BRITISH PARTY SYSTEM

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22579, 8 December 1938, Page 10

BRITISH PARTY SYSTEM

Signs of Change

THE NEED FOR NATIONAL UNITY;

[By A. DUFF COOPER, former First Lord of the Admiralty.]

“The challenge of the totalitarian States, writes Mr Duff Cooper, “seems to demand a degree of national unity and \ national efficiency which the party system cannot provide.” j

The days are gone, those happy days, when Gilbert wrote and Sullivan sang

by this long and close association with their capitalist colleagues. Nor have the Conservative Party hesitated to accept at the bidding of the Government measures such as the Coal Bill of a pronouncedly Socialistic character.

Every little boy or gal, _ Born into this world alive, Is either a little Liberal Or else a little Conservative.

The party system has worked very well in Great Britain for 200 years. Can it continue to do so? It has served as a solid basis for Parliamentary Government. The majority of European and other nations have so much admired the success of British Parliamentary institutions that they have attempted to imitate them. In most cases imitation has resulted in failure, and the cause of failure has usually been inability to create a party system. Lacking that foundation, the edifice has collapsed. It is easy to draw up constitutions and to build Houses of Parliament, but the party system is a natural growth. It cannot be laid down by law nor built up by hands. Basis of Party Government Further, the party system is a mechanism of great delicacy. It demands first that there shall be a broad division of opinion, and second that it shall divide the people in fairly even proportions. The party system ceases if there is no hope of one of the two parties ever getting into power. This division of opinion must be neither too. shallow nor too deep, neither too feeble nor too violent. If it errs either in the one direction or in the other, the system will fail. If the division is too shallow the thing becomes a sham. There was a danger of this in England in the middle of the eighteenth century when the Tories had ceased to be Jacobites, and differed on no question of principle from the Whigs. Then came the King of England’s attempt to govern by himself, the American War of Independence, the demand for reform, and the French Revolution—great events to which Englishmen reacted diversely and which produced that deep cleavage of opinion essential to the party system. :

Is it possible therefore to believe that Socialism is no longer the issue? And if it be possible, must it not follow either that the system will collapse for lack of an issue, or else that a new issue will arise that will produce a new alignment?

Foreign Policy as an Issne

Foreign policy is at present occupying the minds of those Englishmen who give much thought to political questions. It is occupying their minds almost to the exclusion of every other topic. And with regard to foreign policy there exists profound and sincere difference of opinion. This is deplorable, but it is true and we cannot alter the fact by deploring it. It is a division of opinion which cuts clean across existing party lines. It produces strange phenomena, such as the majority of the Tory Party "vociferously cheering the ultra-pacifism of Mr Lansbury, while regarding the Duchess of Atholl as a dangerous revolutionary. In the British Labour Party discipline has always been stricter, and heresy hunting more popular than among supporters of the National Government, but if that discipline were relaxed there is little doubt that a considerable number of Labour members would express their whole-hearted approval of the Prime Minister’s policy. This has already been done by the Independent Labour Party, which is the only Parliamentary party in England that is quite solid in its support of Mr Chamberlain. Doubts exist in the minds of a large number of Conservatives as to the wisdom of that policy, doubts which in some cases amount to conviction. The Policy of Concession The issue may be broadly stated as follows. The political arena is at present dominated by certain aggressive States, ,-tvho have resorted in some cases to the threat, in others to the use of force, in order to impose their will. There are many people who believe that peace with these States will be best preserved by pursuing a policy of concession—that it will prove possible to satisfy them and that when they are satisfied they will abandon aggression. There are others who believe them- to be insatiable, and who hold that concession has already gone too far. They therefore conclude that the way to maintain peace is to present a bold front supported by sufficient force to ensure, in the last resort, victory. They believe that the resources of the British Empire, in combination with those of allies who would rally to the cause, would be sufficient to provide that force which alone will persuade the Powers of aggression to moderate their demands, that the surest way to prevent a war is to convince those Powers that they are likely to lose it. This difference of opinion, important as it is, could not alone form the basis of a realignment of parties in Great Britain, for it should be the object of all to keep out of party warfare any question of foreign policy, in the conduct of which continuity is before all things desirable. It may well be, therefore, that the existing cleavage is but a passing phase and that when it has passed parties will relapse into their earlier formation. It may, on the other hand, prove the prelude to the disappearance of a system which has done its work and has had its day. Nothing can last for ever, and the challenge of the totalitarian States seems to demand a degree of national unity and national efficiency which the party system cannot provide.

Again in the middle of the nineteenth century party differences began to disappear in Great Britain. It would be difficult indfcd. to describe the different in political philosophy which divided the Conservative Lord Aberdeen from the Liberal Lord Palmerston. Once again the thing was becoming a sham, but once again new causes. Home Rule, Welsh Disestablishment, and, above all, the tariff question, put new life into the old system. Up to the war it flourished _ and indeed its main danger in 1914 was excess of vigour rather than lack of it.

For, as I have said, if difference of opinion is too strong the British system is in as great danger as if it is too weak. Once men believe that their political opponents ought to be sent to prison or put to death, the party system collapses. It could not exist in modern Germany or in •modern Russia, for in both those countries to differ from the ruling faction is accounted treason to the State. The Situation in 1914 In 1914, it seemed possible that the British party system might degenerate into civil war, as it has so tragically degenerated in Spain. But the Great War brought the parties together, and after it they remained together long enough to find a solution of the Irish question. During the years that followed Socialism was the issue for England. Does it remain the issue to-day?

There has probably never been so much political discussion among private ixid.ividvia.ls as during the last tv ' months, but it would hardly be rash to assert that Socialism has never been discussed. Great Britain has now been . governed for seven years by a Government .which combines Conservatives, Liberals, and Socialists. There has never been the slightest sign that the consciences of the Socialist members of the British Cabinet have been troubled

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