TOPICS OF THE DAY.
to say that it has been the best Conservative Govern- -1- ment of which the country has bad any experience since that in which Sir Robert Peel set our financial system to rights, imposed the Income-tax, relieved the country of the burden of innumerable imposts, gave us Free- trade, and started us on that great career of commercial progress in which there has been hardly any inter- mission during the last half-a-century. Lord Aber- deen's Government, the Government of all the talents, was hardly in any true sense Conservative, and it soon gave place to Lord Palmerston's. The late Lord Derby and Mr. Disraeli were neither of them Conservatives, certainly not Liberal Conservatives ; and whatever great qualities they had were qualities of quite another type. The late Lord Derby was a rash politician, who preferred "dishing the Whigs " to securing the quieter interests of the country. Mr. Disraeli was a political improvisatore, who preferred in- dulging his imagination in attempting to shift the centre of gravity of the Empire towards our Eastern possessions to the humdrum cares of safeguarding the progress of the United Kingdom, and tempering the democratic tendencies of the hour. But Lord Salisbury's Government has been a truly Liberal-Conservative Government. Since Lord Randolph Churchill relieved it of its one capricious and incalculable element, it has shown all the highest qualities of a Conservative Cabinet that has in it no tinge of re- actionary purpose, but that resolves to move on continually with the predominant tendencies of the time. It has not been a Government of exalted ambitions, like Mr. Glad- stone's first Government, which disestablished an alien Church, initiated a far-reaching policy of national educa- tion, popularised the Army, and commenced a great revolution in the tenure of Irish land. And it has not been a Government of impatient, chaotic, and unregulatel am- bitions, like that which we at least expect to see organised next week. It will never be celebrated for its audacities or its romantic vicissitudes. But it will be regarded for many generations as the happiest illustration of sobriety without dullness, tenacity without obstinacy, prudence without par- simony, conciliation without weakness, firmness without vin- dictiveness, and benevolence without prodigality, which the Administrations of the last half-century can supply. It has been a Government which will teach Englishmen to respect the name of Liberal Conservatism.
Some of its leading men have gloried in the name of Tories; but that has only been an illustration of its respect for traditional names as well as traditional policies. Anything less like the Tory of tradition than Mr. Balfour, who has the credit of its most characteristic policy, we cannot imagine. If ever there was an intellect vigilantly alive to the signs of the times, it is Mr. Balfour's, though we quite admit that he is very much possessed with that sense of scorn for cheap charlatanerie which is so desirable in a sagacious Conservative. If Mr. Balfour has none of Mr. Gladstone's innocence and simplicity, he has also none of his wilfulness and of his power of shutting his eyes to conspicuous obstacles until he has actually wrecked himself upon them. His policy in Ireland was at once calm and steady. He proposed penalties for disobedience to the law which were not so dramatic as to cause a reaction of sym- pathy with the culprits, and he enforced these penalties with a steady indifference to the shrieks of partisan patriotism. He met Irish hysteria with equanimity and no irritation, but he did not show any disposition to relax his rules. At the same time, when he saw real misfortune and calamity, he was earnest and even eager to relieve it, and to relieve it in the best way. In other words, his Conservatism showed itself in determination to make the law respected, and his good-will in an equal determination to alleviate suffering wherever he saw that it was not the consequence of idleness, extravagance, and sedition. It would have been impossible for the originator of a new attitude towards Ireland to have evinced more firmness, more sang-froid, and more good-will. Mr. Goschen has been the second leader in the popular assembly, and Mr. Goschen has carried out a great enterprise with charac- teristic courage and characteristic moderation. He has from the first refused to regard economy as his chief aim, His chief Mn has be u to make the services efficient, and his second only to make them frugal. He has put the development of the Navy above the reduction. of taxation, and, to our thinking, no policy could be more essentially Conservative. Yet he has effected an even greater reduction in the burdens of the country than the increase which he has brought about in its power of self-defence. And he has effected all this without any complaint of that constant depreciation by his Gladstonian critics to which he has been exposed, though not without generous recog- nition of Mr. Gladstone's own frank and cordial approba- tion, though of late years at least, that approbation has been too often withheld. Mr. Goschen's reign at the Exchequer has certainly been as unpretending as it has been fruitful. Of course, he has had to defend himself when attacked, but he has never posed as a popular Budget-maker ; he has always taken more credit for getting what the country wanted, than for bestowing those boons which he has been able to confer in the shape of diminished taxation. He has, in fact, endeavoured to. give us a lesson in the kind of sacrifices we ought to welcome, rather than in the art of magnifying the econo- mies he had achieved and the new trade he had stimulated_ In the Prime Minister, too, we have had a thoroughly temperate as well as very hardworking Foreign Secretary. Lord Salisbury has not, to our mind, shown any great judgment in the administration of Church preferments, a department in which Mr. Gladstone had always displayed so keen and sagacious an interest. The late Premier, on the other hand, has seemed to care compara- tively little for the encouragement of learning, and to care more for an equal division of rewards among the various schools and parties, than for appointing men who would wake up the consciences and guide the intel- ligence of the country. But, with this exception, his arduous duties have not only been discharged with singular care and wisdom, but with quite unique success. He has taken no offence with foreign diplomatists where it was difficult not to take offence, and yet he has more than held his own. He has borne with the grudging and sometimes unworthy diplomacy of France in Egypt with singular patience, and yet he has steadily improved his position,, and compelled the Powers of Europe to acknowledge the benefits he has conferred on that country. He has shown his indifference to more than one Presidential electioneerer who has endeavoured to gain votes by appealing to the American-Irish hatred of this country, and yet he has steadily advanced the solution of the most difficult disputes between this country and the United States without once submitting to any humiliation. He has greatly improved our relations with Germany without involving us in any quarrel with Russia. He has, in short, made his reign at the Foreign Office quite a peaceful oasis in. the troubled diplomacy of the last twenty-five years, and leaves England in far more prosperous relations with foreign powers than those in which he found her. And further, he has managed to gain a considerable number of efficient colleagues in the Adminis- tration who have shown at once great prudence and great popular sagacity. Mr. Ritchie and Mr. Chaplin have both added materially to the strength of the Government. The substitution of Mr. Goschen for Lord Randolph Churchill multiplied tenfold its financial capacity; and Sir James Fergusson has left a great reputation at the Post Office. Lord Salisbury has contrived, too, to infuse a great deal of his own industry and patience into his colleagues. Lord George Hamilton has done more at the Admiralty, with Mr. Goschen's help, than any First Lord for genera- tions back. Mr. Stanhope has effected remarkable im- provements in the organisation of our Army and the condition of our barracks. Lord Knutsford has been the most popular and the most prudent of our Colonial Secretaries, and leaves the Colonies infinitely more loyal to England than he found them. Mr. Henry Matthews, while he has been time after time exposed to all the concentrated malignity of a violently prejudiced Press, leaves the Home Office after scoring more administrative victories than any Home Secretary, unless it were Lord Cross, whom we can recollect. The Government, in short, though it has been avowedly Conservative in its attitude, has gained far more administrative respect than any Government of recent years. Lord Salisbury has had no quarrelsome Cabinets, and no crises of popular wrath to con- front. For an Administration that has never attempted to curry favour with the masses, that has been accused, indeed, of siding with the classes against them, it can count more friends amongst the people than any Conserva- tive Government we can recollect. No doubt this is greatly due to its Liberal Unionist allies, to the Duke of Devon- shire and Mr. Chamberlain. But, then, it needs some self-denial and much judgment in a great Tory chief like Lord Salisbury to accept help of this kind from Liberal Unionist allies, and to use it without giving offence to his own supporters. We believe that his administration will be long remembered for its specially Conservative merits, its modesty first,—its patience and perseverance in pursuing efforts to re-establish order where there was great disorder without restricting the liberties of good citizens, and without revenge ; for its steadiness and good-will in dealing with foreign countries and our colonies, its deter- mination to make our services efficient, and its unsensa- tional successes. It has had no magnificent ambitions, but the ambitions it has had have been as fruitful as they have been unostentatious.
Previous page
