Evening Post. THURSDAY, MARCH 9, 1922. THE COALITION'S TASK

Evening Post, Volume CIII, Issue 57, 9 March 1922, Page 6

Evening Post. THURSDAY, MARCH 9, 1922. THE COALITION'S TASK

Sir Arthur Balfour's address to the City Carlton Club has not shed as much light oh the troubles of the Coalitibn as had been expected. Everybody knew before that Sir Arthur- Balfour favoured the continuance of the Coalition and was loyal to its chief, and to this knowledge the speech adds 1 very little. It has.nevertheless served a useful purpose in. emphasising.^ familiar facts and in; supplying arguments in favour of the conclusion at which the Coalition leaders have arrived. Sir Arthur Balfour has not lost his general faith, in party government. He declares that " the two-party system is.'admirably , adapted to normal times for the government of England," but that the system is not one under which the country could have won the war. Neither of these points is likely to be seriously challenged, and the arguments which justified a suspension of party government during the war applied with undiminished force to prolonging the arrangement after the Armistice. The unity and the strength which it supplied for the winning of the war were, just as necessary for what is now seem to have been an even more arduous task—the winning of the peace. But the opponents of the Coalition are naturally asking whether three yeats should not have sufficed for this purpose) and whether the complication of acute from which the country still suffers is not to be attributed in large part to the inherent weaknesses of a Coalition, aggravated by the astonishing versatility and opportunism of the present Prime Minister.

"It is not true," says Sir Arthur Balfour, " that the Coalition put on one side points of- difference between the' component parties. Old differences had been submerged. The -way the Irish question had been dealt ■.with was an admirable illustration of the point." This cryptic utterance lacks the lucidity which usually distinguishes Sir Arthur Balfour's utterances, and it would make a sorry showing if it were subjected to the ruthless analysis which he is accustomed to apply to the arguments of his opponents. The distinction between putting points of difference on one side and submerging them is worthy of his subtlety, but will it stand the test oi concrete application? A question which was of capital Importance during the late Parliament, but which was successfully shelved or submerged by the Coalition for the first three years of its extended, term, is the reform of the House of Lords. The question was of sufficient importance at the " Khaki " General Election to be treated as follows in the ioint manifesto of Mr. Lloyd George and Mr. \Bonar Law:

It has been recognised by all parties that reform io urgently < required in the Constitution of the House of Lords, and 1

it will be one of the objects of the Government to create a. Second Chamber which will be based upon direct contact with the people, and will, therefore, be representative enough .adequately to perform its functions. '

Nothing has yet been done towards, the fulfilment of this undertaking, but the point was tres.ted as fundamental and urgent in the statement with which, at the beginning of the year, Sir George Younger came out in direct opposition to the Premier's desire for an early General Election. The root of the matter is the limitation not of the hereditary element in one Chamber, but of the substantial monopoly of power which was conferred upon the other by the Parliament Act of 1912.

of tho House of Lords, said The Times, is not a question of tho constitution of a, now House, but of the powers .-that new Eouse shall possess. In other words, is the veto taken away by the_ Parliament Act to be restored- or not? It is the answer to that question which . Sir George Younger and his organisers await, and it is upon that answer that they propose to baso their attitude towards the Prime Minister. ..

Speaking at Glasgow on the 19th January, Mr. Chamberlain was, of course, compelled to refer to a point on which' his leader and his Chief Whip were openly at variance, but he could say nothing definite. "The reform of the House of Lords has got to be carried through," said Mr. Chamberlain, but he gave no indication as to the manner. He insisted, however, that the differences in the Coalition on this question "do not run on the old party lines between our Coalition Liberals and ourselves," but he was quite nebulous' as to the nature of. the change and the manner in which it is to take effect in legislation.

Sir Arthur Balfour is, of course, far better qualified than Mr. Chamberlain to explain away so patent a fact as the difference of opinion between Mr. Lloyd George and Sir George Younger on this vital point, but he doubtless took the wiser coprse in leaving it alone. The general distinction which he drew at the Oarlton Club between putting a question on one side and.submerging it leaves the inquiry still open whether the question of reforming the Second Chamber has really been, submerged, and if bo whether the submerging has been effectual. Sir George Younger certainly seems to have brought the question near enough to the surface to constitute a peril to navigation, and though he may be censured for his insubordination the Coalition pilots wili ignore it at their peril. Eeferring, to .the .pledge which the Premier is said to have given on the point, and to Sir George Younger's contention that only "a Coalition like the present" could carry out the constitutional reform that is needed, the Westminster Gazette says: '

This is how "a Coalition like the pre-/ sent is expected to work by one of the, partners to it, arid how,' in. fact, it has worked all along the line in domestic policy. Hence the intolerable see-saw which has kept us swinging about her tw-sen Jingoism and Conciliation, Protection and Freetrade, Socialism and Individualism, to the destruction of all confidence in the character, and constancy of public men or their adherence to any principle whatever.

Even the Irish question,l to whTch Sir Arthur Balfour refers as an "admirable illustration" of the success of the policy of submergence, illustrates just as admirably the criticism > of , the Westminster Gazette. In personnel the Coalition still towers far above its competitors, but it has nevertheless to show that it is still united by a sufficient community of principle to justify "its continuance under the new conditions. '