WHY LIBERALS SHOULD VOTE AGAINST THE CENSURE.
WE have felt, and we have frankly expressed, sympathy with those who do not regard the Egyptian policy of the Government as a substantially feasible policy, on the ground that our Government clings pertinaciously to the hope of an orderly and progressive Native Government in Egypt, without European dictation, which we believe to be a false hope. But in spite of this difference between our view and that of the Government, we have no hesitation in saying that any Liberal who votes for Sir Stafford Northcote's motion will prove him- self to be a man either of extremely feeble judgment, or of the most fatally-attenuated Liberalism. There is, indeed, abso- lutely no excuse for any Liberal who adheres to the Liberal programme of 1880 and who nevertheless deserts his colours at the present crisis.
In the first place, as regards the Egyptian policy itself, on which, however, we have dwelt enough elsewhere, Liberals will gain nothing by a change of Government, and so far as we can see, will lose much. The Conservatives offer us no policy in Egypt. Lord Randolph Churchill offers us an insane policy there. All that would be got by a change of Government would be a loss of continuity in itself most dangerous,—a general belief in the world at large that we were to have more spread-eagleism and counsels more divided than ever. That is not a result for which a sound Liberal would vote.
But if we should gain nothing by a change of Government in relation to Egypt, what should we not lose in relation to all the other subjects on which the two parties really differ, as, for anything that we can see, they do not differ on Egypt ? Liberals will lose, of course, all immediate prospect of enfran- chising the agricultural labourers. Whatever the Conserva- tives have admitted with relation to urban or semi-urban householders who happen to live outside the area of Parlia- mentary boroughs, all the leaders have deprecated the exten- sion of the household franchise to genuinely rural constitu- encies. And even as to the urban or semi-urban householders, it is clear enough that they will have to wait for their vote till it pleases the Conservative imagination to admit that it is safe to include Ireland in the proposed Bill,—which means that they will have to wait indefinitely. In the next place, the Liberals will lose all chance of any sound Local Govern- ment reform. The Conservatives are committed to the defence of the present London Corporation, to the defence of the in- fluence at present exerted by the Magistrates in the counties, to the defence of the present confusion in the counties as regards the various rating districts, and to the defence of the objection- able plan of handing over central taxes to the relief of local rates. In a word, the Conservativesare committed to everything that renders a sound Municipal reform hopeless, and if the Con- servatives return to power, such a Municipal reform would be hopeless until they were again ejected.
Nor is even this the worst. The return of the Conserva- tives to power would certainly mean a raising of various in- definite but passionate hopes that the policy of Free-trade was to be abandoned for a policy of retaliatory tariffs. We do not deny that Sir Stafford Northcote has carefully avoided com- mitting himself to any policy so insane. But Lord Salisbury has declared again and again that inquiry into the operation of what is generally known as Free-trade, is'only reasonable; Mr. James Lowther has gone in boldly for Protection ; Lord Randolph Churchill has spoken of a system of free imports with the utmost contempt, and has declared his belief that the Free-trade policy is an utter failure ; and such views as Mr. Ecroyd's are widely diffused through the Conservative party- Every one knows how malleable Sir Stafford Northcote has often proved in the hands of his more go-ahead followers. And no one with the smallest political sagacity can deny that a change of Government now would lead to a very general hope of the partial restoration of a system of Protection. It would be the first great blow at the policy of Free-trade, to restore the Conservatives to power at the present time. In periods of commercial depression, a rash leader like Lord Salisbury might make almost any experiment, however mad, in the hope of winning the favour of the de-
pressed interests, and perhaps in the hope of restoring,—what in many of his speeches he evidently has thought it possible to restore by means of this description,—the elasticity of trade. It is nothing to say that you might just as easily restore a fever patient to health by loading him with blankets. That is just what the ignorant old women of a former generation used to do. And it is just what Lord Salisbury is capable of doing for the depressed commercial interests of this country. But even this is not the worst. We turned out the Tory Government, not for its Conservatism, not for its distrust of Municipal reform, not for its inclination to flirt with Pro- tection, but for its cynical and unjust foreign policy, of which Lord Salisbury was the brain, and of which he still remains the advocate. He has never retracted and repented the doc- trine which he enunciated at the time of the seizure of Cyprus, that whenever Europe is disturbed, England should seize some new point of vantage from which to command the situation. He has never retracted and repented the Afghan policy which he concealed till it was too late for Parliament to interfere,—con- cealed by some of the most questionable equivocations to which an English Minister ever lent himself. And we have every reason to believe that, if he returned to power, he would return to the policy of Jingoism which he advocated when in office, and has defended since with all the force of an effective though most cynical rhetoric.
Nor is even this the worst. There is a question far more critical for the British Empire than any question of foreign policy itself,—the question of Ireland. Liberals and Con- servatives alike admit that there is no problem so critical in the whole field of politics as the problem of the right govern- ment of Ireland. That is the touchstone of political creeds. There are various policies possible for Ireland, but under a genuine Parliamentary Government,—under the conditions of a practical and avowed Union with Great Britain,—only one policy that offers the faintest hope of success, and that is the combination between the concession to Ireland of absolute politi- cal equality with England and Scotland, and a steady and even severe repression of organised crime. But that is not a policy which it is of the least use to apply, unless it can be applied steadily and in earnest for many years together. A very great part of the cause of failure in Ireland has been the experi- mental policy of different Governments. Now that we have got a policy which is a real policy, and is at least hope- ful, let us apply it in earnest, and not pull the plant up before it has taken hold of the ground, to see whether it is or is not growing. We hold that far above the need for reform in Great Britain, far above the need for a sound commercial policy, far above the need for a steady and modest foreign and colonial policy, is the need for consistency in applying the new policy to Ireland. What would be the effect, then, of a return of the Conservatives to power ? hi the first place, a panic among the farmers as to the safety of the Land Act, which Lord Salisbury has treated as mere statutory plunder ever since he withdrew his opposition to it. In the next place, certainly, the confident expectation that Ireland would never receive equal political rights with England from the Tories, and that political agitation—which within safe limits the Liberals are leaving perfectly free— would be suppressed with a stern hand. It seems to us impossible to exaggerate the mischief of such a change of policy as this, at the very moment when social order and confidence have been restored, and when Irishmen recognise, with whatever grudgingness, that the Liberals have, at least, an intelligible principle in the government of Ireland, and an intelligible principle that absolutely requires the full acknowledgment of political equality with England, and the concession of a very much more adequate system of local self- government for the Irish counties. Change the Government, and you extinguish at once all the hopes founded on this prin- ciple. Change the Government, and you restore Ireland to the old vicious circle of eras of sharp political repression, fol- lowed by eras of violent and unlawful agitation which that sharp repression has produced. If the Irish policy of the Government is to be cut short now, we should almost despair of the prospect of political tranquillity in Ireland for another generation. The Liberal who would deliberately endanger this prospect is, to say the least, unworthy of his name.
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