Political Dialectics

COMMONWEALTH

(British Commonwealth of Nations)

The past week's political action in Great Britain was largely taken up by an Asquith-MacDonald dispute, which was of a constitutional and hypothetical nature.

About three weeks ago ex-Premier Herbert H. Asquith, now leader of the united Liberal Party, made a speech to the National Liberal Club in London. He said, among other things, that Labor would succeed the Conservatives, and that after a few months Labor would be defeated and the King would call upon the Liberal Party to form a new Government and would not dissolve Parliament. "Dissolution of Parliament," continued Mr. Asquith, "is in this country one of the prerogatives of the Crown. It is not a mere feudal survival, but it is a part, and I think a useful part, of our constitutional system for which there is no counterpart in any other country, such, for instance, as the United States.

"It does not mean that the Crown should act arbitrarily and without advice of responsible Ministers, but it does mean that the Crown is not bound to take the advice of particular Ministers to put its subjects to the tumult and turmoil of a series of general elections so long as it can find other Ministers who are prepared to give it a trial."

In a long article written especially for The New York World, and published in the U. S. before it appeared in England, Mr. Ramsay MacDonald, Leader of the Opposition and generally accepted as prospective Prime Minister, answered the contentions of Mr. Asquith. Said he: "Supposing the Liberals were to defeat the Labor Government and that the Government resigned. What would happen I do not know. Everything would depend on the circumstances. The Liberal assumption that the only thing that could happen would be for their leader to be sent for is certainly erroneous."

Mr. MacDonald hinted that he might advise the King to call a Conservative to take the reins of government, or, he might advise him to dissolve Parliament. The prospective Premier then went on to give his views on parliamentarianism. The gist of his remarks was that the days of majority governments are over. This situation, he claimed, will promote individualism by slackening the bonds of party politics.

Reverting to the constitutional question, which is fairly sure to crop up when a dissolution is contemplated, Mr. MacDonald said: "The question of dissolution will have to be faced sooner or later and I am glad Mr. Asquith's speech on that subject has received scanty support in the best informed quarters. . . . It was ill founded as an exposition of the practice of the Constitution. Delivered when it was, it was meant far more for the King's ears than for mine, or for any one else.

". . . but the question remains how, if three parties are to remain, is the nation to be guarded against too frequent dissolutions? I should on no ground leave to the monarch the invidious and dangerous task of being the guardian. . . . Looking ahead, however, one of two things may have to be done. The present maximum life of the House of Commons is five years. Shall we be driven to fix a minimum? If we were it ought not to be more than three years. As an alternative, could the House of Commons be made to decide its own dissolution within the maximum period fixed? There are objections to both methods.

"The present practice has this to be said for it. No Prime Minister will ask the country to go to the trouble of a general election unless there are good reasons for it. The idea that the Prime Minister can go to the King just when it suits himself, and, within a short time after an election, ask for dissolution is absurd. Mr. Baldwin's experience ought to have settled that."

The Constitution of Great Britain is universally acknowledged as the acme of empiricism. So recent as 1894 Queen Victoria accepted Gladstone's resignation without asking him for his advice. It follows then, there being no law against it, that the Sovereign need not be bound to ask for advice and may order a dissolution of Parliament without consulting anyone.

The ethics of the case, however, differ from the strictly legal construction. The existence of power by no means connotes its use, and for a considerable period now the Crown has relied upon the advice of its ministers, as expressed by the Premier, before dissolving Parliament. No King, under present-day conditions, would attempt to ignore or override the advice of his ministers, unless the act were incontrovertibly taken in the interests of the people, and such a situation is more than unlikely. Nothing in the present hypothetical situation presupposes that King George will depart from the strictly constitutional practice of demanding ministerial advice, if a dissolution becomes necessary. The debate between Messrs. Asquith and MacDonald was, therefore, largely academic.