A CENTRE' PARTY

Dominion, Volume 13, Issue 76, 23 December 1919, Page 7

A CENTRE' PARTY

— * : — UNPOPULARITY OF COALITION . GOVERNMENT ' MR. CHURCHILL'S "OPPORTUNIST' RANT." .... There is.no ground for surprise in tho formation of a Centre party in British politics. What is really surprising is that no political group with such a label ever appeared before (writes Herbert W. Horwill in tho New York "Evening Post"). For. in England, moderation is of the essence of good form. There is no shorter cut to the loss of respectability than the holding of extreme views. . It might, therefore, have been expected that long before now some adroit leader would have seen the profit to be gained by appealim: to the multitudinous moderate man by the attractions of the mid-dle-of-the-road ixdicy, as against obstructive reaction on the one side and reckless revolution on the other. Perhaps the e.xnlanation is that, until recently, the whole of Parliament was a Centre "party, of which Whigs and Tories, and afterwards Liberals and Conservatives, were e-nlv subdivisions.'Extremists, whether of the' Left or of the Right, were fo few that they were not represented in the House of Commons n't all. That, body was an assembly of sober respectabilities, and political controversies were only struggles between one type of medeiate and another. At last, however, the instinct of selip'eservation has brought about the definite formation of a substantial group of members under a Centre flag. In the first place, the Cotilition label, so popular in December, threatens with disaster every politician ticketed by it. The rveleetiotw indicafo that of thn men who romped in at the general election through their possession of a. Coalition coupon not one in ton can to-day regard his seat as, a safe one. This discovery has riven a powerful imnulso to experimentinsr whether the Coalition would hot smell swpoter by another name. Secondly, the Coalition is obviously in (rreat danger of falling to -pieces by internal divisions. This fate might possibly bo averted if, for the' temporary and ad hoo combination that was effected under the stress of the war, thero could bo substituted a real ond nernmnent union between the Conservative and Liberal forces at present under a common leadership. In the third "lace there is Teal apprehension lest Lloyd Georg£-whose personal popularity with the electorate was so great an asset in the December elections—should bo stimulated by tbe results of tho by-elections to move tow.ard the Left, in which case most of tho men who got into tho present House by .clinging to his coat-tails would be left ignominiously in the lurch. If ho could be assured of the following o? a strong and compact body, bound by the ties of a regular party allegiance, ho would bo less disposed to wander away in search of new allies. Adventurous as he might be. ho would yield to the superior attraction of "the bird in ,tho hand. The first publio intimation of the new movement was made in April, when it was reported that during the previous two months a group of members had been formed in order to prevent any return to tho old party, lines. In May further details were given. It was announced that membership of the group entailed no obligation or pledge beyond agreement with the following resolutions :— , (1) That it is desirable to form nn active Coalition group in the House of Commons without reference to party, in order to assist in. expediting the Government policy as laid down at the general election. ' (2) That, with this object, there should bo formed a sessional group resolved to maintain unity of purpose within the' Coalition. (3) That it is desirable permanently to maintain the principles which brought tho Coalition Government into exist-

T!io list of names apnended to tin's statement was quite undistinpruished. It consisted almost.entirely., of now members, few of: whom have yet been heard of outside their own constituencies. It ■was explained that the. movement had been initiated by new as it was felt that they were not hampered by past political associations, and were, therefore, in a better position than old.members' to promote a clearer widerfitanding between. the different elements of the Coalition. The plea was'ingenious, but by no" means convincing. Politicians do not become part)' men for, the first time on election to t.ho House. of Commons, and most of the nersons on the list had been ardent partisans for years before they became candidates for Parliament. The major-

ity of' them belong to the Conservative 1 section of tho Coalition, with a. sufficient sprinkling of Liberals to maintnn a show of catholicity. Tho promoters of the movement had sufficient naivete to let it be known that they wished to capture the Prime Minister's adhes'on. They proposed to ad-, dress a letter to Lloyd George and Bonar, Law. inviting them to attend a dinner at which the advantages of a permanent Centre Party would bo set forth. The invitation was presumably sent,, but, tliough three -months have s'neo passed, it has not yet been accepted. Llovd George is not a child in tactics, and ho is not likely to put himself readily .it Hie, head of a groin) of less expert iy>''tiexms who can give no assurance of their ability to deliver the goods. 1 There are other prominent m°n. however, who are not so exigent. For ten years or so Winston Churchill !>■>= boon nursing the idea of a combination| between tho two great parties. Tie is a political soldier of fortune of n 'olatile disposition and with principles that eon easily be modified to suit "the occasion.. It so happens that the. chnrmnn of the new Centre group is a cousin of his, Captain Oscar Guest, And that another cousin. Canta : n 1?. 15. Guest, is the chief Coalition Liberal Whip and friendly to the movement. It was therefore quite natural that 'Winston' Churchill should 1)0 invited to meet the group and that hp should accept the invitation. The advantage would lie mutual. Bv roping in one of the most prominent Ministers of the Crown, tho group would secure an excellent advertisement, while. Mr. Churchill wou'd enjoy the opportunity of making one of those allocutions nrbi et orbi in which he so delights. Accordingly, tho "Daily Mail" of .luly lfi was able to inform' its readers Hint "a political sensation of the first magnitude was caused-late last-night" by the inauguration of a , now political party at a private dinner at the' Criterion Restaurant at which Winston Churchill was the principal'speaker The -.eports of his speech wero very brief, but it was clear thai lie gave the movement his benediction and that his.main point, was tho necessity of a combination of tho moderate men of both existing parties to fight Bolshevism. M tho fame dinner another speaker was tho Lord Chancellor —the 1?. E. Smith of not long ego— whoso attitude was equally friendly, but ffho reminded his hearers that they must not rulo out tho possibility of a Labour Government, «nd suggested that such a development would not bo altogether 0 bad thing, as it would give tho Labour Party a valuable education in political responsibilities. Speculation was immediately r'fo us to whetlier Mr. Churchill was expressing the mind of snmo one higher in the official hiorarchy than himself. Was lie ; (speaking on behalf of the Prime Minister, or was ho merely voicing his earn -iows, and, it may be, his aspirations to become the leader of tho new group? Tt wns noted that. Mr. Churchill had only just returned from n week-end visit to tho Prime. Minister at Criccieth. Ho had expressed, in his speech, his opinion that Lloyd G-eorgo should be the leader of the • new party, and that the formation of a permanent combination of this typo would not bo unwelcome to the present head of tho Government might bo inferred from another passage in which Mr. Churchill revealed an incident in the secret history of 1910. At that time, ho said, during the crisis occasioned by the Lloyd George Budget, its author was in favour of forming a Coalition Government. - In the Press tho Centre par.ty dinner had a mixsd reception. Some papers hailed it as epoch-making event, while others dismissed it lightly as a trifle. The London "Nation" interpreted it as eim-ply the Primo Minister's latest "stunt." and described tho new party as sothine more than an organ which ''takes over General Croft's tea paTty, Jgnda ii # jazz band, and invites & gon-

oral rallv of Conservatism." The "Daily Mail" hailed (ho movement as portending tho complete extinction of the Asquithian Liberals, individually anil collectivelv. Tho "Times," moro cautiously, pointed out that tho group had no real uolicv for the future, and were ready to tho hand of the potter, who .would mould them to his will. v An eminent Coalition Liberal, quoted in the Manchester "Guardian," offered the same crilicsin, and insisted that you could not form a new parly or a new alliance of Diirtic. except on a policy. Ho l.dioved that the moment a policy was resolved upon tho proposed Liberal and Unionist Coalition would break down, Mr. Churchill himself affected rather tu nuoh-pooh the importance widely nt-b-ched to the dinner. He suggested that his speech contained only some casual reflections intended for the cars of a few friends One might almost in-fer-that ho happened to be strolling around Piccadilly Circus one, evening about din-.ier time, that he turned into llin Criterion for a meal, that he lighted upon a, table where his cousins and a few others were engaged nn the same hr.sincss. and that he made a few remarks to them on the political situation. Why, then, all this bother about so commonplace an occurrence? It is scarcely the usual thing, however, for a member of a chance partv at a West End restaurant, to address his friends for an hour and a half on end, and to have a stenographer in attendance to take down cverv word. The atmosphere of mystery in which the dinner and the speech were enveloped was adroitly calculated to keep in-' li.rcst in the subject alive. It was reported that the Prime Minister, on his return to London from Griecieth, had willed' for a copy ot tho speech, and read i l . with ureal interest. Gossip was active respecting its su?gestad publication. It was to appear at once in full. Then its publication was postponed. "It was obvious." said the "Times," in announcing tho postponement, "that some higher authority had stepped in with an absolute veto." Finally, ten:days after the dinner, the full text—or nearly the full text—of "Winston Churchill's, deliverance was riven to the world. "One of tho passages which will be scanned with particular interest," the "Times" had remarked a few days before, "is that in"which he revealed Mr. Llovd Georsre's plan for a Coalition at the time of tho Constitutional Conference in the autumn of 1911'." This prediction mieht have sccnicd quite safe; but actually it came to grief, for tho passage in oucstion was omitted, on the ground, as exulained by Mr. Churchill himself, that it did not in any way affect the substance of tho argument. One of the most nrominent features of the speech, as now published, was its violent denunciation of the'party system as it existed before the war. Mr. Churchill could imagine nothing more foolish than that British noliticians. "should at some date in the rear future divide themselves again into two factions, hnting each other, despising each other, abusing each other, Without any real moral or mental cleavage, and go off iriu their opposite camps and unfurl their party standards, and by artificial faction, by sham antagonisms/ by i,ersonal or group rivalries, and ambitions, bv fomented passions, set to work to fill tho world with words to blacken each otlie'.-'s character, to traduce each other's motives, to' hamper each other's policies,' and so to darken tho counsels cf ihe nation and paralyso tho action of the State." If that is a true account of the worlcin» of the old parties, how are wo to explain Mr Churchill's own transference of allegiance from one of these parties to the other, defended at the time as springing from conscientious motives / And -the Criterion speech, as the Spectator" was quick to point out, afforded no antidote to injurious forms ot political partisanship. On the contrary, it was but a «plea for a more efficient poli-tical-party "combino" just on the old lines. , „ , , In what Mr. Churchill went on to say about the present needs of the political situation, he strangely failed to realise that the whole tenor of his speech was a negation of the very idea on winch a Centre Party must rest. A Centre Party presupposes'a Left and a Eight, just as .a middle class presupposes an upper and it "lower' '"Bill 1 throughout'he conceived of tho next alignment of political forces in Britain as a division of them into two camps, not three, "there would ha Bolsheviki and anti-Bolshevilu and nobody else. The speech was according y a summons to all patriotic persons to rally to fight .Bolshevism,' 'which, wo imagine," comments the London nation," "is Mr. Churchill's new alias for Liberalism, Progress, Peace, Ketorm, Free Trado, and anli-Boodleism, no less than for Nationalisation, Socialism, and tho Capital Levy." If the internal evidence of this speech is any guide—and its enthusiastic reception 'by the whole group shows that it may be so accepted—tho "Nation is. fully justified in saying that tho real basis of tho new movement is nuliLabou'rism. is not rca'ly a party of modcr'aton, as its name implies. its business is the division of the spoil. Others who, unlike the ".Nation," are usynipathotic to Liberalism, and Labour, were equally critical of the speech, though for 'different reasons. "For our part, said tho "Spectator," "we should bo all' in favour of a permanent- Centre Party-that is/ a party representing the normal mo'doralo opinions of Englishmen—if only we could bo sure' that the Centre Party would be managed, to begiu with, bv the right people. But we fear that those who lurch into a central position rather by accident or from expediency might only too quickly lurch out of it again." "If only wo could ,be sure that the Centre Party would be managed by the right people"—and certainly, in tho "Spectator's" judgment, Winston Churchill is not one of them. For in tho same nrticlo it drew a telling imitrast between Mr. Churchill and Lord Robert Cecil. Between tho spirit of the two men there flows, it said, "a veritable Atlantic." Each of them witches firo at new thoughts and new idea?, but "ouo of them desires to use the ilamo to serve and satisfy a personal ambition, Alio other to use it for the benefit of mankind." "Wonderful to relate, at a subsequent dinner, the organisms of 'the Centre Party invited Lord Robert to bo their chief guest, He bestowed no blessing upon the movement, but, ontho contrary, de'.'vored a pungent criticism on tho Coalition Government and pleaded for a generous attitude toward tho demands of Labour. The statesmanliko tone of his speech threw into striking relief tho opportunist rant ~of Mr. Churchill's and confirmed one's belief that a movement of .which Mr. Churchill and his like, are tho active promoters can have no real contribution to mako to tho solution of tho difficult problems. that are now confronting tho country.