THE ELECTIONS-AND AFTER. I. SOMETHING Over a million the centre of Liberal hopes. pounds has been squandered, an immeasurable amount of sense and nonsense has been talked, and for three weeks the country has been filled with the valueless expense of energy known as electioneering. The end of it all is nil, a complete stalemate. The majority of last January remains virtually the same. And yet the result is not purely negative, for an attack has failed. The aim of the Government in dissolving was an increased majority, and they have not got it. The nation regards them with just as much favour as last January, and with just as little. You cannot appeal within ten months for a fresh mandate, when nothing has obviously impaired the old one, unless you expect a stronger response and if you do not get that, you may be taken to have failed. The Conservative Party has no cause for despondency. Some of its more sanguine members may have hoped to gain seats on the balance, but it is much to have deprived the Government of the gain of thirty which they confidently looked for. And if we examine the nature of returns there is reason for a modest satisfaction. We have lost 29 seats and gained 27, and our gains are worth noting. The Lancashire area, including Cheshire, has been for five years We were told that what the hard-headed industrial population of the North thought was the true opinion of England. In this area we have gained on the balance eight seats, most of them by large majorities. In the remainder we have enormously reduced the hostile vote, and have missed winning several seats by the narrowest margins. The decrease of the Liberal and Labour poll since last January is well over 48,000, and the increase of the Unionist poll is over 12,000— a remarkable figure when we consider what is meant by an increase on a stale register. In the county of Devon we have changed the balance, and now hold eight seats to our opponents' three. The great ports are almost wholly in our hands. The Birmingham area is still impregnable. The English counties won in January, which offered a large target for Radical attack, have stood loyally by us, in spite of or perhaps because of-the antics of the Gladstone League. We have lost nothing substantial: we have gained a share of what was the chief pride of our opponents; the balance is clearly in our favour. About the motive of this hasty and intemperate election there has never been the slightest doubt. It was 8 despairing effort on the part of the Government to regain introduced into the House of their freedom. They hoped Commons, must have been that the odium of breaking ruled out of order by the up the Conference would fall Speaker as irrelevant to the upon the Opposition, and rest of it), the Radical Rump that the old "Down with declared that reform was an the Lords" cry might revive insult to the people, or, at with something of the fury any rate, to a Radical House of the 'eighties. They had of Commons. Confusion was encouraging reports from their confounded by the action of Whips, and long before the the House of Lords, who Conference terminated they promulgated a scheme of rehad, quite wisely and rightly, form so thoroughgoing as for made their preparations for a moment to deprive the an appeal to the country. Whigs of speech. To this They believed that they were was added a form of Refersafely intrenched in the bor- endum, and Mr Balfour very oughs, and would lose no seats, honestly and courageously while they might win thirty offered as a pledge of good seats in the counties. The faith to submit Tariff Reform best they hoped for was such to this popular test. The only an increase as would make Liberal retort was the schoolthem independent alike of Mr boy one about a "death-bed Redmond and Mr Keir Hardie: repentance": the accusationthe least was such a gain as not unnatural in such tactiwould enable them to declare cians-that the scheme was that the nation had accepted an electioneering dodge: and the Veto Bill by a majority suf- the odd plea that a referenficient to warrant that grave dum was "undemocratic." constitutional change. They Democracy, on this curious were quite alive to the dan- doctrine, is whatever may be gers of a hasty election, but trusted to vote the straight anything was better than Radical or Labour ticket. standing still. Sooner or Happily for its comfort Liberlater an election must come, alism rarely worries itself and the later it came the less about reason. While the orassets they would have to dinary party hack shouted meet its demands. on a thousand platforms that the strife was Peers against People, another section declared that the issue was the Constitution against Revolution. A great deal of university-extension history was furbished up to show the merits of our traditional system and the Jacobinism of the Conservatives. The result was a month of political Babel, The conduct of the election was in keeping with its motive. Liberal policy has never given a more wonderful example of its gift of divers tongues. While on the one hand the Whig element in the Cabinet put their faith in the "reform" preamble to the Veto Bill (a preamble, by the way, which, had the Bill ever been fortunately were confronted with many. As an Opposition they were handicapped by the shortness of time that had elapsed since the last Election The nation was asked to reject the Conservatives on the grounds that (a) they preferred a class to the people; (b) they had a Jacobinical trust in the people; (c) they ten months, of which at least were about to destroy an five were a political moratorium. ancient, interesting, and con- The stale register increased stitutional House of Lords, and this handicap, for it lessened replace it by a jerry-built, new- the chance of any change in fangled foreign structure; and opinion showing itself. More (d) they proposed to keep the important, the Conservative House of Lords, and the House case needed time for presentaof Lords must go. Great must tion, and the time was denied have been the bewilderment of it. It is not easy to impress the British voter when asked new and not simple ideas upon to accept these consistent and the popular mind in a fortconclusive arguments. Mean- night. A proof of this is the while Mr Lloyd George un- topography of our gains and selfishly devoted himself to losses. In Scotland we have the task of creating prejudice. held our own in seats, and In the East End of London he largely decreased the majorities made a gallant attempt to against us. The same reducresurrect the horse on which tion of majorities is seen in the German workman is be- Yorkshire. In Lancashire and lieved to support life. Then Cheshire we have won eight seats on the balance, and halved most of the hostile majorities. In East and South London, on the other hand, where in the large slum areas ideas have little weight, we lost ground. Something, too, was lost on last January's basis by the fact that the Labour party from lack of funds, and also because of the virtual identification of their aims with Radicalism, engineered fewer three-cornered fights. The counties on the whole have manfully stood by us; but in eastern England Nonconformity, a little frightened last January by Mr Lloyd George's Budget, has returned to its traditional allegiance to the creed which offers it reprisals on squire and parson. he discovered an aged Dartmoor convict with a "bitter cry." At last, finding these appeals less effective than he thought, he settled down into his Pleasant Sunday Afternoon manner of pious vulgarity. He has never shone in argument, but he has to his credit the only Radical plea yet advanced against the against the Referendum. He declared that it would cost £2,000,000. The figure is interesting, for it works out at 6s. 8d. per voter. Can this be a reminiscence of early days in the profession he has since maligned? The Liberal party suffered only one disadvantage, and that not a serious one to them -the lack of any rational argument. Conservatives un Let it be added that the Conservative organisation, bad at the best, is reduced to chaos by a fight at short notice. Every election brings the same miserable complaint. There is no supervision of local associations, no attempt to make backward localities efficient, no selection of the right men for the right seats. A great deal of money seems to have been spent on newspaper advertising, the most idiotic form of waste that can be conceived. It would be worth the Conservative party's while to stay for ten years out of office, if thereby we could scrap the present party machinery and learn the rudiments of sane business. And what has all the turmoil proved? That the country in ten months has not seriously changed its mind. That in Radical strongholds Conservatism has begun to make way. That the movement of opinion — apparent if judged by seats, but conspicuous if judged by votes-is in favour of the Opposition. We do not see what other morals can be drawn from the Election, and we cannot see how they improve the position of the Government. If Mr Asquith had not a sufficient majority to carry a constitutional change before the Election, he has not got it now. He was very clear that the contest of last January was fought on the power of the House of Lords, and that the result gave him a triumphant majority for his Veto Bill. Surely he cannot argue that this mandate had gone stale in ten months. Unless the appeal to the country of a month ago was pure caprice, the results of the polls are a blow to Liberalism. They have given no mandate to the Government to do anything apart from Mr Red II. mond, a gentleman who, as Mr Asquith said nobly some years ago, was ready to do business with either party. On the same occasion he declared the Liberals could not honourably take office unless they could rely on an independent majority. Where is this independent majority, not for office merely, but for constitutional revolution? Throughout the Election Mr Asquith, Sir Edward Grey, and Mr Lloyd George have been throwing out hints about the kind of majority they wanted. It is well to keep a line of retreat, for the sea of Liberal politics is a very Hadria for sudden tempests. It is true that the Prime Minister has since declared that he meant nothing by his speeches, that he is satisfied with his majority and his loyal Irishmen. the thing is too obvious to be affected by tactical denials. Mr Asquith as a lawyer is perfectly well aware that, since Britain has no constituent law, it is a statesman's duty to treat constitutional change as different from ordinary legis But lation. There must be a majority in its favour which shall at least compare with such overwhelming majorities required in democracies like France and America. Where is this majority in Britain? How is it possible to argue that the Government have a constitutional mandate for their Veto Bill when 42 members of their following want precisely the opposite of what the Cabinet has pledged itself to, and 76 members want the Veto abolished only in order to force through a measure from which it is certain that the majority of the British people are heartily averse? Without these 118 members the Goverment have no majority. Where, in Heaven's name, are we to discover their mandate for constitutional change? Indeed, so far from emerging from the Election with increased prestige, the Government have suffered a serious loss of reputation. The speeches of Liberal leaders have been weaker, thinner, more irrelevant than usual. Mr Asquith has relapsed into a fine, crusted, John Bull unreasonableness-"I'm not arguing, I'm telling you" -which suits him well, and is perhaps his wisest course. He knows perfectly well that half his following, and all in it that is respectable and thoughtful, detest the Veto Bill and loathe the Irish bondage. If ratting were less unpopular, there would have been many converts from Liberalism. As it is, these poor gentlemen console themselves with the absurd Preamble, and flatter themselves that their course may be Conservative after all. But if the Whig section be uneasy, the Radical Rump is uneasier still. Its leaders have fallen uncommonly flat. Mr Lloyd George, of course, can always command an enthusiastic audience of believers for his peculiar rhetoric, but he makes no way. His Billingsgate amuses or irritates without convincing; but his piety offends without impressing. People have a dim consciousness of what Thomas Carlyle has put into famous words: "It is a sad but sure truth that every time you speak of a fine purpose, especially if with eloquence and to the admiration of bystanders, there is the less chance of your ever making a fact of it in your poor life." As for Mr Churchill, he is rapidly becoming a tragic figure. He is detested by his opponents, and disliked and distrusted by his allies. He has unclassed himself to lead what he calls "Democracy," but "Democracy" neither likes nor understands him. For sheer ability we do not believe he has an equal in his own party, or a superior in any party. He has a gift of oratory which recalls the great days of Parliamentary debate: he is a master of pure and nervous English prose: he is a serious and widely read student of the world's history and politics. But these great endowments are as useless to him as swordsmanship would be to a navvy in a street row. He has deliberately chosen a sphere of |