Deputy Leader of the House of Commons. Mr. J. H. Thomas was Secretary of State for the Colonies.

Mr. George Lansbury was Labour Member for the Bow and Bromley Division of Poplar.

FROM The Times, JANUARY 15, 1924.

On June 11, 1917, you published a letter on 'The Future of the Nation', in which I showed that the conference of the Labour Party on January 23-6, 1917, carried many unanimous resolutions which, in all, constituted a revolutionary programme. One of the resolutions was that of Mr. Ramsay MacDonald, headed Taxation', divided into four proposals-namely: (1) Conscription of accumulated wealth; (2) direct taxation on luxuries, increased on unearned incomes, and graduated up to not less than 155. in the pound; (3) nationalization of the land by revised land taxation; and (4) nationalization of the banking system. What is now his attitude to this revolutionary resolution, of which confiscation would be the end, super-taxation the means, and ruination of the capitalists the consequence?

His 'Victory Speech', published on the 9th inst., was replete with vague phrases, such as 'We are a party of idealists', One step enough for me', but on one condition—that it leads to the next step', without saying what step; I am thinking of the national well-being', without saying whether he meant the good of everybody or the good to be got for the workpeople from the confiscation of capital, as contemplated in his fourfold resolution on taxation on January 25, 1917.

Mr. Clynes, who followed him, repeated Mr. MacDonald's equivocal statement. Labour', said he, if entrusted with the power of government, would not be influenced by any consideration other than that of the national well-being.' But he immediately explained that any party having the responsibility of government would fail in its first duty if

it did not give ready aid to the class numbering millions of the poorest of the country, who had suffered under conditions of social and economic robbery which had deprived them of the ordinary necessities of life'.

This frank explanation could only mean that the 'national well-being' contemplated by Messrs. MacDonald and Clynes is that of the workpeople, who are the supposed sufferers, and not that of the Capitalists, who are the supposed robbers.

6

After the indiscretion of Mr. Clynes, Mr. J. H. Thomas was more guarded. Falling back into the vague phrases of Mr. MacDonald, he said that they would accept power, and their government would be judged from the standpoint of bringing the greatest good to the greatest number in the community', without explaining whether he meant the common good of all, which is the real end of good government, or the good of the majority, which might mean the good of the workpeople, as opposed to that of the capitalists. Finally, Mr. G. Lansbury openly proclaimed what was really in the minds of all these victors '-Labour against Capital-expressed in the following boast:

The common people of Great Britain had imposed upon them the task of showing the world the way out of the 'morass of misery and destitution into which capitalism had 'flung it.' (Cheers.)

I submit, Sir, that, beneath the appearance of moderation and the rhetoric of phrases, the real attitude of the Labour Party, represented by the 'victors' assembled on the 9th inst., was identical with Mr. MacDonald's own revolutionary resolution of January 25, 1917-to confiscate capital by taxation. Why, then, do certain members of Parliament assume that Mr. MacDonald is a fit person to become the Prime Minister of this civilized nation, which, throughout many centuries of order and

progress, has established the rights of property and capital, because it knows that the rights are essential to the very life of the nation? Why, too, do some Liberals, nevertheless, tend to vote with the Labour Party, which is unsound, against the Conservative Party, which is sound, on the essentiality of capital? There is surely no need for the Liberals to vote at all; for, if they remain neutral, the Conservatives, with whom they agree that capital is essential, will win; whereas, if they vote for the Labour Party, they will help to establish a domination of workpeople, who, unfortunately, do not understand that the more capital a nation provides, the more it can pay for employment.

Corpus Christi College, Oxford.

'A WORD TO LIBERALS'

FROM The Times, JANUARY 19, 1924.

On the 15th inst. you very kindly allowed me room which I used in order to show that it lies with Liberals to help either the Unionists to prevent, or the Labour Party to project, its cherished but ruinous policy of confiscating the property and capital which are necessary to the very livelihood of the nation. They appear, however, to suppose that, though few, they could at once and at any moment stop Mr. MacDonald's onward progress, whenever they might think him wrong. So they could in Parliament; but his real strength is outside Parliament, where his power would be overwhelming. He would not only be the Prime Minister of a constitutional government and in the various Departments of the State, but also the prime mover of trade unionism, a vast and ramifying organization, sanctioned by the State, but armed with the weapon of the strike', as it was styled at the conference of the Labour Party in January 1917.

Nor would the power of the Labour Government be limited to this nation. It would be both national and international-Socialist, for it can hardly be supposed that the interest which Mr. MacDonald is taking in foreign affairs, as presumptive Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary, would be altogether limited by him to pure diplomacy. Meanwhile, at home on the Clyde and elsewhere there are those who would hurry the Labour Party into more rapid and pitiless assaults on property and capital. It would be easy, too, to refer to the meetings of the Trade Union Congress, of the Labour Party Conference, and of the National Joint Council, &c. But what I have said will, I hope, be sufficient to prove how very far a Labour Government, if once appointed, would be from being confined to Parliament, how weak a thing, alas! has Parliament become to withstand an established Labour Government, and how utterly impossible it would be for Liberals to stop Mr. MacDonald as soon as he might once become Premier.

The only way to save the nation is to prevent Mr. MacDonald. Obsta principiis.

Corpus Christi College, Oxford, January 17.

V. LETTERS ON GENERAL POLITICAL

SUBJECTS

THE NEW CONSERVATISM

Sir John Eldon Gorst was born in 1835 and died in 1911. At the time of this letter he was Vice-President of the Committee of Council on Education, and Conservative Member of Parliament for Cambridge University.

This and the three letters which follow deal partly with economics but primarily with politics or political science, i.e. with democracy and with the question concerning where political power in a State should rest.

FROM The Times, DECEMBER 1, 1896.

Sir John Gorst to-night addressed a crowded audience of undergraduates at the Oxford Union Society on a motion that the problem of the unemployed is the problem of the unemployable. His opinion, grounded on certain statistics, which he quoted, was that two-thirds of the unemployed are able to work and willing to work. He contended that this is a prosperous age, and argued that it is our business to find a remedy.

What is his remedy? He told the crowd of young men that we ought to allow local authorities to try experiments. He recommended a system of labour bureaux, whose duty it would be to ascertain where labour is wanted and where it is superabundant. 'What a monstrous thing it is', said he, in words which I took down, that a man should have to travel and seek for work where there is a telegraph and a telephone!' The business of the State, according to him, is to see to it.

Is this Conservatism? Is it common sense? Is it not uneconomical Socialism? If the State were to allow local authorities to try experiments and set up labour bureaux it would soon find itself under an