The Government of England Part 56

[Sidenote: All Popular Party Organisations are Largely Shams.]

Although the local a.s.sociations purport to be democratic and representative, it would be an error to take their rules too seriously.

Every voluntary political organisation contains an element of sham. Part of its stock in trade is the pretence that it is more powerful, and more widely representative, than it really is. Much of its success depends upon the old Chinese military policy of scaring the enemy by an imposing appearance before the fight begins. In ordinary times of public inattention the _vox populi_ may be manufactured by a small number of persons, for the ma.s.s of the people are rarely interested until an issue has been presented to them, and the framing of that issue, which may be by far the most important step in the whole process, is often done at a meeting of half a dozen men. All the members of the party may have a right to attend that meeting, but they will not do so, or if they do the private conference will take place earlier, and the meeting will simply decide upon the acceptance of plans prepared beforehand. This is a law of human nature resulting from the fact that a large a.s.sembly can only say Yes or No. It does not mean that the desires of the public are perverted, for as a rule it has none that are strong or definite. It means that the number of people who care enough to take an active part in the formative stage is small, and in the long run they get control of the wires whether as an elected or a self-const.i.tuted committee. The sham consists in making it appear that the plan proposed expresses the preconceived wish of a large body of people.

[Sidenote: Local a.s.sociations Controlled by a Few Men.]

In England the element of sham in the party organisations is as great as it is elsewhere. Although the council of a local a.s.sociation is a numerous body, and gives the appearance of a highly popular inst.i.tution, the a.s.sociation, as a whole, usually contains among its enrolled members not more than one tenth, or at most one fifth of the voters belonging to the party; and the meetings for the election of delegates to the various councils and committees are thinly attended.[492:1] The organisation is, in fact, managed, as a rule, by a few men influenced to a greater or less extent by the paid agent. They are often, especially among the Liberals, tradesmen or even workingmen, who take an active interest in politics, without cherishing any parliamentary aspirations for themselves, or any political ambition unless it be for munic.i.p.al office; but they like, especially if Conservatives, to take for their chairman a man of higher social position. Moreover, there seems to be little rivalry for the positions that give a control of the body. On the contrary, one is much more impressed in ordinary times by the efforts of an organising secretary, spurred on from above, to interest people in forming a.s.sociations in unpromising districts, than by struggles for power in the most active a.s.sociations. In England the stage at which public interest awakes is the election, the process of selecting the candidates arousing little attention. While, therefore, the franchise is wide, and the number of people who vote is very great, the nomination is really made by a body of men no larger than the voters in an ordinary borough before 1832.

[Sidenote: Possibility of their Capture.]

[Sidenote: For Personal Motives.]

One might suppose that under such conditions it would be easy for a small knot of adroit and persistent men, or even for a single resourceful manipulator, to capture a local a.s.sociation; but in normal times there is little incentive to do so. To explain fully why this is the case would antic.i.p.ate much that remains to be said about the social and political traditions of England. Yet some of the reasons can readily be suggested. The expense of maintaining the organisation and a seat in Parliament is large, and the funds must be provided by somebody. If they are subscribed from public spirit by local men who do not want the seat themselves, those persons will naturally control the a.s.sociation. If they are defrayed by the candidate, or member of Parliament, then under ordinary circ.u.mstances he will control so far as his own seat is concerned; and by nursing and courting the const.i.tuency, or by his political reputation, he will probably have built up a popularity among the voters which the a.s.sociation cannot defy. The expense limits, therefore, the cla.s.s of persons who might want to capture the a.s.sociation in order to control the nomination to the House of Commons; nor among those who could afford the cost is there much object in so doing. If, as in some other countries, nominations were confined by law or by custom to residents of the const.i.tuency, the rivalry between two or three aspirants for the honour might become intense; but in England the local man has little advantage over a stranger, and if the party a.s.sociation in his own place is unwilling to accept him, the expenditure of labour, time and money required to capture it would probably be much greater than would procure him a nomination elsewhere. Apart from the personal privilege of sitting in the House there are no strong selfish motives for getting control of a local organisation. The member of Parliament has no patronage to distribute among the men to whom he owes his seat; and although the a.s.sociation may lead to the town council, or even the honourable post of a justice of the peace, these are not in themselves objects of keen emulation, nor are they stepping-stones to higher things beyond.

[Sidenote: For Political Objects.]

Moreover, there is no object under ordinary circ.u.mstances in capturing a local a.s.sociation with a view to promoting a political policy; for the policy of the party is directed by the parliamentary leaders, in the cabinet or on the front Opposition Bench, and the local party voter has, as a rule, little sympathy for the member who weakens the party by thwarting them. There are, however, cases of deep political cleavage in the party ranks before the leaders have agreed upon a policy, when there may be the strongest incentive to capture the local organisations in order to turn the scale. The breach among the Liberals over the first Home Rule Bill was an example of that kind, and had Mr. Gladstone given a longer premonition of his plans there would, no doubt, have been a struggle for the control of the local Liberal a.s.sociations all over the country. The recent agitation for fiscal reform furnished another instance of the same kind, and a very striking one; because the Conservative leader not only took no positive stand on the question, but intimated that the party could adopt no definite policy on the subject until the next election. Under these conditions the att.i.tude of the local Conservative organisations became of the utmost importance, and it is said that a systematic effort was made by the members of the Tariff Reform League to capture them in the interest of the reform. Certainly many of them showed that they held very definite opinions on the point, sometimes absolutely opposed to those of their sitting member.

[Sidenote: Relation of an M.P. to his a.s.sociation.]

Connected with this question is another: that of the relation of a member of Parliament to the a.s.sociation of his const.i.tuency. In the early days of the Birmingham Caucus, shortly after it had begun to spread over England, a case of friction between a sitting member and the local a.s.sociation occurred, which caused much controversy and no little alarm. The caucus was the bugbear of the day, and men feared that it was about to turn the representative into a mere instrument to register the decisions of a party machine--an anxiety heightened by the fact that the new a.s.sociations were in the hands of the Radical wing of the party.

[Sidenote: The Case of Mr. Forster.]

Mr. W. E. Forster, in carrying through Parliament the Education Act of 1870, had offended the more extreme Radicals, because the act did not provide that education supported by public rates should be compulsory and free, and because, in their eyes, it treated the Church schools with too much favour. Although opposed by the Radicals, he was reelected for Bradford in 1874 by the help of Conservative votes; but in 1878 he came into collision with the Liberal a.s.sociation which had just been formed there. One of its rules provided that any one proposed for nomination to Parliament must give an a.s.surance to the general committee that he would abide by their decision in regard to the selection of the candidate. To that condition Mr. Forster refused to submit, denying the right of any a.s.sociation to come between him and his const.i.tuents. The a.s.sociation insisted upon its rule, and the controversy in Bradford provoked a discussion in the public press of the country. In the end the matter was compromised by changing the rule so as to read that such an a.s.surance "may be required" instead of "shall be required," and Mr. Forster allowed his name to be submitted to the general committee. He had won his point, for he had been nominated without giving the a.s.surance; but his troubles with the a.s.sociation were not at an end. In 1882 he resigned from Mr. Gladstone's ministry because he disapproved of the so-called Kilmainham treaty, and before long the quarrel broke out again, continuing until his death in 1886.[495:1] The particular provision which gave occasion to the dispute in 1878 has not proved a permanent source of difficulty, for the local a.s.sociations have not been in the habit of demanding a pledge of that kind, and on the other hand the ordinary rules of fair play require that a man who allows his name to be proposed for nomination shall abide by the decision of the body to which he submits it, unless he feels that he has been unjustly treated, or unless some important question of policy is involved.

[Sidenote: Local Pressure on Members Neither New nor Systematic.]

A much more important matter is the control exerted by the local party a.s.sociation over its representative in the House of Commons, whether by urging him to take a particular line of action, by refusing a renomination, or even by the more drastic measure of requesting his resignation in case he fails to comply with its opinion. Mr. Ostrogorski lays great stress upon the quarrel in 1885 between the Liberal a.s.sociation in Newcastle and Mr. Joseph Cowen, who had taken a highly independent att.i.tude in Parliament, and had not given a consistent support to the Liberal cabinet.[496:1] No one would a.s.sert that an a.s.sociation, any more than an individual voter, is bound to support a candidate of whose views and conduct in public affairs it seriously disapproves, because he is an estimable person. Yet this was very nearly the relation of Mr. Cowen to the local a.s.sociation. Voters and organisations must consider the opinions as well as the personality of the candidate, and this they may well do without reducing him to a mere mouthpiece of their wishes.

But in order to determine the real import of an attempt to fetter the independence of a member of Parliament, one must consider how far it introduced a new practice into English politics, and for what purposes the claim of the a.s.sociation to call the member to account has been used. The question whether a member of Parliament is the agent of his const.i.tuents, morally bound to carry out their wishes, or whether he is to act solely according to his own opinion of the interest of the whole kingdom, is as old as Burke's famous discussion with the electors of Bristol. The latter view always has been, and still is, the prevailing one in theory; but the charge that the representatives have become mere delegates has been constantly cropping up. In 1849, for example, very nearly at the high-water mark of independence in Parliament, and long before the party machine had been thought of, there were complaints about the thraldom of members to their const.i.tuents.[496:2] A member must always have been more or less in bondage in the proprietary boroughs, and this continued in some places after the first Reform Act.

As late as 1857 Sir Stafford Northcote gave up his seat for Dudley because he found that he practically represented Lord Ward.[496:3] The exercise of control over their member by influential const.i.tuents is, therefore, not a new thing, and the advent of the modern party a.s.sociations has not, as men feared, developed it into a system. No doubt the Liberal caucus in the days of its youth tried to bring an organised pressure to bear upon the members,[497:1] but this has diminished rather than increased of late years.

[Sidenote: The Question When a Member Ought to Resign.]

The question under what circ.u.mstances a member ought to resign his seat is one which always has been, and always will be, perplexing. The doctrine that he must resign simply because the local party a.s.sociation asks him to do so can be confidently a.s.serted to have made little or no headway in either of the two great parties. But that a member who has pledged himself expressly or tacitly to the support of a certain policy, and then changes his mind, may, in some cases, be bound in honour to go back to his const.i.tuents, would hardly be denied. Whether such an obligation has arisen or not must depend upon the circ.u.mstances, and upon the definiteness and importance of the pledge or understanding.

When Peel decided to bring in the bill for Catholic Emanc.i.p.ation, to which he had previously been openly opposed, he felt constrained to resign his seat for Oxford, and was defeated for reelection to his great grief;[497:2] but he did not feel under a similar duty when converted to the repeal of the Corn Laws, and was reproached on that account by Disraeli.[497:3]

A candidate who seeks election as a member of a party, or as a supporter of a cabinet, may well be considered to have given a general pledge to remain in the party or to support that cabinet, so that if he ceases entirely to do so he may be bound to resign. This is the form in which the question has arisen of late between members and local a.s.sociations, but both obligation and actual practice are as unsettled to-day as similar questions have been in the past. When the South African War broke out a few members on the government side of the House felt unable to support the cabinet on that question. One of them, Sir Edward Clarke, who sat for Plymouth, was requested by the Conservative a.s.sociation of the borough to resign, and did so,[498:1] provoking comment favourable and otherwise. The same action was proposed in the case of Mr. (now Lord) Courtney; but he took the ground that as a Liberal Unionist he had professed to support the cabinet only on the issue of Home Rule, and had caused his independence upon other matters to be clearly understood. The motion to request his resignation was defeated in the Liberal Unionist a.s.sociation of his const.i.tuency,[498:2] but he was not renominated at the next general election. In the same Parliament Mr. (now Sir) George Doughty, who, for other reasons, crossed the floor from the Liberal to the government side, resigned his seat at Great Grimsby, and was reelected by an increased majority. While in the following Parliament Sir Michael Foster and Mr. Winston Churchill crossed in the opposite direction, without feeling bound to resign. The former, representing a university, had, indeed, stated at the election that he was by no means a strict party man, and retained his seat after a good deal of reflection.[498:3] Other cases of a radical change of policy could be cited, but these are enough to show that local party organisations have not fastened on their members chains that can be used with certainty to withdraw them from their seats even in so strong a case as an open breach with their party.

[Sidenote: Refusal to Renominate.]

The refusal of support for reelection, by men of decisive influence in a const.i.tuency, on the ground that they cannot approve the course pursued by their representative, is a thing that must always happen; although it did not take the form of withholding a nomination by a party a.s.sociation until bodies of that kind came into being. A refusal made by powerful individuals was not less effective because they were not styled a representative committee. But such refusals, by whomsoever made, have always been rare. Nothing, indeed, impresses a foreign observer of British politics more than the universal recognition of the claim of a sitting member to renomination. So far as his own party is concerned his tenure of office is good behaviour, and at the present day the local a.s.sociation very seldom fails to renominate him, save in two cases; one where his course of action has been nearly tantamount to a change of party, a going over to the enemy; the other where the party itself is deeply cleft over a vital question on which the leaders have given an uncertain sound. This last was true in the general election of 1906, when several of the local party organisations were sharply divided upon the issue of fiscal policy.

[Sidenote: Influence of Local a.s.sociations Used for Party Cohesion.]

The fear that the local a.s.sociations, by dictating to their member a given course of action, by requesting his resignation, or by refusing him renomination, would degrade him to the position of the delegate of a local party machine has certainly not been realised; and it is not less instructive to observe the purposes for which such influence as they possess has actually been used. A stranger might have expected that it would be employed to promote local interests. But that has not been the case. No doubt members of Parliament, like all other popular representatives, are affected by the special interests of their const.i.tuents. On matters that touch these they must consider the welfare of their own locality. A measure like the Agricultural Rates Act of 1896, for example, which by relieving agricultural land from a part of its burden of rates, and making up the loss to the local authority from the National Treasury, changed the incidence of taxation between town and country, is sure, for local reasons, to detach some members from their regular party allegiance. But with the absence of national grants for local improvements, and with the judicial procedure for private bill legislation, the occasions, outside of the dockyard towns, where distinctly local interests come into play are not numerous. Moreover, in those cases the member is affected by the impression his action is likely to have upon the bulk of his const.i.tuents, or by the solicitation of a body that represents special interests, rather than by pressure from his local party a.s.sociation. Nor does the latter, at the present day, commonly try to enforce upon him the particular views held by its managers upon matters of public policy. On the contrary such action as it takes is, and has been from the beginning, almost wholly confined to urging him to support the leaders of the party.[500:1]

[Sidenote: Reasons for This.]

That the local a.s.sociations act, not on behalf of local interests or opinions, but for the cohesion of the party as a whole, is the result of many causes, and not least among them of the fact that the member is commonly not a resident of the place for which he stands. This makes it easy for him to look upon himself as a representative of the nation at large, rather than a delegate of a borough. It saves him also from parochial sympathies and prejudices; and above all it relieves him from the necessity, he would otherwise be under, of serving an apprenticeship in the local a.s.sociation, and coming into Parliament a product of the machine. Another cause is the strength of national party ties, and the greater strictness of party discipline, of which more will be said hereafter. The local a.s.sociations have fallen in with this tendency, and any substantial control they have acquired over their members has been exerted to make them follow, not local wishes, but the party leaders.

Bagehot has remarked somewhere that the House of Commons has been saved from becoming a collection of delegates from local const.i.tuencies by the spirit of deference; but at the present day it is due in even larger measure to the spirit of party. That spirit has prevented the predominance of local interests which is the curse of many legislative bodies.

FOOTNOTES:

[492:1] Ostrogorski, I., 332-33.

[495:1] Ostrogorski, I., 194-203, 228-30. T. W. Reid, "Life of William Edward Forster," I., 517-20; II., 44-55, 206-14, 219-20, 501, 511, 535-36.

[496:1] I., 230-40.

[496:2] _Cf._ Jephson, "The Platform," II., 324-27.

[496:3] Lang, "Life of Sir Stafford Northcote," I., 141-50.

[497:1] _Cf._ Ostrogorski, I., 208-16, and see Ch. xxix., _infra._

[497:2] Parker, "Life of Sir Robert Peel," II., 88, 101-2.

[497:3] "To the opinions which I have expressed in this House in favour of protection, I adhere. They sent me to this House, and if I had relinquished them, I should have relinquished my seat also." Hans. 3 Ser. Lx.x.xIII., 112.

[498:1] _The Times_, Feb. 10, 1900.

[498:2] _Ibid._, Feb. 23 and 26, March 9 and 15, 1900.

[498:3] _Ibid._, Nov. 29, 1902, Jan. 2, 3, 6, 7, 8, 12, 13, 17, 1903.

[500:1] Occasionally some local interest is touched by an administrative act or order, and the member for the place exerts himself to get the grievance redressed; but except, perhaps, for asking a question in the House this hardly affects his att.i.tude in Parliament, and the fact that he belongs to one party or the other has little or no weight with the administrative departments.

CHAPTER XXIX

THE RISE AND FALL OF THE CAUCUS

_The Liberals_

[Sidenote: The Conference at Birmingham in May, 1877.]

Not content with creating local a.s.sociations of Liberals on a democratic basis, the Radicals at Birmingham conceived the idea of uniting them together in a great national federation which should represent the whole party throughout the kingdom. The Tories had formed, some years earlier, the National Union of Conservative a.s.sociations, and their great victory of 1874, attributed largely to better organisation, had made the time ripe for a more vigorous combination on the Liberal side. Moreover, the new a.s.sociations framed on the Birmingham pattern had already shown the possibility of concerted action on national questions; for they had held simultaneously a large number of indignation meetings to denounce the Bulgarian atrocities. In May, 1877, therefore, they were invited to send delegates to a conference at Birmingham to form a national party organisation. The call for the meeting contained a clear statement of its purpose. "The essential feature of the proposed Federation," it declared, "is the principle which must henceforth govern the action of Liberals as a political party--namely, the direct partic.i.p.ation of all members of the party in the direction, and in the selection of those particular measures of reform and of progress to which priority shall be given. This object can be secured only by the organisation of the party upon a representative basis."[501:1]

[Sidenote: Proceedings Thereat.]

The conference was attended by delegates from ninety-five local a.s.sociations, and Mr. Chamberlain, who had entered Parliament the year before, was called to the chair. In his opening speech he propounded with even greater distinctness the object of the plan. "We hope," he said, "that the time is not distant when we may see a meeting of what will be a really Liberal Parliament, outside the Imperial Legislature, and, unlike it, elected by universal suffrage, and with some regard for a fair distribution of political power." After speaking of the need of trusting to the popular initiative in framing the immediate policy of the party, he continued: "Our a.s.sociation will be founded on the belief that the Liberals in the country are more united than their leaders, and that they have attained a pretty clear conception of what are the changes in our Const.i.tution which they believe will be beneficial to the country; that we may obtain their adoption by a little gentle pressure which concerted action may enable us to bring to bear, and that in this way we may exert a great influence on the future policy of the Liberal party." In the ensuing debates the same point of view was emphasised by Mr. William Harris, the founder of the Liberal "Four Hundred" in Birmingham, who declared that "The enfranchis.e.m.e.nt of the great ma.s.s of the people in towns had given the power of controlling representation into the hands of the people, but the direction of the policy of the party, the inauguration of measures to be submitted to Parliament, and the determination of questions on which the people should be asked to agitate, had been confined to the people who had managed the Liberal party; and it was, no doubt, the dissatisfaction of the Liberals with this state of things which led to the inaction of the Liberal party at the last election. . . . To find a remedy for this state of things was the object they invited the representatives present to consider that morning. . . . Why should they not at once and for all form a federation which, by collecting together the opinions of the majority of the people in all the great centres of political activity, should be able to speak on whatever questions arose with the full authority of the national voice."