The Dominion. FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 1911. MR. BALFOUR'S RESIGNATION.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1282, 10 November 1911, Page 4

The Dominion. FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 1911. MR. BALFOUR'S RESIGNATION.

Mr. Balfour's resignation of the leadership of the Unionists in the House of Commons is an enormously more important event than the break of Mr. Chamberlain with the official .Unionist party in 1903. _ When Mn, ' Chamberlain resigned his office, the ; first talk was that the _ Unionist party would lapse into ruin; and it was owing to tne tremendous political intellect of Mr. Balfour that the party survived the ordeal, and has weathered the storms of constitutional revolution that have followed. It is not too much to say that the decision of Mb. Balfour to hand over the reins of leadership is the gravest happening' in British politics since the death of Gladstone. It marks the final severance of British politics from the traditions of the , past. British politics have becomcat last wholly modern, mere politics of the moment. In some respects nobody is more modern than Mr. Balfour, nobody more alive to the fermentation of British socicty and of British political parties; but he has been anti-modern to this extent, opposed to this extent to the deraagogisin of Mn. Lloyd-George on the one hand and the deinagogism of Mr. F. E. Smith on the other hand, that he has been a huge breakwater against the waves of mob politics—the last great prohibition against the surrender of British government into the hands of the demagogues of both parties. Although his resignation is really due, as few people will doubt, to his physician's command, it must be plain that its occurrence has been hastened by the attitude of the young "Die-hards" who rebelled against his counsel to accept the Parliament Bill. They were all for resistance to the bitter end, and they were, we must suppose, wiso in their generation, or, rather, wise in their day, since,, when an Asquith and a Morley can bow to the rule of demagogy, and turn traitor to the teachings of their great leader Gladstone, no political philosopher ought to have refused to believe, that the day of tho "groundlings' " triumph had come.

The loss of Mr. Balfour as the leader of the Unionists in Parliament will be everywhere deplored. Nobody will be likely to feel more sad than Mit._ Asquith himself, not only because he has a closer political kinship with An;. Balfour, so far as British constitutional traditions are concerned, than with most of his colleagues, but also bccause he must dread, on tho broadest

patriotic grounds, the rise of a Unionist Opposition that will not "play the game." There are many able men in the Unionist party from amongst whom a good fighting leader can be chosen —Mn. Austen Chamberlain, Mn. F. E. Smith, or, above all, Mr. Bonar Law—but not one of them, where lie has the ability, has the inclination to keen British politics affixed to the traditions of the past. Mn. Asquith and Lord Morley, although philosophers like Mk. Balfour, were yet sufficiently politicians of the moment to surrender to the attack by the LloydGlorges and the F. E. Smiths on the traditions of British politics. Mr. Balfodk could not make such a surrender. He always threw his great weight against violence and change, whether it took the shape of CIIAJIBDELAINISJt or of LloydGeoegeism. He had to brave the enmity of both parties—tho enmity of the demagogic "die-hard" Unionists on the ono hand, and on the oilier hand of the Radicals who called him a political dilettante and cartooned him as a triflcr. In a famous article in the Daily Mail of September 22, 1009, Mr. J. L. Garvin, who, as editor of the Observer, has been the inspiration of the Unionist insurgents who have forced Mr. Balfour's resignation, wrote of Mr. Balfour as a debater these words, which are very true of him as a statesman:

Rlictoric is as unsuitcd to his scientific and logical mind as rouge to rock crystal. Even the dialectical skill which makes him beyond ail comparison the most alert and damaging debater now in the House of Commons he uses not as a performance but as a weapon. He loathes every appearance of nose. lie detests for himself every touch that suggests talking for effect—even the touches that any other mail would consider legitimate and part of tile accepted art.

The future of British politics depends largelv, now that Home Rule is the great issue, upon the.leadership of the Unionist party. There are able men in the Unionist ranks, but not one who can steer the party through the storm as Mr. Balfour has done. The leadership must go either to Mr. Austen Chamberlain, Mr. Smith, or Mr. Bonar Law. Mr! Bonar Law was long ago "tipped" as Mr ; Balfour's successor in the Unionist leadership. He is not brilliant, nor witty, but has a cold and powerful practical intellect as great as Mr. Asquitji's. He is nearly an ideal leader for the party that Mr. Balfour finds himself unable any longer to lead. Mr. Austen Chamberlain has been the Deputy-Leader of the Opposition, however, and he may take Mr. Balfour's place. But Mr. Ciiamberlun wholly lacks the subtlety that has enabled Mr. Balfour to carry on the unmatchable Fabian campaign forced upon him by Mr. Joseph Chamberlain's resignation on the fiscal issue. Mr. Balfour's resignation may turn out to the advantage 'of the. Unionist party, but_ it cannot be good for British politics: it means the snapping of the last frail cable that held the ship of State to the anchorage of traditional methods, the breaking of the_ last link with pre-demagogie politics.