19Z0 UCSOL ^i£" . ■ .*"'■" -u i < r-, ' , J3 ; . :^ ^= = — ■ Jf/-^^ A c 1 XI 3 r-1 5 2 9 ID ^ 3 §^ u? #i THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES liaSHSIElSMSHIIHHmaHliltilsllJIdtSIilKMIingHEIHIsIHMSSSiaiilQIKIEI^ E] EI H H E _ _ _ _ _ M PARTY NOT FACTION H H H m m EI I H %. V I H H H H "-■■'■■-'■■^■■■■'■■■■■^■■^■■■"■■■■■^ H H H a 7"/ie Necessity for National | Government. | ■ m m H T/ze NeeJ for Coalition. BY B P^ POLITICUS. 1 g I /'nV^ SIXPENCE Net. a H H i PuWrsW af 25-27, OU Queen Street, S.W.]. | E g 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 34 25 17, 18 10 5 15 6 6 4 15 4 6 7 5.6 46 38 37 3^7 23 10 Printed by Harrison &- Sons, Ltd., 44-47, St. Martin's Lane, W.C. 2. ^^i»i!.hiiiTYof CAUn>HJw UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY Los Angeles This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. Wis 1962 APR ^ REC'D Form L9 — 15w-10,'48 (B1039)444 NIVEKSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT LOS ANGELES LIBRARY UCLA-Young Research Library JN1121 1920 .P75p y ^ J> <-) 11 o CO en CO o J f/ '.-v