A FLAG CHANGER.

Waikato Times, Volume 113, Issue 18876, 21 February 1933, Page 8

A FLAG CHANGER.

CHAMBERLAIN’S CASE. MAN RIGHT, MOMENT WRONG. RADICAL AND TORY. Many people, who remember that Mr Lloyd George graduated from Radicalism to Coalitionism forget that the elder Chamberlain- graduated from Radicalism to conservatism (stales “A.8.J.” In the Evening Post), the Coalitionism of Me Lloyd George does not seem to he one whit less imperialistic than the Conservatism ol Mr Joseph Chamberlain; but whereas the Coalition Government of the Great War (and after) was so constituted tha when Mr Lloyd George icll olf the top of it he fell back into Liberalism, Mr Joseph Chamberlain had been, for a decade, too much with Conservatism .0 permit of his spending his remaining vears in any oilier fashion, alter the great Liberal triumph of Messrs Campbell-Bannerman and Asquith in the Listener, M. Halevy, the gifted author of an English history, links up the Chamberlainism of the eighties with the Lloyd Georgeism which that Liberal wave (1905-06) rendered possible To get the perspective one lias to remember that, roughly .speaking, the eighties was the period of Chamberlain Radicalism; the nineties saw Chamberlain begin ids Imperialism m the Conservative camp (though, still, be it noted, as Leader of the Liberal Unionists) ; Ihe llrsl decade of the present century saw. as stated above, the beginning of the Liberal wave, and the second decade saw the Great War merge Liberalism with CoalitionIsm until Mr Lloyd George became Prime Minister with full Conservative support (until Ihe Coalition melted m the third decade). Sllk-hatted Demagogue. In 1885 Joseph Chamberlain is a Radical and a Dissenter for whom official Liberalism is 100 slow. He launches Ids "miaul horised programme” —manhood suffrage, graduated land taxation, land l'or the land-

less, etc. It Is frankly an attempt to substract from wealth for the benefit of the masses. “The (Jueen (writes M. Halevy) protests; old Gladstone is alarmed; the Tory Press heaps abuse upon ‘the demagogune with a silk hat.’ ” Years pass, and Ihe same man becomes the darling of the lory Pies->. Then, when the Campbell-Bannerman and Asquith Governments (Liberal) give a later Radical Lloyd George his lawmaking opportunity in 1906-1-i, one result is the Budget of 1909 and the flc-ht with the House of Lords. M. Halevy links up the younger periods of Hi" two statesmen when he writes that the Joseph ’•unauthorised programme” of 1885 "became, in so far as it aimed at ‘ransoming’ the wealthy, almost a quarter of a century after Joseph Chamberlain bad deserted Radicalism, Lloyd George’s great Budget of 1909. And just as the Chamberlain Radicalism fruited in the orchard of another, so is the Chamberlain Imperialism fruiting now. "His Imperialistic ‘unauthorised programme’ of 1903 is just beginning to be experimented, when, after the lapse of almost 30 vears, another Chamberlain, belonging lo another generation, watches, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, the success of the experiment.” Parrot That Would Not Learn.

This second ‘‘unauthorised programme” of 1903 was based on Empire preference proposals that alarmed the Old Conservatives led by Mr Arthur (afterwards Lord) Balfour. Balfour toyed with a relaliative tari I L’ (to counter foreign high duties), lie fell short of preference. The cartoonists represented Balfour (Prime Minister) as a parrot in a cage, undergoing a talking lesson from Joseph Chamberlain; but while the bird said ‘•Retaliation” imperfectly, “preference” was beyond him. ‘‘The bird (chuckled Asquith) lias the better of it.” This division in the camp of the Conservatives and the Liberal Unionists gave the- Liberals their victory of 1903-00. But Chambcrlainiles see their revenge at Ottawa in 1932. M. lialevy’s article is really a review of Mr .1. L. Garvin’s “The idle of Joseph Chamberlain." M. llalcvy sees in chamberlain a man who wanted lo "gel things done." Gladstone was too slow iii the eighties, and Baltoiir was 100 slow in 1903. Having failed I 1 gel Radical tilings done with the Old Liberals, Chamberlain proceeded

in the nineties to get Empire ■ things done with the Conservatives and he accomplished a great deal (Including the Boer War!) until the prelerenoe split of 1903. Acts, Not Abstractions. It is implied that, whether labelled Radical or labelled Empire, the things Joseph Chamberlain sought were practical and definite. His was a war not so much for an abstraction or for a name (whether the name be Radicalism or Imperialism) as for definite acts of advancement. Abstractions were of little use to him unless they included an action. . if the test Is action and not loyalty to label, last decade’s Radical easi y becomes this decade’s conservative. The Radicalism of Mr Gliamneilam s municipal administration of ham (bis start-off) was justified by practical business success, and ti c same pursuit of radicalism led 1 later years in and out 01 political camps. And as all political parlies have their productive periods and their barren periods, an active man’s change of flags is at least understandable Joseph Chamberlain (writes M. llalcvy) was not a failure, “since all lus successive ideas have ripened into facts,” but he had "the chronological misfortune of always coming at the wrong moment.”