XVIITHE PARLIAMENTARY TRIANGLE
5.1.24
That profoundly absurd body the British Parliament will meet on January 8, and the recondite and fascinating game of party politics will be resumed under novel conditions with three parties, none of which have a majority, and with a Labour Party in sight, not of power, but of office.
I call the British Parliament an absurd body with set and measured intention. It is twice as big as it ought to be for efficient government; it carries a load, a fatty encumbrance, of more than three hundred undistinguished and useless members; much of its procedure, its method of taking divisions for example, is idiotically wasteful of the nation’s time; and it is elected by methods so childishly crude that it represents neither the will nor the energy nor the intelligence of the country. It dissipates and caricatures the national consciousness. Assembled, it will have nothing definite to say to France, Germany, Russia, America, or to the festering mass of British unemployed. From the Parliamentary point of view that sort of thing is subsidiary. Its party leaders will engage at once in the primarybusiness of party leaders, which is, of course, to secure the sweets of office as speedily and securely as possible.
The broad lines of the game to be played this year are now fairly evident. They raise a number of profoundly interesting questions. The Conservative Party is the strongest of the three, but the Government it supports can be and will be turned out of office by a vote of “no confidence,” in which the Liberals, the smallest party of all, will support the Labour motion. The King will then send forMr.Ramsay MacDonald, the leader of the Opposition, and ask him to form a Government. ThisMr.MacDonald says he intends to do. He will have the qualified support of the Liberal Party. Almost immediately the Labour Party will have to produce its Budget.
The prophets foretell two alternatives. The Labour Government will produce a weak, individualistic Budget, an apologetic, compromising, imitative affair; it will drop or reserve almost all its Socialistic ideas, and it will be permitted to continue in office under the distinguished patronage—gracefully and frequently reiterated—ofMr.Asquith, so long as its good behaviour continues. Everyone will praiseMr.Ramsay MacDonald’s statesmanlike moderation, and when at last the Party has to face the constituencies——But it will have no face left for the constituencies. A mass of votes will drift back to Liberalism, which by that time will be seento be just as good as Labour or better, and the crowd of unemployed, the poor, the disinherited, and all who are really weary and angry with the exploits and adventures of the untrammelled rich, will turn their faces away from the Labour Party and Parliamentary methods towards revolution. But the Liberal politicians will take little heed of the latter drift because it is outside the scope of Parliamentary procedure.
Or secondly, the prophets think that Labour may produce very bold and far-reaching Socialist proposals. They may stick to the Capital Levy, and so forth. They may put up their entire election programme. Then the Liberal Party will withdraw its support.Mr.Ramsay MacDonald will be obliged to resign, and the clever little, brave little Liberal group will form a Government, and with the assistance of a large part of the Conservatives carry on and—with large benevolent gestures—“save the country” by doing nothing. So that on the second alternative also the Liberal Party stands to win.
But thenMr.Ramsay MacDonald may advise the King to dissolve Parliament; he may ask the country to decide upon his Budget and legislative programme. And here comes the most delicate issue of all. The Liberal prophets tell us the King will refuse a dissolution. Will he in fact refuse to follow the advice of his Ministers, and become active instead of passive in party affairs? WhenMr.Baldwin asked for a dissolution the King protested andgranted it. Will he behave differently towardsMr.MacDonald? The Liberal prophets have most attractive arguments to show that such a course is constitutional. No doubt it is.Mr.Baldwin had a majority;Mr.MacDonald has not. Nevertheless, would such a refusal, from the point of view of the Court, be a wise thing? The common man in the country is not going to see the thing from the lawyer’s standpoint. He is going to conclude that the King favours the Conservatives and Liberals against Labour. From the point of view of the monarchy that is a very undesirable conclusion, even if it is an unjust conclusion, to spread about the country in a period of unemployment and social stress.
It is a polite convention in Great Britain that there is no Republican feeling in the land. That convention is not in accordance with the facts. There is much dormant Republicanism, but so long as the monarchy remains “the golden link of empire,” so long as the conditions of a “crowned republic” are observed, Republicanism sleeps. But it sleeps much more lightly than many people suppose, and the crown cannot afford to make mistakes.
When the other day the Duke of York allowed himself to be associated with what appears to be a British imitation of the Ku Klux Klan, the sleeping spirit stirred. It raised an eyebrow, even if it did not open an eye. It may prove a great misfortune for the British crown if presently it is led by the assurances of eager Liberals into even the appearanceof hostility to the party of the workers. The now latent Republicanism of the British people, once roused to activity, may be very difficult to lull again. The Labour Party may become a Republican party. And since the British crown is manifestly wary and discreet, I am not so certain as the Liberal lawyers that that dissolution will be refused. I may be wrong, and so among other possibilities we may see a “safety” Liberal Government sitting on the safety-valve in Britain for some years.
But do these alternatives exhaust the possibilities of the case? Suppose the coming Labour Government neither abandons nor carries out its Capital Levy, but refers it to a delaying committee of inquiry, and suppose it goes on in grim earnest to realise all of the fine promises of the Liberal programme. Where will the Liberals be then? Suppose, pending the decision of the committee upon the Capital Levy, it piles up the super-tax on large incomes, puts an almost confiscatory tax upon underdeveloped land and mineral resources, abolishes the game laws and rids England of the fox, cuts expenditure upon armaments and military and naval display ruthlessly—puts, for example, the Guards into reasonable and comfortable inexpensive uniforms—replaces doles by public employment, organises agricultural marketing, produces a comprehensive housing scheme, and quadruples the estimate for education and scientific research; what are the Liberals going to say to it?
I know what the dinner parties will say about it, but the Liberal Party, if it is to go on existing, must save its face with the country. Perhaps a third of the Liberal Party might be genuinely disposed to back such a Labour programme; another third might feel constrained to do so.Mr.Lloyd George would move leftward, quite helpfully. And the Labour Government might struggle along insecurely and valiantly for much longer than most of the prophets suppose.
And the party managers, of all three parties, will be scheming some new electoral law before the next election. None of them will hear of honest proportional representation with large constituencies and a smaller, more efficient House of Commons; but they will all be planning something that will look fair and honest, leave the party system intact, and advantage the Parliamentary party to which each belongs. In this matter the Labour Party is no more honest than any other. Its party organs discuss the question entirely from the party point of view, and are quite disposed to consider “the alternative vote” or any other shabby evasion of proper electoral methods. So that at the end of our vista we must reckon with an election faked perhaps in some novel way but just as absurd as the last one.
And so Great Britain muddles through the years of destiny.