THE CONVIVIAL GLADSTONIANS.
THAT "convivial" view of the duty of the party in Office with which Mr. Balfour expressed so playful a sympathy last week, was, according to the leading evening organ of the Government, legitimately taken by the leaders of the Ministerial party at the National Liberal Club on Wednesday. But, as the Westminster Gazette pointed out with the kind of self-satisfaction on which in the didactic days of Miss Hannah More and Miss Edgeworth, "good" children were encouraged to pride themselves, they did not waste their lesson-time in shirking their lessons, but took their amusements honestly in the time allotted for the Wed- nesday half-holiday, when school was really over. We are quite willing to give them credit for their dutiful spirit in playing only during the hours in which the use of the playground is sanctioned by the rules of the schooL But we could have wished them a more enjoyable half-holiday. To our thinking, there was something almost gruesome in the music and dancing with which the festivities at the National Liberal Club were celebrated on Wednesday. The "filling up of the cup" resembled more the forced mirth of a party contemplating its dissolution with a ghastly attempt at merriment, than the overflow of any real exultation. In the first place, Lord Rosebery began with congratulating his followers on not dancing upon a volcano, with very much the same kind of dreary irony with which a Bishop once told his friends not to duck an offender in the horse- pond. Who put the volcano into Lord Rosebery's head ? Probably indeed his own insomnia, from which we are heartily grieved to think that he can hardly have recovered as fully as every one had hoped, since he so nearly broke down in one of the humorous speeches which used to be his happiest efforts. True, he showed his high spirit in suppressing the nerve-storm by which he was threatened, and finished his address with the utmost gallantry ; but no one who heard him can have failed to appreciate the pang which it must have cost the hardly convalescent orator to compel himself to wind-up a festive speech in the right tone, when he ought to have been recovering his exhausted strength in some true recreation. For the leader of a great party, who during several months has watched for the morning with more than the passion of that hope deferred which maketh the heart sick, to ventriloquise an enthusiasm in which there is no life, and a battle-cry in which there is no buoyancy, in order to restore the spirits of a virtually beaten host, is a feat the gallantry of which we honestly admire, but by which it is impossible for any one to be stirred up to the kind of ardour that a fray demands. And especially when the war-cry which the pale lips utter is one that has already been given °tit in a more hopeful hour, and even then has fallen as dead as lead from the melting-pot instead of issuing like lead from the cannon's mouth, there is an effect much more tragic than inspiring in the sound. At Bradford and Glasgow there was some shadow of martial glow in Lord Rosebery. At the National Liberal Club on Wednesday there was only the faint, despairing echo of a fruitless bugle-peal. The Gladstonians must have gone away from that gallant but hopeless speech with much sadder hearts than those with which they had assembled. Their leader was not restored to health, and the charge to which he had endeavoured to cheer them on, was not only not war, but was not even "magnificent," except in the resoluteness with which it was sent forth from the lips of a half-recovered invalid.
Nor was there much more of ardour in Sir William Harcourt's address. There, at least, there was no languor, but there was also no hope. Sir William Harcourt laboured hard to show that he and his colleagues were not "clinging to Office" merely for the sake of Office, and, as we earnestly contended last week, that is not a charge which any but the wildest of partisans would bring against them. Governments are glad enough to resign what they recognise as a hopeless task; and Sir William Harcourt, with his Frankenstein of a Veto Bill, is, we feel assured, as eager for the "order of release" as ever was a beaten Minister. But he is not as yet a beaten Minister, only a Minister waiting to be beaten, and he evidently thinks that there would be something craven in giving up the struggle before it has been fought out. Perhaps there is. Napoleon could not well have given up the game before he had fought Waterloo, and perhaps there is almost as much chance for the Gladstonians' victory as there was for Napoleon's victory before Waterloo had been fought and lost. But every sentence in Sir William Harcourt's speech was in effect an admission that it would have been folly to dissolve while they still held the reins in their own hands, because it was so certain that after they had dissolved, they would no longer hold the reins in their own hands. So long as they can pass Bills through the House of Commons, what excuse have they for appealing to the country against the House of Lords ? That was the burden of Sir William Harcourt's cry. Well, that depends on whether they want real power, or only to keep their adversaries out of power. They may think it their duty to do the latter. And if they do, we gladly admit that they are quite right in prolonging to the last moment the delay in resigning. But if what they really value is genuine power, the power of carrying the legislation they approve as well as of initiating it, the only policy which could give them that is to extract from the country, if they can, the endorsement of the many proposals which they force through the House of Commons to no purpose, and send for happy despatch to the House of Lords. Nothing can be plainer than that they could recover real power if they could get a declaration from the constituencies that they are all right, and the House of Lords all wrong. And there can be no con- ceivable reason for not demanding that declaration, except this, that they have not a ray of hope that they will get it. Sir William Harcourt's speech really came to this, that it is better to keep their foes out while they can, than to take the chance of defeating them altogether when that chance is so infinitesimal that it is not worth con- sidering at all. Perhaps he is right. We have no clear opinion on the delicate moral question how far it may be better to hold the enemy at bay as long as possible, than to risk an engagement in which defeat is almost certain. That depends so much on what you think of the enemy, and how much more you dread his accession to full power than you dread his power to block your path. For our own parts, we should prefer to take the chances of a complete defeat, rather than to prolong an impotent sort of reign. But then it is fair to remember that while Unionists in office, with a small majority, are not impotent since they have the House of Lords with them, Gladstonians in office, with the same majority, can hope for nothing better than the means of keeping their foes at bay, since they have the House of Lords against them ; and that makes all the difference between the conditions of warfare to the two parties. Still, we think that a democratic Adminstration should prefer to know whether it has or has not the people with it, to remaining in doubt on that most critical of questions. We cannot fully understand the attitude of mind which thinks the popular will entitled to settle every great political issue so long as it settles it in your own favour, but not entitled to settle it, till it is impossible to balk the settling of it any longer, if it seems likely to settle it against you. And that is the state of mind, so far as we can judge, in which Sir William Harcourt clings to Office when Office means nothing but the barren privilege of keeping his opponents out in the cold. If he cannot carry out any of the measures by which he thinks that the country would be benefited and his Ministerial policy justified, surely he should be willing to give place to those who can. Democratic principles ought to mean willingness to bow to defeat by the people as well as to enjoy the favour of the people. The least convivial of all cups must have been filled and drained at the convivial meeting of last Wednesday.
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