cracy over Europe; and this point is unnecessary, dangerous, and savours too much of the French Revolution of 1789. At that time the majority of Englishmen, under the influence of Pitt and Burke, was decidedly opposed to the democratic propagandism of the French in Europe; and, having succeeded in the war, England settled down in 1815 into a long peace of unprecedented prosperity and happiness. Why not follow so good an example? But the majority of their descendants, ignoring the lessons of the past century, seems now ready to accept what their forefathers rejected. It proposes to itself a triple plan, each step of which is a giant's stride; to succeed in an unparalleled struggle for victory; to propagate democracies over Europe; to create a new world'. This titanic effort to pile one mountain of difficulty on another, and a third on the top, is beyond the power of man. It has already produced one evil sufficient to condemn it: it has destroyed the feeling of security which sweetened men's lives for a century from the Battle of Waterloo until now, when at last nobody knows to-day what to expect to-morrow, or what he will soon have left to him. The war has already exhausted the energies both of individuals and of the State. The conduct of the war by the State does not encourage us to infer that State interference will be for the national good in peace; and historical experience is against it. Would it not be wiser, more modest, more human, to rest content with a victorious peace, and then leave as much as possible to human self-help and to Divine Providence?

Weymouth, September 3, 1917.

196

THE COALITION

TAXPAYERS AND THEIR RIGHTS

Sir Ernest Wild was at this time Conservative Member of Parliament for the Upton Division of West Ham.

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A letter had appeared in The Times' from Sir William JoynsonHicks, on December 16, stating that a large number of the Conservative Party were dissatisfied with the Coalition. He concluded thus: Unless there is, before long, a reconstruction of the Govern'ment bringing a closer alliance between Mr. Lloyd George and our 'Party, and a larger infusion of Tories-in fact a practical control of policy by them—the Coalition cannot last very many months.' Sir Ernest Wild's letter in The Times' of December 17 was in reply to the letter of Sir William Joynson-Hicks, and stated that the Conservatives could not vary the terms of the Coalition because those terms were based on a letter from Mr. Lloyd George to Mr. Bonar Law, dated November 2, 1918, and communicated by Mr. Bonar Law to the party and accepted by the party.

In spite of the discontent of Lord Salisbury, Sir William JoynsonHicks, and other Conservatives with the Coalition, there was no change until the autumn of 1922, when the Coalition fell in consequence of a meeting of the Conservative Party at the Carlton Club on October 19. At this meeting the Conservative Party declared itself in favour of political independence. When this resolution was reported to Mr. Lloyd George, he at once resigned. Mr. Bonar Law became Prime Minister of a Conservative Government.

FROM The Times, DECEMBER 20, 1920.

Sir Ernest Wild, M.P., in a few words of his letter of the 17th, reveals the historical fact that upon the letter of November 2, 1918, written by Mr. Lloyd George to Mr. Bonar Law and his party, the General Election was fought and won. 'Most of us', says he, were well content then to call to our aid the popularity and the patriotic services of the present Prime Minister; we told our audiences that pre-war Party Politics were dead and buried; we promised a general allegiance to our present leaders." But there was one more all-important issue. He ought to have added: We acclaimed the advancement of the labouring classes without guarding against the consequent spoliation of lawful owners, shareholders,

capitalists, men of business, taxpayers, and consumers in general.'

In this carnal world of ours nothing is more delightful to A than making B give to C with a profit to A, and nothing more depraved. This delightful depravity is what Sir Ernest Wild euphemistically calls the good work done by the Coalition Government in two years; for A invariably claims that he is the benevolent giver of what he is making B involuntarily give to C. This self-satisfied and pretentious depravity is further degraded when A is pretending to oppose C before the public, while he is all the time negotiating with him behind the scenes; and this is the duplicity of the Prime Minister's attitude to the leaders of the Labour Party. Lastly, as it costs nothing to A when he makes B give to C, he naturally, but immorally, pursues his disgraceful conduct without regard to economy; and this is the way in which the Coalition Government and Parliament have by their extravagance caused the impecuniosity of B, the insatiability of C, and the financial decline of the country.

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Nor can the Coalitionists fall back upon the popularity and patriotic services of the Prime Minister'. His merits in the war were undoubted, and deserved their appropriate rewards. But a man who is good for war is not on that account good for peace, as we may see in the ancient example of Themistocles and in the modern example of the Duke of Wellington. Moreover, before the last election in 1918 the politicians had had plenty of evidence of the real nature of the peace policy of Mr. Lloyd George. He had achieved the Premiership in December 1916, and had in that month given offices to leaders of the Labour Party. When in January 1917 these very leaders at the Labour Party Conference had passed a revolutionary programme of nationalization, the Prime Minister in the follow

ing March received them in a deputation, at which he objected to nothing in their programme except Mr. Ramsay MacDonald's proposal of a land tax at 205. in the L. He said that the country was a molten mass which could be moulded by them; he advised audacity-the very thing they already had in excess; and he invited them to make a new world'. He concluded by saying that the points of their programme would all be considered in his committees for reconstruction. No wonder the trade unionist leaders thanked him for his sympathy. They must have left the room knowing that what he called his reconstruction was really their revolution, and that their apparent opponent in the House of Commons was really their friend outside. By the time that he passed the Agriculture Act and the Reform Act, and thereupon resorted to a General Election, the Coalitionists ought to have known that the Lloyd George before the war would be the Lloyd George after the war in the peace.

Consequently, when Sir Ernest Wild says that the Coalitionists told their audiences that 'pre-war policies were dead and buried', they were mistaken; for there are now several parties outside and several parties inside the Coalition; so that no vote of the Coalitionists is a real vote of the party, without which unity no Ministry can be for the public good.

But the worst of it is that, even if pre-war party politics are dead, pre-war institutions are certainly being killed by the Coalition. A nation is wider than a Parliament and a Ministry, and it consists of associated men whose public good is the end of all good government. Now, Englishmen are more and more, day by day, losing their lawful rights of liberty, property, and contract; of self-help, of the management of their own business, and of their profits; of their livelihood, of their comfort, of their selfrespect; of their charity, of their justice, of their

happiness, which cannot last without the wherewithal.

It is an old legal maxim that the first duty of the State is to protect its citizens; but nowadays nobody feels safe, and everybody is left to bear his losses, to groan under enormous rates and taxes, and to endure the blundering tyranny of State interference and control. Who is responsible for this evil state of things? The Coalitionist Party, their favourite Prime Minister, and his spoilt children-the trade unionists, who follow the simple plan

That they should take who have the power,
And they should keep who can.

December 18, 1920.

A GENERAL ELECTION

The position of the Coalition Government was not very secure in August 1921, chiefly owing to its troubles with Ireland. The proposals of the Government with regard to Ireland were made public in the House of Commons on August 15. Parliament then adjourned until October 18. The Articles of Agreement with Ireland, establishing the Irish Free State were signed on December 6. No General Election took place this year.

FROM The Times, AUGUST 18, 1921.

Since the time of the Boer War every General Election has been fought on a false, or at least an unfair, issue. In the course of the Boer War a General Election was proclaimed by the Conservatives on the pretence that the war was over, which turned out to be by no means the case either in action or in expense. When the Conservatives had in eight years increased the taxation of the nation by £40,000,000, and deservedly fell in the ensuing General Election, the Liberals pretended that the issue was economy; but it soon turned out that their real object was democratic expenditure. In a very short time before the late war they increased the already partial and oppressive taxation to £200,000,000, when the present