The Dominion SATURDAY, MARCH 19, 1921. MR. BONAR LAW’S RETIREMENT

Dominion, Volume 14, Issue 149, 19 March 1921, Page 6

The Dominion SATURDAY, MARCH 19, 1921. MR. BONAR LAW’S RETIREMENT

The temporary retirement of Mm Bonar Law deprives the British Coalition Ministry for the time being of one of its most useful and capable members. Although he lacks the showy qualities of . some of his contemporaries, Mb. Law* has exerted a. strong, steadying, and unifying influence in his party, and in the Coalition, and it may prove anything but an easy matter to till his place satisfactorily, whether as Unionist leader or as a Coalition Minister and Leader of the House of Commons. His retirement, indeed, and the adjustments it necessitates, give clear prominence to the extent to which the higher oi political life in Great Britain, and more particularly in the House or Commons, have been depleted m iccent years. The changes now necessary arc likely to . establish new records in rapid Ministerial promotion. For instance,. Sir Robert Horne, who is mentioned to-day as a possible Chancellor of the Exchequer should Mb. Chamberlain become Leader of the House of Commons, only entered Parliament in 1918. However the position may be adjusted, it is clear that in MRLaw’s retirement the Coalition Government suffers a heavy loss. . His value- appeared not only in his remarkably competent grasp of affairs, but in well-defined tendencies and leanings which fitted him particularly well to take a part in a period of extraordinary political development. In its career to the present date, the Coalition has owed not a little of its strength to Mr. Law’s close sympathy and understanding with MR. Lloyd George, of whom he is in many respects the antithesis. There is a world of difference between the outbursts of vehement energy with which MR. Lloyd George is wont to stagger his opponents and dazzle his friend.s, and the painstaking and conciliatory methods by. which M.RLaw earned his place, in the foremost ranks of British political leadership. • Superficially the two men are at opposite poles. It tis said of them, however—and tho statement derives strong support from the course of political events in Great Britain—that in reality they have a great deal in common, even apart from the immediate programme of tho Coalition Party. "Both,” a “Student of Politics” wrote recently in the London Times, “represent in their °ld .P‘ ,r " ties the Radical disruptive spirit; both were rebels against the passive distinctions and sterile humanities of their old chiefs; both had outgrown the old party formulae, and neither would ever have been happy in the strait-waistcoat of the old two-party system.” Under MRLaw’s leadership the majority section of 'the Unionist Party was solidly committed to a policy of progress and co-operation with other political forces similarly inclined. Whether this desirable state of affairs can be maintained in his. absence from the. political arena is a question, on which great issues turn. Although there is. a very plain need of effective political combination in Great Britain in the interests of stable government and as an antidote to revolutionary doctrine. the- Coalition is not so firmly established that the loss of one of its most, steadfast champions can be regarded with indifference... Grappling with a host of baffling' problems. it has inevitably given its critics many openings .for attack. With all its faults and. shortcomings, however, the Coalition is so far preferable to any alternative at present in sight, but the development of internal dissensions threatening its existence would rank as an unmixed misfortune. How farsuch dangers are accentuated by Mr. Law’s retirement is at tho moment somewhat uncertain. There is always the possibility that differences within the Coalition may enable the brothers Cecil and MRAsquith to strengthen their respective followings, but unless serious mistakes are made by the Coalition leaders, the danger of such defections ought not to lie seriou,s. In their uncompromising adhesion to a narrow Cobdenite policy, MRAsquith and his followers arc obviously clinging to the memories of a dead past, and much the same is to be said of the Unionist group known as the Cecilians—aloof “intellectuals” “to whom every fact i« complex, every problem tortuous, and every solution illogical.” Tho real dividing line in current British politics, as MR. T.loyd George has declared emphatically in a speech reported to-day, is, between the Labour Party, with its indigested schemes of revolution, and those who stand for a genuine policy of constructive progress. Although they include in their ranks some of the ablest men . in British politics, the - Asqivithian Liberals and the Ceeilians . alike have little more than a policy of negation, to oppose to the wild-cat sct<mos' of tho Labour Party. The Coalition Party alone has manifested a practical inclination to provide an alternative to Labour rule in a policy of sound though enterprising progress. It seems in these circumstances vital to the national welfare that tho Coalition should be maintained and strengthened, and it may bo hoped that those conditions will be achieved in spite of difficulties of internal organisation which will not. he lightened by Mb. Bonar Law’s withdrawal from the political arena.