SIR MICHAEL HICKS-BEACH ON TORY MFIRITS.
to wake up emotions which make them feel great in their own SIR MICHAEL HICKS-BEACH appears to be of one mind eyes, emotions which educated Englishmen, with the centuries L.7 with Dr. Johnson, who was very indignant with Mrs. behind them, seldom need, and still more seldom heartily Thrale, when he was staying with her, if she allowed him, as approve. We may not hereafter be without that necessity even he said, 4C to descend to a vacuity," i.e., to a breakfast-room at home, as the suffrage is gradually widened down till the where no hostess was. He thinks the Cabinet, now that its majority know little or nothing of the past. Mr. Grant Duff leading minds are away, can better spare the presence of seem to see in Lord Dufferin's wonderful success in Canada a Street. We do not know that he is wrong. We dare say confirmation of that far-sighted remark. Lord Dufferin owes there is something insipid in consultations the results of which much there to his capacities and something to his experience, must, as everybody knows, be referred to the Duke expectant in but vie question if the Sheridan strain in his blood, which has Berlin, before they can take much effect. But while descanting given him imagination and sympathy, has not done for him on the merits of the Tory Government, he would do well more than all, to be a little more frank and a little more accurate. If he Beaconsfield for his pacific policy. Why, if he is pacific in en- forcing the greater part of what Russia demands as a conse- quence of the war, it is clear enough that he was not pacific before, in refusing to enforce very much smaller and easier demands in order to prevent the war. He cannot take credit both for the attitude of the Government prior to the war and for its attitude now. If it is clear now that very much must be conceded to Russia on behalf of the Christian populations of Turkey, as a consequence of the war, that ought to have been foreseen, and the war which Sir Michael Beach denounces so bitterly, avoided, by putting pressure upon Turkey to yield without war. If it were wrong before the war to put any pressure upon Turkey at all, even for the sake of avoiding the war, it cannot be right now to join with Russia in enforcing the new de- mands. Russia's excuse for the war was that without war Europe would do nothing but remonstrate, and allow Turkey to go on in her old evil courses, unharmed. If that excuse be a justification of Russia, it is also a condemnation of England. If it be no justification of Russia, let not Lord Beaconsfield ask credit now for yielding those demands which he thinks most likely to secure those Christian populations from oppression. It is plain enough that, either before the war or since, Lord Beaconsfield's Government has been shortsighted and indif- ferent to the highest interests of the South-East of Europe. Either it was wrong in disbelieving in the urgency of the case before the war,—in attaching credit neither to the account of the horrors in Bulgaria, nor to the determination of the Russian people to put them to rights,—and this is, we believe, the truth, —or it is now wholly unentitled to claim credit for concessions to Russia which it did not think it right to concede before the war, though by so conceding them, it might have prevented the war. Sir Michael Hicks-Beach wants to have credit for opposite policies,—for ignoring both the power and the right of Russia before the war,—and for conceding both the one and the other now. He may take his choice between those two merits. But he cannot, in common decency, ask that the Government should be glorified for both.
Sir Michael Beach is quite as little candid, and even more grossly inaccurate, in the hymn he sings to the merits of the Government for its home policy. Take this as one specimen of his accuracy :—He appeals to Mr. Lowe to prove that the late Government was too parsi- monious, and quotes Mr. Lowe as saying that " he had, with respect to some important proposals, which were before Parliament during the tenure of the late Government, a great desire to carry them out, but was never able to find funds for the work." And he quotes this as proving that the late Government was " too parsimonious to be efficient." But what Mr. Lowe did say was not that the late Government would not approve of his schemes, but that the House of Com- mons was too parsimonious to approve his schemes,—that he conceived plans of true grandeur, which the House,—and we may reasonably conclude that the Tories were not the least active in the matter,—in its rare economical mood, snubbed. Of course, this, instead of showing that the late Government was too niggardly, shows rather that the Commons thought it too liberal. Sir Michael Hicks-Beach should read his opponents' speeches more carefully before he grounds charges upon them. Here is another specimen of his accuracy. In answer to the charge that the expenditure of the present Government is " mil- lions larger " than the expenditure of the last, Sir Michael replies, " He believed he could satisfactorily prove to them that the charges were in a great measure unfounded, and that so far as they were true, they were due either to burdens, such as payments for abolition of Purchase in the Army, which were imposed on the country by their predecessors, but left for the present Govern- ment to pay, or that the expenditure for which they were responsible was necessary." Now if Sir Michael Hicks- Beach used his opportunities as he ought, he would be aware of the value of a little Blue-book called, "A Statistical Account of the United Kingdom for each of the last Fifteen Years," and by consulting it he would have been able to disabuse him- self of the very absurd delusion in which he appears to be. He would have known that while the gross expenditure in 1873 was £70,714,000, the same expenditure last year was £78,903,000 ; and that, so far from being able to attribute any proportion at all of this huge rise in the expenditure to the money spent for the redemption of Purchase in the Army, more was spent under that head in 1873 than was spent in 1875, 1876, or 1877. In' 1873, the money spent under this head was £683,500; in 1874, £713,974; in 1875, £579,115; in 1876, £501,638 ; and in 1877, £498,362, so that only in 1874 have the Tory Government had as much to spend under this head as their predecessors had in that last year which left to the Tories so magnificent a surplus to fritter and fool away. The truth is that almost all Sir Michael Beach says of the wisdom of the Tory domestic policy is grounded on either error or party-feeling. It is true that Mr. Cross has done well in relation to the Labour Laws, and that the Agricultural Holdings Act would not be so bad, if the Government themselves would not contract themselves out of it, and encourage all other landlords to do so ; but for the most part, it has been the great merit of the Tory Government to find how not to do it." And to this merit they are as fully entitled as Sir Michael Hicks-Beach himself could desire.
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