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In brief, Mr Asquith rushes to destruction in pure wantonness. Not a thought does he give to the country or the Empire. So busy has he been in securing the adherence of Mr Redmond, that he cannot spare a moment for the claims of patriotism. He has but one aim—the creation of a tyranny. The old superstition, that the Radical party was the guardian of liberty, is exploded for ever. The ancient claim that Liberalism was progress can never be made again, save in grim irony. If Mr Asquith were to succeed, the House of Commons would be but the facile instrument of an autocratio Cabinet, which would force its views upon a silenced country, and would stifle free discussion with the guillotine. And strange it is that, at the very moment when the popular voice is being strangled, the demagogues, with the Prime Minister at their head, prate loudest of the People's Will, and deceive the electorate with the meaningless catchwords of popular government. Why is it that the Radical party has put off from it the last rags of political honour? Why has it divested itself of all the principles which once it pretended to hold sacred? Because for the last four years it has been established upon falsehood. In 1906 it was lifted into power by the lie of Chinese Slavery. The lie was conscious and profitable. After the election its falsity was recognised by those who had most eagerly employed it. And henceforth falsehood became an influence

in the land. Why, said the Radical politician, should I trouble to tell the truth when the elector will believe whatever he hears and when a thousand votes lurk in & picturesque falsehood? And so he went from lie to lie, as from strength to strength. Before the last election there was not a single Minister who did not declare with unctuous solemnity that he would not take office again unless he had a guarantee that the people's will, by which he meant his own will, should prevail within the limits of a single Parliament. There was a "breezy independence" about this assertion which commended itself to the sanguine Radical. Here is a man, said the sturdy one, who likes nothing so much as a fight in which he is not engaged, who means what he says, and will stand no nonsense. Of course the Minister did not mean what he said at all. He was prepared to take office at any time and on any terms, and take it he did, though he asked for no guarantees, and knew that he must live henceforth upon the sufferance of Mr Redmond.

Mr Asquith, indeed, more cunning than the rest, made a virtue of what seemed for the moment necessity. Having said once that he would not take office without guarantees, he presently declared that there would be no approach to the Sovereign until the Veto Bill (not the Resolutions) had been approved by the House of Commons, that it was his duty to keep the prerogative of the

Crown out of the domain of party politics as long as possible. As long as possible, of course, meant as long as Mr Redmond would allow him, and when Mr Redmond forbade a further delay Mr Asquith changed his note. "If the Lords fail to accept our policy," said he, on April 15th, "we shall feel it our duty immediately to tender advice to the Crown as to the steps which will have to be taken if that policy is to receive statutory effect in this Parliament." And so the Budget was passed. But an irreparable injury has been done to political honesty. If we may no longer accept the word of the Prime Minister, then politics become a mere thing of jugglery, and the government of the country will fall inevitably into the basest hands.

And Mr Lloyd-George follows in the footsteps of Mr Asquith. He is sure neither of himself nor of his facts. The nonsense which he has talked in the House of Commons concerning the consumption of black bread and horse and dog in Germany is a wanton insult at once to a great country and to the intelligence of his audience. If he does not know that in thus speaking he is saying the thing which is not, he is unfit to be Chancellor of the Exchequer. If he is aware of his own inaccuracy, then he deepens the impression of carelessness which the speeches of the Prime Minister produce. It is in the same spirit that he has declared the statements of Mr O'Brien both false and a gross breach of confidence, and

the passage of the last few weeks convinces us that the old scruples are dead, and that the Radical politician asks of a statement not that it should be true, but that it should meet the exigence of the moment. For such conduct as this opportunism is a very kindly word.

The results of Mr Asquith's policy, ultimate and immediate, are equally deplorable. Not only has he created a feeling of general insecurity, which only years of sound government can remove, but he has struck a dangerous blow at the very thing which he pretends to reverence, democracy itself. Popular rule cannot be successful without good faith. If once the pernicious doctrine be inculcated, that anything is good enough to deceive the people withal, honest men will cease to busy themselves with the affairs of State. What room will there be for them if the standards of public life are debased to the level of falsehood? And with the withdrawal of honesty from Parliament we shall witness the triumph of the professional politician, who seeks a place in the House of Commons, not to put his energy and intelligence at the service of the country, but to see what he can get out of it for his own advantage. It is not a pleasant prospect, nor is it the least of the injuries which the tergiversation and incapacity of Mr Asquith have inflicted upon the country.

To sum up: if Mr Asquith have his way, and is permitted to destroy the constitution, we shall have a single-chamber

Government, uncontrolled and uncontrollable; Home Rule will drive Ireland to bankruptcy and anarchy; the Churches of Wales and England will be disestablished; the franchise will be so deftly managed as to ensure a Radical majority; within ten years we shall be left without an Empire and without colonies, which cannot survive the establishment of single-chamber rule; the policy of doles and pensions, and the practice of bribing the electorate with public money, will bring Great Britain to ruin; and then the revolution, imposed by Mr Redmond upon a country which he proposes to make his enemy, will be complete. That is our loss. What is our profit? The privilege of being governed by Mr Asquith, who has so high a sense of the dignity of Crown and Parliament that he will bargain them both away for votes, and by Mr Lloyd - George, a windy rhetorician, who mistakes words for deeds, and who believes that he can quell the disturbances which he creates by the magic of his tongue. It is not much to gain for the high price that is exacted, and perhaps there are some citizens left who do not believe that "wait and see are the last words of wisdom, or that the politician who boasts that he has never before been "given away" is entitled to our confidence or respect.

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Meanwhile Mr Asquith has but a faint sense of his evildoing. He appears not to understand that he has outraged the traditions of his high office. A speech which he delivered

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not long since at a public dinner suggests that the enormity of his actions has wholly escaped him. "It would be an evil day," said he, "he trusted that it might never come, and he saw no sign that it was likely to come, when, whoever might be the incumbents of office for the time being, a gathering such as theirs refused to allow the Ministers of the day full credit for the desire conscientiously to perform the responsibilities which they owed to the Crown and the country. How easily men deceive themselves! The day which Mr Asquith deprecates is not merely "likely to come," it is here already. After the exhibition of the last few weeks Mr Asquith will persuade no Unionist that he is "conscientiously performing his responsibilities," that he is "discharging the duty which was owed not to one section of the community or another, but to the nation and the Empire as a whole." Never once has he thought or spoken of the Empire. He is eager to abolish the House of Lords that he may serve his own and Mr Redmond's section of the community, and none other. has made his attack upon the constitution in the fierce spirit of party. What happens to England and the Empire when Mr Redmond and the Irish are satisfied he does not stop to inquire. And he will find presently that he has turned the current of political of political controversy into the rapids.

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There was a time, it is true, when the leaders of the two great parties gave each other

oredit for loyalty and patriotism. That that time is now past is largely the work of Mr Asquith himself. He did not inaugurate the new era. This inauguration was the work of Mr Gladstone, who discovered suddenly that conscience and popularity were fighting on the same side. But what Mr Gladstone began Mr Asquith has achieved. He has made opportunism his guide and god. He has resolved to follow the easy course, to go whither the votes of his supporters lead him. He has delivered many speeches during the present session, and in each one of them he has revealed

the cunning adroitness of the ward-politician. We can hardly think so ill of his intelligence as to credit that he sincerely believes destruction properly precedent to reform. The theory that the House of Lords should be abolished first and altered afterwards was doubtless put into his brain by one more cynical and less sensible than himself. Nor do we suppose that he is a sincere and convinced advocate of a single chamber. His reading of history must have persuaded him that this last step in the downward path of democracy is good neither for Crown nor country. But for the moment it appears useful to a disloyal section, and thus it has won the interested support of the Prime Minister. How then shall he demand of an audience, not all his sworn spirators, full credit for a desire conscientiously to serve England and the Empire?

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Mr Asquith has put the

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question in the clearest terms, and the answer is as clear as the question. Henceforth no one who guards zealously the honour of his country can regard Mr Asquith as anything better than his country's enemy. It is time that the old amiabilities were done with for ever. It used to be said, as if to England's credit, that opposing politicians might knit without the House of Commons friendship which their opinions made impossible within the walls of the Chamber. This blending of private friendship with public hostility is of modern growth. It is to Pitt's honour that in а political career of more than twenty years he never exchanged a single word with his most eloquent opponent, Charles James Fox. How should he have met on terms of intimacy the man whom he knew was always the friend of England's foe, who dared not believe the report of an English defeat because the news was too good to be true? Thus he refused to yield the honour of his country to a foolish sense of amenity, and the good example set by Pitt was followed for half a century. Politicians chose their friends, as they chose their colleagues, on their own side of the House, and the Government was carried with better energy and courage through this very wise limitation. And then, democracy became triumphant, and society extended its borders, the ancient barriers were broken down. Whigs and Tories mingled at the same receptions, and by a pretence

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of friendship weakened the service of the State. It was Lady Palmerston, says tradition, who first threw open her house to men of all opinions, and thus set a fashion which has done incalculable harm to the government of England.

Now, this general intercourse of opposing politicians could have but one result. It has irreparably injured the sincerity of public life. It has converted what should be a high duty into an ambitious game. It has persuaded the people to believe that politics is an affair not of conviction but of amusement, that its results are immaterial save to those who engage in the sport. Government has become a variant of golf, a sort of point-to-point, the winner of which should be eagerly acclaimed by all parties. It is an amiable ideal, perchance, for those who profess it, but it is well to remember that the prize, indiscriminately awarded, is the destiny of England.

What, indeed, shall the voter think when he reads in one column of his daily paper that Mr Jones has charged Mr Brown with the betrayal of his country, and in another column that Messrs Jones and Brown are spending the weekend in cordial amity?

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can think only that politics is a sham; and he is right. The sincerity of men who endure from each other the bitterest abuse, and then share their pleasures, is beyond the comprehension of the plain elector, who is our master; and we can hardly expect him to look upon his duties with

a serious eye if his leaders pride themselves on the levity with which they undertake theirs. And if the violence wherewith Mr Asquith and his colleagues are preparing revolution teaches their opponents to place the claims of politics above the customs of society, then the dangers which threaten us will not have been incurred in vain.

What, then, is most urgently demanded is a sterner view of politics-a wise sense that the end, which is England's security, is more important than the means, which is the personal success of this or that demagogue. The gravity of the issue, which is our national existence, should persuade the Unionists to cherish their political animosities as keenly without as within the House of Commons. There should be no hint of compromise or moderation. The friends of the Empire must abate no jot of their policy. They must turn a deaf ear to the fatal advice of Lord Rosebery-to forget Tariff Reform until the House of Lords is safe. We must fight our foes with every weapon in our armoury. They will not renounce Free Trade at our bidding, so long as it is worth a vote; they will not concentrate their thoughts and energies upon the single question of the Upper Chamber. And it would be absurd, even if it were not disloyal, that the Unionists should betray their supporters and surrender the cause which they believe and know to be essential to the welfare of Great Britain. Mr Balfour gave them the

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