Review of Reviews, SO/S/OG. 



The JVew House of Qommons. 



271 



Asia to boot, for many years past, must be effective- 

 ly curbed, and the relief of the oppressed and the 

 juster distribution of this world's goods taken seri- 

 ously in hand. It would be difficult more aptly to 

 ( describe the result of Protection than in Oliver's 

 phrase: " that makes many poor to make a few rich.' 

 Upon that damnable heresy the electorates have pro- 

 nounced a final anathema. 



11.— THE SECRET OF OUR SUCCESS. 



So much for the victor}-. Xow for its explana- 

 tion. The new House of Commons which will as- 

 semble this month is an entity altogether new in 

 English public life. Never since the Long Parlia- 

 ment met in the reign of Charles the First has a re- 

 presentative assembly been elected in Great Britain 

 which has excited such high hopes and such profound 

 alarm at this latest birth of modern Democracy. 

 Alike in the quality of its members and in the bal- 

 ance of party strength it is unique. It is a phenome- 

 non well deser\-ing attention. For it is a Parlia- 

 ment that meets to make history, and it affects for 

 weal or woe the future of our race. Never sinte 

 the Mother of Parliaments first assembled many 

 centuries ago has any body of elected persons been 

 more deserving of careful study. 



In the first place, its election marks the efface- 

 ment, almost the annihilation, of one of the, great 

 historic parties. Never before, even in the direst 

 days of Liberal or Conservative humiliation, has 

 either of the great political parties been subjected 

 to so cruel and. at the same time, so well deserved 

 an abasement. The Unionists who. in 1895, and again 

 in 1900, came back from the polls with a majority 

 of 152 and 134 over both the Liberals and the 

 Nationalists, now only number 158 in a House of 

 670. When, on the eve of the General Election, I 

 -ventured to predict that the opponents of the late 

 Government would have a majority of 256, I was 

 regarded as a dreamer of vain dreams, and was told 

 that the wish was father to the thought. The result 

 proves that I under-estimated the severity of the re- 

 tribution that was about to overtake the authors of 

 the South African War. The actual majority of all 

 sect'ons of the Liberals over all sections "of the 

 Unionists is 354. No such majority has ever before 

 confronted the Opposition, not even in 1832, when 

 as the first-fruits of Tory opposition to the reform 

 of the rotten boroughs the Liberals had a majority of 



" The_ gods are just, and of our pleasant vices 

 make whips to scourge us." In this overwhelming 

 punishment we see the hand of the slow-footed 

 Nemesis grasping the throat of the party that de- 

 bghted in war. "Sin, when it has conceived, bring- 

 eth forth Death." and the unjust war entered upon 

 with such a light heart by the politician who re- 

 garded it as a feather in his cap has brought forth 

 the poisonous fruits which have proved fatal to him 



and his party. The General Election was not 

 fought upon the merits of the war. But it was 

 fought upon the fruits of the war. The enormous 

 increase in taxation, the excessive prolongation of 

 L'nionist ascendency rendered possible by the vot3 

 snatched on false pretences at the Khaki Election of 

 1900, the revelation of the hopeless incompetence 

 of the Unionist Administration, the scandal of Chin- 

 ese labour, and the Protectionist agitation of Mr. 

 Chamberlain — all these were the direct results of the 

 war in South Africa. If there had been no war, 

 the Unionist Government would have been turned 

 otit in 1900 or 1901. It would have fallen to rise 

 again, and it would have resumed in ordinary course 

 the control of the Empire. But the war altered 

 everything. It was the secondary results of the war 

 which destroyed the Unionist Paxty. And when 

 we see the fate of this once great and powerful 

 party, and listen to its choking cry of helpless des- 

 pair, we recall the terrible saying that fell upon the 

 ear of the dying Robespierre when he in vain at- 

 tempted his last defence : " The blood of Danton 

 chokes him !'" So we may say of the L'nionist Party : 

 " The blood of the Boers has choked them !" 



The supreme characteristic of the new House of 

 Commons is not that it is a Free Trade Parliament, 

 or a Labour Parliament, or a Home Rule Parlia- 

 ment, although it is all tl^se. It is a Parliament the 

 primary motive of whose existence is the desire of 

 the immense majority of men of all the four nations 

 of our United Kingdom to brand with indelible con- 

 demnation the party that made the war. It was this 

 fierce and righteous indignation against the men who 

 dragged the Empire through carnage to disgrace, 

 an indignation shared by thousands who were misled 

 at the time by Ministerial falsehoods and the glozing 

 glamour of a pseudo-patriotism, that has produced 

 this inunense and unprecedented majority. It is 

 quite true that in the hurly-burly of the fight little or 

 nothing was said about the war itself. The populai 

 mass do« not deal with the root, but with the fruit 

 of the great crime. " By their fruits shall ye know 

 them." And it was with denunciation of the fruits 

 of the war that every platform resounded. 



This being the case, it is not surprising that the 

 pro-Boers simply romped in at the head of the poll 

 all over the country. The Prime Minister, who 

 finds himself at the head of a majority such as e\'en 

 Mr. Gladstone at the zenith of his popularity never 

 commanded, was of all the occupants of the Front 

 Opposition Bench the special bete noire of the war 

 party. His famous phrase about "methods of bar- 

 barism " excited the passionate denunciation of the 

 Unionists. They declared, and at one time probably 

 lx^lie\ed that the country could never, would never, 

 stand " Old Methods-of -Barbarism C.-B." But now 

 that the nations have spoken, "Old Methods-of-Bar- 

 barism C.-B." comes out everywhere on top. After 

 C.-B. by far the most conspicuous outstanding 



