14, the Treaty of Paris was signed
in May, the Congress of Vienna began to sit in September,
its labours were interrupted by the escape of Napoleon and
the Hundred Days, and the Second Treaty of Paris was
signed on November 29th, 1815, eighteen months from
the abdication. Yet the work of peace-making then com-
pared with what had to be done in this war was in territorial
magnitude alone as a province to a continent.'^ Then there
were four stable monarchies against one unstable ; now the
Hi
pioportions weasc almost revei-sed. Then it was sufficient
for the purpose in hand to satisfy a few plenipotentiaries
with no one to please but themselves, now there were a bundle
of principles — often contradictory — to be enforced and
reconciled with each other. It was the difference between the
summary processes of a family council and the elaborate
complications of a court of justice. Then we had no thought
of constructing a new world ; now nothing less would satisfy
the conscience of mankind. And yet sorae are found to com-
plain that the modern work took as long or nearly as long
as the jobbing repairs done in 1815. There are worse vices
than impatience, but none quite so unreasonable.
The peace of ihe world has not yet been established nor
will it be for another two years. But the wonder is not
that anything should remain to be done but that so much
should have been done in the time. Less than two years
ago the German Emperor still thought of himself as Caesar,
Kaiser and Czar. Now there is no Kaiser and the peril of
Csesarism has vanished too. Germany is no longer an
Empire including Frenchmen, Poles and Danes within its
government, but a commonwealth of none but Germans.
Her SLvmy is little more than a Constabulary and disarmament
beyond this limit. is in rapid progress. Reparation for the
ravages of war is not merely promised but is now being
arranged in its details. A new state of Poland was
called into being as a buffer between Germany and the great
enigma of Russia, and as satisfaction of a great national
ideal, long starved in oppression and chicane.
In Austria two new states have been created in Bohemia
and Southern Slavia. Turkey (except for a nominal sovereignty
at Constantinople) has been restricted to her highlands of
Anatolia, and the void thus created has been filled by
the emergence of a Greater Greece, by the revival of the
Arab nationality, and by the formation in Palestine of
the nucleus of a future Jewish state. In addition the
framework of a new international policy and a future
confederation of Europe has been made in the League of
Nations. Any one of a score of items in the Peace Treaties
has enough political stuff in it to stretch over a decade of the
old politics. Verily, we are better men than our forbears, and
our little finger is stronger than their biceps.
British Statesmanship at Paris.
It is an error to regard these results as the wild fruits of
the battle-field. True, without the victories of the army and
navy none of these things could have been done ; but, equally
17
by themselves the batons of field-marshals put forth no
blossoms. If the peace terms represent victory not only
over the GeiTnans, but also over the vices of the old
iatemational pohtics, this second victory vvas the v/ork of
statesmanship alone, and achieved in circumstances of quite
extraordinary difficulty. Not osiy did Russia, whose govern-
ment was an inverted Kaiserisra and in its conteiapt for law
was waging war on the principles of the League Covenant,
threaten to become an open enemy at any moment, but the
United States, torn bj^ party strife, found herself unable to
take any share in carrying the pohcy that she had strongly
urged. Not only was it by no means certain that Germany
would accept the terms of the Peace, but before these doubts
had been resolved our military power had been reduced by
demobilisation to such an extent that other factors than
military force were relied upon ia our diplomacy.
Fraj^ce was sceptical of the value of the League Covenant,
and on many disputed points of policy was less hberally
incHned than we were. That the demobilisation went
on rapidly in spite of all doubts about the attitude of
Germany, thereby saving enormous sums of money and
the risk of popular discontent, that the Treaty emibodied
the distinctively British conceptions of a reign of law in
international affairs, and of limiting arcnaments and
substituting voluntary service for conscription, that it
preserved intact our alliance with France and that no
shot had to be fired in the west after the conclusion of
the Armistice — these results were achieved by diplomacy
rather than by the show of physical strength. The truth
is, after the process of demobilisation our diplomatic
operations had to be conducted on credit — credit for
which the coalition of parties was our chief security.
The Case of Russia.
There were flaws in the diplomatic triumph, it is true, and
the worst was Russia. Few people will deny now that much
trouble would have been saved if Mr. Lloyd George's first
proposals for a Conference at Prinkipo had been accepted, or
if the opportunity that offered later, after the defeat of
Denikin, had been taken.
Mr. Lloj^d George well knew the risks on the side of Russia,
and nothing happened later that was not foreseen by him as
a possible and even probaHe development. It is a popular
fallacy that when an ideal course is not taken, the obstacle
is i^orance or badness. The melancholy fact is that our
iS
ideals are not a disciplined army that marches to order. As often
as not, they fight with each other, and it was so in this
Russian business. The ideal of making peace with Russia
on these occasions could not be brusqued without risk of
grave injury to that cordial co-operation with France which
was the keystone of the arch.- We had to adopt a course
that was not most to our liking lest far worse danger befell.
Nor was Russia the cnly instance.
Why the Turkish Settlement was Delayed.
Many of our difficulties in the East were due to the delay
in drafting and enforcing the settlement ; and the critics
have denounced the perils of delay, forgetting that Mr.
Lloyd Georges whole career has been a living denunciation
of them. No one knew better than he that international
affairs do not arrange themselves in a queue and wait patiently
for their turn. Yet some questions have to be taken first and
some have to wait. In keeping Turkey to the end Mr. Lloyd
George was certainly not acting from selfish motives, for he
knew that this country, as the greatest Eastern power, would
in any case be the chief sufferer by delay. He took the
risk in the hope, which seemed reasonable, that the United
States would associate herself in the care of the new liberty
in the East. His hopes were disappointed by the out-
break of faction which Ameiica would have avoided had Mr.
Wilson taken the precaution of substituting a Coalition
Government for a Party Government.
The Immense Pace of Coalition Reform.
We pass from the achievement of the British Coalition
at Paris to our colonial and domestic polic}^ There never
have been two years in our history in which the volume of
legislation has been so great or so alive with new and far-
reaching principles. The international settlement tele-
scoped into less than two years a settlement which after
the end of the Napoleonic Wars stretched its length over
half a century from the Congress of Vienna to the estab-
lishment of the kingdom of Italy. Similarly in our
domestic affairs a mass of new laws, each of which
under the old party system would have been big enough
to take a whole session and then perhaps have
reached the Statute Book so mauled and maimed as
to be almost unrecognisable, was passed smoothly
and rapidly into law. It would be, if not just, at any
rate intelligible criticism, that too much was attempted
at once and that the Government would have consulted
its own interests (though not that of the country) if it
19
had been slower and more cautious, and insisted on these
questions standing in a queue and taking their turn. The
Government took the risk of the unpopularity to which
rapid legislation usually exposes its promoters because it
realised how vast were the stores of political explosives that
had been accumulating during the war and how terrible were
the risks. It was mine and countermine. You could hear
the click, click of mischief burrowing underground, and
there was no time for the old formal and leisurely methods.
The Greatness of our Indian Reform.
The Government of India Bill, which enfranchised
nearly a million Indians and gave their elected represen-
tatives control over some of the most important functions of
Government, was by far the biggest measure ever attempted
in India. It was the child of the war and of the loyalty that
India showed. " Let us have it out," said Mr. Montagu, the
Secretary of State for India, " once and for all. What was
to be the principle of our Government in India ? Was it to
be domination, subordination, the iron hand ? Were we to
have one principle of government in India and another prin-
ciple in the rest of our Empire ? That sort of theory was
utterly impossible and out of harmony with British ideas."
When one contrasts the boldness of this statement with the
timidity of Lord Morley when he introduced his reforms
only a few years before, one realises how deeply the war had
dyed our politics. A retrograde Tory who had moved with
the age from 1914 would by 1920 be far more advanced than a
Liberal who had stood still. It is an old maxim that de-
mocracy cannot govern an Empire,, but we were bent on dis-
proving it. " It is against the nature of things," wrote
Montesquieu, "that a democratic state should conquer those
who cannot enter into the sphere of its democracy. The
conquered people must be able, must be empowered, to
enjoy the privileges of sovereignty."
A New Commonwealth in the Making.
The principle of the India Bill was of wider and more general
application than India, and was in reality the beginning
of a wide and beneficent revolution. Our first colonial
Empire the Tories lost, not by withholding free institutions
(the American Colonies in that respect had a remarkable
degree of domestic liberty) but bj^ taxing them against their
will for the support of a policy which they had no voice in
shaping. Our second Colonial Empire was nearly lost, not
because we sought to tax it, but because under the grand-
niotherly rule of Downing Street it taxed us, and became a
A, NO -^^
k " as Disraeli once called it. It
v^S> saved hv^^/i^^^^fi. of responsible government on the
theorv-3Jiie^J&fuy>^^<Btified in the late war — that free in-
carried the responsibility for their local
as the colon it-5 grew stronger they would
tak(j a share in supporting the policy of the
Empire as a whole. And now the India Bill marks a further
stage in the evolution of our Imperial Commonwealth.
Hitherto the theory that liberty brought strength and loyalty
had been applied only to men of our own or at any rate
European blood. Now it v/as to be applied to the portions
of the Empire which had hitherto been part of the Imperial
as distinguished from the Colonial system. The Bill was
designed to " help India along the path of nationality "
and to make a " bridge between Government by the Agents of
Parliament and Government by the Representatives of
India." In other words, we were transforming India and
our Empire proper into a second Commonwealth in the
sure hope that freedom would bring loyalty and progress
and to us relief from the burdens of atlas. The covenant of
the League of Nations by its doctrine of the mandate was
applying the same principle to the territories of the Middle
East where the Turkish sovereignty had been escheated.
By far the greatest achievement for a nation, as for
nature, is motherhood and birth. India is to be no longer
a possession but a member of the family ; later Egypt
will folio w with Arabia and Palestine. Again we note
the phenomenon of processes which in the old party
days were spread over a century of strife peacefully
accomplished in a couple of years in the forcing-house of
coalition.
The Government's Irish Policy.
The Irish policy of the Government is based on the grant
of self-government subject only to the conditions that
there should be no separation and no coercion of Ulster.
The Bill as introduced gave self-government to Ireland and
avoided coercion of Ulster by setting up not one but two Home
Rule Parliaments, and so far from den3dng the chances of
Irish unity it insisted that only Irishmen could achieve it.
The unitarian Home Rule of Gladstone was only possible by the
coercion of Ulster ; the modified Home Rule with county
option of Mr. Asquith denied the unity of Ireland. This Bill
was designed to secure union without coercion. It does
not lie with a party that for twenty-four years has been
working for Home Rule and produced nothing but failure and
discord to reproach the Coalition with its failure to solve the
Irish question in a single Session. The real obstacle to
ai
success is not in the terms of the Bill but in the outbreak of
revolutionary lawlessness in Ireland. It may be, if peace
can thereby be restored, that the powers to be given
maj^ be made more extensive. In the meantime, bad as the
condition of Ireland is, the prospects of settlement are on
the whole better than they were. Previous Bills have
either denied the possibility of Irish union or have proposed
to secure it by civil war. What would not the Liberals of
the 1902-5 Parliament have given Ulster for the conversion
of Conservatives to the principle of Home Rule and
the assurance that their Bill would pass through the
Lords ? Of all the wonders wrought by the Coalition,
none is so notable as this conversion of the Conservatives to
the principle of Home Rule. Had there been a Coalition
in 1886 before Gladstone brought in the first Home Rule
Bill, the Irish probiem could have been settled out of
hand. It was a comparatively simple probiem vv^lien it
was first taken into the machinery of British politics,
and that the trouble should have been aggra^ ated by
repeated failures is the most damning proof of the in-
efficiency of the old Party system. Think of it ! All that
splendid rhetoric, those endless debates, a Party broken
up by internecine quarrels and old friendships severed,
thirty-four mortal years of it and nothing to shovi^ for it
all at the end ! And yet that is the system which some
hold up for our admiration now.
The Old Army and the New.
The first care of the Coalition Government at home was
to demobilise the army as rapidly as might be, to assist
the absorption of ex-soldiers into civil life, and for those who
by reason of their disablements or for other reason* could
not be readily absorbed, to provide lands, industrial training,
and employment. Particularly successful was the provision
of employment for disabled soldiers by the Royal appeal
to employers and the institution of the National Roll. It was
the first time that any Government had undertaken the
responsibility for finding employment for disabled ex-soldiers
and the public spirit shown by employers (the plan was first
suggested by a Manchester employer) showed that the benefi-
cent results of union \yent beyond the domain of politics and
had made a keener sense of responsibility in social life. Again,
the demobilisation of the aim/ was a tremendous adminis-
trative task in itself and, as ai.eady noted, it was not a little
dangerous in the unsettled condition of the world. Mr.
Churchill had entirelj- to re-make the British Army from
nothing. A weak Government would have delayed de-
mobilisation, an unbalanced and extreme Party Govern-
22
ment might have attempted to re-introduce conscriptift*.
in some form or another. The Coalition Government had
the courage to do the right, if the risky thing, and the
result justified its courage. No other country voluntarily
abolished conscription. And yet there were many found
perverse enough to accuse the Government of militarism.
The Government's Constructive Policy at Home.
War sobers some men and intoxicates others ; and the
example of Russia showed that when the discipline and strain
of war are suddenly relaxed, men's minds are particularly
susceptible to the attacks of political disease. Britain had
suffered less than some other combatants, but, on the other
hand, conscription for foreign service had been so entirely
new in her history that no one knew what effect the experi-
ence might have on her people. It might draw classes closer
together ; on the other hand, you cannot loosen one tradi-
tional convention without endangering others, and who
knew that the violence of war might not have weakened
respect for authority, the political balance, and the affection
for precedent characteristic of our politics ? And how would
the upheaval of economic structure react on politics ? Two
developments of political vice presented themselves as more
likel}'- than others. The revolution of opinion might take the
Russian form and establish a tyranny of the proletariat,
resting on violence. Or it might, in the name of justice,
demand the socialisation of industry under some variant
of syndicalism. The Government aimed at establishing a
bloc of the old Liberal and Conserv^ative parties wath such co-
operation as they could get from Labour to resist either of
these developments. But its policy was not purely negative.
It recognised that the fall in the value of money made the
lot of the M^orking classes difficult ; that if the countrj^ was to
reduce the mortgage of war it must increase -its production,
and make its methods more efficient ; and that, unless the
direct action of the strike for political -ends was to supersede
parliamentary methods, parliament must be made more
representative and its despatch of business improved.
To one or other of these principles is referable most ol
the domestic legislation of the Go\'ernment- — the Housing
Act, necessary for the comfort and physical well-being of the
workers as well as for the mobility of their labour ; the
Transport Act, to improve the management of the rail-
ways, and to grease the wheels of commercial and social
23
progress ; the Education Act, because political vice springs
from ignorance and economic progress was only possible by
increasing mastery of mind over matter, which wise learning
gives ; and half a dozen similar measures.
In Labour, as in international disputes, the Government's
policy was directed to the removal of specific grievances (so
far as that could be effected by State action) to the
development of Whitley Commissions and of machinery for
prompt dealing with difficulties between employers and
employed, and to more adequate provision against un-
emplo5'Tnent. It was with equal steadiness directed against
the panacea of nationalisation of which the Labour Party
was deeph^ enamoured, and against the theory that there was
some special \'irtue in the. State not derived from the indivi-
duals that compose it.
It should be remembered that this policy of social reform
was built up on the Representation ol the People Act
passed by the Second Coalition, which enfranchised 13
million electors including 7 million women. The first
Reform Act enfranchised 500,000 men, Mr. Disraeli's Act
I million, and Mr. Gladstone another 2 millions. Each of
these Acts produced what was regarded at the time as a
miniature revolution of an extraordinary likeness of party
controversy. This far greater Act of 1918 the Coalition was
able to take in its stride, and few realised that anything
remarkable was being accomplished. So great is the gain in
efficiency and despatch that a Coalition can give, so great its
economy of political passion and disputation.
All these reforms the country owes to the Coalition ;
without a Coalition most of them would have remained
for years to come windy aspirations.
IV.
SOME CRITICISMS CONSIDERED.
" War-methods " — An Unjust Sneer.
The magnitude of the Coalition's achievements makes a
brief summary such as has just been given read Hke a cata-
logue, and it may help us to understand its spirit witliout
overburdening ourselves mth detail if wc consider some of
the criticisms that are made. Most critics concede that the
Coalition did invaluable work during the war sucli as could
24
have been done by no party. Their criticism dates from
the Armistice or the corxlusion of the peace with Germany.
They urge that the methods efficacious in war are bad in
})cace-time, that Liberalism and Conservatism represent when
all is said fundamental divergencies of human nature which
it is mere evasion to ignore, that a Liberal Conservative or
even a Labour Government could now do better work and
that Coalition is mere opportunism without guiding principle.
There is no hard and fast distinction between war and
peace or between the methods appropriate to either. Eiisy
is the descent into the hell of war ; but to climb the slope to
peace, hoc opus hie labor est — that is indeed collar work.
One is sometimes tempted to think that if the war methods
of Coalition had governed our policy in the five or six years
before the war, perhaps the war would never have come and
it would certainly have been shorter when it did come. And
similarly, it may be a gain, indeed has already been, when
these war methods overlap into the time of nominal peace.
It is an old tag that no one can become wicked all of a sudden ;
neither does a world that has been through such a fever as
this war immediately become convalescent by the signing of
a certificate that the bad drains which caused its illness have
now been put right — for the signing of a Peace Treaty amounts
to no more than that. Besides, if by war methods is meant
the combination of all good citizens for the common good,
a truce to faction, and an attempt by either party to ally
itself with the good that it sees in the other, then war has
something to teach peace.
As for the complaint that Coahtion pohcy is neither Liberal
nor Conservative nor Labour, that is true. As the Attorney-
General well said at Leicester, " It is not the right test for a
Liberal at the end of a particular period to sit down and say
I will apply a measure, I will apply a footrule, or I will apply
a pair of scales, and I will try to ascertain what exactly of
a purely Liberal character I have contrived to extract from
this period. It would be no more right than it would be for
his colleague to sit down with a measure or a footrule or a
pair of scales and say, " What exactly from the Tory point
of view have I succeeded in extracting from this period.
That attitude is not Coalition ; it is the negation of Coalition."
His true test as a Coalitionist is. What good have we done to
the State ? As a Liberal and a Conservative his test must
be mainly negative. He may not ask, What has my party
got out of it ? He may ask. Has anything been done which
is not consistent mth the principles of my party ? It is a
subject of just congratulation by the Coalition that while
it has done nothing that either Liberals or Conservatives
25
could claim as a party triumph, equally, it has done nothing
of which either party could complain that it is a violation of its
principles and compromises its possible future as an indepen-
dent party. Both parties have contributed to the common
stock. I'o the Liberal end the Coalition owes many of the
governing ideas of policy and the sensitive regard for
rights characteristic of Liberals, while the Conservative
end has stressed the idea of duty as between classes, of
order and of discipline, each party discharging its tradi-
tional role and indulging the qualities of its temperament.
Let us try to imagine what would probably have
happened if the Coalition had broken up before the
General Election and one or other of the poUtical parties
had been returned — per impossible — with a majority suffi-
ciently large to form a Government from among its own
supporters. In this way we may form an idea of the dis-
tinguishing quality of the work that the Coalition has done.
What might have happened under a Conservative
Government.
If the Government so returned had been Conservative,
it would have had greater difficulty than Mr. Lloyd George
in holding the balance even between Mr. Wilson and M.
Clemenceau. There might have been a serious breach with
Mr. Wilson, who as an idealogue is temperamentally anti-
pathetic to the English Conservative mind, which always
reasons from the particular instance to the general, never in
the reverse order, and the result might have been grave
injury to Anglo-American relations.
It is doubtful, too, whether Conservative delegates would
have consented so readily to a Covenant of the League ; and
the tendency would have been to throw this country more
and more into the hands of France, whose views woidd have
tended to dominate the Conference and its policy. Its terms
with Germany might have been in some respects more severe ;
on the other hand, there would probably have been no pro-
hibition of conscription and the disarmament clauses would
have been framed, less to assert a principle than with the more
limited object of rendering Germany powerless. We should
not have demobilised so rapidly, and might well have decided,
in view of the dangers of the international situation to retain
conscription longer in some form or another.
Party controversy at nome would by this time have
been raging furiously. The Liberals and labour Party
26
disagreed on domestic policy, would have united in denuncia-
tion of the Conservative foreign policy. Labour disputes would
have taken a graver form and the Government would not
have had the same authority to deal decisively with them and
the pressure of its own extremists would have made it more
difficult to yield to demands which were expedient and
possibly just. If it had survived, the policy of the Govern-
ment would have tended to reaction like that which
followed the end of the Napoleonic wars. More probably,
however, the Government would have been swept out of power
before peace with Germany had been concluded and with the
added complication of a war with Russia on our hands.
If a Liberal Government had been in Power?
Or, secondly, take the supposition that a purely Liberal
Government had been returned to power and had the conduct
of negotiations. It would almost certainly have fallen under
the control of Mr. Wilson, for between his ideas and con-
ventional Liberal sentiment there is a natural affinity. The
result would have been a sensible cooling of our friendship
with France. This process would have been assisted by a
sentimental view of our relations with Germany. True,
Castlereagh who was the best friend of the beaten side at the
Vienna Conference, was a Tory, but with Germany only half
beaten in the military sense the least sign of weakness and of
disunion Avith France would have been taken advantage of.
There might have been a Poland but it is doubtful whether
Czecho-Slovakia and Yugo-Slavia would have obtained their
complete liberty from Austria, if Mr. Asquith's criticisms
of the Austrian Treaty are any indication, and though
our Russian policy might have avoided the risk of war its
complaisance would have been a temptation to the militarists
in Russia to attack frontier states to whose creation the
British representatives subscribed pro forma only. Probably,
a Liberal Government representing us at Paris would not
have risked the great experiment of founding a Jewish
national home in Palestine and their Turkish settlement
might have avoided both the dangers and the hopes of a
mandate in Mesopotamia.
But the chief disabilities would have been in domestic
politics. A Liberal Government cannot get measures through
the House of Lords and the pace of legislation would have
been retarded. For many years orthodox Liberalism has been
barren of ideas and has depended for their supply mainly on
its Radical wing or from time to time on Labour thought.
27
Left to itself, it' is critical not creative ; it is a state of mind
which forms judgments usually charitable and broadminded
on the doings of others but rarely prompts to decisive action
on its own account. And these defects have been particularly
noticeable since Liberalism finished its characteristic work of
political emancipation or rather left it to others to finish, for
the Representation of the People Act passed by the Coalition
was imcomparably the largest and most generous measure
of enfranchisement in our history. A Liberal Government
therefore (unless indeed it had been able to command the
services of Mr. Lloyd George and his associates) would neither
have originated plans fast enough nor if it had would it have
been able to pass them into law. With the Conservative
party in sullen hostility it would have been forced either to
ally itself with Labour or if it could not do that to make over-
tures to the Conservatives — in other words to try to form in
circumstances most disadvantageous to itself and to the wel-
fare of its party principles a Coalition Government. With
all this marching and countermarching at Westminster any-
thing might have happened in the country.
The third supposition of a Labour Government need not
detain us. Inevitably its policy would have been such as
to force a combination of the two older parties. The time
may come when Labour will have a coherent policy on the
hundred departments of policy which make the work of
Government, but it is not yet. At present its views are for
the rnost part in sentimental bondage to phrases, and it is in
consequence at the mercy of the extremists who happen to
have definite ideas of what they want. Such a Government
had it come into power at the end of the war would inevitably
have weakened us abroad and destroyed our hopes of peaceful
recovery at home,
A Conservative, Liberal or a Labour Government therefore
would have meant disorder at home instead of the com-
parative peace that the Coalition has given us ; fresh and
uncertain orientations of our friendships abroad instead
of those which had stood the test of war. Unless the guesses
that have been hazarded of what would probably have
happened under other Governments arc very wide of the mark,
they would not have given us the peace at home and
abroad that w^as the first necessity of the country.
-Coalition not Opportunist.
Again, it is not true to sny that the policy of the
Coalition is purely opportunist. There may be no Liberal
measures in its programme, but there is for all tliat a great
28
deal of Liberalism. How far is the League of Nations from
the League of Peace that Sir H. Campbell-Bannerman once
advocated ? Have Liberals never preached disarmament,
the extension of the franchise, the promotion of popular
education, better conditions of labours and other subjects
of Coalition legislation ? Have Liberals been indifferent to
the wrongs of subject alien races under the Ottoman Empire ?
On the other hand, if there have been no Conservative
measures in the Government programme, of Conservatism
in the higher sense, with its reverence for order and
discipline in the State, its dislike of extremes and its
preference of facts to theories, there has certainly been
no lack. Surely it is to degrade the word " principle " to
refuse to see it in such acts and qualities of government as
these and to revere it in the mere joinery and upholstery of
the party platform ?
The Charge of Bureaucratic Bias.
But the two charges oftenest made against the Coalition
were that it is extravagant and bureaucratic in its habits,
and prolonged the war control for the sake of control long
after the real need had disappeared. It is a sufficient reply
to this last reproach to remember that nearly all the new
departments were brought into existence in order to
protect not the merchant or the manufacturers but
the consumer, and to maintain that union of classes
without which the war would have been lost. They were
instruments of the general anti-profiteering policy of the
Government. When the war ended there were two policies
open to the Government. The}^ might have said " Prices no
longer matter, let them rip until every'thing has found its
economic level." Easy to say these things, but have those
who say them any idea of the frightful turmoil to which such
a policy would have led ? If immediately the war was over
the bread subsidy had been taken off, the rents of houses and
the prices of everything else been left to take care of them-
selves, and the Government when asked for new houses re-
plied " Houses ? I'm not a joiner and builder. If they -will
pay to build, they'll be built soon enough ; if they won't
pay, why should I be at the loss ? " not only would such a
policy have been treason against the whole set of motives
which led to the continuance of the Coalition but it would
have led to revolution. Had the Government, as is sug-
gested ventriloquised in the mid-Victorian style with an
economic man on its knees for a talking doll, the language
would have gone down to as deep an infamy in the stor\' of our
British Revolution as Marie Antoinette's famous " W^y don't
29
they eat cake " when they told her the people were rioting
because they had no bread. The alternative to this infamy
was to temper the east wind of economic Jaw by control,
removing the screen as and when the people hardened off
from the effects of the war, and this was the Government's
policy. No doubt it was in each case a question of some
delicacy to know the exact amount of exposure that might
safely be given, and it would be a miracle if the Govenimcnt
had always been exactly right in this calculation. But to
suppose that it loved departments for their own sake was
sheer middle-class superstition, like the bogey-man that the
Labour party made of Mr. Churchill.
The Charge of Extravagance.
The problems of national finance had from the first
given the Government the greatest anxiety. But the criticism
of finance has certainly not been helpful. Sometimes it
is frivolous talk about too many charwomen and tea-drinking
flappers, sometimes it is the laborious discovery of mare's
nests like that at Slough, sometimes it is the rich man's cry
of pain over a democratic budget. At other times it pro-
tests against the high salaries paid in new departments, like
that of the Ministry of Transport, whereas in fact these
salaries are not absolutely high but only relatively to those
paid in the older civil serxdce, and are rather evidence of
meanness to its old servants than of extravagant generosity
to the new. At other times it eats the dinner and rejects the
bill. The Government which suffers from the unpopularity of
high taxation has good reason to want to curb expenditure —
in this respect unhke the House of Commons, which,
though it talks economy in the abstract, always urges
extravagance in the particular, spending a fresh pound for
every penny that it saves — and welcomes rational criticism
of policy which would assist its efforts' Criticism, for ex-
ample, which should maintain that we are spending far too
much on the Navy in present conditions and that we ought
to cut it down, or that Army pay is too high or that the new
commitments in the East which add to the cost of the Army,
should be abandoned, might be wrong, but at any rate it
would be relevant and logical. But it is neither logical
nor helpful to approve the policy and then object to give
it financial support. Neither is it good business, as is so
often done, to lump under the same barren curse all expendi-
ture, whether reproductive or not. Every business man
knows that to save it is often true economy to spend
wisely, and the expenditure on housing and on increased
industrial efficiency is really in the nature of an investment.
30
It is unfortunate that we do not keep all our accounts in
the same set of books so that every item of outgoing
should show opposite it the incoming in the form of
greater happiness, political content, and industrial
efficiency. If we did, economy discussions would be
much more practical. Still, these considerations must not
be taken as in any way whittling away the fact that
finance is the gravest of all the problems now facing the
Government. It has faced worse problems in the past ; it
will conquer this, and who else could? Do the working
classes want high Tory finance ? or the middle classes Labour
finance ?
V.
ALL GOVERNMENT AS COALITION.
Three Propositions on Coalition.
These speculations in which we were just now indulging
as to what might have happened if there had been a Liberal,
a Conservative or a Labour Government in power during the
last two years have served as a useful peg on which to hang
discussion of the policj'' of the Coalition, but othenvise they
have been idle. For in fact. neither a Liberal nor a Con-
servative Government was possible in this period, but only a
Coahtion. The hollowness of the agitation against Coalition
Government may be demonstrated more in detail in the hght
of three propositions which, though they may sound para-
doxical, are, as will presently be seen, no more than truisms.
They are these.
First, it is useless to argue against Coalition because in
fact no other sort of Government is physically possible.
Secondly, not only is Coalition the only possible form of
Government, but at present this is the only possible
Coalition. Thirdly, nearly every government is a form
of coalition, and, so far from the present Coalition bemg
an innovation in politics, it is merely an attempt to do
openly and honestly what in the past has usually been
done secretly and dishonestly. The normal alternatives
in politics in fact are not between Coalition and party,
but between a good form of coalition and a bad form.
First Proposition — no other sort of Government than
A Coalition is possible.
The first of these propositions was handled with great
frankness by the Prime Minister in his address to the Coahtion
Liberals in the Westminster Hall on March i8th, 1920. He
pointed out that it was a question mainly of figures. At the
31
last election no party had secured a majority. Ihe Unionists
polled under 40 per cent, of the votes cast. The Labour party
polled 2,300,000 votes, the Liberal Coalitionists and the
National Democratic party about 1,600,000 and the official
Liberals about 1,300,000. No party could have commanded
a majority at the last election and a Coalition of some sort
was inevitable if a stable Government was to be formed.
Mr. Lloyd George carried his analysis further. The by-
elections showed the same results. The Unionists polled
124,000 votes and the Coalition Liberals, with the National
Democrats, 43,000, a total of 167,000 votes cast for the
Coalition. The official Liberals polled about one-half or
85,000 votes. Labour 146,000 votes. Still no majority for
any one party. Mr. Lloyd George did not stop here.
" I want to follow it up. 1 do not want to exaggerate in the
least the number of Liberal Coalition votes, but in this Ust you
have three or four constituencies where the Liberal Coalition vote
preponderated. In Swansea, Pontefract, Bothwell, and Wellington
the vote was, in the main, a Liberal Coalition vote. In other cases
I have no doubt at all there was a proportion of Liberal Coalition
votes. But if you take out the Liberal Coalition vote from the
total Coalition vote, Labour would be first. That is the significant
fact. Socialism would poll a majority, not a very clear one, not an
overwhelming one, but a majority. Then, if the by-elections are
an index at all, what would happen if the Liberal Party fought as
a party? The 85,000 would probably become 110,000, perhaps
i20,03u, but it would not become a majority. The Coalition vote
would come second, Socialism would be first — perhaps by a narrow
majority. At the very moment when you want strong, steady
government you would have a feeble Socialist Government at the
mercy of its extremists." (Hear, hear.)
Such a Labour Government would inevitably, after a period
of more or less damaging strife, have led to a combination
of the Liberal and Conservative Parties, that is to something
like the present Coalition.
Second — this is at present the only possible Coalition.
It will perhaps be said — and here we come to our second
proposition — that other and better forms of coalition werc^
possible. They may be in the future, but not now, and still
less in 191S when the Third Coalition was formed. If the
Sinn Fein members had come to Westminster, we might have
had a Coalition which might conceivabl}- some day have been-
strong enough to form a government between them and the
Labour Party, but would anyone pretend that such a Coali-
tion would be preferable to the Coalition of real history.
Would the two peas, Sinn Fein Republicanism and Socialism,
rattled together in the Labour bladder, have made any
32
pleasanter a sound than either separately ? Such a CoaUtion
of revolution and disorder would of course at once have
been countered by a Coalition of all who preferred the ideal
of national to that of class consciousness, evolution to revolu-
tion, order to civil war. The attraction that the Labour
Party exercises at a distance is that of a mirage. At a
nearer approach the prospect of greater freedom changes to
the bondage of the delegate ; instead of the free play of
the mind on the problems of politics there is the omnipresent
tyranny of the idea of nationalisation perverting inde-
pendent judgment, dragged in by the heels on every occasion,
a litmus-paper that turns all fine and varied colourations of
politics into a Socialist Red or a bourgeois white. The Labour
Party is a Socialist party ; paradoxically, because nothing is
more foreign to the genius of our people than the tyranny of
an abstraction like socialism and because in fact not one
in twentj' of the Labour adherents is a Socalist by
conviction and the majority, however thej^ may seek to
disguise it, are really disgruntled bourgeoisie, Liberal or
Conservative, seeking in the Labour Party the remedy for
existing evils that they would more naturally find in the
present Coalition.
Why Coalition with Labour is impossible now.
One can imagine other forms of Coalition too, and there
are good Liberals who talk quite seriously of the prospects of
a Coalition between their party and the Labour Party. Such
a Coalition would not have been possible two j^ears ago but
circumstances may alter. In present conditions to join such
a Coalition would be an act of suicide for the Liberal Party,
for in its present mood the Labour Party is not in the least
inclined to a Fabian compromise. Let Mr. Lloyd George in
the Wrstminster Hall again speak for us.
"There may be some among them who would be willing to
pigeon-hole their principles and have a working understanding
wiih this party or another, but they are not the inspirers of this
new evangel, and until repeated failure has convinced them that
they cannot bring the people of the country to this doctrine they
will not drop this purjjose of their programme, which makes it
impossible to have a common understanding with them
" Where do Liberals stand on that ? That is the party which
would have a majority at the elections if the Liberals and
Conservatives were to fight each other. It is not the doctrine of
Liberalism. The doctrine of Liberalism is a doctrine that believes
that private property', as an incentive, as a means, as a reward, is
the most potent agent not merely for the wealth, but for the well-
being of the community. That is the doctrine not merely of Peel,
of Disraeli, of Salisbury, and Chamberlain ; it is the doctrine of
33
Gladstone; it is the docirne of Cobden ; it is the doctrine of
Bright ; and it is the doctrine of Campbell-Bannerman. It is the
doctrine of the greatest leadejs of botli p;irties. (Voices: 'And
of Mr. Asquith.) It is the doctrine of all the great Liberal leaders
of Ihe past and present. That is the doctrine that has been
challenged by the new nienrue. and if Liberals and Conservatives
fight each other that doctrine, which menaces the whole fab.ic of
society, will triumph."
Other and subtler combinations from time to time present
themselves to the mind of political students. Supposing,
for example, that the Labour Party broke away from the
extremists who settle its policy, and divided into two com-
ponents, the Socialists on the one hand, and on the other, a
trade unionist wing which, recruited as it is impartially from
both Liberals and Conservatives, is really an anticipation
in miniature of the present Coalition, in such a case many
things might happen. A conceivable Coalition might be formed
out of the trade-unionist wing of the Labour Party combining
with Liberals (whether official or Coalition would not in such
case matter much) and the young Conservative group, and
might last a long time. Those who ask why Mr. Lloyd George
did not form a Coalition to the left, doubtless had some such
combination as this in their minds. But the condition of
such a Coalition would be the throwing off by the Labour Party
of the tyranny of its extremists, and of that there is no sign. It
is odd that the essentially "John Bull " figure of British Labour
should elect to go about wearing the mask of Marx or Bakunin,
and perhape the time will come when it will wear its own head
and speak with its own voice. When it does it may well be
that the ideal Coalition will be a centre Coalition of Liberal,
new Labour, and moderate Conservative parties, \A'ith Social-
ists forming a separate party on the Left and the extreme Tories
a separate party on the Right. But that is in the future not in
the present. In the meantime the cleavage in the Liberal
party between those who claim the goodwill of the name and
those who have the goodwill of the ideas benefits no one but
the Labour Party, as the by-elections have shown. Perhaps
it does not even benefit the Socialist Party in the long run for
these strange accessions from the bourgeois party destroy its
internal unity and diminish its efficiency.
TfflRD — Most parties are themselves a Coalition.
The third proposition advanced was that most parties
are themselves a coalition and that the normal alternati\'es
in politics are not between coalition and party government
but between one set of coalition and another. If a party were
to contain no one within it but those who thought exactly
alike on everything, its numbers would necessarily be very*
34
few. Every combination of more than a dozen men
involves a sacrifice of &ome sort for the sake of advantages
that are of greater importance. What then are the tests by
which we ought to judge a party combination ? Not — Does
it keep its doctrines unspotted from contact with the rest of
the world ? That were not a party but a priesthood, and like
every priesthood without a prophet, doomed sooner or later
to die from the poison of its own orthodoxy. Not, Does
it act according to precedents, for that were to make front
benches into a King's Bench, administering law but making
none, sitting but never moving, speaking but never acting.
The tests are, What- is its service to the country worth ?
Is it an honest association for gem inely national objects
of policy, or is it politically sectarian, formed to serve a
creed, a clique, a name, or a prejudice ? Are the principles
of the association public or is it a mere arrangement by
which a few men get end keep the power by tricking and
deceiving their folio ers ?
The Trade Unionists as Barnaby Rudge.
The present Coalition satisfied all three tests. The official
Liberal party breaks down on the second, and the Labour
Party on the third. For, as things are, the Labour Party,
so far from being purer and more sincere than others, is based
on an elaborate political pun. The trade unionists, mainly
Liberals and Conservatives, wanted to form a party in
Parliament independent of the older organisations — to be in
fact an independent Labour Party. But there was already in
existence an Independent Labour Party which was Socialistic.
And so by a no more essential connection than this pun
between the two names, the old trade unionists in changing
their name to independent labour found themselves wearing
a red cap and have worn it ever since. And yet they are,
most of them, as innocent of Socialism as Barnaby Rudge was
of the principles of the Lord George Gordon rioters.
But not only is the Labour Party itself a coalition, of
elements that are essentially incompatible^ — the bourgeois trade
unionists and the SociaUst theorisers, the Liberal Party is also
a coalition between old Whigs and new Liberal and the
Conservative Party is a coalition between the old Tories and
the new Conservatives. It lies, therefore, neither with
Liberals nor Labour men nor even with Conservatives to
object to the Coalition as such, for they are themselves a
coalition. The difference is that whereas their coalitions are
^sectional in their objects, the present Coalition is national ;
35 •
that whereas they disguise the fact that they are a coalition,
the present Government avows it to all the world ; that
whereas with them it has been a source of weakness and
inefficiency with the present Coalition it is the secret of ite
strength ; and lastly, that whereas their coalitions were made
for their own convenience, this Coalition was made for the
safety of the state.
But the essentially coalitionist character of the two older
parties must be developed in more detail. For if we find that
there is in the Liberal Party a Conservative strain and in the
Conservative Party a Radical strain, and that substantially
the same conflict between the old and new elements has been
going on in both parties^ then the last argument against the
present Coalition has disappeared, for it is merely doing
for both parties what each has been trying to do for itself,
only repeating on a national scale processes to which both
parties owe their vitality.
The political greatness of our country is due mainly
to the fact that we have achieved political union earlier than
other countries, and so obtained a lead in the race towards
free and democratic institutions which we never lost. It is
a curious fact that whereas in other countries the develop-
ment of parties has been fissiparous, in England there has
always been a reluctance to add to the number of parties,
as though, while others thought mainly of the difference
between parties, we in this country, with our more practical
habit of mind, were more attracted by the points of resem-
blance and contact. It may be that in the new move-
ment for unity, we may be giving a new lead in political
efficiency which will do as much for the greatness of our
deraiocracy as that earlier struggle with autocracy in
which we gained a lead of nearly a century and a half over
France.
VI.
PARTY COMPOSITES.
It is believed by many good Liberals that their party
is and always has been, the party of the people and the
Conservatives the party of aristocrats or at any rate oli-
garchs ; and that while the characteristic of their party is
trust of the people that of the opposite party is distrust.
If that were true, every Liberal would be a democrat and no
Conservative ever could be a democrat, and notoriously
neither corresponds with the facts. It may help to a better
appreciation of the fact that the national possession of
36
liberty and order is given to the keeping of all parties
and not of one only, if we set down a few facts in the history
of the two chief political parties. We shall see what composites
they are and how often the best men of either party have
been nearer to each other than to their own party associates.
The Whigs not a Democratic party.
The origins of the Liberal party are in the squire-
archy and commercial oligarchy which overthrew Stuart
absolutism and later, by the Revolution of 1688, laid
the foundations of modern Parliamentary Government
Similarly, the origins of the Tory Party doubtless go back
to Tudor absolutism. These early Whigs had great political
virtues and, in particular, their dislike of absolutism was
most wholesome. But they were not a democratic paity,
nor had they any of the characteristics of a progressive
party, and if absolutism (as it has sometimes done)
had undertaken to champion popular rights, they would have
regarded it as one cause the more for their dislike of it. In
the days of undiluted Whiggerj'' Parliament made no pretence
of representing the nation as a whole, and was a mere arena
where the Whig factions fought out their family quarrels.
So far from being a national party, there never was an
oligarchy so exclusive or subsectional. For more than fifty
years the Whig oligarchy was in effect the old absolutism
put into commission amongst a select coterie of ruling families
under the forms of Parliamentary Government. These early
party politics had no more of the stuff of modem politics
than the Wars of the Roses.
Chatham as Coalitionist.
The first man to break this oligarchy was the elder
Pitt, a new Whig who formed a Coalition Mmistry with the
Whigs from whom he had seceded, supported by the Tories.
That under this Coalition Ministry we acquired Canada
and India is the least of its titles to fame. Other titles
were that, for the first time since Cromwell, otir foreign
policy began to reflect the growing influence of the commercial
classes, and that his conceptions of the war strategy appro-
priate to an island power held almost until the outbreak of
the late war, and, with not a few important people, evfen
after its outbreak. More important still, he was the first
Minister called to power by an unmistakeable expres-
sion of the popular will. Modern politics really begin
with Chatham's Coalition, not with the Whig Revolutiop-
37
The younger Pitt as Coalitionist,
Not only was this Coalition Government of the elder
Pitt the first direct contact of the people with modem Parlia-
mentary Government, but it is broadly true that through-
out the whole of the eighteenth century the strictly party
Governments were as a rule, bad, and that the Governments
which left their mark for good on the country's history were
Coalition. The younger Pitt would, but for the outbreak of
the war^with Napoleon, have gone down to history as the
first of modern Liberals. Pitt had quarrelled with the Whigs
and was kept in power by the Tory Party, but his first Ministry,
was the nearest approach to a Liberal Ministry in the demo-
cratic sense that the country had yet had. In spite of its
name it was in the truest sense a Coalition Ministry ; and if,
with the war, Pitt degenerated into a reactionary, some of the
blame must be put on the factiousness of Fox and other
members of the Whig opposition. Had he received more
support from them and been able, as he wished, to bring
more Whigs into his Government, the second great Coalition
of the eighteenth century might have learned to wage war
without sacrifice of domestic liberty, as did the Second
Coalition of the Great War with Germany. The measure of
the set-back that the development of constitutional freedom
suffered in the Napoleonic Wars is the measure of the service
which the present Coalition has done to the country.
The XIXth Century Liberals a Coalition of Whigs,
cobdenites and radicals.
When parties began to shape themselves after the War with
Napoleon, the composite character of the Liberal Party was
apparent. At least three distinct strands of thought went
to its formation. There was first a Whig Party, which,
after carrying the Reform Bill, thought the work of reform
complete, and for the rest of the century contributed
nothing to the stock of the country's political ideas, though
it continued to live on the ideas of others, disdaining every-
thing about them but the power and office that they brought,
A second strand of thought was contributed by what would
now be called the anti-bureaucratic school of Cobden.
Cobden was against the interference of the State in matters
of trade and commerce. He was with J. S. Mill and
Bentham, one of the three great seminal minds of Liberalism ;
but if he was free trade he was also free-labour, and for
the same reasons. The third strand was made of the
diverse schools of Radicals. These men shared many of
.'i8(>78i
38
the fiscal views of the Cobdenites, but on many questions
they soon showed marked divergencies both of temperament
and of principle. They were as a rule more sanguine in
temperament than the rest of the Liberal Party. They
Were early believers in Home Rule for Ireland, favoured an
advanced programme of political and social reforms, shared
none of the Cobdenite scruples about interfering with the
conditions of labour, and not infrequently had a great
faith in the future greatness of Britain beyond the seas.
They were, however, not a united group within the party,
and their views varied very considerably from time to time.
On all the live questions of politics the Whig element in the
Liberal Party was much closer to the Tories than it was to
the Radicals, and, from the passing of the Reform Bill down
to the formation of the Liberal Unionist Party, the Liberal
Party was a Coalition in the bad sense that it maintained
external unity as the cost of clear and consistent thinking
within the party. Of each of these parties there are repre-
sentatives amongst Liberals to-day. The pure Whig repre-
sentative since Lord Hartington died is hardest to find, for
Viscount Grey, though a pure Whig in foreign affairs, is
an advanced thinker on some questions of domestic policy.
The Cobdenite tradition in the Liberal Party is repre-
sented by Mr. Asquith and most of his followers.
The Radical tradition after the secession of Mr.
Chamberlain is continued by the Prime Minister and
his Liberal followers. Gladstone was the Unk between
the Whig and the Cobdenite sections of the party, but
belonged to neither, and at no time had any real hold on
the Radicals, and the break with Chamberlain followed the
Hues of a crack in the party structure that had long been
visible.
Gladstone and Disraeli.
Gladstone first made his mark in poUtics as a PeeUte
Conservative,- and it shows how vague and uncertain are the
lines of party division, and how little they correspond to
the real divisions of pohtical thought, that of the two great
statesmen of Victorian England, the Liberal began his career
as a Conservative and the Conservative as a Liberal. And
in neither case was there a real volte face. In his foreign
pohcy Gladstone was to the end of his life much nearer to
the tradition of the Tory Canning, the enemy of the Holy
Alhance and the true begetter of the Monroe Doctrine than
he was to the Whig- Jingo Palmerston. In his domestic
pohtics, again, he was to the end of his life a Peelite, and
such developments as took place in his views were no more
than might have been expected with the lapse of time. He
39
was a Peelite, again, in the rigid economy and efficiency of
his financial administration. On the other hand, DisraeH
in foreign policy had many points of resemblance to the
Wliig, Palmerston, but in his domestic policy was a very
genuine Radical. The conquest by Disraeli of the Conser-
vative Party is recognised as one of the wonders of politics ;
yet that Gladstone, who to the end of his long life still main-
tained unbroken his Tory tradition, should become the
typical Liberal statesman of his century, is perhaps no less
wonderful. And yet there are those who would have us
believe that the party divisions are the frontier lines of
poHtical human nature, which it is taboo to cross. Wliy, there
is no statesman of imagination whose thoughts are not across
them half a dozen times a day. The true geography of
political human nature is not in the hues that party slashes
across its surface any more than the natural geography of
a country is to be found in its administrative county divia.ons.
The}' may correspond, but oftener they do not.
The Peelite Coalitionists.
The Bond between Disraeli, Chamberlain and
Lloyd George.
The repeal of the Corn Laws carried by the
Conservative, Peel, with Liberal help is yet one more
illustration of the fact that most of the great
happenings of our political history have been the
work of Coalitions. The history of party from that
time to the present may be stated in a very few lines.
First, the Conservative Party, broken by the action of Peel, was
saved by Disraeli, a Tory Radical, and, less hampered than
the Liberal Party by the traditions of laissez-faire, passed a
remarkable series of political and social reforms. Then, in
consequence of the Irish spht, came the {^oalition with the
Libersd Unionists, among whom the influence of the Radical
Chamberlain was dominant. Chamberlain brought to the
party his zeal for Radical reform, and the Conservative
working man was discovered to be . more numerous than
ever. But, having strengthened Conservatives by Radical
measures, he proceeded to weaken it by>a war in South Africa
that outlasted its popularity and by an imperialistic variant
on the old Tory theme of Protection. Tlie election of 1906,
fought on free-trade, brought back the Liberals with Cobden-
ism stronger and higher in the counsels of the party tlian it
had ever been before. But it soon became apparent that
the driving power was not Cobdenism,'* but the new
Radicalism of Mr. Lloyd George. Then came the war,
which made the spirit d Radical change dominant not
49
only in the Liberal, bat in the Conservative Party. It
led naturally to the present Coalition, whose achieve-
ments both in Vv^ar and in peace have been greater
than that of any previous government in our history.
Such in outline is the history of the two older parties in our
politics since the repeal of the Corn Laws. Observe how
ludicrous the outline makes the theory of a deep and per-
manent division between Liberal and Conservative Parties,
and how the true Liberal and the true Conservative traditions
keep emerging, now on this, now on that side of party
nomenclature, so that the conclusion is forced upon us that
the names are only corks floating on the surface of pcditical
thought.
Disraeli as Tory-Radical.
Of the vigour of Disraeli's Radicalism there can be
no question to anyone who has read his political writings,
nor of the value of the great reforms which he carried. " Long
before what is called the ' Condition of the People Question,' "
he wrote in 18.44, " was discussed in the House of Commons,
I had employed my pen on the subject. I had long been
aware that there was something rotten in the core of our
social system. I had seen that, while immense fortunes were
accumulating, while wealth was increasing to a superabund-
ance, and while Great Britain was cited throughout Europe
as the most prosperous nation in the world, the working
classes, the creators of wealth, were steeped in the most
abject poverty and gradually sinking into the deepest degra-
dation." His novels show that these words were written
with perfect sincerity. Or take the following passage from
a speech of his at the end of 1862 : —
"To build up a community not upon Liberal principles,
which anyone may fashion according to his fancy, but upon
popular principles, which assert equal rights, civil and religious ;
to uphold the institutions of the country because they are the
embodiments of the wants and wishes of the nation, and protect
us alike from individual tyranny and popular outrage ; equally to
resist democracy and oligarchy, and favour that principle of pure
aristocracy which is tlie only basis and security lor constitutional
government : to be vigilant to guard and prompt to vindicate the
honour of the countr}'-, but to hold aloof from that turbulent
diplomacy which only distracts the mind of the people from
internal improvement ; to lighten taxation ; frugally but wisely to
administer the pubUc treasure ; to favour popular education
because it is the best guarantee for pubhc order ; to defend local
government, and to be as jealous of the rights of the working men
as of the prerogative of the Crown and the privileges of the
Senate — these were once the privileges that regulated Tory
statesmen.'"
41
With one sentence out or altered in its terminology
these are ideals, not of Tory statesmanship onh^ but of the
purest spirit of Liberalism.
Or take this passage in reply to a letter from Charles
Attwood, a very earnest and doughty champion of popular
rights : —
" I entirely agree with you that a union between
the Conservative Party and the Radical masses
offers the only means by which we can preserve
the Empire. Their interests are identical ; united
they form the nation ; and their division has only
permitted a miserable minority under the specious
name of the people to assail all rights of property
and person. Since I first entered political life,
now eight years ago, I have worked for no oth^:
object and other end than to aid the formation of
a National party."
Such passages might be multiplied indefinitely. Is there
anyone who can read them and maintain that only on one side
of an artificial frontier line that is labelled Liberal is there
real passion for freedom, and the rights of the people ? Or
that the idea now embodied in the Coalition is the mere child
of expediency, and not one of the oldest and most cherished
aspirations in politics ?
Home Rule an example of the inefficiency of party
METHODS.
Or is it pretended that party politics are so efficient an
engine of national progress that no change is desirable or
improvement possible ? Of that the tra.gedy of the Home
Rule failure is surely the best disproof. Hov/ far Lord
Salisbury, in his conversations with Parnell, committed him-
self to sympathy with Irish Home Rule has never been made
clear, but certain it is that if there had been the will, a Coalition
of parties, though it had been limited to the single subject
of Home Rule, could have settled the Irish question once and
for all. And certain it is, too, that if Gladstone had realised
that the Liberal Party of that time was in fact itself a Coali-
tion, and had taken counsel, as he might and should have
done, with the leaders of its component groups, Chamberlain
need never have been allowed to leave the party. He left
mainly, no doubt, on the Home Rule issue, but also because
he felt that the Importance of his Radical group and the value
42
of its ideas were imperfectly realised in the council of the
party. Thus the early history of the Home Rule failure
illustrates very forcibly both the superiority of Coalition
over party as a means of solving a political problem, and
also the superiority of a Coalition that is open and frank
(as the present Coalition is) over one which acts on the
assumption that it is united in every respect, and ignores
differences between the groups composing the party until
they are so gross that they cannot be surmounted.
Chamberlain as Coalitionist.
Chamberlain's departure from the Liberals was a great
loss to his old party and a great gain to his new party, for
the Coalition between the Conservatives and the Liberal
Unionists was exceedingly fertile in important measures of
reform, and adds one more to the numerous instances that
have been noted of the efficacy of a Coalition in a national
crisis. The Conservative Party was exceedingly fortunate
in having a succession of able men to keep alive the tradition
of progressive reform in the party. First Disraeli, a recruit
from the Radicals ; then Lord Randolph Churchill (a Peelite
Conservative in everything but name) and his associates of
the Fourth Party ; and finally Mr. Chamberlain, another
recruit from the Radicals.
It is a tempting speculation what might have happened
if Chamberlain had not left the Liberals. The South African
War might have been avoided, and the revival of Protection
if it had been attempted might have taken a very different
and much milder form. He could not have persuaded the
Liberal Party to either, but he might have identified it with
the cause of democratic Colonial Imperialism. Mr. Cham-
berlain's services to his new party were offset by great draw-
backs, but the Coalition was productive on the balance of
great political good. Mr. Chamberlain was a very great
man, and the refusal of his old party to acknowledge his
quality is one of the worst examples in modem political
history of the degeneration of party into partisanship and
Rcacour.
Mr. Lloyd George.
Once more, after .the General Election in igo6, the Liberal
Party came back in greater strength than ever since the first
Reform Act. Opinions differed as to the explanation of
the great landslide in popular opinion which took place
at that election, but it may be doubted whether it was really
43
due to any intelligent appreciation by the electorate of the
niceties of the Free Trade controversy. The real cause of their
victory was probably tlie strong reaction in the country against
tlie war in South Africa and a feeling to which Chinese labour
and the proposal to tax food alike contributed, that the Tory
democracy which had been dangled so long before their eyes
was a deception. However that may be, the reaction, it
is clear, would not have lasted so long if it had not been for
the vigorous reform policy of Mr. Lloyd George. No party
can live by merely defending a position, even though
it is so important a position as Free Trade. It must attack,
and the work of attack nearly all of it fell on Mr. Lloyd George
and the Radical wing of his party. It is a curious fact that
this Radical wing of the Liberal Party, which was neither
Wliig nor Cobdenite, and never, down to the secession of
Mr. Chamberlain, exercised anything like its proper influence
in the party council, first, under Disraeli, rescued the old
Tory party from utter ruin and converted it into a Conser-
vative Party ; then, in the person of Chamberlain, again
reinforced the Conservative Party and became the dominant
influence in its counsels, and, finally, in Mr. Lloyd George,
contributed the driving force to the Liberal Party in 1906
and the succeeding years. The work of this 'Radical wing
for the Liberals was still incomplete when down came the
cataclysm of war, and it became work for the nation as a
whole.
VII.
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION.
The Investment of Victory.
It is now time to gather up the argument. The object in
these pages has been not to discuss the details of the Govern-
ment's policy, but to reconcile (if reconciliation be needed)
2;ood party men, Liberal and Conservative, to the idea of
Coalition Government. The real motives of Coalition, as
of any other form of Government, should be that it best
serves the interest of the State ; that justification lacking,
everything else is lacking. It has been shown that in the last
two years of peace, as in the previous two years of war, the
Coalition has done a service to the Stale such as could have
been done by no other Government. Indeed, to put it no
higher, is grossly to understate the truth, for the truth is
that no other form of Government could either have won the
war or kept the peace. If the Coalition had dissolved at
the Armistice, and a party government had taken its place,
there would certainly have been civil strife — perhaps revolu-
44
tion and civil war — at home, and there would have been no
settlement abroad. Victory is not something to be
won and then spent. It must be invested prudently
so that it will bear interest in human freedom, happi-
ness, and content. The Coalition has invested well, and
already returns are beginning to come in. Under any other
Government, not only would there have been no returns, but
the capital itself might by this time have been dissipated.
If there have been times during the last two years when even
the Coalition, backed as it is by an enormous majority and
its great prestige both at home and abroad, has had cause to
fear that, after all, war might have to be renewed with
Germany, or that our sudden liberty from the bondage of
war might degenerate into ruinous license and a new bondage
of class to class, how could a mere party Government have
hoped to surmqunt these dangers ?
• But our argument has not stopped here. It has sought
to show that this union, in addition to its services to the
country, and indeed, in consequence of them, has also served
to keep the soul of our domestic politics alive. As a member
of the Coalitiori the Liberal has become a better Liberal, the
Conservative a better Conservative. Is not the frivolity of
most of the complaints made by party men against the
Coalition policy in itself proof that there is nothing un-Liberal
or un-Conservative in that policy ? It has, for example, been
objected by some Liberals that by consenting to the abandon-
ment of the land taxes, the Prime Minister has betrayed the
hopes of the " People's Budget." On the contrary, he has'
prepared the way to their realisation by retracing his steps
along paths which were clearly leading nowhere, certainly
not to the increased revenue which it was the chief object
of these taxes to obtain. From the other side, again (to take
a criticism of another order), it has been objected that the
Governmenfs action in the case of General Dyer has improperly
increased the difficulties of public servants abroad in resisting
the forces of anarchy. On the contrary, the argument of
force and violence is the one which imposes the heaviest and
most unequal burden on our agents abroad, and by indicating
its disapproval the Government makes easier the task of the
others. There has never been a Government more Liberal
than this or more Conservative ; more Liberal in its
measures, more Conservative in its conception of a
State united by the duty that all classes owe to each
other.
45
The Liberal and the Conservative Leaven.
The truth is that there is no Liberalism withcut a strain
of Conservatism, no Conservatism witliout a leaven of Liberal
faith. This is not paradox, but sober truth, illustrated by the
brief sketch that has been given of the history of the two
older parties. Love of freedom is not the monopoly of
either party, nor yet the faith in the sovereignty of the people's
will. There is not a principle of either Liberal or Con-
servative Policy that cannot be illustrated from the history
of the other, and for which the other party has not worked
quite as hard. Of all the principles of Liberalism, enfranchise-
ment is commonly regarded as the most distinctive. Yet
the Conservative Act of 1867 enfranchised as many as Grey
and Gladstone did by their Reform Acts, and neither a Liberal
nor a Conservative, but a Coalition of both, has just passed
a Reform Act which dwarfs its predecessors. Can w# resist
the conclusion that a combination of parties has a greater
faith in the people than any of them singly has ever shown ?
Again, modern Conservatism has tended to identify itself with
the development of the political unity between Great Britain
and her Dominions and possessions overseas. Yet Durham,
who settled Canada, was a Whig, and the first Imperial
Federationists were Radical, like Sir George Gre}^ But
Coalition, by definitely putting India on the road to Dominion
status, has done more than either party for ultimate federal
unity, of which the prime condition is equality of political
status. It was the Coalition, too, who at the Peace Conference
insisted on the self-governing Dominions being given
the rank of full nationhood. Was it a Liberal or a Con-
servative polic}' ? It is both and more than either. One
might go through all the departments of national policy and
find the same phenomenon to admire. What is the League
of Nations but Sir H. Campbell-Bannerman's aspiration of
the League of Peace turned into actuality, with a Cecil for
its high priest and an ardent band of young Conservatives
for its acolytes ? It is a common reproach against the
present House of Commons that it is a House of plutocrats.
Yet this plutocratic House has sanctioned a taxation
of wealth which, under normal conditions, would be
ferocious, with less agitation than old-fashioned Liberals
made over a halfpenny on a box of maLches. In Labour
matters the legislation of a House alleged to be reactionary
has justified the advice that Disraeli gave to the Chartists,
that they would begin to achieve results when they changed
Jack Straw for Lord John Straw. Not that its legislation
has been revolutionary in spirit ; it has been advanced
precisely because it has resisted the panacea of Socialism
46
and thereby preserved the principle of individual liberty
and enterprise, disciplined to higher conceptions of social
duty as the mainspring of progress. Without the Coalition.
Liberal doctrine in Labour questions was in danger of being
devoured by Socialism ; its foothold between progressive
Conservatism and the Socialistic creed was every year becom-
ing narrower and more insecure, and the alliance with what is
best and most progressive in the Conservative Party has
saved it from a plunge in which the old monarchic tyranny
which it once helped to overthrow would have reappeared as
the tyrann}^ of the State — the worst tyranny of all, because
it has no head that can be taken off. Ireland ? What, again,
but the Coalition could have accomplished the miracle of
convertLiig the Conservative Party, and even Ulster, to
Home Rule ? But to continue the catalogue of measures
and principles would be to incur monotony.
Union is not stagnation.
There is one truth, revealed by the war as though by a
flash of lightning, which reduces all these paradoxes to plain
commonplace, making sense of the apparent contradictions
of history and nonsense of the vituperations of opposing
platforms. And it is this. Both parties have been aiming
at the same ends, and often by the same means. Peace in
the world, the union of classes, and progress of the nation
towards freedom, . happiness, contentment — these are ideaJs
too great to be coerced within the four corners of any single
party programme. For generations the elector has been
taught that the opposite party is the great enemy of his
ideals. It is not true. There are as many enemies to one's
ideals in one's own party as in the other, as many friends to
them in the other party as in one's own. The real issue
in the politics, whether of party or of the nation, is this.
Shall we serve the name or the reality for which it
stands ? Shall we, by meaningless strife and obstruction,
work for party and defeat its national ends, or shall we, by
union and co-operation, work for the nation, and by so doing
realise the true end of the party ? There are two rival schools
in politics and they are not known by the names of Liberal and
Conservative. One swears by the name of party, the other
holds by the union of parties. One thinks that the way to
progress is to discover the points of difference with half one's
fellow-citizens, to exaggerate them until politics become a
caricature of reason and to obstruct attempts to sei;ve the
State that are not our ways. The other holds that there
will still be material for effective opposition when the artificial
opposition of faction has been shed, that our aim shtmld be
to discover how much we have in common v/ith our neighbour.
47
that harmony is more fertile than strife. It may be that the
parties forming a CoaHtion will not always be the same.
Union is not stagnation, and the true centre of gravity in
national affairs may move now towards the right and now
again to the left. But any true Coalition, whether of the
right or of the left, will have these infallible character* "tics.
It will reject the phrases of politics for the realities, the
words for the things ; it will seek for the unity underlying
our differences, and not for the differences overlying the
unity ; and it will make the machinery of politics the
servant, not the master ; it will subordinate the priests
of party politics to the prophets and seers of national
union.
Nor let it be thought tliat the war which revealed the
need of this union has also exhausted it. We are only at
the threshold of what ma}^ be accomplished. If party politics
have been barren of results by comparison with the expen-
diture of effort, it is because the country has fought with
one hand behind it, if not actively obstructing the work.
With two hands to the task are there any hopes of what
politics can do for our country that the Coalition cannot,
and will not fulfil ?
July -^ist, 1920.
49
INDEX.
PAGB
African, South, war .. .. .,. ... .. .. 40, 43
Agriculture, Coalition Manifesto and «. ... . . 13
America —
Party strife in , . . . . . . . . . .,. 17, 18
Peace Treaty and . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Analysis of the Argument . . . , . . . . . . i
Arabia —
Arab nationality revived . . . . . . .,. 16
Constitutional reform in ... . . . , . , 20
Armaments, 3rd Coahtion and reduction of . . . . 12
Army, Mr. Churcliill re-makes the . . . . . . . . 21
Asquith, Rt. Hon. H. H.—
CoaUtion Government formed by . . . . . . 4
Cobdenite tradition represented by . . . . . . 39
Compared with Mr. Lloyd George . . . . , . 5-6
House of Commons (19 18) impotent . . . . . . 9
Irish unity and . . . . . . . . . . , . 20
Unity, Need for continued National . . . . . . 8
Unity of Command and . . , . . . . . . . 5
Asquithians —
Coalitionism of .. ... .. .. .. .. 35
Composite character of Liberalism . . . . . . 36
George, Mr. Lloyd, held responsible for General
Election (1918) debacle . . . . . . . . 8-9
A.ttwood's, Charles, Letter to Disraeh . . . . . . 40-1
Australia, Coalition adopted in . . . . . . . . 7
Austria and the Great War . . ... . , . . . . 15
Beaconsfield, Earl of. See Disraeli, B.
Bentham and Liberahsm . . . . . . . . . . 38
Bohemia, New State of . . . . . . . . . . 16
Bothwell gives a Liberal Coalition vote . . . . . . 32
Bureaucratic bias charged against Coalition . . . . 29
Burke's definirion of Party , . . . . . . . . . 3
By-election results . . . . . . . . . , . . 31
Campbell-Bannerman, Rt. Hon. Sir H., and a League of
Peace . . . . . . . . ... . . . . 28, 46
Canada —
Acquired under a Coahtion . . . . . . . . 37
Coahtion adopted in . . . . . . . . . . 7
Durham, Lord, and .. ... .. .. .. 45
Cecil, Lord Robert, k.c, and League of Nations . . . . 46
Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. Joseph —
As'Coahtionist . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
Secession from Liberal Party . . . . . . . . 39
Unionist Party and . . . . . , . . . . 40, 43
Chartists, Disraeli's advice to ... . . . . . . 46
50
PAGE
Chatham, Earl of. See Pitt, William.
Chinese labour . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
Churchill, Lord Randolph, and Fourth I'arty • . . .^. 43
Churchill, Rt. Hon. W. S.—
Army rc-making . . . . . . . . . . ... 21
Labour Party's bogey-man . . . . . . . . ' 29
Clemenceau, M., and Peace . . . . ' . . , . . . . 9
Coalition —
Agitation against, hollow . . . . ^ . .,. 31
Asquith, Mr., forms First . . . . . . . . 4
on Need for continued National Unitj' . . . . 8
Bureaucratic bias charged against . . . . . . 29
Burke's definition of Party fits . . . . . . . . 3
By-election poll of . . . . . . . . . . 31
Chamberlain, Mr. J., as Coalitionist , . . . . . 42
Colonial policy of the . . . . . . . . . . 20
Conscription abolished by . . . . . . . . 22
Conservative influence on Programme of . . . . 28
Criticisms of . . . . . . , . . . , . 24
Disraeli and a National Party . . . . . . . . 41
Extravagance urged against . . . . . . . . 29-30
General Election, 1918, and .. .. .. .. 8-1 1
George, Mr. Lloyd, addresses Liberals of . . . . 31
and principles of National Unit)' . . . , 4
Manchester speech on . . . . . . . . 10
secures most complete . . . . . . . . 6
Hewart's, Sir G., Test of a good Coalitionist . . . . 24
If a Liberal Government had been in Power ? . . 26
India placed on road to Dominion status by . . . . 46
Irish poUcy of the . . . . . . . . . . 20-1
Labour policy of the . . . . . . . . . . 23
Legislative acliievement of the . . . , . . 14-15, 18-19
Liberal and Conservative leaven in . . . . . . 45
Liberal and Legislation of the . . . . . . . . 28
Liberal Unionist and Conservative Party . . . . 40
Manifesto of November, 1918 .. .. .. .. 11-13
Opportunism refuted . . . . . . . . . . 27-8
Paris achievements of . . . . . . . . . . 16-18
Parties are themselves a . . . . . . . . 34
Party principles in keeping of . . . . , . 2-3, 25
Peelite Coalitionists . . . . . . . . . . 40
Pitt, W., Earl of Chatham, as Coalitionist . . . . 37
Pitt, W., the younger, Coalition Ministry of . . . . 37
PoUcy not a compromise . . . . . . . . 14
Principles won the War . . . . . . . . . . 6
Profiteering policy of the . . . . . . . . 29
Representation of People Act passed bj^ the . . . . 23
2nd, and Our faith in Victory . . . . . . . . 5, 6
Services to the State . . . , . . . . . . 44
Socialism resisted by . . . . . . . . . . 46
Subterranean forces against . . . . . . . . 7-8
Trade Union wing of Labour Party and . . . . 3/j
What might have happened under a Conservative
Government . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
51
PAGE
Cobdenism —
Anti-bureaucratic school of . . , . , . . . 38
Asquith, Mr., represents tradition of . . . . . . 39
1906 General Election and . . . . . . . . 40
See also Free Trade.
Colonial Empire, Disraeli on . . . , . . . . . . 20
Comradeship of Party . . . . . . . . . . 2
Congress of Vienna . . . . . . . . . , . . 15
Conscription —
Coalition abolishes . . . . . . . . . . 22
Peace Treaty and . . .. .. .. .. .. 17
Simon, Sir J., leaves Coalition on . . . . . . 5
Conservative Party. See Unionist Party.
Corn Laws repeal . . . , . . . . . . , . 40
Demobilisation —
Coalition programiuc for. . .. .. ., .. 12
Rapid . . . . . . . . . . 17, 21
Denmark, Coalition adopted in . , . . . . . . 7
Disabled Men, ProArision for . . . . , . . . . . 21
Disraeli, B., Earl of Beaconsfield —
Chartists, Advice to . . . . . . . . . . 46
Colonial Empire and . . . . . . . , . . 20
Conservative Party saved by . . . . . . , . 40
Foreign PoUc}'^ of . . . . . . . . . . 39
Radicalism of . . . . . . . . . . . , 40-1
Reform Act of . . . . . . , . . . . . 23
Dumping, Coalition Manifesto and . . . . . . . . 13
Durham, Lord, and Canada . . . . . . . . . . 45
Dyer, General . . . . . . . . . , . . . . 45
Education — ^
Act . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
Coalition Manifesto . . . . . . . . . . 13
Egypt, Constitutional reform in . . . . . . . . 20
Enfranchised under Representation of People Act . . 23
Ex-Sailors and Soldiers. Ses Disabled Men.
Extravagance charged against Coalition .. .. ., 29-30
Financial extravagance charged against Coalition . . 29-30
Fiscal policy. See Free Trade. Paris Resolutions.
Food —
Ministiy and Rationing system . . . . . . 6
Taxation, Coalition Manifesto and . . . . . . 13
Fourth Party and Lord Randolph Churchill . . . . 43
Fox, Charles James, Factiousness of . . . . . . 37
France —
Coalition adopted in . . . . . . . . . . 7
League of Nations and . . ,. . . . . . . 17
Free Trade — ^
Coalition Manifesto and , . .;. . . . . . . 13
Coalition Policy a compromise . . . . . . . . 14
1906 General Election and . . . . .. ^. 40, 43
Runciman, Mr. , and Paris Resolutions . . . . 5
See also Protection.
52
PAGE
General Election, 1906 —
Liberal Party after . . . . . . .„ . . 43
General Election, 19 18 —
George, Mr. Lloyd, analyses figures of ... . . 31
held responsible for Asquithian debdcle at ... 8-9
George, Rt. Hon. D. Lloyd- —
Asquithian debdcle at 1918 General Election and . . 8-9
Coalition almost coinplete under . . . . . . 6
Coalition Liberals addressed by. : .. .. .. 31-2
Coalition Manifesto of November, 1918 .. .. 11-12
Compared with Mr. Asquith . . . . . . , . 5-6
Liberal-Labour Coalition impossible . . . . . . 33
Manchester speech on Coalition. . , , . . . . 10
Prinkipo proposals of . . . . . , . . , . 17
Radical tradition represented by . . . . . . 39
Radicalism of . . . . . . , . . . , . 40
Reform policy of, after 1906 Election .\ . . . . 43
Unity, National, and . . ... . . , . . . 4
Germany —
Peace Treaty changes in ^. . . . . . . 16
Political breakdown of , . ... . . . . . . 7
"War's, The Great, effect upon . . . . . . . . 15
Gladstone, Rt. Hon. W. E.—
Coercion of Ulster ,, .. .. .. ., 20
Link between Whig and Cobdenite sections . . ... 39
Reform Act of . . . . . . . . . . ... 23
Greece, Peace Treaty and . . . . . . . . . . 16 .
Grey, Sir George, Radical and Imperial Federationist .... 46
Grey of Fallodon, Viscount, Whiggisra of . . .,. .... 39
Hartington, Lord, almost last of the Whigs . . ... 38
Hewart's, Rt. Hon. Sir G., k.c. Test of a good Coalitionist 24
Home Rule —
Conservative Party converted to . . ... ... 46
Example of inefficiency of Party methods . . ... 42
Housing ., .. .. .. .. .. ..13,22
Hume on British as fighters . . . . . . . . . . 3
Imperial Preference.. Coalition Manifesto and . . .... 13
Independent Labour Party . . . . , . . . . . 35
India —
Acquired under a Coalition . . . . . . .„ 37
Coalition favours self-government for . . . . ... 12-13
Coalition, services to . , . . . . , . .,. 46
Government Bill, Greatness of ... . . ... .^. 19
Ireland —
Coalition favours self-government for . . . . 12-13, 20-1
Conservative Party converted to Home Rule . , 46
Home Rule an example of inefficiency of Party
methods , . . , . . . . . . ... 42
Nationalists unrepresented in Coalition ... a.. 7
See also Sinn Fein.
Italy, CocUition adopted in ...„«.„„ 7
53
Jewish State in Palestine
Labour, Coalition policy towards
Labour Party —
By-elections poll of
Churchill, Mr., the bogey-man of
Coalitionism of . .
Coherent policy wanted by
General Election, 191 8, and . . . .
George, Mr. Lloyd, on Liberal coalition with
Independent, Socialism of
Minority favoured Peace of Accommodation
Nationalisation supported by . .
Sinn Fein and
Socialism of .....
Trade Unionist wing of . .
Land taxes, Abandonment of
Law, Rt. Hon. A. Bonai, CoaUtion Manifesto and
League of Nations —
Campbell-Banneiman, Sir H., and League of Peace
Cecil, Lord R., and
Coalition Manifesto and
Covenant of
France and
Peace Treaty and . .
Legislative achievement of Coalition
Liberal Party —
Chamberlain, Mr. J., and
Leaven in Coalition Government . .
19th century Coalition of Whigs, Cobdenites and
Radicals . .
1906 General Election and
Radical wing the driving force in 1906
See also Asquithians. Coalition.
Liberal Unionist coalition with Conservative Party
Liquor Traffic, Coalition Manifesto and
Lords, Coalition and reform of House of
Ludendorff on Germany's breakdown
Marie Antoinette and French Revolution .,.
Middle East and Turkey
Mill, J. S., and Liberalism
Money, Fall in value of
Montagu, Rt. Hon. E. S., and Government of India Bill
Montesquieu on democracy . .
Morley's, Lord, timidity in Indian reform .„
Napoleonic Wars —
Constitutional freedom set back by
Contrasted with Great War . . «.
National Democratic Party —
By-election poll of
General Election of 1918 and
PAGE
. 16
23
31
29
• 35
27
31
33
35
7
23
32
32
33-4
45
11-12
28, 46
46
12
20
17
16
18-19
43
45
38
43
43-4
40
13- 14
13. 14
7
29
20
38
22
19
19
19
37-8
15
31
31
54
PAGE
National Party, Disraeli and a . . . . . . . . 41
Nationalisation, Labour Party and . . . . . . . . 23
New Zealand, Coalition adopted in . . . . . . . . 7
Palestine —
Constitutional reform in .. .. .. .. 20
Jewish State in . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Palmerston, Lord, Whig- jingoism of .. .. .. 39
Paris— " ';
Resolutions, Mr. Runciman and . . . . . . 5
Treaty of . . . . . . . . . . . . ... 15
Parnell's conversations with Lord Salisbury . . . . 42
Party—
Burke's definition of . . . . . . . . . , 3
Comradeship of . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Controversy ended by Great War . . . . . . 4
Ireland an object lesson of . . . . . . . . 21
Most parties are themselves a Coalition . . . . 34
Politics degenerate into Faction . . . . . . 3
Principles respected by Coalition . . .... 25
Peace —
Achievements .. .. .. .. .. .. 16-17
Coalition programme for. . .. ..... .. 12
Conference, Dominions at . . . . . . . . 46
George, Mr. Lloyd, and . . .... . . . . 9
In War and War in Peace . . . . . . . . 6
Unity, National, necessary for . . . . . . . . 4
Wilson, President, and . . . . . . . . . . 10
Peel, Sir Robert, Conservative Party broken by . . . . 40
" People's Budget " . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
Pitt, WiUiara, Earl of Chatham, as Coalitionist . . . . 37
Pitt, William, the younger, Coalition Ministry of . . . , 37
Poland, New State of . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Pontefract gives a Liberal Coalition vote . . . . . . 32
Preference, Coalition Manifesto and Imperial . . . . 13
Prinkipo proposals of Mr. Lloyd George . . . . . . 17
Production, Coalition Manifesto and increased . . . . 13
Profiteering policy of the Coalition . . . . . . . . 29
Protection, Mr. J. Chamberlain and . . . . . . 40, 43
Radicalism —
Disraeli as Tory-Radical . . . . . . . . 40-1
Diverse schools of . . . . . . . . . . 38
George, Mr, Lloyd, represents tradition of . . . . 39, 40
Liberal Party and, in 1906 . . . . . . . . 43-4
Railways —
Coalition Manifesto and . . . . . . . . . . 13
Transport Act and . . . . . . . . . . 22
Rationing system and submarine campaign . . . . 6
Raw Materials, Coalition Manifesto and , . . . . . 13
Reform Acts, Number enfranchised by . . . . . . 23
Reparation, German . . . . . . . . . . . . t6
Representation of the People Act . . . . . . . . 23
Runciman, Rt. Hon. Walter, and Paris Resolutions . . 5
55
Russia —
Anaxchy in
George's, Mr. Lloyd, Prinkipo proposals
Political disease in
War prolonged in
Sailors. See Demobilisation. Disabled Men.
Salisbury, Lord, and Home Rule
Shipping Ministry and Great War . .
Simon, Rt. Hon. Sir John, k.c, and Conscription
Sinn Fein coalition with Labour Party
Slavia, Southern, New State of
Socialism —
Coalition's resistance to . .
Labour Party's
Trade Unionist's . .
Wing of Labour Party . .
Soldiers. See Demobilisation. Disabled men.
Submarine campaign and Rationing system
Supreme Council
Swansea gives a Liberal Coalition vote
Sweden, Coalition adopted in
Syndicalism
Tariff Reform, Mr. Chamberlain and
Taxation of Wealth
Tory Party. See LTnionist Party.
Trade Unionism —
Socialism not general in . .
Wing of Labour Party . .
Transport Act and Railways
Treaty of Paris
Turkey —
And the Great War
Peace Treaty changes in
Settlement delayed
Ulster^
Coalition policy towards
Home Rule conversion of
Unemployment . .
Unionist Party —
By-election poll of
Chamberlain, Mr. J., a great gain to . .
Influence on. .
Coalition has not violated principles of
Coalition Manifesto and . .
Coalitionism of . .
Conservative leaven in Coalition Government
Disraeli saves Conservative Party
General Election, 1918, and
Home Rule conversion of
Liberal Unionist coalition
Origins of . .
15
22
7
42
6
5
32
16
46
32
35
33-4
6
15
32
7
22
40. 43
46
35
33-4
22
15
15
16
18
20
46
23
31
42
43
25
12
35
28,45
40
31
21, 46
40
36
56
Unionist Party — continued —
Trade Union wing of Labour Party and
What might have happened under a
Government
United States —
Party strife in
Peace Treaty and . . . . . .
Unity of Command, Mr. Asquith and
Vienna, Congress of . .
War, The Great —
Coalition principles won the
Coalition, 2nd, and Our faith in Victory
George, Mr. Lloyd, and National Unity
Half a world in ruins
Party controversy ended by
Peace in War and Wax in Peace
Russian anarchy prolongs
Unity of Command in .a
Wealth, Taxation of . .
Whigs —
19th century Liberal Party and
Pitt's quarrel with the . ,
Undemocratic character of
Whitley Commissions . .
Wilson, President, and Peace Treaty
Conservative
PAGE
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10
5
15
6
6
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15
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7
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37
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