The Nationalist comment was expressed by Mr. Devlin at Moate, Westmeath (Feb. 1). After saying that, without compulsion, which was one of the vital provisions of the pending Land Bill, the land problem would not be solved either in this generation or the next, he declared that the only obstacle in the way of Home Rule was the threat of civil war in Ulster, which had failed to convince or intimidate anybody, not least in Ulster itself. The so-called Volunteer movement and the Provisional Government had been reduced to a miserable fiasco, and the whole thing was a gigantic game of bluff. Among business men in favour of Home Rule he cited Lord Pirrie, Sir Hugh Mack, Mr. Glendinning, and Mr. Thomas Shillington, "out of a host of others."
Another brief interruption in the Home Rule controversy, to the temporary disadvantage of the Government, was now occasioned by the news (Jan. 28) of the deportation, by the South African Government, of ten of the Labour leaders concerned in the strike disturbances (post, For. and Col. Hist., chap. VII., 1). The indignation was heightened by the evasion by that Government of a legal decision on the validity of the deportation, which was carried out under martial law, and by its reliance on an Act of Indemnity. The Labour Party Congress in Glasgow at once passed a resolution protesting against the suppression of trade union action in South Africa by armed force, expressing sympathy with the deported leaders, and requesting the Labour members in the Imperial Parliament to call for a full inquiry, and demand, if necessary, Lord Gladstone's recall; and next day it passed a further resolution calling upon the Government to instruct Lord Gladstone to withhold assent to the Bill until it had been submitted to the King. Strong speeches were made by Mr. Ramsay Macdonald, Mr. Keir Hardie, and other members, the first-named declaring that if the Imperial authority could not stop this attack on the right of combination, he had rather the South African Union were a foreign Power. On the other hand, Mr. Illingworth, the chief Liberal Whip, pointed out (at Clayton, Jan. 30) that South Africa was governed by a Parliament elected on a very free and wide franchise and quite uncontrolled by the Imperial Government, and that interference with such independent assembly would wreck the Empire; Lord Gladstone had acted on the advice of his responsible Ministers, as the King would in Great Britain; and the Home Government was blameless. At Hull, on the same evening, Mr. F. E. Smith asked for a suspension of judgment, and pointed out the inconsistency of demanding that the King should veto a Bill of Indemnity and repudiating that course on Home Rule. The South African Government, he reminded his hearers, had been created with the help of the Labour party.
The Liberal Press had anticipated the Chief Whip's arguments; but at the North Durham bye-election (Chron., Jan. 30) though the Liberals held the seat, which had always been regarded as safe for them, it was said that the deportations had caused the transfer from the Liberal to the Labour candidate of some 500 votes. In view of this transfer, the Postmaster-General, speaking at Harrogate, on February 2, had explained that Lord Gladstone's assent to the deportation of the Labour leaders was not required by the Constitution of South Africa, and, in fact, had not been asked. He added that the North Durham result did not support Mr. Bonar Law's prophecy of an early general election.
Should such an event occur, however, there were plenty of other questions for the electors besides Home Rule, Some of them, indeed, might prove dangerous for the Government, notably the land question, on which its programme did not go far enough for the single-taxers, a strong body in some districts, especially in Scotland. For this reason special interest was felt in the speech, which had been repeatedly deferred, of the Chancellor of the Exchequer at Glasgow on February 4. Many opponents got in with forged tickets; nevertheless he had a fair hearing. After ridiculing the explanations in the Press of the postponement as due to differences in the Cabinet, or difficulties with the Ulster Unionists or the "single-taxers," he said that the underlying principle of land legislation was that the land was created for the benefit of all dwellers on it, and that any rights of ownership inconsistent with this principle should be ruthlessly overridden. That was the principle of the Scottish Land Act, but there were still anomalies; the peasantry was emigrating largely, and could not be spared. While indicating that rural conditions were not so bad in Scotland as in England, he pointed out that the effect of the Scottish Land Act had been to reduce the rents on many well-managed estates, a proof that under the system of competitive rents, part of a farmer's labour was unconsciously confiscated by rent. After indicating afresh the main points in the Ministerial scheme, he passed to the urban problem. Housing was even worse in some Scottish towns than in England. The cost of clearing the slums was prohibitive. Municipalities should be able (1) to acquire land at a fair market price, and (2) in advance of existing needs; (3) there should be an expeditious method of arriving at the price, and (4) the land must contribute to public expenditure on the basis of its real value. He alleged certain instances of the contrary—the Duke of Montrose had received 2,000 years' purchase from the people of Glasgow on the basis of his contribution to the public funds; the Cathcart School Board had paid 3,270l. 17s., or 920 years' purchase, for an acre and a half of the rateable value of 3l. 10s.; and 27,255l., or 2,452 years' purchase of the rateable value, had been paid for ten acres for a torpedo range near Greenock. The Clyde Trustees had had to pay to a Peer 84,000l. for nineteen acres—1,400 years' purchase of the rateable value. A new rating system was wanted, which should rate property on its real value and not discourage improvement; and high authorities had approved the rating of site values, notably Lord Rosebery and Mr. Chamberlain. Of the two proposals—to rate site value only, and not to rate it at all—he regarded the first as impracticable, the second as pusillanimous; there were several alternative methods between these limits, but whichever one was adopted, there must be a national valuation, and it would be ready in 1915. Of his statements on the Highland clearances he withdrew none; of course mountains were unsuitable for agriculture, but the glens were capable of tillage and the hillsides of afforestation. As to the Sutherland clearances he cited Sir Walter Scott, Hugh Miller, and a recent book by Mr. Sage, an Established Church minister, to show the suffering caused, and denounced the Duke of Sutherland (A. R., 1913, p. 262) for trying to get money out of the proposed redress of the wrong done by his ancestors. As to the discrepancy between the offer and the valuation for death duties, "there had never been such a case since the days of Ananias and Sapphira." In 1748 the Duke of Sutherland had claimed compensation for the abolition of the right to hang his subjects; he asked for 10,000l. and got 1,000l. This was an instance of the patience with which the people had endured great injustice. Outside the Highlands hundreds of thousands of men were working for a wage barely keeping their families above privation, seeing their children die for lack of light, air, and space; in the cities there were quagmires of fermenting human misery; but the chariots of retribution were drawing nigh, and there would be elbow-room for the poor.
This speech incidentally led to a sharp controversy between the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Duke of Montrose, who pointed out that the land sold by him to the Corporation was sold at a price awarded on arbitration, and covering many items besides the value of the land, and that he had no interest in the Cathcart School or its site.
Two days earlier, the Earl of Derby, speaking at Liverpool, had elaborately and effectively rebutted attacks made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer on the management of the Bootle estate, and, in view of a statement by Baron de Forest in a memorandum attached to the Land Report (A. R., 1913, p. 212) that the value of the site of Bootle had risen from 7,000l. in 1724 to three or four millions in 1913, he had offered the estate to Baron de Forest for 1,500,000l. The Baron accepted, on condition that the transfer should include all sums realised since 1724 by sales, fines, or mortgages—a condition which terminated the negotiations, though not the epistolary controversy.
The day before the Chancellor of the Exchequer had appeased the single-taxers, the Foreign Secretary had again disquieted the Liberal advocates of naval reduction at a dinner given him by the Manchester Chamber of Commerce (Feb. 3). Beginning with a reference to the Lancashire cotton industry and the promotion of trade by the Consular service, he said that one duty of the Foreign Office was to keep open the world's markets; but further difficulties might be raised by the effort to do so—in Persia, for example—and the Great Powers could not as yet interfere to prevent war without the danger of an outbreak of war among themselves. Happily in the Balkan War the Great Powers had left the settlement in the main to the States concerned, and had preserved peace among themselves. British policy, throughout, had made for peace. But trade was damaged, not only by war, but by the waste involved in armament expenditure. A slackening by one country, however, would rather stimulate the others than cause them to slacken; British naval expenditure was a great factor in that of Europe, but the forces making for increase were beyond control. To reduce the British naval programme would probably produce no response in Europe; at any rate, it would be staking too much on a gambling chance. England, though she felt the financial strain the least, was calling out against this expenditure, because, as business men, Englishmen were shocked by the waste and apprehensive of its effect on the credit of Europe. She had several times proposed reduction by consent, but had met with no response. The only schoolmaster for other Powers was finance, and he thought at no distant date it might begin to be effectual. He closed with a reference to the great traditions of the Manchester School, and an expression of hope for the solution of the current problems of industrial discontent.
The outlook in Europe had been improved, and the position of Great Britain strengthened, by the reception of the British Note to the Powers on the solution of the Near Eastern problem (A. R., 1913, p. 357; For. Hist., Chap. III.); but the case for reduction of naval expenditure had been weakened by the Canadian Premier's announcement (Jan. 20), that he would not proceed with his naval policy till after a general election. Nevertheless, a strong feeling in favour of economy was exhibited in many quarters, notably by the Chambers of Commerce of Manchester, Bradford, and Burnley, and at public meetings at Manchester and elsewhere. A meeting to advocate reduction at Queen's Hall, London (Feb. 3), was addressed by Sir Herbert Leon (chairman), the Bishop of Hereford, Lord Courtney of Penwith, and Mr. Ponsonby, M. P. The chairman said it was folly to pay such a rate of insurance against an impossible catastrophe; the Bishop of Hereford feared that some Government departments were affected with the poison of Jingo Imperialism; Lord Courtney of Penwith denounced the "armaments gang," and suggested that Great Britain might renounce all notions of alliances, and get rid even of the elusive aspect of ententes; and Mr. Ponsonby ridiculed the futile diplomacy of the First Lord in proposing a naval holiday in a party platform speech. On the other hand, a meeting called at the request of a thousand business men in the City of London (Feb. 9) assured the Government of the support of the commercial community in any measures necessary to secure the supremacy of the British Navy and the adequate protection of the trade routes of the Empire. The Lord Mayor presided, and the non-party character of the meeting was exhibited by the circumstance that Lord Southwark, a former Liberal whip, moved the main resolution, and the Hon. Thomas Mackenzie, Agent-General for New Zealand, supported it.
Speaking at the annual dinner of the Birmingham Jewellers' and Silversmiths' Association (Feb. 7), Mr. Austen Chamberlain expressed his grave misgiving at the outlook for the session. The Parliament Act, he said, paralysed the discussion for the first two years of measures placed under it, and the desire for the reduction of naval expenditure was unshared by any responsible person who had access to the real history of the past two years. Foreign policy had happily been kept outside party, the Government accepting the policy of its predecessors. The Foreign Secretary should take the House and the people more into his confidence, to ensure that they should be united in a great emergency, and should give a reasoned review of the position in relation to the affairs of the world such as that accorded by the Foreign Ministers of other Great States to Parliaments to which they were less responsible than the British Foreign Secretary was to that of Great Britain.
To return to domestic politics, the friction set up by the Insurance Act seemed to be gradually abating; and the results of the Act were set forth by the Chancellor of the Exchequer at a complimentary non-political dinner to Dr. Addison, Liberal M. P. for Hoxton, organised by members of the medical profession, at the Hotel Metropole on February 6. After eulogising Dr. Addison's services in effecting, with Sir George Newnes, the medical treatment of school-children and State provision for medical research, he laid stress on Dr. Addison's aid, coupled with absolute loyalty to his profession, during the struggle with the medical men (A. R., 1913, pp. 2, 49). There were now, including doctors on more than one panel under the same Insurance Committee, over 20,000 general practitioners on the panels out of 22,500 in Great Britain; nearly 4,500,000l. had been distributed among them, and the average for each was 230l., rising in London to 330l. and in Birmingham to 380l. Besides this there was 933,000l. for drugs, and a balance of 310,000l. unallotted as between doctors and chemists. That was for only one-third of the population. Millions of people must before the Act have been without medical attendance. A locum tenens had previously received two guineas a week, now he received eight, nine, or even twelve. Assistants had received 120l. with board and lodging, or 180l. without them, now they got 200l. and 250l. respectively, or even more. That was the settlement which was to ruin the profession. They were at last getting a survey of the health of the nation such as they had never had before.