The opening of the Constitutional Convention
Editorial in The Spectator
The event of the week which eclipses all others in interest and importance is the opening of the Constitutional Convention which assembled at Buckingham Palace on Monday. We have recorded already the various steps – and missteps – in the identification of the membership. We must now state here our belief that the linking of the long established question of Irish Home Rule to the much less clear issues surrounding the matter in Scotland was a mistake. Extending it further to that so-called country of Wales merely compounds the error. Nevertheless the fact that the King endorsed it and agreed to open it undoubtedly rendered it easier for the Unionist members to take part in the proceedings.
That first meeting was opened by the King in person. We must quote in full the King's speech on this memorable occasion:—
‘Gentlemen. It is with feelings of satisfaction and hopefulness that I receive you here to-day, and I thank you for the manner in which you have responded to my summons. It is also a matter of congratulation that the Speaker has consented to preside over your meetings. My intervention at this moment may be regarded as a new departure. But the exceptional circumstances under which you are brought together justify my action. For months we have watched with deep misgivings the events, not just in Ireland but across the Realm. The trend has been surely and steadily towards an appeal to force, and to-day the cry of civil war is on the lips of the most responsible and sober-minded of my people. We have in the past endeavoured to act as a civilizing example to the world, and to me it is unthinkable, as it must be to you, that we should be brought to the brink of fratricidal strife upon issues apparently so capable of adjustment as those you are now asked to consider, if handled in a spirit of generous compromise.
Gentlemen, you represent in one form or another the vast majority of my subjects at home. You also have a deep interest in my Dominions over sea, who are scarcely less concerned in a prompt and friendly settlement of this question. I regard you, then, in this matter as trustees for the honour and peace of all. Your responsibilities are indeed great. The time is short. You will, I know, employ it to the fullest advantage, and be patient, earnest, and conciliatory, in view of the magnitude of the interests at stake.
I pray that God, in his infinite wisdom, may guide your deliberations so that they may result in the joy of peace and honourable settlement.'
As we write on Friday morning the Convention is stated to be "hanging by a thread." We do not intend, even at this eleventh hour to give up hope, even though only the vaguest rumours have reached the outside world as to what has gone on. We must hope that pursuit of the nebulous concept of ‘Home Rule All Round’ does not prevent the reaching of a solution for Ireland. It is, we think, safe to say that a settlement on Ireland could at any moment be reached if the Nationalists agreed to the six Plantation Counties being treated as "the Ulster area "—i.e., the area to be excluded. It is true of course that Sir Edward Carson would probably have very considerable difficulty in persuading the Ulster Covenanters to agree to the six counties instead of the whole Province being the excluded area. Mr. Redmond and Mr Dillon will have similar difficulties in the matter, but we should have thought that circumstances must make Sir Edward, Mr Redmond and Mr Dillon alike, recognize that they must ask the necessary sacrifice of their followers, telling them, what assuredly is the fact, that if they are not willing to accept the six counties as the Ulster area, the prospect before us is one of strife and disorder. .
It might have been supposed that the King's very striking speech, in which there is not a word which can fairly be said to encourage party feeling or to indicate that the King is taking sides, would have been accepted with satisfaction by all reasonable people. Strange as it may seem, however, it was greeted with what can only be described as an outburst of angry recrimination by a large section of the Radical Press, the Daily News, the Daily Chronicle, and the Manchester Guardian being exceptionally vehement. As if they desired to give proof of the truth of Bacon's luciferous saying, that "suspicion clouds the mind," they seized hold of the words in the King's speech : "To-day the cry of civil war is on the lips of the most responsible and sober-minded of my people," and made this plain and perfectly legitimate statement of an obvious fact the excuse for an attack upon the Sovereign for having exceeded his constitutional rights. The Unionists are the people who have had "the cry of civil war on their lips." Therefore the King has described the Unionists as the most responsible and sober-minded of his people. Therefore the King is taking sides with the Unionists and is attacking his own Ministers. Such was the amazing logic of the Radical publicists.
The orgy of futile jealousy and shrewish vituperation did not last long. In the first place the Unionist evening papers of Wednesday pointed out that Mr. Asquith, Mr. Lloyd George, Mr. Winston Churchill, Lord Loreburn, and, indeed, almost every Liberal who had spoken or written on the subject, had talked about the dangers of civil war or civil strife. It was indeed preposterous to abuse the King because he had not followed the ostrich policy of a section of the Liberal Press, and insisted on putting his head into the sand and pretending that anybody who talked about the danger of civil war— invisible from that posture—was a traitor. If to name civil war was to break a specially sacred taboo, then nobody was more guilty than Ministers.
In truth the King is becoming what Lord. Salisbury once described Queen Victoria as being—namely, "the adviser of his advisers "—a personality whose words of weight and good counsel may save politicians inflamed by party zeal from great blunders or even great crimes. All men, however eminent and however cautious, are, as they would themselves readily admit, the better for cool advice given by one who has trained himself to regard national politics as a whole, and from the top and not from a side view. We do not, of course, say for a moment that the King's advice to his advisers should, or even could, always be followed. by those advisers. But, again to quote Lord Salisbury, no Ministers would ever reject such advice lightly or without a sense that they were thereby taking an added responsibility.
In our opinion the King's intervention in the crisis, what- ever may be its ultimate result, has been as wise as it is timely. His action is in every way appropriate to the place held by the Kingship in our Constitution and our national life, and the fatuous jealousy which it appears to have inspired in certain members of the House of Commons will, we are certain, be condemned by the nation as a whole.
Later in the day on Wednesday the disillusionment of the Radicals was completed by Mr. Asquith's very firm and sensible statements in Parliament. He not only declared in emphatic words that he took entire responsibility for the King's speech, but mentioned what every man who knew anything about the procedure in such matters had guessed already, that the King had shown his speech to the Prime Minister before it was made. Mr. Asquith added that after it was made it had been the unanimous wish of the whole Conference that it should be given to the Press. The fact that the King showed his speech to his advisers and that they did not object was, of course, tantamount to its endorsement by them. Had they regarded its words as censuring them or as being otherwise unacceptable, they would, we may feel sure, have considered a determination to maintain the speech as involving their dismissal, and they would at once have resigned their offices. Mr. Asquith stated that his Majesty throughout the crisis bad "followed the strictest constitutional precedents, and had taken no steps up till now except in consultation with and on the advice of his Ministers." The whole supposed unconstitutional and partisan action of the King was, in fact, the wildest mare's nest.
"When in doubt or difficulty abuse the King, and say it was his fault," seems to be rapidly becoming the rule of the advanced Radical Press.
As English journalists we are ashamed of the fatuity, ineptitude and injustice of our contemporaries, though as Unionists we cannot profess to be greatly concerned. The English people are a rough people, but they are just. Nothing excites their sympathy more than to see a man, whether highly or lowly placed, unfairly traduced. "He may be right or he may be wrong, but you've no cause to hit him below the belt." That is the invariable comment of Englishmen when face to face with a situation like that which we have described. The Radical Press hit below the belt, and their party will have to pay the penalty.
To make the position of the Radical assailants of the King even more ridiculous, Mr. Asquith on Thursday, on the demand of Sir Henry Dalziel, gave his interpretation of the much debated sentence in the King's Speech in regard to "the cry of civil war." Though deprecating the question (amid loud cheers from the Unionists), he declared that, in the special circumstances, he would answer it, and he did so in the following terms :—
"In my understanding the sentence in question was not intended, and ought not to be construed, as saying more than what is obviously true, that the apprehension of civil strife has been widely entertained and expressed by responsible and sober- minded persons, among whom I may perhaps include myself."
In his comment the Parliamentary correspondent of the Times tells us that "the King's critics, stung by the last seven words of the reply, could scarcely conceal their mortification. They sat in uncomfortable silence, while the Opposition cheered." We do not wonder.