First Coalition

“ A coalition of all the first, men in the country would, at that moment, have been as popular as the coalition of 1783 had been unpopular. Alone in the kingdom the King looked with perfect complacency on a cabinet in which no man superior to himself in genius was to be found, and was so far from being willing to admit all his ablest subjects to office that he was bent on excluding them all.
A few months passed before the different parties which agreed in regarding the government with dislike and contempt came to an understanding with each other. ”

“ If Organised Labour had been against the war, it is safe to say that the national effort could not have been maintained. The need for the formal association of the Labour Party with the Administration was recognised by Mr. Asquith in 1915, when he formed the first Coalition Cabinet, into which he invited the chairman of the Parliamentary Labour Party, Mr. Arthur Henderson (Friendly Society of Ironfounders) , who became President of the Board of Education. ”

“ I expect with much impatience the first days of your meeting: the purity and integrity of the Coalition will suffer a fiery tryal; but if they are true to themselves and to each other, a Majority of the House of Commons must prevail; the rebellion of the young Gentlemen will be crushed, and the Masters will resume the Government of the School. ”

“ When the first war Coalition Government was formed in May 1915, he was offered the lord chancellorship, but he declined the greatest prize of his profession as he preferred a political career in the Commons. ”

“ The instinct of freedom made way for the instinct of force, the Liberal movement was definitely reversed, and the change which followed the shock of the First European Coalition was more significant, the angle more acute, than the mere transition from royal to republican forms. ”

“ Taft, that a genuine league of nations must have teeth in the guise of supernational, not international, forces. In these remarks I make abstraction from the larger question which wholly absorbs this—namely, whether the masses for whose behoof the lavish expenditure of time, energy, and ingenuity is undertaken, will accept a coalition of victorious governments against unregenerate peoples as a substitute for the Society of Nations as at first conceived. ”

“ In grave emergencies, such as a state of war, communities often draw together in a political coalition because the community of interest transcends ordinary divisions. There is, however, one absolutely essential, prerequisite if a coalition is to succeed. ”

“ Saturday.—Heard at the Club that if the Coalition is not better supported in their attempts to carry out progressive reforms and combat the forces of Revolution and Anarchy, they will form themselves into a new party and go to the country. Locally we are to have, in addition to the retiring Coalitionist, a Free Liberal candidate, a Labour Party candidate, a couple of Independent candidates, a People's Party candidate, a National Party candidate, a Modern Party candidate, a Britannic Party candidate, and an Efficiency Party candidate. ”

“ America will implement its strategies by organizing coalitions—as broad as practicable— of states able and willing to promote a balance of power that favors freedom. Effective coalition leadership requires clear priorities, an appreciation of others’ interests, and consistent consultations among partners with a spirit of humility.
There is little of lasting consequence that the United States can accomplish in the world without the sustained cooperation of its allies and friends in Canada and Europe. ”

“ The Coalition opposed all thoughts of peace. Fearful of responsibility and paralyzed by personal and factional intrigues, Congress would not assemble. Nobody of influence had the courage to advocate what all knew to be necessary. ”

“ At home the great event has been the formation of a Coalition Government--a two-handed sword, as we hope, to smite the enemy; while practical people regard it rather as a "Coal and Ammunition Government." ”

“ Almost as suddenly as the morning light dissipates darkness, did the establishment of the Constitution change the face of affairs in France. Security succeeded to terror, prosperity to distress, plenty to famine, and confidence increased as the days multiplied, until the coming of the new third. A series of victories unequalled in the world, followed each other, almost too rapidly to be counted, and too numerous to be remembered. The Coalition, every where defeated and confounded, crumbled away like a ball of dust in the hand of a giant. ”

“ Instead of the artificial attempts to divide all possible ideas and plans between two great parties, modern legislatures in advanced nations tend to develop smaller and smaller minority groups, while government is carried on by temporary coalitions. For a time we inveighed against this and sought to consider it a perversion of the only possible method of practical democracy. Today we are gradually coming to realize that government by temporary coalition of small and diverse groups may easily become the most efficient method of expressing the will of man and of setting the human soul free. ”

“ The only reciprocity produced by the policy, is between the corrupters and corrupted, each party in the trade alternately acting in each character. We will gratify your avarice if you will gratify our ambition; or we will gratify your ambition if you will gratify our avarice — comprises all the negotiations and all the reciprocity between statesmen and exclusive privileges. This coalition has already become so formidable in the United States, that it openly and earnestly pleads its own cause, without faltering from beholding the mischiefs it has already caused. ”

“ There is nothing changed, if, while the French nation demands nothing, but to remain at peace with all Europe, an unjust coalition do not oblige her to defend, as it did in 1792, her will, and her rights, and her independence, and the sovereign of her choice. ”

“ Are the interests of England and Europe to be jeopardied by the continuance in power of a Ministry so divided and so weak? It is, we think, a truly logical inference that the fall of the Coalition, and the reascendancy of the Conservative party, is the only method by which an end can be put to that constant strife, and unanimity restored to the councils of our Sovereign. In a time of war, it is of the last importance that a Ministry should be united and firm, and possessed of the confidence of the country. ”

“ Let me quote the Petrograd correspondent of the Daily News, the most clear-sighted and understanding correspondent of any foreign newspaper in Russia. He says: "It is clear that the Coalition Government now recognises that the source of its powers is the C.W.S.D., and reciprocally the Council, as at present constituted, is determined to support the Government by all possible means and, further, to support the Government's policy of hastening peace by activity in the field as well as by diplomacy. It supports the offensive because it believes that it will help its diplomacy. ”

“ Peace is the aim of the revolutionary democracy, nor does it intend to make for peace by way of war. Not by military victories does it seek the way out from the blind alley of bloodshed. ... Our comrades have entered the Coalition Government for the business of peace. ”

“ But in America, on the contrary, such a coalition means, raise our wages, or we go to the West. Every coalition which does not amount to this in the minds of the associates, is merely the whim of the moment, an affair of little importance. This is the reason why coalitions, which in Europe are often able to shake the firmest fabric, present no real danger to the public peace in this country, where authority is disarmed. This is the reason why European countries, burdened with an excess of population, need for their safety and welfare a West, into which each may overflow after its own manner. ”

“ The Coalition! Ay, “the murdered Coalition!” The gentleman asks if I were led or frighted into this debate by the spectre of the Coalition. “Was it the ghost of the murdered Coali [Pg 123] tion,” he exclaims, “which haunted the member from Massachusetts; and which, like the ghost of Banquo, would never down?” “The murdered Coalition!” Sir, this charge of a coalition, in reference to the late administration, is not original with the honorable member. It did not spring up in the Senate. Whether as a fact, as an argument, or as an embellishment, it is all borrowed. ”

“ The Revolution itself was, indeed, brought about by a Coalition, in which Tories, surrendering their doctrines of submission, arrayed themselves by the side of Whigs, in defence of their common liberties. Another Coalition, less important in its object and effects, but still attended with results most glorious to the country, was that which took place in the year 1757, when, by a union of parties from whose dissension much mischief had flowed, the interests of both king and people were reconciled, and the good genius of England triumphed at home and abroad. ”

“ What would be, perhaps, sufficient at once to re-establish confidence would be for the king to make the coalesced powers acknowledge the independence of the French nation, cease from all farther hostilities, and withdraw the troops that menace our frontiers. It is impossible that a very great part of the nation should not be persuaded that the king has it in his power to put an end to the coalition; and while that coalition continues and places the public liberty in a state of peril, it is in vain to flatter the king that confidence can revive. ”

“ But an impartial historian must record the opinion that the coalition was perfectly justified by existing political conditions, that had it not taken place, a stable government would in all probability have been for some time impossible, and that the time had come for the reconstruction of parties with a broad generous policy which would ignore issues at last dead, and be more in harmony with modern requirements. ”

“ In my opinion it is necessary, for this purpose, that the government be composed of representatives of all those parts of the population that are not interested in the restoration of the old order. What is called a coalition Ministry is necessary. Our comrades, the Socialists, acknowledging the necessity of entering the government, can and should set forth definite conditions, definite demands. But there should be no demands that would be unacceptable to the representatives of other classes, to the spokesmen of other parts of the population. ”

“ But they have an obstinate and pragmatical man to deal with, and cannot afford to affront him. Without Lord John Russell, the Coalition could not stand, and therefore, in some matters, they are compelled to allow him more license than is agreeable to their own inclination, or in accordance with the interests of the country. ”

“ I suppose I shall read the book, but I cannot tell you how I shrink from anything that must recall and make one live over again those terrible months of vacillation and weakness, the consequence of a Coalition Cabinet, which "drifted" us into a most terrible war--a war from which consistency and firmness would have saved us. ”

“ But if I had omitted even one of those years, which you yourselves have lived through with trembling, you would not have received the impression that the state of apprehension of great wars is permanent with us. Great complications and all kinds of coalitions, which no one can foresee, are constantly possible and we must be prepared for them. We must be so strong, irrespective of momentary conditions, that we can face any coalition with the assurance of a great nation which is strong enough under circumstances to take her fate into her own hands. ”

“ No system of that kind can be formed, which will not leave room fully sufficient for healing coalitions: but no coalition which, under the specious name of independency, carries in its bosom the unreconciled principles of the original discord of parties, ever was, or will be, an healing coalition. Nor will the mind of our sovereign ever know repose, his kingdom settlement, or his business order, in efficiency or grace with his people, until things are established upon the basis of some set of men, who are trusted by the public, and who can trust one another. ”

“ I decline to commence any undignified or unworthy bargaining and huckstering as to the terms of reconciliation; but this I say—that if by any coalition, fusion or reconstruction a Government is formed which by its composition and its policy will be an earnest and a guarantee to the country that a period of peaceful progressive administration has in reality set in, I would serve that Government with the utmost loyalty in any capacity, however humble, either as a member or a follower, only too glad that by any sacrifice or any action of mine I might possibly have averted danger to the State. ”

“ And it so happens, that four only of the largest will have a majority of the whole votes in the House of Representatives. Should the Representatives or People, therefore, of the smaller States, oppose at any time a reasonable addition of members, a coalition of a very few States will be sufficient to overrule the opposition; a coalition, which, notwithstanding the rivalship and local prejudices which might prevent it on ordinary occasions, would not fail to take place, when not merely prompted by common interest, but justified by equity and the principles of the Constitution. ”

“ In the general union of the states with one another, I do not see a coalition, a melting of all the parts together, so as to make the body one and homogeneous. It is only an aggregate of parts, always too separate, and which have a continual tendency to divide themselves, from the diversity of their laws, their manners, their opinions ”

“ How long was it, even with a clear perception of that danger, before an effective coalition could be formed? How often did one power stand by, unmoved and indifferent to the fate of its neighbor, although the destruction of that neighbor removed the only barrier to an attack upon itself? ”