TOPICS OF THE DAY
THE POLITICAL ISSUES OF THE GENERAL ELECTION. THE Tory Ministers, if they are not in good spirits as to the General Election, at least simulate good spirits well. Sir Michael Hicks-Beach, magnificently ignoring the fierce quarrels which exist within the Conservative Party itself, and especially ignoring the anger with which the Constitutionalists (supported by the thunder of the Standard, which really now deserves the name of "The Thunderer," applied to the Times, far better than that journal), regard his own achievements, and the still greater achievements of Lord Randolph Churchill, in expounding what Constitutionalism really requires in Ireland, declared at the Mansion House on Wednesday that it was the Constitutionalist Party—meaning his own—which would triumph at the poll. Just at that very moment some of the Constitutionalists of Liverpool were exulting in their break-up of Lord Randolph Churchill's great meeting, which,—so it is said,—was extin- guished by the refusal of Mr. Whitley and Lord Claud Hamilton to co-operate with Lord Randolph Churchill on a political platform ; whilst the Tory Democrats of Liverpool were wild with wrath at the disappointment which Lord Randolph Churchill's refusal to come to Liverpool had caused them. In spite of this, we say, Sir Michael Hicks-Beach boldly hoisted the Constitutional standard as the standard of the party which he leads in the House of Commons, though we think he should have hoisted the red flag of Revolution. Moreover, Lord Salisbury comes forward as the Minister of an unchanged policy, who has simply been compelled by the actions of his predecessors to abandon all special legislation against agrarian crime in Ireland, and to acknowledge permanently, as rightful electors, persons in receipt of relief from the poor-rates. Well, let the Constitutionalists vote if they please for this Government. Let them, if they are mad enough, strengthen the hands of Lord Randolph Churchill, who is both more likely and better able to carry revolutions through the House of Lords than any Liberal Minister ever could be. But of this, at least, we are sure, that all genuine Conservatives of the old type, all genuine Constitutionalists, will feel a great deal more alarm at a victory for the Conservative party, in Lord Randolph's hands, than at a victory for Mr. Gladstone. Let the Government do what they will, they cannot hush up the deep split in the Tory party which the recent proceedings of the House of Commons has opened. Some genuine Constitutionalists may pocket their "historic conscience" and vote for Lord Randolph Churchill's Government. But a great many more of them will say that they would rather see the Liberals proposing a Radical policy and Tories resisting them, than see Tories proposing a Radical policy with no one to resist them.
However, the question for all true Liberals is not the issue on which the Tories shall go to the poll, but the issue on which Liberals shall go to the poll. There have been plenty of attempts this week to persuade the Liberal Party that what has been hitherto proposed as the true issue—the thorough reform of local government, and the reform of the Land Laws in the sense which Mr. Arthur Arnold's pro- gramme has put upon it—is not nearly enough, that there should be some much more exciting programme than that ; that, as Mr. R. B. Brett suggests in the Times of Wednesday, either Disestablishment should be taken up at once, or failing that, some enticing programme for the breaking-up of the land, and the settling of the peasantry on the land, by giving large powers of borrowing and investment to the new Local Govern- ment bodies. Others want a great social programme for extinguishing moral wickedness of all kinds by legislative measures which they do not specify, and of which no one can form the smallest practical conception. Verily, even Mr. Herbert Spencer's teaching that legislation is one of the weakest possible instruments for the deeper class of moral reforms, and that in the attempt to deal with them, legislation more often than not commits the most serious blunders, is more in need of being pressed home on people who make these suggestions than we had supposed. Unquestionably, the deepest reforms needed in society are the moral reforms ; but even more unquestionably legislation will never reach the heart of these reforms ; while for reforms of that kind, religious influences, so much depreciated and forgotten nowadays, are the great moving powers. Let us render to politics the things that are political, but remember that the kingdom of God is far beyond the observation of statesmen, and, indeed, belongs to a region beneath the springs of all political machinery.
But even as regards the more exciting of the purely political proposals which have been made, we must wholly object to the supposition that Liberalism and sensationalism are identical.- On the contrary, we say that nothing is less truly Liberal than to try and stimulate a newly enfranchised constituency, which has not yet even tried its strength or gauged its own character, to attempt revolutions of so great a scope as the Disestablishment of the Church, or the breaking-up of the land into peasant- properties under borrowing and investing powers to be con- ferred on the new local governing bodies. To take no deeper objection, there never was so flagrant a proposal for putting the cart before the horse as either of these programmes. The new electors are hardly even registered. They have not even felt the ground on which they stand. They have not chosen their leaders. They have not' discussed amongst themselves what they need most. It is manifest to the meanest capacity, that to propose to an electorate in this posi- tion to carry through an immense revolution of the most sweeping kind, would be not only rash, but culpably and pre- posterously premature. Do we want the Democracy to throw everything into confusion ? If we do, we cannot do better than propose to it to take action of the gravest kind on questions which it has never even fully discussed, which it has not even trained itself to consider. The Church question, no doubt, will come up sooner or later ; but it is desirable on. every account that it should be later rather than sooner. The- Peasant Proprietor question is so obviously premature when we. have neither removed the faults in the present Land Laws which obstruct the division of the land, nor settled on what principle the new Local Government bodies are to be constructed,. that we can hardly understand how sensible men can bring it forward till the other is settled. The particular appropriateness of the two questions which our wisest leaders have proposed to. us,—the creation of a really popular and adequate system of local government, and the sweeping away of certain restrictive laws which artificially prevent the subdivision of land,—is pre- cisely this that both these reforms are in line, as it were, and in perfect harmony, with the great reforms which have been just achieved. They supplement those reforms. They extend them to the country town, the village, and the county. They remove obstacles which now exist in the way of the landowner who would sell land, and of the peasant who would buy it. But they only remove obstacles. They allow new municipalities to grow up, but they do not overburden these municipalities with responsibilities of a most onerous class, which in all probability—if they are well advised—they may never evem desire to assume. In fact, these two great reforms are just such as the new constituency ought to press before they- proceed to make any further use of their new rights. They are reforms which open the way for the exercise of the new powers, but do not prejudge what that exercise will be. To ask an electorate that has not yet even breathed its first breath to concern itself with such a matter as the Disestablishment of the Church would be to ask it to throw everything into con- fusion. To ask such an electorate to dabble on its own account in land speculation and set up agricultural companies possess- ing rating powers all over the country, would be to invite a disgraceful and disastrous failure.
The tendency of the time to embark in exciting programmes is most dangerous and most injurious to the democratic institutions which we have founded. Let Liberals remember that their very first duty is to keep their heads and not throw out crude and inflammatory ideas. If the Liberals do not keep their heads, the great reform which we have achieved will be not a success, but a failure. We have urged that reform and argued for it throughout,—therein follow- ing Mr. Gladstone's lead,—on the ground that the perfect sobriety of judgment of the artisans enfranchised in 1867, justifies us in pressing forward to the step just taken. But if that be a legitimate plea, it is legitimate only on the assump- tion that the new Democracy will follow the lead of the old ; that we shall not set the prairie on fire just because two millions of new voters are enfranchised ; that these two millions will act as the artisans of the towns have acted, in opposing all wild and rash policies, and feeling their way step by step to successful reforms. This is what we expect of the new constituencies, and it is because we expect this that we want to see Mr. Gladstone leading us in the future as he has led us in the past. Let us beware of wild sensationalism. When democracies embark on sensational programmes they ensure failure and collapse, and very probablyreaction. Hitherto Englishmen have, above everything, kept cool. Surely we are not going now to fall into frenzies, and enter on raw and ill-digested campaigns, which none of our trusted leaders have even deliberately considered, much less gravely adopted.
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