SEMI-LIBERALS.
IF there is a reaction in the country towards Conservative principles, which has been said, perhaps, to be the case, England will know whom she is to thank for it. She has not to thank the Conservatives themselves. Whatever be the crimes of the Tory press, or of Tory politicians in gene- ral, they are not at least to be accused of having converted any portion of the public to their own opinions. Successful proselytism can never be laid to their charge. They have ceased even to be a drag on the coach of the State. As the world progresses, Lord Derby and his party may be heard no longer exerting even the wholesome check of friction on its progress, but rumbling onwards in the same direc- tion, a little way behind. Divine right has become an an- tiquated sentiment which few are left to share with the pious Lord Robert Montagu. Protection has disappeared some distance back upon the road. The noble idea of a landed aristocracy ruling the country from the midst of a confiding peasantry has been passed and forgotten long ago, and only exists in the pages of a few effete novels and a decaying or -decayed party press. Why is it, that though nobody be- lieves in Lord Derby or Mr. Disraeli, and though they pro- bably do not believe in one another, we are threatened with their approaching return to power? Why is it that we hear ill-omened prophecies of a Conservative majority next session, a majority which is not even to be diminished by the last and painful remedy of dissolution ? No sane man can desire to see Lord Malmesbury at the Foreign-office, or Mr. Disraeli at the Exchequer, and it will be a poor con- solation for a spectacle so disastrous, that the filial piety of Lord Stanley will probably compel him to apply his un- doubted powers to the administration of public business under the leadership of his father. What has reconciled the public, if they are reconciled, to the melancholy prospect ? The semi-Liberals have done it. They are not, indeed, proselytes to Conservative opinions, though a few Tories in disguise may be lurking within the semi- Liberal ranks. But, at a critical Parliamentary time, the whole strength of their body has been exerted—chiefly without the walls of Parliament—to divide and to weaken the Liberal party, and to render it dissatisfied with itself. The semi-Liberals consist-for the most part of educated men, so far as a literary training can be called education. Their literary sympathies have given them a polite taste for progress, coupled with an instinctive affection for those old sentiments and traditions, with the history of which gentle- manly studies have rendered them familiar. They are suf- ficiently enlightened to look with cultivated contempt on the prejudices of those whose cause is openly and avowedly the cause of the past. They are, on the other hand, too timid and too fastidious to be able to accept boldly such broader principles as they fear may lead tb the ultimate disparage- ment of their own class. The Girondins were famous and cultivated men, whose only fault was, that they were too enlightened to be Conservatives, and too fastidious to be democratical. The English semi-Liberals are not likely to be swept away, because these are not days of panic and of trouble, and because England is not France ; but they are likely to be politically useless from the same cause as that which precipitated the ruin of the Girondins. They obstruct the wheels of all and every Government alike. Conservatives by instinct, and Liberals by virtue of their polite education, they show thorough sympathy with none. As political sceptics, they have no positive creed. They can agree only in their dislikes. The altar at which they worship is the altar of the great goddess of Antipathy—a Tauric Diana—to whose honour they sacrifice all the passers-by with horrid rites. It would, however, be a cruel misconception to sup- pose that they do not fancy that they wish to be Liberals. Christian, when he started for the plains of Beulah, fell at an early stage of his pilgrimage into the Slough of Despond. The semi-Liberal has set his face in the right direction, and has set off for the right terminus, though he never gets further on his journey than the deep morass of Antipathy. The fault is one for which we must excuse him. 11E1 e is heavily laden with a pack of sinful prejudices, which he thought he might as well bring with him. He is easily dis- couraged by the dirty state of the roads, along which lie had hoped to be able to pick his way with gentlemanly caution. Lastly, he dislikes most intensely the great number of his fellow-pilgrims who are travelling towards the same point. What wonder, when he has once fallen into the Slough of Antipathy, if he thinks it perfectly useless to get out, and lies there cynical and sceptical, examining with contemptuous curiosity the personal defects of those who pass by ? It is true that the figures of the passersby are, some of them, a little ridiculous, and some, perhaps, not altogether respectable, but it hardly becomes his Serene Highness the Pilgrim Semi-Liberal, who has given in so very early on his journey, to be quite so critical. They have their faults just as he has his. But their besetting sins do not, after all, incapacitate them for marching stoutly in the proper path, while his sinful bundle, which is made up of sentimentalities, fastidiousnesses, and sensitivenesses innumerable, has landed him, before he got fairly under weigh, in damp and unhealthy inactivity. He lies there—a wicked cynic—while they go by. But his cynicism and ill temper might be forgiven—for malicious observations only sting very sensitive people—if they did not exercise a very unwholesome influence on weak- minded pilgrims. They are disconcerted at his remarks, and are alarmed by the exaggerated account he gives them of the terrors of the road. They are inclined to adopt his satirical observationstand to look with distrust and dismay on the cut of their companions' coats. The pilgrim " Ultra-Liberal" dresses disreputably, and is too much inclined to swagger or to associate with vulgar people. "Peace-at-all-Price," on the other hand, is a mean-looking and shabby fellow, and utterly devoid of spirit. Mr. Reform and Mr. Retrenchment are all very well in their places, if they would not so pertinaciously insist on thrusting their noses where they are not wanted. It is surely impossible to get on any longer with "Purity of Election" if he is foolish enough to flaunt about with a ridiculous-looking ballot-box on his back—an appendage which is Purity of Election's besetting sin. " Universal Suffrage," finally, has got a very cut-throat look about him. Nobody knows from where he comes or where he is going, and it is very disagreeable to see him rolling his eyes in a wild way as he walks. Would it not be better and simpler to go no farther in such strange company, but to stop short and lie down quietly by the side of the Pilgrim Semi-Liberal, who will amuse us all with his epigrammatical conversa- tion ?
The truth, perhaps, is, that the semi-Liberal does not con- sider that the real question for the world is no longer whe- ther it is to be Conservative or Liberal. That question has long been settled. What remains is the problem, how to regulate that reign of Liberalism which even the bons mote of all the semi-Liberals will be unable to prevent ? how to prevent excesses ? how to correct the faults and follies to which Liberalism is prone, and to make the best of a state of society which is destined for us in the future ? Instead of heartily accepting what is before them, the semi-Liberals are for ever drawing back, and hesitating at the dangers at which they can only guess, and which they cannot even foresee. They are not quite sure that they are as prepared as they once imagined they were to give in their adhesion to a cause which has reckless and really quite uneducated ad- herents in its train. It seems that they are thinking of deserting from an army whose camp-followers are given to rude behaviour. It is true that their zealous timidity is not altogether unprofitable or useless. They no doubt manage to lessen the influence of ultra-Liberals ; they render dis- order and demagogism unfashionable in polite society, and, therefore, less popular in the world ; and they restrain the vagrant vanguard of the Liberal host from committing ex- travagancea without end. Unfortunately, their well-meant antipathy has a still wider effect. It very often prevents the Liberal army from marching at all. It is not given to anybody—least of all to fashionable politicians of the semi- Liberal caste—permanently to hinder political progress, but they have it in their power every now and then, at a political crisis, to cast their weight into the wrong scale. They may adjourn, though they cannot prevent improve- ments ; they may make administrative and ecclesiastical reform distant, though they cannot make it ridiculous. The Conservatives are too weak themselves to perform this noble work of obstruction. The real drag which detains the wheels of the political coach are the semi-Liberals. A drag of the kind has its uses, but a drag is only useful when very judi- ciously applied. The semi-Liberal is cowardly, but he is far from showing himself judicious. Providence has armed him with a bitter tongue, and he does not hesitate to make use of it. He hits freely on all sides of him with gentlemanly impartiality. He does not perceive, nor perhaps does he care, where his blows will fall. Behind the figures of extreme and offensive poli- ticians, on whom the semi-Liberal teaches himself to look with impatience and antipathy, lie very often excellent and admirable opinions, which suffer in the fray. Diomede made a thrust at a human form, and wounded a goddess in the band. Many a stone flung at Mr. Bright inflicts damage on a cause which is too good and noble to be identified with the name of any single champion. Mr. Bright is a violent and injudicious orator, and his words have, it must be confessed, a fire in them which tends to inflame class against class. The semi-Liberal concludes what the genius of his antipathy sug- gests, that Parliamentary Reform is bad, because some of its supporters are virulent. He bolsters up this notion with a rotten political theory, that the supply of Reform should never be in advance of the popular demand—a view which no sober politician could dream of entertaining, and which, if carried • out, would lead to revolutions, reactions, and political storms. The Manchester school, again, have faults of their own, which honest Liberals can afford to acknowledge, and perhaps in moments of generosity to forgive. A horrid dislike to Mr. Cobden suddenly and completely overwhelms the semi-Liberal. Because some extravagant peacemakers are desirous pf sacrificing even the national defences to their love of retrench- ment, he therefore concludes that all retrenchment is abomi- nable, and that every man who opens his mouth upon the subject is a traitor to the realm. He shouts with fear and disapprobation at the slightest hint that a jealous scrutiny of the administration of our finances is to be desired. Mr. Gladstone, who is supposed to be infected with the same ideas, is categorically condemned for every single financial measure that he adopts. Manchester, in fine, in the eyes of semi-Liberals, is a political Galilee, out of which no good thing can come. Napoleon III., again, is a daring and unscrupulous man, who is regardless of the means provided his ends can be attained. An unscrupulous man, common sense tells us, may very easily advocate a good cause, or even be animated with generous instincts. The semi-Liberal is not content with condemning Napoleon's political crimes. He flings himself into an attitude of violent opposition to every imperial movement. The Italian war was said to be a crime when it was beginning. When it was ended, the peace which concluded it was said to be a crime too. Italy, we are told, could not benefit, and ought not to benefit, by anything which was done for her by a despot. If things turned out better than might have been expected, the reason was, that Providence, which uniformly brings good out of evil, had seen fit to overrule and confound the machinations of the imperial conspirator, and at an opportune moment had brought the peninsula under other influence. The conse- quence of this absurd and exaggerated antipathy is, that one- half of the country would feel disinclined to espouse any cause, however just, which Napoleon III. had determined to defend. Thanks to the violence of English semi-Liberals, European progress is thus abandoned to the sole champion- ship of a monarch who is only too desirous of being the pro- tector of all oppressedlinterests. Lastly, to take an instance which leads us upon more delicate ground : A theological work was lately published which was Liberal in its purpose, but which. laboured under serious defects. As soon as it appeared, the semi-Liberals, some of whom believed in their hearts that the volume was an appeal for the right of free speech, fled in confusion from the very sight of it. They dwelt loudly on the want of ability which characterized this part, and the absence of reverence which disfigured that ; deter- mined not to open their eyes to the fact that, as a whole, the book was a shot fired by men who loved freedom, and whose cause was not to be betrayed because some of them were scep- tical, weak, and confused. Good Liberals, like brave soldiers, are in the habit of covering the retreat of their comrades who have imprudently exposed themselves. They do not punish a fault of discipline, or an error, or a generous act of daring, by leaving its authors to the tender mercies of the enemy. But semi-Liberals, at a moment's notice, abandon their own outposts. Their motto is, that all troops who choose to fight irregularly are to take their chance of being shot.
Trembling at the audacities committed under their very eyes by their own comrades, and starting at the sound of their own arms, full of educated antipathies, devoid of all liberal sympathies, the semi-Liberals thus pursue their own inexplicable course, neither lovers of the past nor yet con- fident of the future. They stand shivering and shak- ing on the brink of Liberalism, afraid to take the in- evitable plunge. At this particular' moment their hesi- tation has become infectious. They have been able for a yeardior so seriously to affect the cause of progress and of truth. They may even, perhaps, unwittingly assist in re- storing the Conservatives to office. But though they are not Liberals, neither are they Conservatives. The Tories have as little in common with them as fanatics have usually with sceptics. When the country recovers from the politi- cal apathy in which its present prosperity, combined with several other causes, have plunged it, when a period of re- action and stagnation has awakened the real Liberal instincts of the nation, and a strong Liberal party is formed, the semi- Liberals will find that they have forfeited their influence. Perhaps, owing to their inexcusable folly, the Liberalism of five years hence will take a coarser tinge. At all events, their voice will have lost its weight. If the educated class knew their own interests and the interests of the country, they would endeavour rather to ride upon the crest of the omnipotent tide, than to fight against it and vainly seek to stem it. Those of them who allow their antipathies to pre- dominate over all more generous sentiment, who sneer at the uneducated excesses of less-refined Liberals, who refuse to move boldly with the ship because of the rocks which encumber its course, and the rudeness of the hands who steer it, will find, when it is too late, that they have put themselves out of the pale of political importance.
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