The Dominion. TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 1911. THE BRITISH UNIONISTS.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1285, 14 November 1911, Page 4

The Dominion. TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 1911. THE BRITISH UNIONISTS.

4 As we anticipate! would bo the case when the resignation of Mr. Balfour from the leadership of the Unionist party in the House of Commons was announced last week, Mr. Bonar Law has been chosen to fill the vacant post. Although the selection of Mr. Austen Chamberlain, of Mr.. Walter Long, or of Sir Edward Carson, would have been fit' enough, no other choice, really, was likely. For the selection of Mr. Chamberlain, however innocently and sincerely it might have been made in the interests_ of Unionism, would have been widejy regarded as the vengeance of Chainberlainism upon the leader who in ]903 allowed the greatest of his colleagues to drop overboard; while the selection of Sin Edward Carson would have hurriedly committed the Unionist party to a policy of one plank only, namely, resistance to Home Rule. The party is unfortunately not yet able to fight on one plank and one plank only. Mr. Walter Long would havo been a good compromise, but Mr. Bonar Law is a better. He is not a, singleidea statesman, and, what is of far greater importance, his name _ doss not connote any single enthusiasm. He is a stern Unionist, a- stern Tariff Reformer, and a stern enemy of single-Chamber government and the loose and reckless Radicalism of the Government; and he has far more ability than any other of the front-bench Unionists. His selection as leader certainly commits the party once more to Tariff Reform without restrictions, but it gives it elbow-room for tactics—a result that could not be got by the selection either of Mr. Austen Chamberlain or of Sir Edward Carson.

The fact that Mr. Bonar Laav is a Canadian, mentioned in one of our cable messages as having been emphasised in the London press comments, may not convey much to New _ Zealanders. But it was largely to him, at least in the opinion of many Americans, that the Reciprocity agreement was destroyed through Me. Borden's defeat of the Continuous "Liberal" Ministry in Canada. "The greatness of Bonar Law at home," said Current Literature a few months ago, "has still to bo realised in the United States. A leader of the Unionists in the Commons,, he clamours in and out of the House that Britain is for the Britons. He has expended much energy in the past seven years in vociferating that Canada would yet be induced by representation from Washington to let down her tariff barriers." Ho has been the driving force of the anti-Beciprocity scntimcM in Britain, which has reacted so powerfully in Canada. Mr. Bonar Law is not a brilliant speaker, either in the flashy manner of Mn. Lloyd-George or in the keen and luminous manner of- Mr. Bali'our. But he has a deeper-search-ing practical brain than either of them. "From the time he took his place on the front Opposition bench with Mr. Balfour," said the writer of a fine character sketch in the London Daily_ Mail, "he has been steadily building a name for himself as a big lighter, a stalwart, with a business equipment such as few statesmen have, who is prepared to battle always, under any circumstances, with the nimble wits on the other side." Throughout the long fiscal controversy he has been one_ of the big figures, the one Unionist whom the ablest Free-trade dialecticians could not grapple with and cast down; not that he necessarily had a good case, but because, never erring in his figures, he had a dry and luminous control of economic topics. Everyone who wriles of him insists upon his hardness, bis lack of all emotionality, his iron directness; and his biography is equally hard, unemotional, and solid. The son of a Presbyterian minister, ho went to school in Glasgow, and while a youth was put to business. He forged ahead until he became a, power in the sleel trade of Britain, and it was not until lie was forty-two that be entered l.lic House of Commons. lie is just the leader that the Unionist party needs in this clay of chanse and difficulty,

for he will rule as Mr. Bai.foi'U could lint rule, for Jin. Balfour ruled almost by indirection, by tlio strength of his intellectual force—by emanation, one might say, rather than by action. The Unionist party could have had no finer leader for the coming crises than Mr.. Bauwi: bad it been willing to serve a leader loyally: but it has fermented beyond controlling by any but a- hard, ■strong, practical man. Whether the new leader will be equal to the call of Unionist policy for finale remains to be seen.