THE NEW TORYISM.
WHAT strikes us most in the new Toryism which now inspires and controls the so-called Conservative Party is not its immorality, naked and unabashed as that is, but its stupidity. It did not answer even under the skilful manage- ment of Lord Beaconsfield, and Lord Beaconsfield was a much cleverer political manceuvrer than Lord Randolph Churchill is, or ever will be. Lord Beaconsfield led his party altogether during a period of about thirty-four years, for Lord George Bentinck and the late Lord Derby were mere ornamental figure-heads. Through the whole of that long period Lord Beaconsfield practised assiduously those arts which Lord Randolph Churchill recommended to his readers in a magazine article two years ago, and which he is now himself cultivating with cynical frankness as the virtual leader of the Tory Party. In that article Lord Randolph Churchill rebuked Lord Salisbury severely for having "condemned in forcible language the temptation, which was strong to many politicians, to attempt to gain the victory by bringing into the lobby men whose principles were divergent, and whose combined forces, therefore, could not lead to any wholesome victory." Lord Randolph goes on to observe very truly that Lord Salisbury's censure "was in reality a condemnation of the political career of the Earl of Beaconsfield." And he proceeds to prove by the irresistible logic of facts that Mr. Disraeli gained all his political victories in Parliament by alliances with men whose principles were antagonistic to those of the Tory Party. Never reject an alliance, however "unwholesome," which may enable you to put your opponents in a minority ; and "whenever, by an unfortunate concurrence of circumstances, an Opposition is compelled to support the Government, the support should be given with a kick and not with a caress, and should be withdrawn at the first available moment." The frankness of that advice leaves nothing to be desired. It is a candid defence of political immorality ; a plain avowal that practical politics have nothing to do with right or wrong, and that the true statesman is he who dis- encumbers himself as quickly as he can of anything like a conscience. What he must aim at is success in the art of humbugging the dispensers of political power,—that is to say, the constituencies,—in the interest of the privileged classes. Lord Beaconsfield succeeded in bringing that art to perfection. But what other success did he achieve ? Did he win the confidence of the constituencies ? The answer is that in seven General Elections, three of them under his own auspices, he received a majority only once ; and that single majority was in no way due to Mr. Disraeli's management or to the con- fidence of the country in his policy or statesmanship. It was due to the dissensions of the Liberal Party, which, after all, had a considerable majority on the aggregate of votes over the whole field of the electorate. The truth is, the people in the mass are more sensitive to political sincerity and political character than the ordinary habitués of London clubs and London drawing-rooms. Lord Beaconsfield amused and in- terested them as a political conjuror ; but he never took them in, .never won their confidence or commanded their allegiance.
But the fact that Lord Beaconsfield, in a leadership extend- ing over thirty-four years, obtained a majority at the polls on one solitary occasion through a fortuitous concourse of circum- stances, has misled the active spirits of his party into the absurd belief that the way to Parliamentary success lies through the divorce of morality from politics. We are, in fact, now beginning to witness the mature fruits of Mr. Disraeli's vaunted education of his party. Step by step, with wry faces and internal qualms, they have learnt their lesson ; and the great Conservative Party has now become a party substituting manceuvre for principle, and professing in office doctrines totally opposed to those which they pro- fessed in Opposition. And the curious thing is that there are serious and moral men among them who are filled with admiration for this political apostasy without even suspecting that there is anything base in it. There is Mr. Howorth, to wit. Mr. Howorth is a worthy man, well read, and transparently honest. But when he writes on politics he becomes at once smitten with a kind of colour-blindness which so distorts his mental vision that he is utterly unable to see
the most ordinary facts in their proper shapes and historical relations. There is a letter from him in the Times of last Monday which is a marvel of political paralogistu. The tone of the letter is certainly arrogant. It tells the public what "we Tories" think, and believe, and propose to do.
But we do not complain of this arrogance. Mr. Howorth has a right to assume a lofty tone in the name of his party, for he is in Lord Randolph Churchill's confidence, and Lord Randolph Churchill is the dictator who shapes the policy and guides the conduct of the Tory party. It is therefore worth our while to consider what Mr. Howorth has to tell us.
Mr. Howorth flatters himself that "we Tories" have made a novel and important discovery in Irish politics. First, Irish affairs must not be allowed to "drift." Secondly, Ireland cannot be governed "as a Crown Colony." Consequently, there is need of "an entirely new departure, more in harmony with the aspirations of the best men in Ireland." This is the brand-new patent policy which Mr. Howorth offers as the grand panacea for the ills of Ireland. But Mr. Howorth has a very short memory. Has he forgotten the volumes of virulent abuse which Tory speakers and writers discharged at Mr. Gladstone through a series of years for having dared to say, fifteen years ago, that on questions purely Irish the British Parliament should be largely guided by the opinions and wishes of the Irish people. One of the stock Tory charges against Mr. Gladstone has been that he has advocated the Government of Ireland "according to Irish ideas." And when Mr. Gladstone made "an entirely new departure, more in harmony with the aspirations of the best men in Ireland," what help did he get from the Tories ? They fought desperately against the Disestablishment of the Irish Church, against the Land Acts of 1870 and 1881, against the Arrears Act ; and they defeated the Compensa- sation for Disturbance Bill. On the other hand, they supported the Liberal Government with fanatical fervour in every step of a coercive policy, and never wearied of abusing it for falling so miserably short of the Tory standard of repression. Mr. Howorth is so hot a partisan that he
contradicts himself in consecutive sentences without being in- the least aware of the fatal collision of his arguments. He
laments "over six hundred prominent Irish Nationalists being- imprisoned," and in the next sentence denounces their release "without public inquiry or trial." It was infamous on tho part of the Liberal Government to commit those six hundred men to prison, but still more infamous to release them, even at the cost of losing the Minister who imprisoned them Such is a fair specimen of Mr. Howorth's political logic. But how did the Tories act in the matter of these Kilmain- ham prisoners ? Did they not applaud the imprisonment ? Did they not denounce, — none more offensively than Lord Randolph Churchill,—the jail-delivery? Mr. Howorth cannot contain himself when he thinks of " the Kil- mainham incidents," and he contrasts the infamy of those transactions with the "new departure" of the present Govern- ment. Let us look a little into the comparison. The Kilmainham incidents are without a taint of political im- morality. It came to the knowledge of the Government that Mr. Parnell and his principal followers were recoiling from the outrages that were so rife in Ireland, and had expressed their anxiety to use their influence to stop them. Thereupon the Government released them unconditionally, contrary to Mr. Forster's urgent advice to exact conditions. It was precisely because the Government refused to have any- thing to do with any Kilmainham Treaty that Mr. Forster resigned. But what is the essence of the Tory Govern- ment's "new departure ?" The ruling spirit of that Govern- ment is Lord Randolph Churchill ; and Lord Randolph‘ Churchill has adopted in office the doctrines which he de- nounced in Opposition, and revels in every act of turpitude which he unjustly imputed to the late Government. In 1883 he stigmatised the Land League as "an Association whose basis was terror, whose means of operation were assassinations, crimes, and outrages." In a subsequent speech he characterised the Liberal Party as "the school which bargained for Parlia- mentary support with the assassins of the Phcenix Park."
And lest there should be any doubt as to the application of the allusion, he added :—" This is the school which, in order to defeat the Tory Party, will join hands again with Mr.
Parnell in his demands for the independence of his country."
But if the Tory Party came into office there was to be an end of concessions to the Irish. "Concede nothing more to Mr.
Parnell, either on the land, or on the franchise, or on local self-government." This was to be the true, the unchange. able Tory policy. And now ? The party which was to "stand firm" against Parnellite demands has capitulated to Mr. Parnell on every point. The man who denounced the Parnellites in language more outrageous by far than any used by Mr. Bright, gets up in the House of Commons to denounce Mr. Bright for intemperate language. The man who told a public audience that Lord Hartington was an " idiotic " speaker, a lunatic who was incapable of managing his own private affairs, to say nothing of affairs of State, and whose friends ought there- fore to confine him in an asylum, this man, forsooth, lectures his political opponents on the inconvenience of vituperative language ! Mr. Howorth is indignant that the present Govern- ment should be accused "of borrowing or stealing their clothes from their opponents." In the interest of the Liberal party we share Mr. Howorth's indignation. The Liberal party has never fallen so low as to wear the renegade uniform in which the Tory Government is now arrayed. Mr. Howorth does not understand the nature of the indictment which he has got to meet. It is that the Tory party have in practice abjured all their previous professions, and are now consum- mating the compact with the Parnellites of which they falsely accused the late Government ; and that they are cementing this compact not merely by the sacrifice of political honour, but by the sacrifice of the whole judicial and executive administration of Ireland. Doubtless any prisoner has an in- definite right of petition, as Mr. Howorth affirms. But is there to be no finality to the hearing of petitions? Is every new Home Secretary and every fresh Viceroy in Dublin to reopen ad infinitum cases which have been already repeatedly heard and decided ? Mr. Ho worth's doctrine—which is, unfor- tunately, the doctrine and the practice of the Government— is more worthy of French Communists or Russian Nihilists than of a party which calls itself "Constitutional." But what surprises us is that the apostles and preachers of this new Toryism should be so simple as to imagine that the constituencies are to be imposed upon by this mongrel Liberalism. If the Tories had played their cards well their five months' tenure of office might have done them great service in the General Election. They were secure of the Irish vote in any case, and an ordinary degree of prudence might have attracted a good many waverers to their side. But their feeble conduct of affairs in the House of Commons, and, above all, their truckling to the Irish, have spread alarm and disgust among their own party, and have hopelessly alienated the moderate Liberals.
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