TOPICS OF THE DAY.
LORD ROSEBERT AND THE LIBERAL • UNIONISTS.
ACORRESPONDENT, whose letter we publish in another column, asks space for the consideration of the question of the proper attitude of the Liberal Unionists towards Lord Rosebery. The matter is, we admit, one of importance, and we gladly take the opportunity of dealing with it. It is clear from our correspondent's letter that be holds not only that Lord Rosebery is now a Unionist, but that in reality he always was one, and became head of a Home-rule Government in order to wean his party from Home-rule. We cannot, however, accept an allegation so damaging as to Lord Rosebery's good faith in the past, and must not be taken to endorse our correspon- dent's suggestion in any way. We hold that in dealing with the views of statesmen the only fair and only safe method is to judge by their " public form." That is a matter not of gossip or of innuendo, but of fact, and on it our judgment should be based. Judged thus, Lord Rose- bery most certainly was in the past a Home-ruler, and not a Unionist. But that is a matter of the past, and we fully admit that a statesman has a perfect right to abandon a policy or to modify his views in regard to it. The question then is,—has Lord Rosebery in fact ceased. to be a Home- ruler and become a Unionist ? On the answer to this question must obviously depend how the Liberal Unionists are to treat him. In other words, we can only advise the Liberal Unionists as to what should be their attitude towards Lord Rosebery when we know clearly what is his present attitude towards Home-rule.
The superficial observer is, no doubt, inclined to believe that Lord Rosebery has definitely thrown over Home-rule, and that the Chesterfield speech meant an abandonment of Home-rule which • linnet be explained away as was his allusion to the "predominant partner,"--a declaration of policy from which there can be no going back. We regret to say that we cannot find any such assurance in the Chesterfield speech. Surely in so deliberate a speech, and when the matter was of such vital importance, Lord Rosebery, if he meant finally to abandon Home-rule, would have said so with that clarity of accent which on occasion he knows so well how to use. But he did nothing of the kind. Instead he merely referred to " the freedom from the Irish alliance and its consequences " which the Liberal party now enjoyed. In our view, this ambiguous utterance cannot ba made a reason for the Liberal Unionists leaving a party and leaders who are irrevocably committed to the cause of the Union to range themselves under Lord Rosebery's banner. Whether the words were deliberately chosen we naturally do not know, but it is curious to remember that Mr. Gladstone always indignantly repudiated the notion that he adopted Home-rule because he wanted the support of the Irish party, or that his advocacy of the Rome-rule cause was in any sense a consequence of the Parliamentary alliance with the Irish party. Instead, he declared that the Liberal party had adopted their Irish policy solely as a matter of right and justice, and because it was the only sound and practical policy to pursue. To represent Home-rule as a conse- quence of the Irish alliance would have seemed to him something little !short of blasphemy. But Lord Rosebery was a devoted follower of Mr. Gladstone, and it seems to us that after the Chesterfield speech he could quite well at some future day defend the introduction of a new Home-rule Bill on the ground that it was in no sense a consequence of any Irish alliance, but a matter of sound policy. We cannot, of course, prove that Lord Rosebery meant his expression to leave him this open door to return to Home-rule, but if he did not, why did he not say plainly that the policy of Home-rule bad proved mistaken, and that he had abandoned it? It is a matter upon which there need.not be, and ought not to be, any ambiguity. At any rate, Liberal Unionists cannot possibly begin to consider their proper attitude towards Lord Rosebery unless and until he has said plainly and clearly and in so many words whether he is a Home-ruler or a Unionist. The subject of Lord Rose- bery's dealinis with the Irish question are treated with extraordinary noint and ability in the February Fortnightly by the brilliant publicist who signs himself "Calchas." I he passage is so striking, and so much to the point, that we shall quote it at length :—" The fundamental weakness of the Chesterfield speech was the jejune ambiguity of the reference to the Irish question. Nothing could be less seemly or more hopeless than the attempt to slip Home- rule in a sentence. It has been the fatal influence upon the fortunes of the Liberal party and upon Lord Rosebery's own career. For him and for the Opposition it goes to the very root of things. They must give seine plain account of how they mean to stand for the future towards the policy which has been the creeping paralysis of Liberalism for the last fifteen years. So long as the faintest doubt hangs over the attitude of the Opposition upon Home-rule all efforts to win back discontented. Ministerialists will be the merest beating of the air. Upon that matter it is very certain that the country will leave nothing to chance. It is lunar nonsense to imagine for one moment that the constituencies may be induced by the Liberal Imperialists to return a majority which might be bent to the purposes of the party which has chosen to reveal during the war, with complete openness and un- measured. hatred, the purely separatist spirit it had denied in Mr. Gladstone's time Lord Rosebery's words about freedom from the Irish alliance and its con- sequences ' can cover no genuine scheme of compromise. Upon the Irish Question he must be either a Gbdstonian or a Unionist. He cannot avoid saying plainly which of these things he is. His Delphic observation at Chesterfield. did not say which of these things he was. When asked by a correspondent to explain his words, his reply that he conceived them not to stand in need of explanation was, ander all the circumstances, an inexcusable and hopeless instance of Lord Rosebery's reluctance to face the music." That is a passage which expresses with epigrammatic forte the plain common-sense of the situation.
It may perhaps be objected to our argument that it can any day be knocked on the head by Lord Rosebery. " Suppose," it may be urged, " that Lord Rosebery should in his next great speech define his position exactly, show himself a, real Unionist, and so prove that the interpretation put by many persons on his Chesterfield speech was correct, and that the ambiguity was only accidental. What, then, ought to be the attitude of the Liberal Unionists ? " We do not believe that, in fact, the supposed case will occur, but we are naturally perfectly willing to meet it. In the event presumed Lord Rosebery will have become a Liberal Unionist. But if Lord Rosebery becomes in principle a Liberal Unionist one of two things must happen. He will either concert his party to Unionism, or else he must fail to do so, and split his party. But it is, as " Catches " points out, absolutely certain that if Lord Rosebery became a Unionist he would split the party. Not only has Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman nailed the Home-rule colours to the mast, but the Liberal party undoubtedly contains a lerge number of sincere and convinced Home-rulers, who, like Mr. Morley, would never dream of abandoning Home- rule, even if the majority of the party decided to give it up. When, then, Lord Rosebery had split his party on Home-rule he would be at the head of a Liberal Unionist group. That group would thereupon have to decide whether to join the old Liberal Unionists or to remain an inde- pendent party. If they decided to join the existing Liberal Unionist organisation, the attitude of the Liberal Unionists towards Lord. Rosebery would, of course, be perfectly simple and easy. It would be one of sympathy and welcome. We should all feel that Lord Rosebery and his followers had found the haven they missed sixteen years ago. But suppose Lord Rosebery's new Liberal Unionists decided to remain a separate group, what should then be the attitude of the Liberal Unionists ? In our view, there is only one possible answer. They should remain loyal to the Unionist party, and should continue to support a Unionist Administration. We do not want a third party, or to intensify the already 4angerous tendency to group politics. But though we have thought it of interest to consider the hypothetical case of Lord Rosebery splitting the Liberal party and forming a separate group, we do not believe that there is any chance of his doing so. He will not be drummed out of the Liberal party by his opponents there, nor will he voluntarily quit the party. In other words, we -hold that the conditions of stalemate in the party will not now be 'broken through by Lord Rosebery.
In any case, it is clear that it would be most unwise for Liberal Unionists to take any rash or precipitate action in regard to Lord Rosebery. "Let him first show himself clearly and without any ambiguity to be a Liberal Unionist. -When he has done that the subsequent political action of Liberal Unionists must be guided by loyalty to the principles which called them into existence as a party and have governed their action since. They are the body- guard of the Union, sworn to protect it at all costs and against all comers. Supposing new circumstances arise demanding any new decision, that decision must be taken with a view to the safeguarding of the cause which to them is sacred. If and when such a decision has to be taken on the question, " Shall we go to Lord Rosebery and leave our old allies?" surely the answer will be: "Let us tell him that though he is most welcome to come to us and share our fortunes, we cannot come to him and abandon those who have fought shoulder to shoulder with us in defence of the Union, and without whose co-operation our own efforts must have been unavailing in the past and would in all probability be unavailing in the future."
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