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SMART AND PROVOCATIVE — FREDERICK
EDWIN SMITH
Maiden Speech
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 F.E.
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F.E.
Smith's Maiden Speech.
Photo above:
F.E. Smith, First Earl of Birkenhead. Photographer: Elliott
& Fry.
It follows the full text transcript of
F.E. Smith's first parliamentary speech,
delivered in the House of Commons at London, UK —
March 12, 1906. |
The principles and practice of
free trade had been previously debated, the debate had been
adjourned and was
resumed on March 12.
 |
Mr. F. E. Smith:
Mr. Speaker, sir, |
in whatever
section of the House hon. members may sit, or
however profoundly they may differ from the
economic views which underlie the remarks of the
hon. member for Blackburn [Mr. Snowden], they
will all, at least, desire to join in a tribute
to the sincerity and ability displayed in the
speech he has just delivered. Speaking for
myself, I confess that I have been struck by the
admissions which have been made by those hon.
members who have spoken in favor of this
resolution.
I venture to ask
hon. members on the ministerial side, at the
height of their triumph, to consider for a
moment what is implicitly involved in their
concessions. The hon. member for Blackburn has
just told the House that sixty years of free
trade have absolutely failed to ameliorate the
condition of the working classes. That is a
statement upon which the Opposition have reached
some degree of agreement with the hon. member.
Where, however, we
part company with him, is not upon the great and
growing importance of still further ameliorating
the condition of the working classes, but upon
the feasibility of effectively assisting
thirteen million people on the verge of
starvation by a revision of railway rates, by
unexplained dealings with mine-owners, or by
loose, mischievous, and predatory proposals
affecting those who happen to own land.
The hon. gentleman
spoke with bitterness almost with contempt of
persons possessing large incomes. I would
entreat hon. members to make quite sure that
they have cleared their minds of cant upon this
question. When I hear vague and general
proposals put forward at the expense of large
incomes, without any precise explanation as to
the principle upon which, or the extent to which
those incomes are to be appropriated or tapped
for the service of those who are less fortunate,
I should like to make an elementary observation,
that there are very few members in this House,
whether in Opposition or on the benches opposite
or below the gangway, whose principal business
occupation it is not to provide themselves with
as large an income as they honestly can.
If there is one
profession to which that charge cannot be
applied, it is, perhaps, the profession to which
I myself belong. I, therefore, attach little
importance to disparaging observations upon the
rich, either from the hon. gentleman or from
anyone else. Nor do I believe that the policy of
unduly burdening the rich will be found on a
just consideration of the action and interaction
of economic forces to be of real advantage to
the poor. Labour, after all, is immobile,
whereas capital is always fugitive.
What other
remedies has the hon. gentleman for the evils
which he so clearly appreciates? He and his
friends are alike barren in suggestion.
Unemployment yearly grows chronic over a larger
area, while a Parliament of Free Importers
celebrates in academic resolutions the economic
system which has depopulated rural England, has
filled the emigrant steamers with fugitives from
these happy shores, and has aggravated the evils
of the most revolting slums in Christendom.
The progress of
tonight's debate makes one profoundly conscious
of the constructive shortcomings of the
Cobdenism of today. I myself am a perfectly
unrepentant member of the Tariff Reform League.
I do not know how many members of the league
there may be in the House; it may be that a
division would show that they are not more
numerous than the representatives of the Liberal
League. I have, at least, the satisfaction of
reflecting that, if tariff reform is found not
to be a winning horse, I have not necessarily
compromised my political future. I have in hon.
and right hon. gentlemen opposite an admirable
example of how to cut the painter of a similar
league, with the maximum of political
advancement, and the minimum of fidelity to a
founder. Such a model of chivalrous loyalty is
of great value to a young member of Parliament.
I suppose the
resolution has been charitably designed to call
attention to differences existing or supposed to
exist in the Opposition. I should have thought
that we might have looked to hon. gentlemen
opposite for a little more charity. Hon.
gentlemen opposite have had analogous
difficulties. The question of when a tariff
becomes protective is no doubt difficult, but
not more so than the conundrum "When is a slave
not a slave?" or the problem when, if ever,
preferential treatment should be given to Roman
Catholic schools.
All great
political parties have skeletons in the
cupboard, some with manacles on, and some with
only their hands behind their backs. The quarrel
I have with hon. gentlemen opposite is that they
show an astonishing indelicacy in attempting to
drag our skeleton into the open. Not satisfied
with tomahawking our colleagues in the country,
they ask the scanty remnant in the House to join
in the scalp dance.
I do not think we
can complain of the tone of a single speech
which has been made from the opposite side of
the House. We were particularly pleased with the
remarks which fell from the hon. member for East
Toxteth [Mr. Austin Taylor], for he entered the
House, not like his new colleagues, on the crest
of the wave, but rather by means of an opportune
dive. Every one in the House will appreciate his
presence, because there can be no greater
compliment paid to the House by a member, than
that he should be in our midst, when his heart
is far away, and it must be clear to all who
know the hon. member's scrupulous sense of
honor, that his desire must be at the present
moment to be amongst his constituents, who are
understood to be at least as anxious to meet
him.
The resolution
before the House consists of two parts. In the
first, we are asked to recognize the merits of
what is described on an obscure prescriptive
principle as free trade, and, in the second, we
are invited to register the proposition that the
country gave an unqualified verdict in its
favor.
The word
"unqualified" is in itself ambiguous, and may
have more than one meaning. If we say that a man
is an unqualified slave, we mean that his
condition can be honestly described as
completely servile, and not, merely, as
semi-servile. If, on the other hand, we say that
a man is an unqualified medical practitioner, or
an unqualified Under-Secretary, we mean that he
is not entitled to any particular respect,
because he has not passed through the normal
period of training, or preparation. It is, on
the whole, probable that the word is used in the
first sense in the present motion.
But, perhaps, it
is necessary to distinguish even further. When
hon. gentlemen opposite are successful at the
polls, it is probably used in the first sense.
In the comparatively few cases in which I and my
friends were successful, it is used in the
second. Birmingham, under circumstances which
will never be effaced from the memory of hon.
gentlemen, on whichever side of the House they
sit, displayed the rare and beautiful quality of
political constancy, and voted in all its
divisions for tariff reform. [Laughter.] The
result is sneered at, in the spirit of the
laughter which we have just heard, as a triumph
for Tammanyism, or, more profoundly analyzed by
an eminent Nonconformist divine, as an instance
of that mysterious dispensation, which
occasionally permits the ungodly to triumph.
Hon. gentlemen
opposite are, in fact, very much more successful
controversialists than hon. members on this side
of the House. It is far easier, if one is a
master of scholarly irony, and of a charming
literary style, to describe protection as a
"stinking rotten carcass" than to discuss
scientifically whether certain limited proposals
are likely to prove protective in their
incidence. It is far easier, if one has a strong
stomach, to suggest to simple rustics, as the
President of the Board of Trade [Mr.
Lloyd-George] did, that, if the Tories came into
power, they would introduce slavery on the hills
of Wales.
Mr. Lloyd-George: I did not say that.
Mr. F.E. Smith:
The right hon.
gentleman would, no doubt, be extremely anxious
to forget it, if he could. But, anticipating a
temporary lapse of memory, I have in my hand the
Manchester Guardian of January 16, 1906, which
contains a report of his speech. The right hon.
gentleman said:
"What would
they say to introducing Chinamen at 1s. a
day into the Welsh quarries? Slavery on the
hills of Wales! Heaven forgive me for the
suggestion!"
I have no means of
judging how Heaven will deal with persons, who
think it decent to make such suggestions. The
distinction drawn by the right hon. gentleman is
more worthy of the county court than of the
Treasury Bench. I express a doubt whether any
honest politician will ever acquit the right
hon. gentleman of having deliberately given the
impression to those he thus addressed that, if
the Conservative party were returned, the hills
of Wales would be polluted by conditions of
industrial slavery.
The alternative
construction is that the right hon. gentleman
thought it worth his while, in addressing
ignorant men [Cries of " No"] —
In relation to the
right hon. gentleman they are ignorant. Is that
disputed? — to put before ignorant men an
abstract and academic statement as to Chinese
labor on the hills of Wales. If he did not mean
his hearers to draw the false but natural
inference, why make any reference to Chinese
slavery as a conceivable prospect on the hills
of Wales?
Was even
Manchester won on the free trade issue? [Cries
of " Yes."] I hear hon. gentlemen opposite say
"Yes." I think they must be from the south of
England. If Manchester was won on the free trade
issue, perhaps hon. gentlemen will explain why
repeated meetings were devoted to the less
effective and attractive cry, and why specialist
speakers like Mr. Creswell were brought down to
discourse to the electors on the evils of
Chinese slavery.
Mr. Speaker, I am
not unaware that, owing to the eccentricities of
municipal geography, Salford is not,
technically, a part of Manchester, but a Salford member is near
enough to wear the green turban of a pilgrimage
to Cobden's Mecca. The hon. member for Salford
[Mr. Hilaire Belloc]
has stated that he was returned to the House,
pledged to urge insistently on the Government,
which profited by a false cry, the immediate
repatriation of the coolies now on the Rand.
Shall I be told that in that case the electors
were giving an unqualified verdict for Cobdenism, or for
what is called in this resolution free trade?
I do not think
that the hon. and learned gentleman, who fought
so strenuously in East Manchester [Mr. T. G. Horridge], will get up and tell the House
that in his constituency the verdict was an unqualified one for free trade. I have some choice
specimens of the bread that he threw on the
waters in order, I suppose, to elicit this unqualified verdict.
He is reported, in
the Manchester Guardian of 13th January, to have said
that the Chinese had not been the means of
bringing one single piece of white labor to
South Africa. The hon. and learned gentleman
appears to think that white labor is introduced
in slabs. He said:
"You are voting, if you
vote for Mr. Balfour, for the exclusion of white
labor from South Africa"
— not for Cobdenism.
The hon. gentleman continued: "Where was that
thing going to stop?"
Mr. Speaker, this is
precisely what we should like to know today. "Were they going to have Chinamen working in the
mills at Bradford? Let the people of this
division show by their votes" — what? Their
devotion to free imports? No — "That they would
have none of this wretched coolie labor in
South Africa, and strike a blow for freedom
tomorrow at the polls."
There is an
interesting point of analogy between the hon.
and learned gentleman and the "wretched coolies," of whom he has so low an opinion. Today he is
in, and they are in, and it rather looks as if
they are going to remain in as long as he and
his friends.
It was in this way that the poorer districts of
Manchester were captured — Cobden's Manchester.
Did the hon. member, the Under-Secretary for
the Colonies [Mr. Winston Churchill], use his
great and growing
local influence on behalf of what in his heart
and conscience he knew to be the truth? I say
"on behalf of what he knew to be the truth,"
because the hon. member is reported in the Manchester Guardian, as having said on June 12,
1903, that he was quite sure that supplies of
native or Chinese labor would have to be
obtained, and ought to be obtained for the mines
in the interests of South Africa as a whole.
I
will not weary the House with the whole of the
Under-Secretary's peroration. I rather think it
has been at the disposal of both parties in
the House before undertaking a provincial
tour.
Mr. Speaker, it is easy for the
Under-Secretary to come to the House and state
in the debate on the Address that he attempted
to confine the issue at the election to the
single point of Cobdenism, to the single merits
of free trade, and that he had therefore no
responsibility for an incendiary campaign. To
that I reply, proximus ucalegon ardebat, which I
may venture to construe proximus, in an adjacent
constituency; ucalegon, the hon. and learned
gentleman [Mr. T. G. Horridge]; ardebat, was letting off Chinese
crackers.
The Under-Secretary did not then
explain that the coolie processions, which his
learned friend was so forward in organizing,
were merely contributions to the problem of the
unemployed, or that slavery was a terminological inexactitude. He profited by the storm
of generous anger which these falsehoods, being believed, excited
among the Lancashire democracy. He took what he
could get, and thanked God for it. Mr. Speaker,
the role of the receiver of stolen reputations
is rather less respectable in the eyes of the
man of spirit, than that of the principal thief.
I must, however,
in candor admit that the question of cheap food
was brought forward in many constituencies with
great persistency and ingenuity. The hon. member
for North Paddington [Mr. Chiozza Money], with an infinitely
just appreciation of his own controversial
limitations, relied chiefly on an intermittent
exhibition of horse sausages as a witty,
graceful, and truthful sally at the expense of
the great German nation.
I do not understand
what the Secretary of State for War means by
saying that the Liberal Party has no ideas. The
Liberal League always was a drag upon the holy
wheel of progress. In Wales, apparently, they
like it strong, and the President of the Board
of Trade [Mr. Lloyd-George] informed one favored audience how
large a part horse-flesh plays in the simple
diet of the German home. The same speaker is
never tired of maintaining that protection has
tainted and corrupted German public life. I
understand that any trade negotiations which may
become necessary with Germany must be conducted
through the right hon. gentleman. I am not
sanguine of the outcome. If you have a difficult
business transaction to carry through with a
competitor, a prudent reflection would perhaps
suggest that it is unwise to describe
him publicly as a corrupt scoundrel,
subsisting principally upon the flesh of horses.
I do not suppose that, now the fight is over,
now that the strategy has been so brilliantly successful, away from the
license of the
platform, in the House, where their statements
can be met and dealt with, hon. gentlemen will
deny that the immediate effect of a 2s. duty on
corn will be an illimitable development of
colonial acreage suitable for the growth of
wheat. [Cries of " Oh, oh," and loud derisive
laughter.] I am astonished to hear sounds of
derisive dissent, for I rather thought that at
the time when Lord Rosebery, from whom I was
quoting with verbal precision, made that
prediction to frighten the English farmer from
tariff reform, hon. gentlemen were in the same
tabernacle, or furrow, or whatever was the
momentary rendezvous of the Liberal party.
At
the moment, hon. gentlemen will recollect, the
other ship looked like sinking; there was a
temporary slump in the "methods of barbarism "
section. I venture to ask hon. gentlemen, to
tell us in the candor of victory, whether any
one really doubts that Canada would, in a few
years, be able, under judicious stimulation, to
supply the whole English consumption of wheat?
[Cries of " No, no."] Sir Wilfrid Laurier says
it can, and hon. gentlemen say it cannot.
Perhaps the Under-Secretary for the Colonies
[Mr. Winston Churchill],
whom I am sorry not to see in his place, will
put Sir Wilfrid Laurier on the black list with
Lord Milner, [Mr. Churchill had recently stated
in the House of Commons that he did not feel
called upon to protect Lord Milner in the
future.] and refuse to protect
him any longer.
Does the House recollect La
Fontaine's insect, the species is immaterial,
which expired under the impression that it had
afforded a lifelong protection to the lion, in
whose carcass its life was spent?
There is hardly a
Canadian statesman who does not go further than
Sir Wilfrid Laurier in the direction of tariff
reform. Earlier in the debate some reference was
made to Mr. Fisher, and I desire to speak of Mr.
Fisher's views and ability with great respect;
it is not necessary to vilify any colonial
politician with whom you disagree. But, in
Canada, Mr. Fisher and Mr. Goldwin Smith are in
a minority of two, and Canada has almost reached
the stage one day, I hope, to be attained in
England of exhibiting Free Importers in her
museums.
An official report, ordered by the
United States Government in 1902, found the
district contributory to Winnipeg capable,
within the lives of persons still living, of
supplying enough wheat to provide for the
consumption of the world. If this be true, or
half true, what becomes of the nightmare of
apprehension, which has made hon. gentlemen
opposite so infinitely tedious for the last few
years? If an illimitable supply of Canadian corn
is coming in untaxed, what becomes of the little
loaf? Once again, I recognize in hon. gentlemen opposite our electioneering masters, and I
compliment them, if not on an unqualified
verdict, at any rate, upon an unqualified
inexactitude.
Some hon.
gentleman ventured upon a more ambitious line of
argument, and, in doing so, permanently enriched
the economic knowledge of the country. We were told that
it is not a disadvantage, but rather an
advantage, that English factories should be
removed abroad. Perhaps some consistent logician
will shortly introduce a Bill offering bounties
to capitalists who remove their works abroad.
Let us by all means drive from the country
everybody who has work to give, and then wave
banners, like the hon. member for Merthyr Tydvil
[Mr. Keir Hardie],
in the "Right to Work Committee."
A
fortnight ago hon. gentlemen opposite, calling
in aid every resource of pathos, indulged in
beautiful sentiments about the feeding of starving
children. If the matter had been pressed to a
division, I should have voted with them, but I
should have done so without prejudice to my convictions as to the economic system which gave
rise to the necessity. I should like to know how
hon. gentlemen opposite explain the growing
poverty of the poor. [Ministerial cries of " The
War."]
Since this House
of Commons met, we have heard a great deal about
the war. I would suggest to hon. gentlemen, as a
humble admirer of their methods, that, if they
wish for targets in that matter, they ought to
aim, not at the Opposition Benches, but at
right hon. gentlemen who sit on the Front
Government Bench.
Hon. gentle men opposite
should remember that the present Secretary of
State for War [Mr. Haldane] justly observed that the Boers
waged the war, not only with the object of
maintaining their independence, but also to
undermine our authority in South Africa. And
the present Attorney-General [Sir John Lawson
Walton] said that the war could be shown to
be as just, as it was inevitable, and to have
been defensible on the grounds of freedom.
The
circumstances of which you complain were
anterior to the war. While the only panacea
which hon. gentlemen opposite can suggest is
the employment of broken-down artisans in
planting trees, and constructing dams against
the encroachment of the sea, the Unionist party
need not be discouraged by their reverses at the
polls. We will say of the goddess who presides
over the polls, as Dryden said of Fortune in
general:
I can enjoy her
while she's kind;
But when she dances in the
wind,
And shakes her wings, and will not stay,
I
puff the prostitute away.
Was the verdict
unqualified, having regard to the aggregate
number of votes polled on behalf of Liberal
members? The votes polled at the last election
for Liberal, Labour, and Nationalist candidates were 3,300,000, while those polled for
tariff reform candidates and other gentlemen
sitting around me were 2,500,000. [Cries of " No
! Not true ! "] I gather that it is suggested
that my figures are wrong. [Cries of " Yes."]
They very probably are. I took them from the
Liberal Magazine.
Perhaps the Minister of
Education [Mr. Birrell, formerly Chairman of the
Liberal Publications Department] was responsible for them, before
he gave up the hecatomb line of business for the
Christian toleration and charity department. I
venture to suggest to hon. gentlemen opposite,
that the figures I have quoted, so far as they
are accurate, are not altogether discouraging to those
who, for the first time after so many years of
blind dogma, have challenged the verdict of the
country on the issue of tariff reform.
What
would hon. gentlemen who represent Ireland say,
if it was suggested that they were Cobdenites?
Will one of them get up to say that Cobdenism
has brought prosperity or success to Ireland, or
to guarantee that a representative Irish
Parliament would not introduce a general tariff
on foreign manufactured articles? The jury who
gave this unqualified verdict are unaccountably
silent. The spectacle of the Cobdenite hen
cackling over a protectionist duckling of her
own hatching in Ireland would add a partially
compensating element of humor even to the prospect of Home Rule.
The Irish, and I may add, the
Indian case for tariff reform were both once and
for all conceded by the " infant community " admission of Adam Smith. Why do we force upon
India and Ireland alike a system, of which every
honest man knows that whether it be good or bad
for us it denies to them the right to develop
and mature their nascent industries upon the
lines in which they themselves most earnestly
believe, and in which every country in the world
except Great Britain believes?
The answer is as
short, as it is discreditable. We perpetuate
this tyranny, in order that our Indian and Irish
fellow-subjects may be forced to buy from our
manufacturers articles which they would
otherwise attempt to manufacture for themselves. In other words, we perpetuate in these
two cases a compulsory and unilateral trade
preference demonstrably the fruit of selfishness
at the sacrifice of a voluntary and bilateral
preference, based deep and
strong upon mutual interest and mutual
affection.
I have heard the
majority on the other side of the House
described as the pure fruit of the Cobdenite
tree. I should rather say that they were begotten by Chinese slavery out of passive
resistance, by a rogue sire out of a dam that
roared. I read a short time ago that the Free
Church Council claimed among its members as many
as two hundred of hon. gentlemen opposite.
[Ministerial cries of " Oh ! "]
The Free Church Council gave thanks publicly for
the fact that Providence had inspired the
electors with the desire and the discrimination
to vote on the right side.
Mr. Speaker, I do
not, more than another man, mind being cheated
at cards. But I find it a little nauseating if
my opponent then proceeds to ascribe his success
to the favor of the Most High. What the future
of this Parliament has in store for right hon.
and hon. gentlemen opposite I do not know, but I
hear that the Government propose to deny to the
Colonial Conference of 1907 free discussion on
the subject which the House is now debating, so
as to prevent the statement of unpalatable
truths.
I know that I am the insignificant
representative of an insignificant numerical
minority in this House, but I venture to warn
the Government that the people of this country
will neither forget nor forgive a party which,
in the heyday of its triumph, denies to the
infant Parliament of the Empire one jot or tittle of that ancient liberty of speech, which
our predecessors in this House vindicated for
themselves at the point of the sword.
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