A FLAG CHANGER

Evening Post, Volume CXV, Issue 36, 13 February 1933, Page 7

A FLAG CHANGER

CHAMBERLAIN'S CASE

MAN RIGHT, MOMENT WRONG

RADICAL AND TORY

(By A.8.J.)

Many people who remember that Mr. Lloyd George graduated from Radicalism to Coalitionism forget that the elder Chamberlain graduated from Radicalism to Conservatism. The Coalitionisni of Mr. Lloyd George does not Beem to be one whit less Imperialistic than the Conservatism of Mr. Joseph Chamberlain; but whereas the Coalition Government of the Great War (and after) was so constituted that when Mr. Lloyd George fell off the top of it he fell back into Liberalism, Mr. Joseph Chamberlain had been, for a decade, too much with ■Conservatism'to permit of his spending his remaining years in any other fashion, after the great Liberal triumph of Messrs. Campbell-Bannermau and Asquith in 1905-6,.

In."The Listener," M. Halevv, the gifted author of an English history, links up the Chaniberlainism of the eighties with the Lloyd Georgeism which that Liberal wave (1905-6) rendered possible. To get the perspective one has to remember that, roughly speaking, the eighties was the period, of Chamberlain Badiealisin; the nineties saw Chamberlain; begin his Imperialism in the Conservative camp (though still, be it- noted, as Leader of the Liberal Unionists); the first "decade of the present century saw, as stated above, the beginning of the Liberal wave; and the second decade saw the Great War merge Liberalism with Coalitionism, until Mr. Lloyd George became Prime Minister with full Conservative support (until the Coalition melted in the third decade). 1 SILK-HATTED DEMAGOGUE.

In 1885 Joseph Chamberlain is a Radical and a Dissenter for whom official Liberalism is too slow. He launches his "unauthorised programme"—manhood suffrage, graduated taxation, land for the landless, etc. It is frankly'an attempt to subtract from wealth for the benefit of the

masses. "The Queen (writes M. Halevy) protests; old Gladstone is alarmed; the Tory Press heaps abuse "upon 'the demagogue with a silk hat. 5" .Tears pass, and the same man , becomes the darling of the Tory Press. .Then, when the Campbefl-Bannernian and. Asquith Governments (Liberal) give a later Radical Lloyd George his lawmaking opportunity in 1906-14, one result is the Budget of 1909 and the £ght with the House of Lords. M. Halevy links up the younger periods of the two statesmen when he writes that' the: Joseph Chamberlain "unauthorised programme" of 1885 "became, in bo far as it aimed at .'ransoming' the wealthy, almost a quarter of- a century after Joseph Chamberlain had deserted Radicalism, Lloyd peorge's great Budget of 1909." And just as the Chamberlain Radicalism fruited in the orchard of another, no is the Chamberlain Imperialism fruiting now. '' His Imperialistic •unauthorised programme' of 1903 is gust beginning to be experimented, when, after the lapse of almost thirty years, another Chamberlain, belonging •to another generation, watches, as Chancellor Of the Exchequer, the success of the experiment."

A PABKOT THAT WOULD NOT ■ r •■-■--••■.'■■.-LEAIUf.-.-- ■■>-,•:- .-.;.-

This second "unauthorised programme" of 1903 was based oh Empire preference proposals that alarmed the Old Conservatives led by Mr. Arthur (afterwards Lord) Balf our. Balfour toye&with a retal^ative tariff (to counter foreign high duties). He fell short of preference. The cartoonists represented Balfdur (Prime Minister) as a parrot in. a cage; undergoing a talking lesson from Joseph Chamberlain; but while the bird said "Ketaliation" imperfectly; "preference" was beyond him. "The bird (chuckled Asquith) has the better of it." This division in-.the camp, of the Conservatives and the Liberal Unionists gave the- Liberals their victory of 1905-6. But ChamberJamites see their revenge at Ottawa in 1932.

;. M. Halevy's article is really a review of Mr. J. L. Garvin's "The Life • jof Joseph Chamberlain." M. Halevy ■Bees in Chamberlain a man who wanted to "get things done." Gladstone was too slow in the eighties, and Balf out was too slow in 1903. Having failed to get Radical things done with the -Old Liberals, Chamberlain proceeded in the nineties to get Empire things done with the Conservatives, and he accomplished a great deal (including the Boer War!) until the preference split of 1903. .-.;■'-.. ACTS, NOT ABSTRACTIOBFS.

It is implied that, whether labelled -Radical or labelled Empire, the things Joseph Chamberlain sought were practical and definite. His was a war not «o much for st-n abstraction or for a same (whether the name be Eaaicalism or Imperialism) as for definite acts of advancement. Abstractions were of little use to him unless they included an action. .

If the test is action and not loyalty to label, last decade's Radical easily becomes this decade's Conservative TheKadicalism. of Mr. Chamberlain's municipal administration of Birmingham (his start-off) was justified by practical business success, and the same pursuit of practiealism led in later years in and out of political camps. And- as all political parties have their productive periods and their parren. periods, an active man's change Of flags is at least understandable. Joseph Chamberlain, writes M. Hale^y, was not a failure, "since all bis BUcceessive ideas have' ripened into Si ,6hai "the misfortune of always coming at the wrong moment."