in the provinces. To have heard Mr. Gladstone on this
fact Russianise Bulgaria ? So far as we see, what the Daily News and on the development of platform-speaking would have refers to in its vehement invective has no sort of tendency to been of very great interest, for he is not only supreme in suppress liberties at all ; indeed, in one important respect Parliamentary oratory, but is among the greatest platform- it tends to enlarge liberty by removing the restriction on the faith of the reigning family in Bulgaria,—a change It is difficult to read one of Mr. Gladstone's non-political which Russia would never dare to make, and which is to be addresses, without asking wherein is to be found the secret made, if it is to be made at all, not as Russia would make of the charm exercised by his oratory over all classes? There it, by a decree of the Sovereign, but by the constitutional is no gorgeous rhetoric, no melody of words, no spice of epi- assent, constitutionally given, of the Bulgarian Sobranje gram. Again, there is no attempt to show learning, there itself. We take for granted that what the Daily News is no special depth of thought, and there is no great newness is chiefly incensed at is the proposal to reduce by one of view or originality of conception. All these powers of half the number of popular Deputies to the Sobranje, the mind Mr. Gladstone no doubt possesses in a high to make each of them represent for the future not ten degree ; but, unquestionably, he does not let them be seen thousand of the population, as now, but twenty thousand in his popular address to large, mixed audiences. They of the population. In other words, the reduction of the contain plenty of good sense and good feeling adequately popular body from an Assembly which on critical occasions expressed, but to say more of them, judged on the surface, of heavy responsibility is hardly capable either of true would be impossible. How is it, then, that they are so deliberation or of adequate promptitude or resolution, to a successful, and please so much more than the efforts of body which is really a deliberative Senate, is regarded as the men who pack their speeches with the best things in the great crime by which it is intimated that popular liberties best language We believe that the answer is to be found will be " suppressed," and Bulgaria be Russianised. Now, in the fact that Mr. Gladstone has realised exactly the as Russia as yet has got no such popular body at all, it is intellectual capabilities of popular audiences, and so hard to see how halving the number of deputies to a given manages to make every shot tell. Burke praised one of area of population could Russianise any State. You might the statesmen of his day, we believe it was George more truly say that it would Anglicise Bulgaria, than Grenville, for always being able to "hit the House Russianise her. Speaking roughly, we have oftener than between wind and water." This is what Mr. Glad. not about one Member of the House of Commons to every stone does ; he never wastes shot on the decks or fifty thousand of the population. In other words, we have the rigging, but pegs away at the place where he not half as many representatives to every fifty thousand security for wise and prudent decisions. We do not know LIBERTY AND REACTION IN POLITICS. that either of these two modes of securing popular liberties free expression of popular feeling. Looking to what M. Stambouloff has already effected in the way of resisting reaction, it seems to us fair to give him credit for great sagacity, as well as for great courage, in the steps he has taken to defy the dictation of Russia. And it is surely impertinent to assume that, because he thinks the number of the Sobranje might be so reduced as to make it a more effective Senate, he wishes to Russianise a State for which he, and he alone, has hitherto found the means to enable it to resist successfully the dictation of Russia. To our mind, liberty assuredly depends quite as much on the discretion with which it is used, as on the ardour with which it is asserted. We believe that caution is at least as essential to its permanence as its enthusiasm and volume. That is evidently the deepest conviction of the makers of democracy, whether in the United States or in Europe. Look at the care and pains taken by the makers of the American Constitution to prevent the American people from doing in haste what they would re- pent at leisure. Well, the kind of constitutional drags put upon popular action in the United States, which have no near enemies at all,—indeed, the blunders of the people themselves are the only great popular dangers,—would not suit at all such a little State as Bulgaria, which is set in the midst of foreign perils, and has often to take sudden resolves under great emergency. That being so, the con- stitutional precautions needed cannot take the shape of mere drags on the practical designs submitted to the con- sideration of the people ; while they may very properly take the shape of rendering it possible to make Parliamentary discussion thorough, and, whenever it may be necessary, to make it both secret and swift. Now, you cannot have thorough, secret, and swift deliberation in a large Assembly. The leakage of popular rumour is in direct proportion to the number of authentic channels which popular rumour can find,—in other words, to the number of popular repre- sentatives. We can quite understand M. Stambouloff's wish to get a consultative body which could in an emer- gency be trusted to discuss a critical situation at once thoroughly and swiftly without any danger of the inten- tions of the Government becoming known to the world before they could be put in force.
Even in England, where there is no such need for swift resolve, we see the utter incapacity of a crowd to discuss any important proposal with anything like adequacy. The debates of thirty years ago were far better than the debates now, not mainly because there were abler statesmen in the House of Commons, but because there were not nearly so many as there are now who either wished to speak or were competent to speak. The consequence was that the few who were really competent did speak, and did speak thoroughly, and in a way to instruct those who heard them, and who read their speeches. Now the competition for the public attention is so great that very few who can really instruct the public get a sufficient share of that attention. We can well believe that if our House of Commons were reduced in number by one half, it would be a far more efficient exponent of popular reason than it is now. But whatever grounds there may be here for diminishing the proportion of representatives to population, are ten times as urgent in Bulgaria, where there is always danger from outside, always a great deal more of the inarticulate popular element than of the circum- spect and deliberative popular element, and always, there- fore, difficulty in securing that confidential relation between the Parliament and the Minister on which the wisdom and weight of a momentous popular decision must really depend. Liberals should clear their mind of cant, and not take for granted that everything which tells against the fury of an agitation, tells against liberty,—which it may really secure.
Previous page
