Evening Post FRIDAY, MARCH 7, 1930. A PATCHED-UP PEACE

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 56, 7 March 1930, Page 8

Evening Post FRIDAY, MARCH 7, 1930. A PATCHED-UP PEACE

Mr. Baldwin has made peace with the newspaper magnates who threatened to split his party on the taxation of-food, but we cannot see that it is peace with honour, or even with safety. Our fullest reports of the terms of peace are both supplied by the British Official Wireless, but there is a material difference between them. In ,his address to t the Council of the National Union of Conservative. Associations as reported on Wednesday, Mr. Baldwin said that "there was no prejudice greater jn this country than the prejudice against a food tax," and deplored the treatment of a great Imperial issue as "the shuttlecock of our party politics." He had been considering if it were not possible to get these questions concerned with our Imperial relationships taken out of the arena of party politics. He believed the only way was by means of a referendum. But yesterday's report added an important condition precedent. If the Conservatives are returned to power at the next election, said Mr. Baldwin, the new Government's first duty will be to summon an Imperial Conference "to consider the whole question of Imperial relations." He added that if any scheme should be evolved by that conference involving a tax of any kind on foreign food, it would not, become operative until it had been submitted to a referendum of the whole electorate. According to the abbreviated version a referendum will be unconditionally taken on the food taxes by the next Conservative Government, but the fuller report shows that the referendum is to fee conditional upon the adoption by the Imperial Conference of a scheme which demands the taxation by Britain of her foreign food imports. Now, to those who are* less profoundly ignorant of Dominion sentiment on this matter than Lord Beaverbrook and Lord Rothermere—and we should have supposed Mr. Baldwin.' fee he among the number—this condition is a sheer impossibility. Never in our time will the Dominions $a> revolutionise their own fiscal policy as to afford any equivalent for a converse revolution on the part of Great Britain, or even anything that could be colourably so represented: ito the British electors. The Dominion point of view is put by the Canadia.n correspondent of the. "Manchester Guardian" -with perfect accuracy, yet with a charming naivete that elevajtes it to the dignity of high statesmjiriship:— If Lord Beaverbrook can pefsuiade the British people to. grant Canada land the rest of the Empire a preference on foodstuffs, so much the better, but the feeling here is that it would be niuch wiser for Great Britain to do so as an act of domestic policy than las a part of a grandiose Empire economic policy. The experience of Canada, has shown that there are'great dangers to Empire unity in such policies. Deprecating any "grandiose Empire economic policy," deprecating, tto put it in homelier language, any dhange in the existing order that will n«t give them something for nothing, telie Dominions will.be pleased to accept any advantages that Britain may offer them as "an act of domestic giolicy," but they will resent the suggestion of a reciprocal domesticity as an infringement of their autonomy, an act of Imperial grandiosity in which plain men can take no part. So patent is the futility of any expectation of help from an Imperial Conference on this matter that, if what Mr. Baldwin has made a condition of his referendum had teen proposed by a Disraeli, or eveia a Lloyd George, one might have supposed him to have spoken with his tonjgue in his cheek, But it .was.not for the ■twin brethren in charge of the United Empire Party to feel any doubt on the point, since if they had known enough to do so they could never have launched their impossible campaign. The condition hasi been offered in good faith and accepted in good faith, and the referendum has been treated in the sani« way. The "Morning Post," which was one of the "whole hog" supporters of Joseph Chamberlain's scheme, welcomes Mr. Baldwin's pjroposal as "a great advance on the policy of negation which hitherto has; shackled the Conservative Party." It also suggests as a reason for the acceptance of the proposal j that Lord Beaverbrok and Lord Eothermere have discovered rthat fathering a party is more difficult, troublesome, and costly thau running a newspaper, and will be relieved to flnii an opportunity of laying the troublesome infant at rest in the capacious/ bosom of a Conservativo foster motteer. It was kindly and tactful to try to save Mr. Baldwin's,' face in this way, but it seems to us tlaat the Crusaders have got by far the best of the deal, and that Mr. Balflwin has paid far too high a price for a patch-up peace which cannot last;. He has yielded in a manner wliiich cannot fail to weaken, his prestige as a leader, and has pledged hir«3elf to a principle which, without removing the question from the areina, threatens to have a far-reaching Effect in intensifying the confusion and demoralisation of political lifeiv Mr. Baldwin, is fond of posing as a sort of SimpSe Simon, a plain man from the coujotry who knows something about Canning but very little about anything else. The simplicity which he professes was surely never more strikingly displayed in action than by his / convincing demonstra-

tion of the efficady of the referendum in securing the judicial determination of a burninj; issue. Such a referendum ought not, ho said, to involve the fate of a Government, because if the fate of a Government hung on a iroferendum, that referendum immediately became political. If the people of the country knew they were asked to gfive their decision on a specific point, and that the result of their decision did not mean a General Election, they «ould give their vote freely and ou the merits. It may be thfri a referendum on the taxation of food onght not to involve the fate of a Government, but in the present temper of the British people it assuredly would. As the "Daily Chronicle" says, "it takes more than <ojie party to remove any iss^ue from politics," and the two Free Trade parties would show them- j selves very ignorant of .their; business if they did not make the question as prominent at the election which was to decide on the taking of the referendum as it was in 1923 when Mr. Baldwin laarnt his lesson but Lord Beaverbroak did not. At the next election, indeed, the Conservatives themselves will have to give the question prominence and to define with some particularity the issues which the; present compromise leaves in a complete fog. But to pass from the vagifio to the definite would be to pass from fog to storm. Mr. Baldwins might favour a 2% per cent, duty, Mj. Amery '5 per cent., and Lord Bcaverbrook 50 per cent., and the party would have to settle what figure -or figures should go on ■ the referendum ballot-paper. If they took a vote on the abstract principle only, ithe question would be deeper in politics than ever, because the carrying of the proposal in that form "would give a Conservative Government a free hand. A generati on ago,, when the referendum was attracting far more attention in this court try than it has ever attracted since, Mr. J. A. Millar described it as 'i.he sheet-anchor of the shuffler." We regret that Mr. Baldwin should haw damaged so excellent a record by ,-so patent a shuffle.