{"id":2045,"date":"2013-07-13T01:39:06","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:39:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=2045"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:39:06","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:39:06","slug":"57-the-great-election-vol-08-karmayogin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/03-cwsa\/08-karmayogin\/57-the-great-election-vol-08-karmayogin","title":{"rendered":"-57_The Great Election.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\n\n
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The Great Election\n\t<\/p>\n

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IT IS not often that we care to dwell at length on the incidents
\n\tof English politics in which, as a rule, India is not concerned nor affected by the results. A Brodrick to a Hamilton, a Morley to a Brodrick succeeds, and the sublime continuity of British policy, continuous in nothing else but this one determination to maintain absolutism in India, takes care that India shall have no reason to interest herself in Imperial affairs. The present
\n\tcrisis in England, however, is so momentous and its results so incalculable that it is impossible to say that India will not be
\n\taffected by its gigantic issues. The importance of the election turns not upon the issues of the Budget, though these are of no
\n\tsmall magnitude, but upon the great constitutional question of the House of Lords and its veto. The veto of the House of Lords
\n\tis the drag on the Parliamentary locomotive. It is the one obstacle that stands between England and a peaceful revolution. It is true
\n\tthat this veto has been exercised very sparingly and only when the Liberals have introduced measures of a revolutionary character or containing clauses which meant a too rapid subversion of ancient landmarks and safeguards; but this is precisely the use
\n\tin the British Constitution of the otherwise useless, ineffective and somnolent Upper House. It has used the veto if not with
\n\tperfect wisdom, yet with a moderation and an eye to its own safety that betokened at least a perfect discretion. In spite of this
\n\treserve the obstruction offered by the Lords to Liberal measures and their complacent acceptance of Conservative legislation has
\n\tbecome more and more exasperating to the Liberal party and has often threatened a collision which was averted either by the
\n\tsubmission of the Lords or the support of its obstructive policy by the electors at the polls. So long as the social preponderance
\n\tof the aristocracy and the possession of land and wealth, on which that preponderance rested, was not touched, the Lords<\/p>\n

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\n\thave submitted to the gradual loss of political preponderance and the slow advance of England from an aristocratic to a
\n\tmiddle-class rule and even from a middle-class rule to a limited democracy, limited by the existence of the Lords themselves and
\n\tthe restriction of the franchise. A new force, a fatal solvent of established institutions, has entered European politics with the
\n\tsteady slow irresistible advance of Socialism, and England, long exempt from the working of this great tide of idealistic thought,
\n\tis being more and more swiftly undermined, its cherished ideals sapped, its administrative and social structure threatened by
\n\tthe wash of the advancing waters. The uneasiness engendered in the more richly propertied classes by this advance of the
\n\tdestroyer has come to a head as a result of the provisions of the Budget by which the land, emblem and guarantee of English
\n\tConservatism, of the inviolability of private property and the survival of the old world society in its most vital features, has
\n\tbeen subjected to substantial taxation. The innovation creates a probability of continual nibbling until under the impulse of a
\n\tgrowing Socialism, land is nationalised, its proprietors bought out, and aristocracy destroyed. The Lords have either to resist the process in its first step or make up their minds to gradual extinction.<\/p>\n

\nThe question for the Upper House is how they will resist. It is open to them either to reject the Budget altogether
\n\u2013a
\n\tmeasure of too drastic severity, \u2013to throw out the Land clauses, \u2013a device which will expose the Peers to the charge of violating
\n\tthe unwritten Constitution for the selfish purpose of saving their own pockets and throwing the burden of taxation on the middle
\n\tclass and the working men, \u2013or to amend the Budget so as to lighten the land taxes and deprive them of their more inoffensive
\n\tfeatures. The last device has the disadvantage of being no more than a palliative, while it amounts to as serious a breach of the
\n\tfinancial privilege of the House of Commons as the others. The omens point to a rejection of the bill by the Peers, but we doubt
\n\twhether they will care to incur the odium of so disturbing the finances of the country. In all probability they will amend and
\n\tleave to the Ministry the responsibility of dissolving Parliament<\/p>\n

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\n\twith no Budget sanctioned and the insecurity to the taxpayers resulting from this unprecedented and anomalous situation. The
\n\tburden of choice will then fall upon the Commons, who must either submit to the destruction of the first and most essential
\n\tsafeguard of popular liberty in England, the popular control of taxation and the Exchequer, or take up the challenge given by
\n\tthe Peers. The first course is unthinkable. No Liberal Ministry especially, would care to go down to posterity as having betrayed
\n\tthe people of England and the future of democracy by such a sacrifice of the palladium of British liberty. Mr. Asquith may
\n\teither dissolve as soon as the Lords refuse to withdraw their amendments or he may ask the King to create a number of
\n\tLiberal Peers large enough to swamp the Conservative majority in the Lords, or he may at once bring in a bill for the limitation
\n\tof the veto of the Upper House and dissolve upon it so as to raise definitely the question of the veto as the one real issue
\n\tbefore the electors. The first course has this great disadvantage, that the real issues may be covered over by the clamour of the Conservative party against the socialistic trend of the new taxation and by the cry of Tariff Reform. By dint of repeated
\n\titeration the Conservatives have created an impression in many minds that the present Ministry is deeply tinged with Socialism
\n\tand the Budget a deliberate attack on property. The effect this cry is having on the mind of the wealthier classes is shown by
\n\tthe number of defections in the Liberal ranks, \u2013not so many, however, as might have been expected,
\n\u2013and the diminution of
\n\tthe Liberal vote at the bye-elections. The Budget opens the door to Socialism, but is in none of its provisions Socialistic, the only
\n\treal novelty of importance being the land taxes which have their counterpart in countries the reverse of Socialistic. The Ministry
\n\tis itself a curious conglomeration of Moderates, Radicals, and extreme Radicals, but there is not a single Socialist in its ranks
\n\tand many of its members are avowedly anti-Socialistic in their temper and opinions. Nevertheless, the cry is having its effect on
\n\tthe susceptible British elector and, unless it is met, will imperil a great number of Liberal seats. The cry of Tariff Reform has
\n\tits charm for a certain number of working men, but is not in<\/p>\n

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itself so formidable as the catchword of Property in Danger. To
\n\tdissolve upon the rejection of the Budget will have the effect of preventing a clear issue from being raised and confusing the
\n\tpublic mind by the entanglement of three separate questions, Socialism and the Budget, Free Trade or Tariff Reform, and the
\n\tveto of the House of Lords. The Ministry have everything to lose, the Opposition everything to gain by this confusion of issues.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n

The second device is being urged upon the Prime Minister by some of his supporters who are rather shortsighted politicians
\n\tthan men with the outlook of the statesman. The temporary difficulty would no doubt be surmounted, but it is a matter
\n\tof unfailing experience that Liberal Peers so created gravitate in a very short time to Conservatism. If these Peers had to be
\n\tactually created, the Liberal Ministry would very soon be face to face again with a similar situation, and the drastic remedy of
\n\tdoubling the bulk of the House of Lords could not be repeated ad infinitum. On the other hand, if the Peers yielded in order to
\n\tavoid so great an indignity to their rank and order, they would do so under the most rigorous compulsion and be all the more
\n\teager to hamper and distress their victors in less vital matters. Mr. Asquith would avoid a particular difficulty, but only to
\n\tperpetuate the great stumbling-block of all Liberal Ministries, a permanently Conservative Upper House. On the other hand
\n\the has a chance, if he boldly seizes on this issue, of avoiding a fight on the weaker points of the Budget, of forcing to the
\n\tforefront a great constitutional issue in which everything liberal or even truly conservative in England ought to be on his side,
\n\tand destroying at one blow and forever this perpetual thorn in the side of Liberalism and obstacle to radical legislation.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n

The drastic device of swamping the Lords with newly created Liberal Peers will be too much needed shortly to be thrown
\n\taway now. When in the new Parliament, the bill for the limitation of the Peers’ veto has been carried through the Commons,
\n\tit will have to be carried through the Lords as well before it can receive the King’s sanction and become law, and, since the
\n\tLords as they are will not consent to their own nullification, it is only by the swamping device that this great resolution can<\/p>\n

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be effected. The only question is whether the bill should be brought in before or postponed till after the election. To bring
\n\tin the bill before, pass it formally through the Commons without permitting much debate and immediately dissolve for a mandate
\n\tfrom the country, would be the boldest but also the best policy for the Ministers. It would definitely raise the question as the
\n\tone issue of the election and, if confined to the limitation and not the destruction of the veto,
\n\t\t\t\u2013so as to avoid the charge of destroying the constitution, \u2013would rally the whole force of Liberalism behind Mr. Asquith. We do not know whether the course has suggested itself to the tacticians of the party, but it seems to us that it gives the only chance of a really effective and
\n\tvictorious electioneering campaign. <\/p>\n

With all this, what are the chances of a Liberal victory? Very small, unless the Labour-Socialist vote is conciliated. The great feature of the recent bye-elections has been the repeated
\n\tsplitting of the democratic vote between Labourite and Liberal, the substantiality of the Labour vote and the consequent defeat of the Ministerial candidate and return of the Conservative in spite of a democratic majority in the constituency. For
\n\tthe Socialist party this is the right policy, by their independent attitude on an occasion of such vital importance to convince
\n\tthe Liberals that they cannot hope to exist as a power without coming to terms with the Socialist vote. But for the Liberals
\n\tto accept a triangular contest would be sheer suicide. It would mean either a Conservative majority, not in the country
\n\t\t\t\u2013for the pendulum has not swung back so far \u2013but in the House, or a Conservative Ministry with the Irish Nationalists holding the balance of power. It would be well worth Mr. Asquith’s while to give the Socialist-Labour faction the 80 seats they hope to
\n\twin, on condition of holding the other Liberal seats secure from competition. But an accommodation of this kind would mean an
\n\talliance with Socialism, as well as with Ireland, and some very drastic social legislation in the next Parliament. It is difficult to
\n\tgauge the weight of the Moderate element in the Cabinet, and it may be strong enough to face defeat rather than permit such
\n\tan alliance.<\/p>\n

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We have dealt with this subject and its issues at length, partly in order to draw the attention of our readers to the issues
\n\tand methods of a great and critical election in a democratic country. The introduction of democratic institutions in India,
\n\tmore genuine than the present Reform Scheme, cannot be long delayed, and it will be well for those of us who think to study
\n\ttheir working in the European country which serves as a model to others. But beyond this aspect of the elections, there is a
\n\tdeeper interest to us Indians in the great constitutional struggle now at hand. The abolition or limitation of the Lords’ veto
\n\tis a question of supreme importance to the Indian politician. When the time comes,
\n\t\t\t\u2013and it is coming surely, \u2013that popular assemblies have to be established in India, the veto of the Lords will be the one instrument that reaction will use to stay reform
\n\tfor a long season. It is that instrument which has baffled Irish Nationalism. If it continues to exist, it will baffle Indian Nationalism also. Although, therefore, Liberal and Conservative are one in their attitude towards India, every Indian patriot must
\n\twatch with keen interest the result of the struggle and desire, not the success of the departing Ministry, but victory for the
\n\tdestroyers of the Lords’ veto. <\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\t\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014<\/p>\n

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OTHER WRITINGS BY SRI AUROBINDO IN THIS ISSUE\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n

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The Brain of India IV\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Anandamath VIII (continued)\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Who? (poem)<\/p>\n

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