The Government of England Part 63

8. If the chief whip thinks any action of the Union inconsistent with the welfare of party, the matter to be referred to the leaders for decision.

9. The leaders of the party to appoint one or two members of the Council on the Central Committee.

It may be observed that this arrangement gave the leaders of the party more formal power of control over the Union than ever.

[553:1] The changes were the omission of Nos. 1 and 9; and that the chief whip should have merely a right to be present at all the committees, instead of being a member of them.

[553:2] Mr. Winston Churchill (I., 324, 331) and Mr. Ostrogorski attribute a larger measure of success to Lord Randolph, but that opinion seems to me inconsistent with the correspondence, the reports of the committees and the proceedings of the Council, which are set forth in the printed report laid before the next Conference.

[555:1] Winston Churchill, "Lord Randolph Churchill," I., 356-59.

[555:2] _The Times_ of Oct. 27, 1886, p. 6, c. 3.

[556:1] Mr. Winston Churchill's account of the occurrence is extremely interesting; but the motives he attributes to his father do not seem wholly consistent with one another.

[558:1] For workingmen's clubs with less than one hundred members the fee is only half as large.

[558:2] The sums required for these offices are the same as when the Union was originally formed. The subscriptions from a.s.sociations go one half each to the National and divisional unions; those of individuals go wholly to the divisional union except in the case of life payments, which are made to the National Union, one half of the interest being paid over to the division.

[558:3] To these the princ.i.p.al paid agent, or secretary, in each English or Welsh const.i.tuency was added in 1892. This has not been a matter of much importance, because few of them can afford to attend.

[559:1] All the Conservative members of Parliament for const.i.tuencies in the division were given the right to attend the annual meeting, and were made members of the Council.

[559:2] Rep. of the Council, October, 1886.

[561:1] These were both pa.s.sed in 1887 and at intervals thereafter.

[562:1] _The Times_, Nov. 24, 1887.

[562:2] _E.g._ Rep. of the Conference in October, 1886.

[566:1] In the original plan these were to be chosen by the Council; but at the special Conference in July it was agreed that they should be elected at the annual Conference.

[567:1] Under the new rules the Central Council--previously called simply the Council--consists of the president and trustees of the National Union; the chief whip and the princ.i.p.al agent of the party; one representative for every fifty thousand voters, or fraction thereof, in each county, chosen at the meeting of the provincial division by the delegates of the county thereat; one representative for every complete twenty-five thousand voters in each parliamentary borough that contains so many, chosen by the central council of the borough; twenty-one members elected annually by the Conference; the chairman, honorary secretary, and two representatives from the National Society of Conservative Agents; one representative from each of the eight local a.s.sociations of Conservative agents; and two representatives apiece from the a.s.sociation of Conservative Clubs, the National Conservative League, and the United Club. The Council as thus enlarged contains nearly two hundred members.

[568:1] Opinion on this question was by no means unanimous. One or two divisions wanted to retain the former system on the score of economy, and the chief whip agreed to allow them to do so for a time.

[568:2] Rule V.

[568:3] By the new rules the Conference consists of the officers of the Union, and the members of the Central Council; of the honorary members of the Union, who have, however, no vote; of the Conservative members of both Houses of Parliament; of the officers of each provincial division; of the chairman, the paid agent, and three representatives of the central a.s.sociation in each const.i.tuency; of one representative for each subscribing a.s.sociation or club; and of twenty representatives apiece from Scotland and Ireland.

[569:1]

[Sidenote: The Caucus is Largely a Sham.]

[Sidenote: The Scotch National Union.]

The Union hitherto described covers England and Wales alone, although the Scotch and Irish organisations are ent.i.tled to send to the Conference twenty delegates apiece. North of the Tweed there is a separate National Union of Conservative a.s.sociations for Scotland. It is a copy of the English body, but except for the twenty delegates is entirely independent. It has a conference which adopts resolutions as ineffective as those pa.s.sed farther south. It has six territorial divisions; but, owing to the fact that Scotland is in the main Liberal, several of these are not very vigorous, and do not raise money enough to have councils of their own. All the divisions are very much under the control of the Central Council of the Scotch Union, to which they send their reports for approval. They are, indeed, largely ornamental.

But if the National Union for Scotland is independent of the English Union it is by no means free from the influence of the whip's office.

The party agent for Scotland, who has a right to attend--although without a vote--all meetings of the central and divisional councils and their committees, is appointed by the princ.i.p.al agent in London, and, like the secretaries of the divisions in England, is practically his subordinate. In this way the whip and the princ.i.p.al agent, acting through the agent for Scotland and the local agents, and fortified by subsidies at election times, maintain a real control over the whole party organisation throughout the kingdom.

By the Right Hon. JAMES BRYCE, D.C.L.

The American Commonwealth

_Third Edition, revised throughout, after many reprintings._

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