The Dominion. SATURDAY, AUGUST 12, 1911. A PYRRHIC VICTORY.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1204, 12 August 1911, Page 4

The Dominion. SATURDAY, AUGUST 12, 1911. A PYRRHIC VICTORY.

The passing of the Parliament Bill by the House of Lords has been a sufficiently lengthy process to give time for thought to those Liberals who are willing to think. Although they will naturally be glad to feel that they have successfully used the Crown against the Peers, they may not find very much _ comfort in the outlook for Liberalism. After the long fever a reaction of public feeling may be looked for, the depth and intensity of which will bo proportionate to the length and fury of the war. There was not wanted the very plain evidence of the King's true position to direct public opinion in England towards a final clear realisation of what has actually happened. A brief summary of the leading events will indicate the essential truth upon which the public, free now from the distraction of uncertainty as to the fate of the Bill, will assuredly fasten. AVhen they took office in 1906 the Liberals, blest with a majority that enabled them to snap their fingers at Mu. Redmond, whose hostility could not affect them, carefully explained that Home llule was not in their policy. Their case against the House of Lords was presented and fought as • a case against the unfairness of a system that amounted to what was hold by the Government to _ bo a barrier against Liberal social reform. A great many people outside the Liberal party agreed that reform of the Lords was necessary. When he went to the country at the beginning of 1910 Mu. Asquith did not expect to find the parties so re-arranged that he would be under Mr. Redmond's thumb. That) however, was the result of the election, and the Liberals then, and only then, discovered that Homo Rule was a vital part of thenpolicy. Nobody who has carefully followed the facts of the past two years and a half, remembering at the same time the Gladstonian doctrine respecting Liberal dealings with the Irish question, will for a moment doubt that Mu. Asquith and the other older Liberals have never ceased to regret very bitterly, for the sake oE the nation hardly less than for the sake of • their party, that they did not do in the latter part of 1909 what Mu. Gladstone in such circumstances would assuredly "have done. " No student of th-j later years of Gladstone's career will need to be I told that upon the- rejection of the 1908. Budget that vuc. statesman

would have introduced, and gone to the country upon, a Bill destroying the permanent, menace ,to Liberal "social reform" measures. He would, that is to say, have taken his stand upon a measure that would have been a replica of tho Parliament Bill as it was amended by the Lords. Mr. Asquitii macle the blunder, however, of leaving undrawn the outlines of the remedial measure until after the election that delivered him into Mit. Kedjioxds's hands. Had he not committed this blunder, what would his position have been after the first 1910 election/ He could have passed the proper Parliament Bill without difficulty. Mit. Bkdmond, holding the balance of power, would have sought to amend the Bill by specifically adding Home Bale to the list of inviolabilities, and would have been defeated. The door to Liberal reforms would have been opened without being opened also to measures quite outside the range of social policy. These arc simple facts that time and reflection will force upon the understanding of the British people. Mn. William O'Brien, as a cable message reported yesterday, is convinced—and he is 'a far more subtle reader of political tendencies than Mr. Bedjiond—that there are years of bitter party warfare ahead for tho Nationalists. For the overseas Dominions the chief interest at this time is the position of the King. In his long statement on Monday last Mr. Asquitii said nothing to indicate that tho King had not fully acquiesced in, and even firmly endorsed, his Ministers' actions. There is accordingly a grave significance in the Marquis _of Crewe's reference, on the following day, to his Majesty's reluctance to allow the use of his Prerogative.

The unusual character of this direct, reference to his Majesty will he recognised as indicating that Lord Crewe was commanded by his Majesty to repair the Prime Minister's fault of omission. As we pointed out a couple of days ago, Mr. Asquith's advice to the Kixo had only a constitutional correctness. "It was almost impossible," ho urged, "to keep the name and authority of the King out of the arena of electoral-conflict." In ono sense this is true. But Mr. Asquitii should have added—and the nation will soon add on its own accountthat his justification rests upon the justification of another thing that the late Mr. Gladstone would have condemned, and did, indeed, condemn by implication in many speeches during 1595, namely, the placing of Liberalism in entire dependence upon the Nationalists. "The supporters of the Bill," Mn. Churchill declared in the debate on the censure motion, "asked for no facilities which the Opposition did not enjoy when in power." That again is true in a sense, but the "facilities"'are such as no patriotic Government'would utilise, and such, indeed, as Mr. Balfour declines to use when he returns to power. No doubt there are many Tariff Reformers who are not sorry that the Bill is passed, hoping that under it they will force Tariff Reform on the country, when, their time comes, just as the Liberals will endeavour to force Home Rule on the people without consultation. In reply to a direct challenge by Mr. Churchill upon this point; Mr. Balfour declared that the Unionists, when they returned to-power, would repeal the Bill. That the Unionists' turn will come before 1913 is quite possible, and it is satisfactory to know that Mr. Balfour, at the very climax of party bitterness, has pledged himself not to use for Unionist ends the destructive weapon forged by the Liberals for use by any party .in the future that happens to command a majority. Should Mr. Balfour retire from politics, and should the next Unionist leader use the Parliament Act to thrust Tariff Reform on the country, what will the Liberals do ? Of course they will raise a bitter outcry. That is the best tost of the true character of the measure over which they are now rejoicing.