The evening times., 1911-04-19
SAYS BALFOuR IS 4
FAILURE As A LEADER
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tice Of amendment, which meant the
death of the budget. then and there
declared that 1t was the beginning of
the end Of the house Of lords, and the
certain and early advent of home rule.
And every even what has happened in
the interval has, I think, confirmed
that view.
Several weeks ago Winston
Churchill, in a passage Of almost
cruel vigor, threw at Mr.. Balfour the
taunt that the Tory party had gone
from defeat to defeat, from disaster
to disaster, since the death of Lord
Salisbury, that is to say, since the day
when Mr.. Balfour succeeded to the
leadership. Mr.. Balfour has great
parliamentary courage, and preserves
his equilibrium In circumstances Of
great difficulty. But now and then he
has a At Of almost girlish shyness,
and when he gets one of these fits he
holds down his head just like a
schoolgirl detected In fib, and
seems sheepish and lost And he
looked like that when Churchill threw
that terrible and true taunt at him
across the floor Of the house. Like
80 many men beaten, the Tory party
ts now striking wildly, it seems, to
change the policy from week to week
and even from hour to hour, and it
throws out proposals Of the most far
reaching and revolutionary character
without thinking them out or without
filling in the details.
What is the explanation of this ex.
traordinary fit Of folly, instability Of
purpose and change of plan that has
come on once powerful party, upon
q party which up to 1906 seemed des-
tined to rule England?
Balf0ur Lacks Decisiveness
1T is to be sought partly in the
character Of the Tory leadership,
partly in the condition Of the party
itself. Balfour. as l have said, has
some extraordinary gifts as a parlia-
mentarSan, tnexhaustible subtlety,
persuasive, concilatory manners;
there is perhaps no man in the house
OF commons who has fewer personal
enemies. and greater courage and
tenacity. But. he lacks one great
characteristic of a leader, courage of
the prompt kind, what Napoleon used
to call q o'clock in the morning cour-
age which impels a man to see that
q certain moment is decisive, that it
requires decisive act, and that on
that moment depends the whole fu-
ture.
when Chamberlain started his new
protectionist campaign, Bali ur
might have defied Chamberlain; he
had quite half the Tories with him,
and he had all its really intelligent
men, but Balfour hesitated, shirked
the encounter with Chamberlain, al
lowed his intelligent free trade col
leagues to gradually disappear from
his side, and, in short, gave up the
keys of the citadel to Chamberlain,
and from that moment he and the
Tory party were lost. From that
moment 1t became a high tariff party,
which in England means destruction.
"And, while Balfour lost himself.
he did not save his party. The tariff
reformers, the most active and at the
same time the least intelligent Sec
tion Of the Tory party, began a fierce
vendetta against every Tory who was
free trader. They knitted any such
Tory when he came before the party
caucus in any constituency as a can
didate, they expelled every Tory free
trader one by one. Lord Hugh Cecil
is the only one left. and he would
have been destroyed also but that his
principles as a violent and a narrow
and sacerdofalist high ANGLICAN Sc
cured him the presentation Of Oxford
university. which rules the rectors
and the parsonages Of the Anglican
church."