Produced by Jeannie Howse, Thierry Alberto and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
* * * * *
+--------------------------------------------------------------+
| Transcriber's Note: |
| |
| Please note that hyphenation is treated inconsistently |
| in the original document. |
| |
| A number of obvious typographical errors have been corrected |
| in this text. For a complete list, please see the bottom of |
| this document. |
| |
| The reader should note that the spelling 'Doomsday-book' |
| on page 333 duplicates the source image. |
| |
+--------------------------------------------------------------+
* * * * *
LIBERALISM AND THE
SOCIAL PROBLEM
BY
THE RIGHT HONOURABLE
WINSTON SPENCER CHURCHILL
M.P.
SECOND EDITION
HODDER AND STOUGHTON
LONDON MCMIX
PREFACE
These are the principal speeches I have made within the last four
years. They have been chosen and collected with the idea of presenting
a consistent and simultaneous view of the general field of British
politics in an hour of fateful decision. I have exercised full freedom
in compression and in verbal correction necessary to make them easier
to read. Facts and figures have been, where necessary, revised,
ephemeral matter eliminated, and epithets here and there reconsidered.
But opinions and arguments are unaltered; they are hereby confirmed,
and I press them earnestly and insistently upon the public.
We approach what is not merely a party crisis but a national
climacteric. Never did a great people enter upon a period of trial
and choice with more sincere and disinterested desire to know the
truth and to do justice in their generation. I believe they will
succeed.
WINSTON S. CHURCHILL.
33 ECCLESTON SQUARE.
_October 26, 1909._
CONTENTS
PAGE
PREFACE vii
INTRODUCTION xiii
I
THE RECORD OF THE GOVERNMENT
THE CONCILIATION OF SOUTH AFRICA 3
THE TRANSVAAL CONSTITUTION 16
THE ORANGE FREE STATE CONSTITUTION 45
LIBERALISM AND SOCIALISM 67
IMPERIAL PREFERENCE--I. 85
IMPERIAL PREFERENCE--II. 106
THE HOUSE OF LORDS 124
THE DUNDEE ELECTION 147
II
SOCIAL ORGANISATION
THE MINES [EIGHT HOURS] BILL 173
UNEMPLOYMENT 189
THE SOCIAL FIELD 211
THE APPROACHING CONFLICT 225
THE ANTI-SWEATING BILL 239
LABOUR EXCHANGES AND UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE 253
III
THE BUDGET
THE BUDGET RESOLUTIONS 277
THE BUDGET AND NATIONAL INSURANCE 297
LAND AND INCOME TAXES IN THE BUDGET 318
THE BUDGET AND THE LORDS 344
THE SPIRIT OF THE BUDGET 357
THE BUDGET AND PROPERTY 384
THE CONSTITUTIONAL MENACE 405
INTRODUCTION
The series of speeches included in this volume ranges, in point of
time, from the earlier months of Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman's
Government to the latest phase in the fortunes of Mr. Asquith's
succeeding Ministry, and forms an argumentative defence of the basis
of policy common to both Administrations. The addresses it contains
deal with nearly all the great political topics of the last four
years--with Free Trade, Colonial Preferences, the South African
settlement, the latest and probably the final charter of trade
unionism, the Miners' Bill, the measures for establishing Trade Boards
and Labour Exchanges, the schemes of compulsory and voluntary
assurance, and the Budget. They possess the further characteristic of
describing and commending these proposals as "interdependent" parts of
a large and fruitful plan of Liberal statesmanship. Of this scheme the
Budget is at once the foundation and the most powerful and attractive
feature. If it prospers, the social policy for which it provides
prospers too. If it fails, the policy falls to the ground.
The material of these speeches is therefore of great importance to the
future of democracy in this country. Let me say a word as to their
authorship. To a friendly critic they appear to present not only rare
and highly trained qualities of statement and persuasion, but a unity
and sincerity of thought which give them a place above mere party
dialectics. Mr. Churchill's distinguished service to Liberalism has
not been long in point of years, but it opened with the first speeches
he ever delivered in the House of Commons. No competent observers of
political activities, and of the characters and temperaments which
direct them, can have doubted from the first moment of Mr. Churchill's
appearance on the stage where his moral and intellectual sympathies
lay and whither they would lead him. It is a true and, indeed, an
obvious comment on his career to say that he began where his father
left off--as a Democrat and a Free Trader, and that on these inherited
instincts and tendencies he has built what both his friends and his
enemies expected him to build. Mr. Churchill came to Liberalism from
the same fold as Gladstone, and for the same reason--that it presented
the one field of work open to a political talent of a high stamp, and
to a wide and eager outlook on the future of our social order.
Liberalism and Mr. Churchill have both had good reason to congratulate
themselves on that choice, and the party which failed to draw him into
a disastrous and reactionary change of view has no reason to resent
it. Before he became a Liberal Mr. Churchill had taken the broad views
of the South African problem that his father's later opinions
commended to him, and he was properly chosen to expound to the House
of Commons the plan of self-government that embodied them.
If, therefore, the political groundwork of these speeches is sound
Liberal principle, their meaning and purpose, taken in connection with
the Budget, and the industrial reforms for which it provides, signify
a notable advance into places where the thinkers, the pioneers, the
men in the advanced trenches, are accustomed to dwell. Let us
acknowledge, with a sense of pleasure and relief, that this is new
territory. New, that is to say, for this country; not new to the best
organisations of industrial society that we know of. New as a clearly
seen vision and a connected plan of British, statesmanship; not new as
actual experiment in legislation, and as theory held by progressive
thinkers of many schools, including some of the fathers of modern
Liberal doctrine, and most of our economists. What is there in these
pages repugnant to writers of the type of John Mill, Jevons, and
Marshall? How much of them would even be repelled by Cobden? In the
main they preach a gospel--that of national "efficiency"--common to
all reformers, and accepted by Bismarck, the modern archetype of
"Empire-makers," as necessary to the consolidation of the great German
nation. An average Australian or Canadian statesman would read them
through with almost complete approval of every passage, save only
their defence of Free Trade. Nay more; the apology for property which
they put forward--that it must be "associated in the minds of the mass
of the people with ideas of justice and reason"--is that on which the
friends of true conservatism build when they think of the evils of
modern civilisation and the great and continuous efforts necessary to
repair them. Who does not conclude, with Mr. Churchill, that "a more
scientific, a more elaborate, a more comprehensive social
organisation" is indispensable to our country if it is to continue its
march to greatness? Back or forward we must go.
Mr. Churchill, indeed, has thought it wise to raise the specific point
at which, in the process of seeking a finer use and adaptation of the
human material which forms society, the progressive and reforming
statesman parts company with the dogmatic Socialist. There is no need
to labour a distinction which arises from the nature and the
activities of the two forces. British Liberalism is both a mental
habit and a method of politics. Through both these characteristics it
is bound to criticise a State so long as in any degree it rests on the
principles of "Penguin Island"--"respect for the rich and contempt for
the poor," and to modify or repeal the rights of property where they
clearly conflict with human rights. But its idealism and its practical
responsibilities forbid it to accept the elimination of private
enterprise and the assumption by the State of all the instruments of
production and distribution. Socialism has great power of emotional
and even religious appeal, of which it would be wise for Liberalism
to take account, and it is, on the whole, a beneficent force in
society. But as pure dogma it fits the spirit of man no more exactly
than the Shorter Catechism. As Mr. Churchill well says, both the
collectivist and the individualist principles have deep roots in human
life, and the statesman can ignore neither.
In the main, therefore, these speeches, with all their fresh
brilliancy of colouring and treatment, hold up the good old banner of
social progress, which we erect against reactionist and revolutionist
alike. The "old Liberal" will find the case for Free Trade, for peace,
for representative government, stated as powerfully and convincingly
as he could wish. Their actual newness consists in the fact that not
only do they open up to Liberalism what it always wants--a wide domain
of congenial thought and energy, but they offer it two propositions
which it can reject only at its peril. The first is that there can and
must be a deep, sharp abridgment of the sphere of industrial life
which has been marked out as hopeless, or as an inevitable part of the
social system.
Here the new Liberalism parts with _laissez-faire_, and those who
defend it. It assumes that the State must take in hand the problems
of industrial insecurity and unemployment, and must solve them. The
issue is vital. Protection has already made its bid. It will assure
the workman what is in his mind more than cheap food--namely, secure
wages; it affects to give him all his life, or nearly all his life, a
market for his labour so wide and so steady that the fear of forced
idleness will almost be banished from it. The promise is false.
Protection by itself has in no country annulled or seriously qualified
unemployment. But the need to which it appeals is absolutely real; for
the modern State it is a problem of the Sphinx, neither to be shirked
nor wrongly answered. And the alternative remedy offered in these
pages has already, as their author abundantly shows, succeeded even in
the very partial forms in which it has been applied. The labour market
can be steadied and equalised over a great industrial field. Part of
its surplus can be provided for. What Mr. Churchill calls "diseased
industries" can be cut off from the main body, or restored to some
measure of health. The State can set up a minimum standard of health
and wage, below which it will not allow its citizens to sink; it can
step in and dispense employment and restorative force under strictly
specified conditions, to a small body of more or less "sick" workers;
it can supply security for a far greater, less dependent, and more
efficient mass of labourers, in recurring crises of accident,
sickness, invalidity, and unemployment, and can do so with every hope
of enlisting in its service voluntary forces and individual virtues of
great value.
This is not a problem of "relief," it is a method of humanity, and its
aim is not merely to increase the mechanical force of the State, but
to raise the average of character, of _morale_, in its citizens. Nor
do these speeches represent only a batch of platform promises. The
great scheme of social betterment preached in these pages is already
embodied in half a dozen Acts of Parliament, with corresponding
organisations in the Board of Trade and elsewhere; and if the Budget
passes, the crown can be put upon them next year or the year after by
measures of insurance against invalidity and unemployment.
Mr. Churchill's second proposition is the correlative of the first.
How shall this imposing fabric of industrial security be reared and
made safe? The answer is, by modifying, without vitally changing, the
basis of taxation. The workman cannot be asked to pay for everything,
as under Protection he must pay. In any case, he must pay for
something. But if he is asked for too much, the sources of physical
efficiency are drained, and the main purpose of the new
Liberalism--the ideal of an educated, hopeful, and vigorous people--is
destroyed. Now Liberalism, in ceasing to rely on indirect taxation as
its main source of revenue, has opened up for contribution not merely
the superfluities of society, the "accumulations of profit," as Mr.
Churchill calls them, but those special forms of wealth which are
"social" in origin, which depend on some monopoly of material agents,
on means not of helping the community but of hindering it, not of
enriching its powers and resources, but of depleting them for private
advantage. In other words, the State in future will increasingly ask
the taxpayer not only "What have you got?" but "How did you get it?"
No one contends that such an analysis can be perfect; but, on the
other hand, can a community desirous of realising what Goethe calls
"practical Christianity," ignore it? And if in this process it enters
the sphere of morals, as Ruskin long ago urged it to do, as well as
the path of economic justice, is the step a wrong one? Has it not
already been taken not only in this Budget, but in its predecessor, in
which the Prime Minister made the memorable distinction between earned
and unearned income? Those who answer these questions in the Liberal
sense will find in these speeches a body of vigorous and persuasive
reasoning on their side.
It is therefore the main purpose of these speeches to show that
Liberalism has a message of the utmost consequence to our times. They
link it afresh with the movement of life, which when it overtakes
parties condemns and destroys them. They give it an immediate mission
and an outlook on the wider moral domain, which belongs to no single
generation. This double character is vital to a Party which must not
desert the larger ways in which the spirit of man walks, while it
quits at its peril the work of practical, everyday service to existing
society.
A word as to the literary quality of these addresses, widely varied as
they are in subject. The summit of a man's powers--his full capacity
of reason, comparison, expression--are not usually reached at so
early a point in his career as that which Mr. Churchill has attained.
But in directness and clearness of thought, in the power to build up a
political theory, and present it as an impressive and convincing
argument, in the force of rhetoric and the power of sympathy, readers
of these addresses will find few examples of modern English
speech-making to compare with them. They revive the almost forgotten
art of oratory, and they connect it with ideas born of our age, and
springing from its conscience and its practical needs, and, above all,
essential to its happiness.
H.W. MASSINGHAM.
I
THE RECORD OF THE GOVERNMENT
PAGE
THE CONCILIATION OF SOUTH AFRICA (April 5, 1906) 3
THE TRANSVAAL CONSTITUTION (July 31, 1906) 16
THE ORANGE FREE STATE CONSTITUTION (December 17, 1906) 45
LIBERALISM AND SOCIALISM (October 11, 1906) 67
IMPERIAL PREFERENCE--I. (May 7, 1907) 85
IMPERIAL PREFERENCE--II. (July 16, 1907) 106
THE HOUSE OF LORDS (June 29, 1907) 124
THE DUNDEE ELECTION (May 14, 1908) 147
THE CONCILIATION OF SOUTH AFRICA
HOUSE OF COMMONS, _April 5, 1906_
We have travelled a long way since this Parliament assembled, in the
discussion of the Transvaal and Orange River Colony Constitutions.
When the change of Government took place Mr. Lyttelton's Constitution
was before us. That instrument provided for representative and not
responsible government. Under that Constitution the election would
have been held in March of this year, and the Assembly would have met
in June, if the home Government had not changed. But just at the time
that the Government changed in December two questions arose--the
question of whether or not soldiers of the British Army in garrison
should be allowed to vote; and the question whether it would not be
better to have sixty constituencies instead of thirty; and, as both
questions involved necessary alterations in the Letters Patent, the
time was ripe, quite apart from any difference which the change of the
men at the helm might make, for a reconsideration and review of the
whole form of the government which was to be given to the two
Colonies.
The objection that must most readily occur in considering Mr.
Lyttelton's Constitution is that it was unworkable. It proposed that
there should be from six to nine nominated Ministers in an Assembly of
thirty-five, afterwards to be increased to sixty elective members. The
position of a Minister is one of considerable difficulty. He often has
to defend rather an awkward case. When favourable facts are wanting he
has to depend upon the nimbleness of his wits, and, when these fail
him, he has to fall back upon the loyalty of his supporters. But no
Minister can move very far upon his road with satisfaction or success
if he has not behind him either a nominated majority or an organised
Party majority. Mr. Lyttelton's Ministers had neither. They would have
been alone, hopelessly outnumbered in an Assembly, the greater part of
which was avowedly in favour of responsible and not of representative
government. These Ministers, with one exception, had no previous
Parliamentary experience and no ascertained Parliamentary ability.
They would have been forced to carry their Bills and their Estimates
through an Assembly in the main opposed to them. All this time, while
we should have given to these Ministers this serious duty, we should
ourselves have had to bear the whole responsibility in this country
for everything that was done under their authority; and their
authority could only be exerted through an Assembly which, as things
stood, they could not control.
The Committee can easily imagine the telegrams and the questions which
would have been addressed from Downing Street and the House of Commons
to these Ministers on native matters, on the question of the
administration of the Chinese Ordinance, on all the numerous intricate
questions with which we are at the present moment involved in South
Africa. And what would have been the position of these Ministers,
faced with these embarrassments in a hostile Assembly in which they
had few friends--what possibility would they have had of maintaining
themselves in such an Assembly? Is it not certain that they would have
broken down under the strain to which they would have been exposed,
that the Assembly would have been infuriated, that Parties differing
from each other on every conceivable question, divided from each other
by race and religion and language, would have united in common hatred
of the interference of the outside Power and the government of
bureaucrats. Then we should very speedily have got to the bottom of
the hill. There would have been a swift transition. The Legislative
Assembly would have converted itself into a constituent Assembly, and
it would have taken by force all that the Government now have it in
their power to concede with grace, distinction, and authority. On
these grounds his Majesty's Government came to the conclusion that it
would be right to omit the stage of representative government
altogether and to go directly to the stage of responsible government.
It is the same in politics as it is in war. When one crest line has
been left, it is necessary to go to the next. To halt half-way in the
valley between is to court swift and certain destruction, and the
moment you have abandoned the safe position of a Crown Colony
government, or government with an adequate nominated majority, there
is no stopping-place whatever on which you may rest the sole of your
foot, until you come to a responsible Legislative Assembly with an
executive obeying that Assembly. These arguments convinced his
Majesty's Government that it would be necessary to annul the Letters
Patent issued on March 31, 1905, and make an end of the Lyttelton
Constitution. That Constitution now passes away into the never-never
land, into a sort of chilly limbo that is reserved for the disowned or
abortive political progeny of many distinguished men.
The Government, and those who support them, may rejoice that we have
been able to take this first most important step in our South African
policy with such a very general measure of agreement, with, indeed, a
consensus of opinion which almost amounts to unanimity. Both races,
every Party, every class, every section in South Africa have agreed in
the course which his Majesty's Government have adopted in abandoning
representative government and going at once to responsible government.
That is already a very great thing, but it was not always so. Those
who sat in the last Parliament will remember that it was not always
so. We remember that Lord Milner was entirely opposed to granting
responsible government. We know that Mr. Lyttelton wrote pages and
pages in the Blue Book of last year proving how futile and dangerous
responsible government would be; and the right hon. Member for West
Birmingham, who took the Government decision as a matter of course on
the first day of the present session, made a speech last session in
which he indicated in terms of great gravity and force, that he
thought it was wholly premature to grant responsible government to the
Transvaal. But all that is abandoned now. I heard the right hon.
Member for West Birmingham, in the name of the Party opposite, accept
the policy of his Majesty's Government. I heard the hon. Member for
Blackpool this afternoon say that he hoped that responsible government
would be given to the Transvaal at the earliest possible moment. In
regard to the Orange River Colony, it is quite true that the official
Opposition, so far as I gather their view, think that it should be
delayed, and should not be given at the same time as to the Transvaal;
but that is not the view of the right hon. Member for West Birmingham.
Speaking in the House of Commons on July 27, 1905, the right hon.
gentleman said:
"Objection has also been taken that the same government which is now
being given to the Transvaal has not been given to the Orange River
Colony. I think that the experiment might have been far better tried
in the Orange River Colony. It is quite true that in that Colony there
is an enormous majority of the Dutch or Boer population. But they have
shown by long experience that they are most capable and moderate
administrators--under the admirable rule of President Brand they set
an example to the whole of South Africa; and although I think there is
some danger in this experiment, it is in the Orange River Colony that
I myself would have been inclined, in the first instance, to take the
risk."
It is true the right hon. gentleman was speaking of representative
government; but it cannot be disputed that if an advance were to be
made in associating the people of the conquered Colonies with the
government of those Colonies, the right hon. gentleman thought that it
had better be in the Orange River Colony first. But at any rate now it
is incontestable that there is no Party in this country or in the
Transvaal that opposes the grant of responsible government to the
Transvaal. That is a great advance, and shows that we have been able
to take our first step with the approbation of all concerned.
But the Opposition, having abandoned their resistance to the grant of
responsible government, now contend that on no account must the basis
of the Lyttelton Constitution be departed from. I am not convinced by
that argument. The Government are to pursue a new purpose, but to
adhere to the old framework. We are to cut off the head of the
Lyttelton Constitution, but are to preserve the old trunk and graft a
new head on it. I do not believe that any Government, approaching this
question from a new point of view, uncompromised and unfettered, would
be bound by the framework and details of the Lyttelton Constitution.
It may be that that Constitution contains many excellent principles,
but the Government have a right to consider things from the beginning,
freshly and freely, to make their own plans in accordance with their
own ideas, and to present those plans for the acceptance of the House.
The noble lord the Member for South Birmingham spoke of the principle
of "one vote, one value," which was embodied in the Lyttelton
Constitution. The principle of "one vote, one value" is in itself an
orthodox and unimpeachable principle of democracy. It is a logical,
numerical principle. If the attempt be made to discriminate between
man and man because one has more children and lives in the country, it
would be arguable that we should discriminate because another man has
more brains or more money, or lives in the town, or for any other of
the many reasons that differentiate one human being from another. The
only safe principle, I think, is that for electoral purposes all men
are equal, and that voting power, as far as possible, should be evenly
distributed among them.
In the Transvaal the principle of "one vote, one value" can be made
operative only upon a basis of voters. In nearly every other country
in the world, population is the usual basis of distribution, for
population is the same as electorate and electorate the same as
population. On both bases the distribution of the constituencies would
be the same. There is, for instance, no part of this country which is
more married, or more celibate, or more prolific than any other part.
It is only in the Transvaal, this country of afflicting dualities and
of curious contradictions, where everything is twisted, disturbed, and
abnormal, that there is a great disparity between the distribution of
seats on the basis of voters and on the basis of population. The high
price of provisions in the towns restricts the growth of urban
population, and the dullness of the country districts appears to be
favourable to the growth of large families. It is a scientific and
unimpeachable fact that, if you desire to apply the principle of "one
vote, one value" to the Constitution of the Transvaal, that principle
can best be attained--I am not sure that it cannot only be
attained--on the basis of voters, and that is the basis Mr. Lyttelton
took in the Constitution he formed.
But Mr. Lyttelton's plan did not stop there. Side by side with this
basis of voters, he had an artificial franchise of L100 annual value.
That is a very much lower qualification in South Africa, than it would
be in this country, and I do not think that the franchise which Mr.
Lyttelton proposed could be called an undemocratic franchise, albeit
that it was an artificial franchise, because it yielded 89,000 voters
out of a population of 300,000, and that is a much more fertile
franchise, even after making allowance for the abnormal conditions of
a new country, than we have in this country or than is the case in
some American and European States. So that I do not accuse Mr.
Lyttelton of having formulated an undemocratic franchise, but taking
these two points together--the unusual basis of distribution with the
apparently artificial franchise--acting and reacting, as they must
have done, one upon the other--there was sufficient ground to favour
the suspicion, at any rate, that something was intended in the nature
of a dodge, in the nature of a trick, artificially to depress the
balance in one direction and to tilt it in the other.
In dealing with nationalities, nothing is more fatal than a dodge.
Wrongs will be forgiven, sufferings and losses will be forgiven or
forgotten, battles will be remembered only as they recall the martial
virtues of the combatants; but anything like chicane, anything like a
trick, will always rankle. The Government are concerned in South
Africa not only to do what is fair, but to do what South Africa will
accept as fair. They are concerned not merely to choose a balance
which will deal evenly between the races, but one which will secure
the acceptance of both races.
* * * * *
We meet unjust charges in good heart. The permanence and security of
British sovereignty in South Africa is not a matter of indifference to
his Majesty's Ministers. Surely no honourable Member believes that we
could wish to cheat the British race in the Transvaal of any numerical
preponderance which may properly belong to them. Equally with our
political opponents we desire to see the maintenance of British
supremacy in South Africa. But we seek to secure it by a different
method. There is a profound difference between the schools of thought
which exist upon South African politics in this House. We think that
British authority in South Africa has got to stand on two legs. You
have laboured for ten years to make it stand on one. We on this side
know that if British dominion is to endure in South Africa it must
endure with the assent of the Dutch, as well as of the British. We
think that the position of the Crown in South Africa, and let me add
the position of Agents and Ministers of the Crown in South Africa,
should be just as much above and remote from racial feuds, as the
position of the Crown in this country is above our Party politics. We
do not seek to pit one race against the other in the hope of profiting
from the quarrel. We hope to build upon the reconciliation and not
upon the rivalry of races. We hope that it may be our fortune so to
dispose of affairs that these two valiant, strong races may dwell
together side by side in peace and amity under the shelter of an equal
flag.
THE TRANSVAAL CONSTITUTION
HOUSE OF COMMONS, _July 31, 1906_
It is my duty this afternoon, on behalf of the Government, to lay
before the Committee the outline and character of the constitutional
settlement which we have in contemplation in regard to the lately
annexed Colonies in South Africa. This is, I suppose, upon the whole,
the most considerable business with which this new Parliament has had
to deal. But although no one will deny its importance, or undervalue
the keen emotions and anxieties which it excites on both sides of the
House, and the solemn memories which it revives, yet I am persuaded
that there is no reason why we should be hotly, sharply, or bitterly
divided on the subject; on the contrary, I think its very importance
makes it incumbent on all who participate in the discussion--and I
will certainly be bound by my own precept--to cultivate and observe a
studious avoidance of anything likely to excite the ordinary
recriminations and rejoinders of Party politics and partisanship.
After all, there is no real difference of principle between the two
great historic Parties on this question. The late Government have
repeatedly declared that it was their intention at the earliest
possible moment--laying great stress upon that phrase--to extend
representative and responsible institutions to the new Colonies; and
before his Majesty's present advisers took office the only question in
dispute was, When? On the debate on the Address, the right hon. Member
for West Birmingham--whose absence to-day and its cause I am quite
sure are equally regretted in all parts of the House--spoke on this
question with his customary breadth of view and courage of thought. He
said: "The responsibility for this decision lies with the Government
now in power. They have more knowledge than we have; and if they
consider it safe to give this large grant, and if they turn out to be
right, no one will be better pleased than we. I do not think that,
although important, this change should be described as a change in
colonial policy, but as continuity of colonial policy."
If, then, we are agreed upon the principle, I do not think that
serious or vital differences can arise upon the method. Because, after
all, no one can contend that it is right to extend responsible
government, but not right to extend it fairly. No one can contend that
it is right to grant the forms of free institutions, and yet to
preserve by some device the means of control. And so I should hope
that we may proceed in this debate without any acute divergences
becoming revealed.
I am in a position to-day only to announce the decision to which the
Government have come with respect to the Transvaal. The case of the
Transvaal is urgent. It is the nerve-centre of South Africa. It is the
arena in which all questions of South African politics--social, moral,
racial, and economic--are fought out; and this new country, so lately
reclaimed from the wilderness, with a white population of less than
300,000 souls, already reproduces in perfect miniature all those dark,
tangled, and conflicting problems usually to be found in populous and
old-established European States. The case of the Transvaal differs
fundamentally from the case of the Orange River Colony. The latter
has been in the past, and will be again in the future, a tranquil
agricultural State, pursuing under a wise and tolerant Government a
happy destiny of its own. All I have to say about the Orange River
Colony this afternoon is this--that there will be no unnecessary delay
in the granting of a Constitution; and that in the granting of that
Constitution we shall be animated only by a desire to secure a fair
representation of all classes of inhabitants in the country, and to
give effective expression to the will of the majority.
When we came into office, we found a Constitution already prepared for
the Transvaal by the right hon. Member for St. George's, Hanover
Square.[1] That Constitution is no more. I hope the right hon.
gentleman will not suspect me of any malevolence towards his
offspring. I would have nourished and fostered it with a tender care;
but life was already extinct. It had ceased to breathe even before it
was born; but I trust the right hon. gentleman will console himself by
remembering that there are many possibilities of constitutional
settlements lying before him in the future. After all, the Abbe
Sieyes, when the Constitution of 1791 was broken into pieces, was very
little younger than the right hon. gentleman, and he had time to make
and survive two new Constitutions.
Frankly, what I may, for brevity's sake, call the Lyttelton
Constitution was utterly unworkable. It surrendered the machinery of
power; it preserved the whole burden of responsibility and
administration. Nine official gentlemen, nearly all without
Parliamentary experience, and I daresay without Parliamentary
aptitudes, without the support of that nominated majority which I am
quite convinced that the right hon. Member for West Birmingham had
always contemplated in any scheme of representative government, and
without the support of an organised party, were to be placed in a
Chamber of thirty-five elected members who possessed the power of the
purse. The Boers would either have abstained altogether from
participating in that Constitution, or they would have gone in only
for the purpose of wrecking it. The British party was split into two
sections, and one section, the Responsibles, made public declarations
of their intention to bring about a constitutional deadlock by
obstruction and refusing supplies, and all the other apparatus of
Parliamentary discontent. In fact, the Constitution of the right hon.
gentleman seemed bound inevitably to conjure up that nightmare of all
modern politicians, government resting on consent, and consent not
forthcoming.
As I told the House in May, his Majesty's Government thought it their
duty to review the whole question. We thought it our duty and our
right to start fair, free, and untrammelled, and we have treated the
Lyttelton Constitution as if it had never been. One guiding principle
has animated his Majesty's Government in their policy--to make no
difference in this grant of responsible government between Boer and
Briton in South Africa. We propose to extend to both races the fullest
privileges and rights of British citizenship; and we intend to make no
discrimination in the grant of that great boon, between the men who
have fought most loyally for us and those who have resisted the
British arms with the most desperate courage. By the Treaty of
Vereeniging, in which the peace between the Dutch and British races
was declared for ever, by Article 1 of that treaty the flower of the
Boer nation and its most renowned leaders recognised the lawful
authority of his Majesty King Edward VII, and henceforth, from that
moment, British supremacy in South Africa stood on the sure
foundations of military honour and warlike achievement.
This decision in favour of even-handed dealing arises from no
ingratitude on our part towards those who have nobly sustained the
British cause in years gone by. It involves no injustice to the
British population of the Transvaal. We have been careful at each
point of this constitutional settlement to secure for the British
every advantage that they may justly claim. But the future of South
Africa, and, I will add, its permanent inclusion in the British
Empire, demand that the King should be equally Sovereign of both
races, and that both races should learn to look upon this country as
their friend.
* * * * *
When I last spoke in this House on the question of the South African
Constitution, I took occasion to affirm the excellence of the general
principle, one vote one value. I pointed out that it was a logical and
unimpeachable principle to act upon; that the only safe rule for
doing justice electorally between man and man was to assume--a large
assumption in some cases--that all men are equal and that all
discriminations between them are unhealthy and undemocratic. Now the
principle of one vote one value can be applied and realised in this
country, either upon the basis of population, or upon the basis of
voters. It makes no difference which is selected; for there is no part
of this country which is more married, or more prolific than another,
and exactly the same distribution and exactly the same number of
members would result whether the voters or the population basis were
taken in a Redistribution Bill. But in South Africa the disparity of
conditions between the new population and the old makes a very great
difference between the urban and the rural populations, and it is
undoubtedly true that if it be desired to preserve the principle of
one vote one value, it is the voters' basis and not the population
basis that must be taken in the Transvaal--and that is the basis which
his Majesty's Government have determined to adopt.
The right hon. gentleman the Member for St. George's, Hanover Square,
had proposed to establish a franchise qualification of L100 annual
value. That is not nearly such a high property-qualification as it would
be in this country. I do not quarrel with the right hon. gentleman's
Constitution on the ground that his franchise was not perfectly fair, or
not a perfectly _bona fide_ and generous measure of representation. But
it is undoubtedly true that a property-qualification of L100 annual
value told more severely against the Boers than against the British,
because living in the towns is so expensive that almost everybody who
lives in the towns, and who is not utterly destitute, has a
property-qualification of L100 annual value. But in the country
districts there are numbers of men, very poor but perfectly respectable
and worthy citizens--day labourers, farmers' sons, and others--who would
not have that qualification, and who consequently would have been
excluded by the property-qualification, low as it is having regard to
the conditions in South Africa. Quite apart from South African questions
and affairs, his Majesty's Government profess a strong preference for
the principle of manhood suffrage as against any property-qualification,
and we have therefore determined that manhood suffrage shall be the
basis on which votes are distributed.
It is true that in the prolonged negotiations and discussions which
have taken place upon this question manhood suffrage has been demanded
by one party and the voters' basis by the other, and there has been a
tacit, though quite informal agreement that the one principle should
balance the other. But that is not the position of his Majesty's
Government in regard to either of these propositions. We defend both
on their merits. We defend "one vote, one value," and we defend
manhood suffrage, strictly on their merits as just and equitable
principles between man and man throughout the Transvaal. We have
therefore decided that all adult males of twenty-one years of age, who
have resided in the Transvaal for six months, who do not belong to the
British garrison--should be permitted to vote under the secrecy of the
ballot for the election of Members of Parliament.
Now there is one subject to which I must refer incidentally. The
question of female suffrage has been brought to the notice of various
members of the Government on various occasions and in various ways.
We have very carefully considered that matter, and we have come to the
conclusion that it would not be right for us to subject a young
Colony, unable to speak for itself, to the hazards of an experiment
which we have not had the gallantry to undergo ourselves; and we shall
leave that question to the new Legislature to determine.
I come now to the question of electoral divisions. There are two
alternatives before us on this branch of the subject--equal electoral
areas or the old magisterial districts. When I say "old," I mean old
in the sense that they are existing magisterial districts. There are
arguments for both of these courses. Equal electoral areas have the
advantage of being symmetrical and are capable of more strict and
mathematical distribution. But the Boers have expressed a very strong
desire to have the old magisterial districts preserved. I think it is
rather a sentimental view on their part, because upon the whole I
think the wastage of Boer votes will, owing to excessive plurality in
certain divisions, be slightly greater in the old magisterial
districts than in equal electoral areas. The Boers have, however, been
very anxious that the old areas of their former Constitution, of
their local life, should be interfered with as little as possible, and
that is a matter of serious concern to his Majesty's Government.
Further, there is a great saving of precious time and expense in
avoiding the extra work of new delimitation which would be necessary
if the country were to be cut up into equal mathematical electoral
areas.
The decision to adopt the old magisterial areas, which divide the
Transvaal into sixteen electoral divisions, of which the Witwatersrand
is only one, involves another question. How are you to subdivide these
magisterial districts for the purpose of allocating members? Some will
have two, some three, some a number of members; and on what system
will you allocate the members to these divisions? We have considered
the question of proportional representation. It is the only perfect
way in which minorities of every shade and view and interest can
receive effective representation. And Lord Elgin was careful to
instruct the Committee as a special point to inquire into the
possibility of adopting the system of proportional representation. The
Committee examined many witnesses, and went most thoroughly into this
question. They, however, advise us that there is absolutely no support
for such a proposal in the Transvaal, and that its adoption--I will
not say its imposition--would be unpopular and incomprehensible
throughout the country. If a scientific or proportional representation
cannot be adopted, then I say unhesitatingly that the next best way of
protecting minorities is to go straight for single-member seats. Some
of us have experience of double-barrelled seats in this country; there
used to be several three-barrelled seats. But I am convinced that if
either of those two systems had been applied to the electoral
divisions of the Transvaal, it would only have led to the swamping of
one or two local minorities which with single-member divisions would
have returned just that very class of moderate, independent, Dutch or
British Members whom we particularly desire to see represented in the
new Assembly. Therefore, with the desire of not extinguishing these
local minorities, his Majesty's Government have decided that
single-member constituencies, or man against man, shall be the rule in
the Transvaal. But I should add that the subdivision of these
electoral districts into their respective constituencies will not
proceed upon hard mathematical lines, but that they will be grouped
together in accordance with the existing field cornetcies of which
they are composed, as that will involve as little change as possible
in the ideas of the rural population and in the existing boundaries.
The Committee will realise that this is a question with an elusive
climax. It is like going up a mountain. Each successive peak appears
in turn the summit, and yet there is always another pinnacle beyond.
We have now settled that the Members are to be allotted to
single-member constituencies based on the old magisterial districts
according to the adult male residents there. But how are we to apply
that principle? How are we to find out how many adult males there are
in each of the districts of the country, and so to find the quota of
electors or proper number of Members for each division? The proverbial
three alternatives present themselves. We might take the Lyttelton
voters' list revised and supplemented. We might make a new voters'
list, or we might take the census of 1904.
* * * * *
Lord Selborne has pointed out to us that it might take just as long a
time to revise the Lyttelton voters' list as to make a new voters'
list, which would occupy seven months. So that, with the necessary
interval for the arrangements for election, ten months would elapse
before the Transvaal would be able to possess responsible
institutions. I think we shall have the assent of all South African
parties in our desire to avoid that delay. I am sorry that so much
delay has already taken place. It was necessary that the Cabinet
should secure complete information. But to keep a country seething on
the verge of an exciting general election is very prejudicial to
trade. It increases agitation and impedes the healthy process of
development. We are bound to terminate the uncertainty at the earliest
possible moment; and we have therefore determined to adopt the census
of 1904.
Let me ask the Committee now to examine the sixteen magisterial
districts. I think it is necessary to do so before allocating the
Members amongst them. In all the discussions in South Africa these
have been divided into three areas--the Witwatersrand, Pretoria, and
the "Rest of the Transvaal." Pretoria is the metropolis of the
Transvaal. It has a very independent public opinion of its own; it is
strongly British, and it is rapidly increasing. It is believed that
Pretoria will return three, four, or five Members of the Responsible
Party, which is the moderate British Party, and is independent of and
detached from the Progressive Association. The "Rest of the Transvaal"
consists of the old constituencies who sent Boer Members to the old
Legislature. There will, however, be one or two seats which may be won
by Progressive or Responsible British candidates, but in general "The
rest of the country" will return a compact body of members of Het
Volk.