TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE LIBERAL PARTY AND ITS LEADERS.
THE greatest fact of the hour in England, and the One that rn presses for attention is the disruption and anarchy of the great Liberal party. Parliament is about to meet without partie, and without leaders. Every conspicuous statesman has disai pointed by turns his supporters and Ins opponents, and the great cause of national progress and reform, degraded almost into a cant by the lip-service and eye-service of the professed hierophants of that creed, is now made the stalking-horse and pretence of mere Con- servative politicians. And who can wonder ? If Liberalism is to be a cant, its opponents may cant it as well as anybody else. But the time is come for reviewing and considering the immediate prospects of strop.. and liberal government in England. What has been political history of these later years ? The statesmen who profess themselves the natural and legitimate guardians of the principles of progress, after grouping them- selves together, five years ago, into a Government apparently pos- sessing all the elements of real strength, were found unable to bear the stress of a great national undertaking. The Russian war came ; and the terrible realities which it brought out, the loss of armies, the unveiling to the world of the administrative decrepitude of England's military system, the imminence of that fearful problem, the relation of the legal nations of Europe to those ideal nations, which are the true objects of the allegiance of Poles, Germans, and Italians— all these things were to the statesmen of Lord Aberdeen's Administration, trials far too great of their capacity as governors, and sympa- thy as colleagues. They were prepared, and beyond a doubt sincerely desirous, for reform at home. But the leading spirit of the Government, the most consummately eloquent of the statesmen of England, had, unhappily, fallen into the grave error of attempting- to forecast, and financially provide for, many years of peace. Disgust at the failure of a system which true states- manship never would have formed, and scepticism as to the lawfulness of the war, so far as it professed to be for the Turkish empire and. juster doubts of its sincerity so far as it professed empire, be waged for European liberty and. civilization, drove Mr. Gladstone into an unhappy position. He was compelled to appear deficient in sympathy with an inflexible and just desire of the nation. Want of clearness of view, or undue diplomatic reticence, or compunction for having pledged himself prematurely to a conflict which appeared to be waged on false pretences, disabled him from speaking his true mind and heart to the country. And so it has come that the most earnest, the most eloquent, the most thoughtful of the public men of England, has made himself responsible in great part for the decline of the party of progress, and has had to betake himself to Homeric studies as some solace for the pain of witnessing un- scrupulous cliquerie, under the supremacy of Lord Palmerston, taking in vain the sacred names of reform, national honour, and independence, while engaged in a cynical course of political cor- ruption and obstructiveness at home, and compromising abroad, under the name of foreign alliances, all that is dearest to Eng- lishmen. But if Mr. Gladstone has proved himself weak in will and purpose, as compared. with his splendid intellectual power, for the business of governing and statesmanship, is the case better with the other foremost men of the Liberal party ? All have had to place themselves in a defensive position as regards the country during these latest years ; and all have had sentence of temporary political exile passed upon them for infidelity to the nation, to the cause of reform, to sincerity of demeanour, to plain principles of right. It is a terrible infirmity in public men when they cannot so order their conduct as to preserve a moderate reputation for strength of will, when they know not how to keep the first na- tural law of self-preservation, but have to be arraigned and condemned successively at the bar of Parliament and of public opinion. For office is something more than a field for vanity, or a trial of governing capacity. It is a serious moral trial of men. And a country, whose leaders faint by the way from time to time' or must have the reins of government wrested from their hands with contumely and violence, is afflicted with a species of poverty for all the highest purposes of imperial action, which is not to be compensated by increase of material wealth. But is it-not the simple melancholy truth that the Liberal leaders have so failed, or have been so thrust from their pride of place ? The three most important of them, Lord Palmerston, Lord John Russell, and Mr. Gladstone, have in various ways alienated the affection, and be- lief, and reverence of the public from their names. Between themselves there is mutual doubt, aversion, and suspicion thinly veiled by the phrases of Parliamentary courtesy. While the leaders of the fourth element of the Liberal party, the Manchester school, though strong in their economical services to the country, are afflicted by certain doctrines which forbid them to aspire to the practical work of guiding in office the nation's destinies : and which leave them strong only to attack and destroy pseudo- Liberal Administrations. Beyond a doubt, it is desirable and ne- cessary that pseudo-Liberal Administrations should be destroyed. But when the deed is done, though the general cause of right and truth has won a victory, the Liberal party is more disorganized than ever and the abyss between the aspirations of the nation and the class from which Cabinet Ministers are now chosen is widened. It is this which has been Lord Derby's opportunity. He has come into power resolved, at all events, to echo all the maxims of Liberalism, Reform, and progress, which have dwelt upon the lips, and been belied, or obstructed, by the conduct of professedly Liberal statesmen for the last five years. If this is political hypocrisy, as we fear it will prove to be, who are respon- sible for it? Those among the Liberal party, who, as leaders, have weakened it by intestine dissensions, by want of gravity and reflec- tiveness, by caballing and intrigue, by placing a club-clique, or the idol of a financial system, above the nation ; and those among the led who have aided in these evils by apathetic adherence to old names by a want of resolute self-assertion, by regarding a Parliamentary position as a social distinction rather than the most momentous political trust. If the whole Parliamentary Liberal party has sinned, as we firmly believe, there must be a season of self-examination and repentance, a season of closer communion with what is best in the national heart, before statesmen or fol- lowers can regain the position they have lost. And so that the repentance be genuine, the self-examination searching and sin- cere, it matters little whether the time it takes be long or short. The essential point is, that Liberals, both leaders and followers, should take greatly. to heart and thought the degeneracy of their own power, and strive by study and self-sacrifice by the organ- ization which will spring from purified motive alone, to deserve the right of taking the cause of Reform out of the hands of a Ca- binet whose mission is to travestie and parody Liberalism. We -do not desire dogmatically to anticipate the results of the self- examination we so earnestly desire. Deeply sensible as we are that the leaders of the various sections of Liberalism have dis- credited themselves in their different persons by every variety of weakness, bad government, or frivolity of crotchet-worship, we yet shrink from asserting, what facts all but compel us to believe, that the healthy future of the Reform and Progress party of Eng- land is bound up with the political ostracism of names which are familiar or distinguished. But there is a wide difference between being ostracised, and being suffered to retain a brahminical and exclusive possession of the right to form and lead Administrations and parties. We admit faults in the general body of the Liberal party, both in Parliament and the country. But those faults bear no sort of proportion to the abuse of power, the inefficiency, the lack of sympathy with the public needs, the absolute non-repre- sentation of the country, which has of late marked the Liberal leaders. And we are obliged to express a conviction, that if the Liberal party is really to lead a new and active political life, answering at all to the greatness of its nominal aims, and to those necessities which the gathering storms of European policy por- tend, there must be a new personal element in its leadership. Is this impossible? Would not red-tapery reach its apotheosis in a condition of things where a few right honourable gentlemen and noble lords are regarded as the sole available persons for Premiers and Cabinet Ministers, while they have proved, under the stress of the task of governing, that they cannot work either in coalition or in isolation ? Before the country can have the pri- vilege of a strong and Liberal Government, wielding with tem- perate wisdom the vast power of the empire abroad, and guiding her at home in the noble path of political, social, and legal pro- gress, is it to wait until Messrs. Bright and Cobden have reconciled their peace and budget crazes to the exigencies of statesmanship ; until Lord John Russell can manage a nego- tiation without covering himself with discredit, and ally the idolatry of a dead and gone Whig past with the duties of a period of European convulsion; until Mr. Gladstone can learn that pub- lic affairs are not the same thing as scholastic theses ; until Lord Palmerston has solved the problem of reconciling the maximum of Liberal power and profession with the minimum of sound go- vernment, and loyal adherence to the nation's liberties ; and, finally, these things being done, until Messrs. Bright, Cobden, Gladstone Lords Palmerston and John Russell, have composed
all their little differences of sentiment, and agreed to throw their separate items of influence and authority into the joint-stock Liberal cause ? If this be the only prospect of the Liberal party, it will exist as a popular and strong Government only, we fear, when the circle shall be squared, and the sun go round the earth.
But the needs of the hour, the questions at home and abroad pressing for solution, the rising temper of the public mind, that dangerous mixture of political scepticism and political aspiration which is corroding the national conscience, under the perpetual disappointments of statesmanship, will not wait for the squaring of circles and the repeal of the Taws of gravitation. If England has no men to be her Cabinet Ministers, it is well that she should take note of the fact as soon as may be, and consider what is to be done under the circumstances. But the supposition is ridicu- lous. If a convulsion should come in England, some man of the pattern of Mr. Carlyle's heroes would beyond a doubt appear, with that iron rod of military rule' which is forged and tempered in the furnace of a revolution. Is it come to this, that England can or will find no men to guide and govern her in the quiet path of constitutional development, and requires convulsion to bring out statesmanship ? Earnest politicians should dwell on these things night and day.. For national decay, and dissolution of polities, come about in many different ways. And a country -which battled against the open tyranny of Stuart Kings success- fully, may, by clinging to a superstitious belief in the indispen- sableness of the rule of men who have failed, and are no longer trusted, "drift," under their guidance, into revolution' as it has into nto war. For movement and life, and not stagnation,— statesmanship, and not unpatriotic clique-power, or fantastic theorizing, are the supreme needs of nations. And if they can- not have them in peace, they will seek for them in violence. The reaction is an inevitable law.
We believe that thoughts of this kind are working unconsci- ously in the mind of the English nation. Our leading statesmen must take them into account, for they will not bear trifling with. There is a contrast between available Parliamentary influences and statesmanship, and the pressing needs of the time, domestic and foreign, which is gradually overpowering with the solemnity and depth of its significance, all who have the welfare and honour and safety of England at heart. If our leading statesmen can by contact with the firm earth of these realities make themselves stronger men, and more willing to do the real work of the country, it will be well. Meantime the hour is favourable for new ambitions. But they must be bold, unselfish, patriotic. For the country would prefer to tide on a while with what it has, rather than submit to the rise of adventurers seeking merely personal ends. The high places of statesmanship are vacant ; and none may bid for them who will not throw themselves openly and unreservedly upon the sympathy of the country. Indeed, the moment is not auspicious for pretenders. For the nation's eye is practised by melancholy experience to detect weakness' or hollowness, or imsuffioieney iii the conduct of public men. But as certain as would be the ex- posure and confusion of empty declaimers, or insincere dema- gogues, in attacks upon the Liberal leaders, will be, on the other hand, the welcome and the triumph of the man or men who can really speak the country's language, and do the country's work. If such man or men there be in the governing or Parliamentary circles of English life, single-hearted and strong in purpose, and feeling the power as well as the will to rule, let them appear. For the moment in the country's history has come, when ambition of such a kind, in such men, is nothing short of an imperative duty. It is on such principles alone that the Liberal party can be re- organized, either by the old men or the new. The issue is doubtful. But this at all events is not doubtful, that while people, Parliament- ary majorities, and Ministers, are in utter discord, the public life of the nation is deranged. We have seen coalition-governments formed only for dissolution and mutual repulsion. We have given statesmen enormous majorities only to drive them ignominiously from power. We are deluged with splendid destructive opposi- tion criticism from front and flank, but the critics break down as rulers. Here is a case needing Reform beyond a doubt, and the country will soon cry for it; but the Reform which will be de- manded next time will be, not of Boroughs, but of Men.
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