impressive than its position in the constituencies. The most startling of its victories have been won, almost without exception, in three-cornered contests, against more numerous but divided adversaries. For this reason we consider the militant and triumphant attitude of the Labour leaders at the present moment as inappropriate. It is not seemly for a party which owns only 31 per cent. of the House of Commons and 30 per cent. of the actual votes polled in the country, to give itself the airs of autocracy, to claim the ministerial bench as its right, and to speak of its intention to cast the nation into the troubles of another General Election if its claim to domination is denied. We can understand the intoxicating effect of the modest series of victories recently gained on individuals who for long years have been fighting an uphill battle, and who now have before them a sort of Pisgah-view of the Treasury Bench. But the Promised Land is not really conquered-the Labour party is still a minority, and not by any means the largest minority, in the House of Commons. If any minority ought to have a prescriptive right to try its hand at governance, it is the largest minority, i.e. the Conservatives. If they have no rights, it is clear that an over-represented party, which has 68 members less than Mr Baldwin's following, has also no rights. Premature Cabinet-making, sometimes (apparently) carried out with the object of producing the most whimsical rather than the least absurd combinations, is a childish sport for the representatives of a 31 per cent. minority. It is talk of this kind which makes us reflect how dangerous even a short turn of a Socialistic-Labour Government might prove, owing to the alarming increase in recent years of the administrative power of cabinets. Some of the men in some of the offices to which they have nominated themselves, or have been nominated by their admirers, might do infinite harm in a few weeks. As we said above, the nation has to face a problem never before presented to it. 'His Majesty's Government,' as the Duke of Wellington once observed, 'must be carried on somehow.' The old precedents, which had as their essential base the fact that there were two parties, and no more, in Great Britain, have become obsolete : nay more, they may have become positively misleading and dangerous. A wholly new situation is presented for the first time. Common sense rather than the exhumation of ancient Victorian, or pre-Victorian, incidents of political life should guide the policy of the realm. It seems to us that when Mr Baldwin's Cabinet has been evicted from office by some vote of want of confidenceas Mr Asquith assures us will be the case within the next few days-the best possible solution of the problem would be somewhat as follows. The outgoing premier will present his resignation. It is then obvious that the Crown has before it three minorities, one considerably larger than the other two, but none of them able to give any guarantee that it can conduct the affairs of the Kingdom of the Empire. None of them can say that it has the nation at its back: none of them has the moral right to demand a dissolution, on the plea that it could probably command a majority in a new House of Commons. The polling figures of December show that such a claim would be monstrous and impudent. We are faced by a well-defined three-party situation, which is likely to endure. The expedient which should first be tried is that the Crown should summon to a meeting not one, but all three, of the leaders of minorities in the House of Commons. It should be explained to them that none of their parties, from the greatest to the smallest, can show any moral or practical claim to enjoy a monopoly of power, on any technical interpretion of 19th-century precedents. They should then be asked, as responsible British statesmen, and lovers of their country, to confer, as representing between them the whole nation, and to formulate some plan-temporary or permanent-for facing the crisis. Any leader who refuses to listen to this appeal, and returns an answer couched in the language of mere party spirit, refusing to co-operate for the good governance of the State, will put himself in a hopeless position before a justly indignant nation. To return a non possumus reply would be to declare oneself the mere representative of personal ambitions or of party spite. It is possible that an appeal to the three leaders, couched in such terms, might fail. It is more probable, we think, that it would lead to some sort of an agreement. An administration based on the principle of the greatest common measure' might be tried and found wanting. But the experiment is worth making-not least so because it may be confidently as serted that the majority of the nation has declared itself opposed to the constructive programmes of each of the three parties, if indeed the Liberal party can be said to have one. Perhaps there may be worse things than a deadlock in legislation, caused by the counter-blocking from one side or the other of all active schemes of change, whether they take the form of Protection at one end of the scale, or of the Capital Levy at the other. THE QUARTERLY No. 479 PUBLISHED IN APRIL, 1924 LONDON: JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W.1. NEW YORK: LEONARD SCOTT PUBLICATION COMPANY 1924 GENERAL INDEX TO THE QUARTERLY REVIEW. A new Index, forming Volume CCXXII., comprising the volumes from CCII. to CCXXI., of the QUARTERLY REVIEW, has been published, and is obtainable through any bookseller (Price 6/- net). The QUARTERLY REVIEW is published on or about the 15th of Price Thirty-two Shillings per Annum, post free. Printed in Great Britain by WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, Limited, London and Beccles. |