given me. To tell the truth, I had been feeling a little alarmed at
the fate which might await me in Edinburgh. From a faithful perusal of
the Radical Press I had been led to believe that Scotland was seething
with righteous indignation against that branch of the Legislature of
which I am, it is true, only a humble and very recent member, but yet
a member, and therefore involved in the general condemnation of the
ruthless hereditary tyrants and oppressors of the people, the
privileged landowning class, which is alleged to be so out of sympathy
with the mass of their fellow-countrymen, although, oddly enough, it
supplies many of the most popular candidates, not only of one party,
at any General Election. Personally, I feel it rather hard to be
painted in such black colours. There is no taint of hereditary
privilege about me. I am not--I wish I were--the owner of broad acres,
and I am in no way conscious of belonging to a specially favoured
class. There are a great many of my fellow members in the House of
Lords who are in the same position, and who sit there, not by virtue
of any privilege, but by virtue of their services, or, let me say in
my own case, supposed services, to the State. And while we sit
there--and here I venture, with all humility, to speak for all the
members of that body, whether hereditary or created--we feel that we
ought to deal with the questions submitted to us to the best of our
judgment and conscience, without fear of the consequences to ourselves
and without allowing ourselves to be brow-beaten for not being
different from what we are. We believe that we perform a useful and
necessary function. We believe that a Second Chamber is essential to
the good government of this country. We do not contend--certainly I am
myself very far from contending--that the existing Second Chamber is
the best imaginable. Let there be a well-considered reform of the
House of Lords, or even, if need be, an entirely different Second
Chamber. But until you have got this better instrument, do not throw
away the instrument which you have--the only defence, not of the
privileges of a class, but of the rights of the whole nation, against
hasty, ill-considered measures and against the subordination of
permanent national interests to the temporary exigencies of a party.
It is said that there is a permanent Conservative majority in the
House of Lords. But then every Second Chamber is, and ought to be,
conservative in temper. It exists to exercise a restraining influence,
to ensure that great changes shall not be made in fundamental
institutions except by the deliberate will of the nation, and not as
the outcome of a mere passing mood. And if the accusation is, that the
House of Lords is too Conservative in a party sense, which is a
different thing, I admit, from being Conservative in the highest and
best sense, that points not to doing away with the Second Chamber, but
to making such a change in its composition as, while leaving it still
powerful, still, above all, independent, will render it more
representative of the permanent mind of the nation.
But let me be permitted to observe that the instance relied on to prove
that the House of Lords is in the pocket of the Conservative party is a
very unfortunate instance. What is its offence? It is said that the
Lords rejected the Scottish Land Bill. But they did not reject the
Scottish Land Bill. They were quite prepared to accept a portion of the
Bill, and it is for the Government to answer to the people interested
in that portion for their not having received the benefits which the
Bill was presumably intended to bestow on them. What the Government did
was to hold a pistol at the head of the House of Lords, and to say that
they must either accept the whole straggling and ill-constructed
measure as it stood, or be held up to public odium for rejecting it.
But when the Bill was looked at as a whole, it was found to contain
principles--novel principles as far as the great part of Scotland was
concerned, bad principles, as the experience of Ireland showed--which
the House of Lords, and not only the Conservatives in the House of
Lords, were not prepared to endorse. Was it Conservative criticism
which killed the Bill? It was riddled with arguments by a Liberal Peer
and former Liberal Prime Minister--arguments to which the Government
speakers were quite unable, and had the good sense not even to attempt,
to reply. And that is the instance which is quoted to prove that the
House of Lords is a Tory Caucus!
Now, before leaving this question of the House of Lords, let me just
say one word about its general attitude. I have not long been a member
of that assembly. I do not presume to take much part in its
discussions. But I follow them, and I think I follow them with a
fairly unprejudiced mind. On many questions I am perhaps not in accord
with the views of the majority of the House. But what strikes me about
the House of Lords is that it is a singularly independent assembly. It
is not at the beck and call of any man. It is a body which does not
care at all about party claptrap, but which does care a great deal
about a good argument, from whatever quarter it may proceed.
Moreover, I am confident that the great body of its members are quite
alive to the fact that they cannot afford to cast their votes merely
according to their individual opinions and personal prejudices--that
they are trustees for the nation, and that while it is their duty to
prevent the nation being hustled into revolution, as but for them it
would have been hustled into Home Rule in 1893, they have no right to
resist changes upon which the nation has clearly and after full
deliberation set its mind. And when the Prime Minister says that it is
intolerable arrogance on the part of the House of Lords to pretend to
know better what the nation wishes than the House of Commons, I can
only reply that the proof of the pudding is in the eating. In 1893 the
House of Commons said that the nation wished Home Rule. The House of
Lords had the intolerable arrogance to take a different view. Well,
within less than two years the question was submitted to the nation;
and who proved to be right?
I regret to have had to dwell at such length upon this particular
topic. But it seems to me that we have no choice in the matter. If
the Government succeed in their attempt to divert the attention of the
nation from matters of the greatest interest at home and abroad in
order to involve us all in a constitutional struggle on a false issue,
we must be prepared to meet them. But I do not wish to waste the rare
opportunity afforded to me to-night of addressing this great and
representative Scottish audience by talking exclusively about this
regrettable manoeuvre. There is something I am anxious to say to you
about the future of the Unionist party. I do not claim to lay down a
policy for that or for any party. I am not, by temperament or
antecedents, a good party man. But I want to be allowed, as a private
citizen, to point out what are the great services which I think the
Unionist party can render to the nation at the present very critical
juncture in its history. The Unionist party has a splendid record in
the past. For twenty years it has saved the United Kingdom from
disruption. It has preserved South Africa for the Empire; and, greatly
as I feel and know, that the results of the efforts and sacrifices of
the nation have been marred and impaired by the disastrous policy of
the last two years, South Africa is still one country under the
British flag. And all the time, in spite of foreign war and domestic
sedition, the Unionist party has pursued a steady policy of practical
social reform, and the administrative and legislative record of the
last twenty years will compare favourably with that of any period of
our history.
But no party can afford to rely upon its past achievements. How is the
Unionist party going to confront the great problems of the present
day? The greatest of these problems, as I shall never cease to preach
to my countrymen, is the maintenance of the great heritage which we
owe to the courage, the enterprise, and the self-sacrifice of our
forefathers, who built up one of the greatest Empires in history by,
on the whole, the most honourable means. The epoch of expansion is
pretty nearly past, but there remains before us a great work of
development and consolidation. And that is a work which should appeal
especially to Scotsmen. The Scottish people have borne a great part,
great out of proportion to their numbers, in building up our common
British heritage. They are taking a foremost part in it to-day. All
over the world, as settlers in Canada, in Australia, or in South
Africa, as administrators in India and elsewhere, they are among the
sturdiest pillars on which the great Imperial fabric rests. I am not
talking in the air. I am speaking from my personal experience, and
only saying in public here to-night what I have said in private a
hundred times, that as an agent of my country in distant lands I have
had endless occasion to appreciate the support given to the British
cause by the ability, the courage, the shrewd sense and the broad
Imperial instinct of many Scotsmen. And therefore I look with
confidence to a Scottish audience to support my appeal for continuous
national effort in making the most of the British Empire. I say this
is not a matter with regard to which we can afford to rest on our
laurels. We must either go forward or we shall go back. And especially
ought we to go forward in developing co-operation, on a basis of
equality and partnership, with the great self-governing communities
of our race in the distant portions of the world, else they will drift
away from us. Do not let us think for a moment that we can afford such
another fiasco as the late Colonial Conference. Do not let us imagine
for a moment that we can go to sleep over the questions then raised,
and not one of them settled, for four years, only to find ourselves
unprepared when the next Conference meets. A cordial social welcome,
many toasts, many dinners, are all very well in their way, but they
are not enough. What is wanted is a real understanding of what our
fellow countrymen across the seas are driving at, and a real attempt
to meet them in their efforts to keep us a united family. All that our
present rulers seem able to do is to misunderstand, and therefore
unconsciously to misrepresent--I do not question their good
intentions, but I think they are struck with mental blindness in this
matter--to misrepresent the attitude of the colonists and greatly to
exaggerate the difficulties of meeting them half-way. The speeches of
Ministers on a question like that of Colonial Preference leave upon me
the most deplorable impression. One would have thought that, if they
could not get over the objections which they feel to meeting the
advances of our kinsmen, they would at least show some sort of regret
at their failure. But not a bit of it. Their one idea all along has
been to magnify the difficulties in the way in order to make party
capital out of the business. They saw their way to a good cry about
"taxing the food of the people," the big and the little loaf, and so
forth, and they went racing after it, regardless of everything but its
electioneering value. From first to last there has been the same
desire to make the worst of things, sometimes by very disingenuous
means. First of all it was said that there was "no Colonial offer."
But when the representatives of the Colonies came here, and all in the
plainest terms offered us preference for preference, this device
evidently had to be abandoned. So then it was asserted that, in order
to give preference to the Colonies, we must tax raw materials. But
this move again was promptly checkmated by the clear and repeated
declaration of the Colonial representatives that they did not expect
us to tax raw materials. And so nothing was left to Ministers,
determined as they were to wriggle out of any agreement with the
Colonies at all costs, except to fall back on the old, weary
parrot-cry--"Will you tax corn?" "Will you tax butter?" and so on
through the whole list of articles of common consumption, the taxation
of any one of which was thought to be valuable as an electioneering
bogey.
For my own part, I am not the least bit frightened by any of these
questions. If I am asked whether I would tax this or tax that, it may
be proof of great depravity on my part, but I say without hesitation,
that, for a sufficient object, I should not have the least objection
to putting two shillings a quarter on wheat or twopence a pound on
butter. But I must add that the whole argument nauseates me. What sort
of opinion must these gentlemen have of their fellow countrymen, if
they think that the question of a farthing on the quartern loaf or
half a farthing on the pat of butter is going to outweigh in their
minds every national consideration? And these are the men who accused
Mr. Chamberlain of wishing to unite the Empire by sordid bonds! It is
indeed extraordinary and to my mind almost heartrending to see how
this question of Tariff Reform continues to be discussed on the lowest
grounds, and how its higher and wider aspects seem to be so constantly
neglected. Yet we have no excuse for ignoring them. The Colonial
advocates of Preference, and especially Mr. Deakin, with whose point
of view I thoroughly agree, have repeatedly explained the great
political, national, and I might almost say moral aspects of that
policy. There is a great deal more in it than a readjustment of
duties--twopence off this and a penny on that. I do not say that such
details are not important. When the time comes I am prepared to
show--and I am an old hand at these things--that the objections which
loom so large in many eyes can really be very easily circumvented. But
I would not attempt to bother my fellow countrymen with complicated
changes in their fiscal arrangements, or even with the discussion of
them, if it were not for the bigness of the principle that is
involved.
I wish to look at it from two points of view. The principle which
lies at the root of Tariff Reform, in its Imperial aspect, is the
national principle. The people of these great dominions beyond the
seas are no strangers to us. They are our own kith and kin. We do not
wish to deal with them, even in merely material matters, on the same
basis as with strangers. That is the great difference between us
Tariff Reformers and the Cobdenites. The Cobdenite only looks at the
commercial side. He is a cosmopolitan. He does not care from whom he
buys, or to whom he sells. He does not care about the ulterior effects
of his trading, whether it promotes British industry or ruins it;
whether it assists the growth of the kindred States, or only enriches
foreign countries. To us Tariff Reformers these matters are of moment,
and of the most tremendous moment. We do not undervalue our great
foreign trade, and I for one am convinced that there is nothing in the
principles of Tariff Reform which will injure that trade. Quite the
reverse. But we do hold that our first concern is with the industry
and productive capacities of our own country, and our next with those
of the great kindred countries across the seas. We hold that a wise
fiscal policy would help to direct commerce into channels which would
not only assist the British worker, but also assist Colonial
development, and make for the greater and more rapid growth of those
countries, which not only contain our best customers, but our fellow
citizens.
That, I say, is one aspect of the matter. But then there is the other
side--the question of social reform in this country. Now here again we
differ from the Cobdenite. The Cobdenite is an individualist. He
believes that private enterprise, working under a system of unfettered
competition, with cheapness as its supreme object, is the surest road
to universal well-being. The Tariff Reformer also believes in private
enterprise, but he does not believe that the mere blind struggle for
individual gain is going to produce the most beneficent results. He
does not believe in cheapness if it is the result of sweating or of
underpaid labour. He keeps before him as the main object of all
domestic policy the gradual, steady elevation of the standard of life
throughout the community; and he believes that the action of the
State deliberately directed to the encouragement of British industry,
not merely by tariffs, is part and parcel of any sound national policy
and of true Imperialism. And please observe that in a number of cases
the Radical party itself has abandoned Cobdenism. Pure individualism
went to the wall in the Factory Acts, and it is going to the wall
every day in our domestic legislation. It is solely with regard to
this matter of imports that the Radical party still cling to the
Cobdenite doctrine, and the consequence is that their policy has
become a mass of inconsistencies. It is devoid of any logical
foundation whatever.
I know that there are many people, sound Unionists at heart, who still
have a difficulty about accepting the doctrines of the Tariff
Reformers. My belief is that, if they could only look at the matter
from the broad national and Imperial point of view, they would come to
alter their convictions. I am not advocating Tariff Reform as in
itself the greatest of human objects. But it seems to me the key of
the position. It seems to me that, without it, we can neither take the
first steps towards drawing closer the bonds between the mother
country and the great self-governing States of the Empire; nor
maintain the prosperity of the British worker in face of unfair
foreign competition; nor obtain that large and elastic revenue which
is absolutely essential, if we are going to pursue a policy of social
reform and mean real business. I cannot but hope that many of those
who still shy at Tariff Reform, when they come to look at it from this
point of view--to see it as I see it, not as an isolated thing, but as
an essential and necessary part of a comprehensive national
policy--will rally to our cause. I have travelled along that road
myself. I have been a Cobdenite myself--I am not ashamed of it. But I
have come to see that the doctrine of free imports--the religion of
free imports, I ought to say--as it is practised in this country
to-day, is inconsistent with social reform, inconsistent with fair
play to British industry, and inconsistent with the development and
consolidation of the Empire. And therefore I rejoice that, in the
really great speech which he delivered last night, the leader of the
Unionist party has once more unhesitatingly affirmed his adhesion to
the principles which I have been trying, in my feebler way, to
advocate here this evening. My own conviction is that, when these
principles are understood in all their bearings, they will command the
approval of the mass of the people. And even in Scotland, where I dare
say it is a very uphill fight, I look forward with confidence to their
ultimate victory. Do not let us be discouraged if the fight is long
and the progress slow. The great permanent influences are on our side.
On the one hand there is the growth of the Empire, with all the
opportunities which it affords; on the other there is the increasing
determination of foreign nations to keep their business to themselves.
These potent facts, which have already converted so many leading
minds, will in due time make themselves felt in ever-widening circles.
And they will not fail to produce their effect upon the shrewd
practical sense of the Scottish people, especially when combined with
an appeal to the patriotic instincts of a race which has done so much
to make the Empire what it is, and which has such a supreme interest
in its maintenance and consolidation.
UNIONISTS AND SOCIAL REFORM
Rugby, November 19, 1907
There has been such a deluge of talk during the last three weeks that
I doubt whether it is possible for me, or any man, to make a further
contribution to the discussion which will have any freshness or value.
But inasmuch as you probably do not all read all the speeches, you may
perhaps be willing to hear from me a condensed summary of what it all
comes to--of course, from my point of view, which no doubt is not
quite the same as that of the Prime Minister or Mr. Asquith. Now, from
my point of view, there has been a considerable clearing of the air,
and we ought all to be in a position to take a more practical and less
exaggerated view of the situation. Speaking as a Tariff Reformer, I
think that those people, with whom Tariff Reformers agree on almost
all other political questions, but who are strongly and
conscientiously opposed to anything like what they call tampering with
our fiscal system, must by now understand a little better than they
did before what Tariff Reformers really aim at, and must begin to see
that there is nothing so very monstrous or revolutionary about our
proposals. I hope they may also begin to see why it is that Tariff
Reformers are so persistent and so insistent upon their own particular
view. There is something very attractive in the argument which says
that, since Tariff Reform is a stumbling-block to many good Unionists,
it should be dropped, and our ranks closed in defence of an effective
Second Chamber, and in defence of all our institutions against
revolutionary attacks directed upon the existing order of society. In
so far as this is an argument for tolerance and against
excommunicating people because they do not agree with me about Tariff
Reform, I am entirely in accord with it. I am only a convert to Tariff
Reform myself, although I am not a very recent convert, for at the
beginning of 1903, at Bloemfontein, I was instrumental in inducing all
the South African Colonies to give a substantial preference to goods
of British origin. I was instrumental in doing that some months before
the great Tariff Reform campaign was inaugurated in this country by
its leading champion, Mr. Chamberlain. But while I am all for personal
tolerance, I am opposed to any compromise on the question of
principle. I am not opposed to it from any perverseness or any
obstinacy. I am opposed to it because I see clearly that dropping
Tariff Reform will knock the bottom out of a policy which I believe is
not only right in itself, but is the only effective defence of the
Union and of many other things which are very dear to us--I mean a
policy of constructive Imperialism, and of steady, consistent,
unhasting, and unresting Social Reform.
I have never advocated Tariff Reform as a nostrum or as a panacea. I
have never pretended that it is by itself alone sufficient to cure all
the evils inherent in our social system, or alone sufficient as a bond
of Empire. What I contend is that without it, without recovering our
fiscal freedom, without recovering the power to deal with Customs
Duties in accordance with the conditions of the present time and not
the conditions of fifty years ago, we cannot carry out any of those
measures which it is most necessary that we should carry out. Without
it we are unable to defend ourselves against illegitimate foreign
competition; we are unable to enter into those trade arrangements with
the great self-governing States of the British Crown across the seas,
which are calculated to bestow the most far-reaching benefits upon
them and upon us; and we are unable to obtain the revenue which is
required for a policy of progressive Social Reform. I hope that people
otherwise in agreement with us, who have hitherto not seen their way
to get over their objections to Tariff Reform, will, nevertheless,
find themselves able to accept that principle, when they regard it,
not as an isolated thing, but as an essential part of a great national
and Imperial policy.