THE SOUTH NORTHUMBERLAND ELECTION.
TIRE South Northumberland Election is by far the best symptom of the present condition of political feeling in the country which we have had for a long time. The repre- sentation of the county has for near thirty years been divided between the Liberals and Conservatives, and indeed so divided by mutual arrangement, for there has been no contest since 1852. The seat to be filled up was in this case the Conservative seat,—the seat vacated by Lord Eslington on his succession to the Peerage,—so that the efforts of the Conservatives would in any case have been strained to the utmost. But besides this, the issue of the moment was a most momentous one,— the election really amounting to a vote of confidence or no confidence in the Government of the day on the question of foreign policy. Now, the Greys have, of course, very great political influence in the county, and Mr. Albert Grey, the present Liberal candidate, seems to have oratorical abilities of no ordinary kind, at least for the purposes of a popular can- vas ; but still his opponent, Mr. Ridley, has also very great local influence, and was supported warmly both by his brother, the Member for the Northern division of the county, Sir Matthew White Ridley, and by Earl Percy. Add to this that, though Mr. Cowen, the Liberal Member for Newcastle, had pledged his vote and support to Mr. Grey, the whole influence of his paper has been given with very great decision to the support of the Government on the critical question of the day, and it will be seen at once how great was the danger of defeat. The social or family influences were well-nigh balanced. The political tradition was in favour of a division of the county between the Liberals and Conservatives, which meant success for Mr. Ridley. The moral influence of the Government was exerted to the full on Mr. Ridley's side ;- nor was the Liberal party in South Northumberland without very grave divisions of feeling on the uppermost question of the day. The self-styled British or National Liberals certainly hold much more with the Government than with the Opposition. Yet in spite of all these advantages for Mr. Ridley, the result has been, so far as the gauging of opinion is concerned, the bare success of the Liberals,—at least so far as regards the intention of the votes declared went, for of course the two voters who wrote "Grey "on their papers, intended to vote for Grey, though they did not know how legally to carry out that intention. And even if these votes be, as we suppose, legally inad missible,— there is a tie between the two parties,—i.e., an indication that the opinion of that great county constituency is equally divided. Nor can it be said for a moment that the issue was not a question of foreign policy, and was not strongly put. Mr. Grey spoke with a piquancy and a clearness on the point which should make him a most valuable accession to our rather weak- hearted Parliamentary Liberals, if he gains the seat. He did not speak, like the head of his house, with almost a morbid desire to discriminate himself from the Govern- ment and the Opposition alike. He did not even speak with the coldness of Lord Hartington or the reticence of Lord Granville. He avowed convictions on the Eastern Question which certainly go no less far, if in some respects they do not go farther, than those of Mr. Gladstone. Mr. Grey said plainly that he thought England ought to have been ready to enforce upon Turkey, even by the use of arms, the decisions of the Conference of Constantinople ; and if we understand aright the last sentence of the following passage in his speech, he would have been prepared to see England co-operating with Russia alone,—which none of our leaders have yet said,—rather than leave the decisions of the Conference a dead-letter :— "Why did not England, with the other Powers of Europe, in- sist that Turkey should submit to those terms which she said were necessary ? It was admitted by Lord Salisbury in the House of Lords that the reason they did not do this, was because they were doubtful whether they would secure the support of one-tenth of the Members of either House of Par- liament. Their Ministers thus placed themselves in this low position, that they knew what was right, but dared not propose it, because they feared they would not obtain the support of a majority. Surely that was no reason for a Minister's refusal to propose a thing which in his conscience he believed to be politic. It would have been more satisfactory for Lord Salisbury, for Lord Derby, and the rest of the Conserva- tive Government, had they fairly recognised what the leaving of this task to Russia alone meant, and had they said, In order to keep this an European question, we must force Turkey, at the points of our bayonets, if necessary, to accept those terms which the united voice of Europe had declared to be neces- sary.' Had they done that, England would have had an equal share in directing the future destinies of Bulgaria and of Turkey generally. Had that plan been adopted, there would. have been no war, for the Turks never would have resisted the Powers of Europe combined ; the miseries suffered in the late struggle would have been avoided; England and Russia could have wrought together peacefully in reorganising Bulgaria, and the Ottoman Empire would have been saved." That is very plain-speaking, and all that Mr. Grey has said has an enormous advantage over the Opposition. mately go. In Berlin, of course, we expect secrecy on diplo- Such a result in a county election unquestionably implies a matic affairs ; but in Russia the Government professes to very decided relative loss of influence for the Tory policy in instruct the people, and its usual organs say a great deal, and the North of England,—in a word, an approximation between yet no one knows whether what is said is the exact truth, the feeling of the North of England and the feeling of Scot- or only a statement intended to be received , as such in land, which, as every one knows, is all but .unanimous in its the different capitals. The Press, which usually contrives distrust of Lord Beaconsfield's foreign policy. And indeed, to know essential facts, is hopelessly at fault ; and even the Mr. Ridley appears to have perceived that his first expressions of financiers, whose interests make them so keen, are perplexed blind confidence in the Government went too far, and that it and afraid to move. According to all appearance, in spite of was wise to substitute for them much more modest expressions, all constitutional machinery, of half-a-dozen Parliaments, of and especially a strong conviction that their policy would the ubiquitous newspaper correspondent, and of passionate lead to peace. Hence, we think we may argue from all the facts feeling among the peoples, the destinies of Eastern Europe of the case that the North of Britain at least is alarmed and are being arranged in private notes and private conversations, disquieted by the foreign policy of Lord Beaconsfield, and written or guided by half-a-dozen persons, who render to desires to see in its place a policy of a much less showy and the populations they rule no account of their proceedings. -of a far more reasonable and sincere kind. But we are far They do not even say frankly what they are doing, and in a from saying that England in general shares the alarm country like Britain, expeditions are ordered from India to and disquietude of the North. As Lord Beaconsfield says, Malta, to be paid for by the British Treasury—that, for- the English people are a people liable to great enthusiasms, tunately, is settled by statute—without any independent and one of their enthusiasms is the enthusiasm for anything Member having dreamt that such a design, such an infraction like a defiant and isolated attitude towards Powers which of all precedent was even in contemplation. There never was they are told to regard as aggressive. Still, in these matters, as such a suspension of the ordinary restraints upon Govern- in most others of a political nature, what the North thinks one ments, such a liberation of the statesmen from the control of year, the South will think the next. It is in the shrewd, popular opinion. Less than a dozen men hold in their hands independent minds of the Northmen that the popular the issues of war or peace, and two hundred millions of -opinion of the nation moulds itself first. Even in Lancashire, white subjects await in anxious tranquillity their decision. if we may trust the political reports which we hear from many Events have, in fact, restored everywhere upon this question quarters, Lord Derby is trusted more than Lord Beaconsfield, the personal authority supposed to be so nearly extinct. In and the Tory Government has lost ground greatly by his Russia, the Czar, victorious in the field and master of an elate retirement. At any rate it is a very serious thing for any and yet weary army, can decree either peace or war, without Government when, at a moment so critical as this, restraint from any individual. In Austria, amidst his divided it cannot, by its moral influence alone, decisively turn peoples, the Emperor's final decision is sure, whether it is the scales in a county where parties are otherwise approved or not, to be at all events obeyed. In Germany, as equally divided. And we at least attribute the result the crisis does not involve mobilisation, the Prince Chancellor in no small measure to Lord Derby's resignation, and the is left unfettered by the people, and has no one to consult speech in which his resignation was subsequently explained, except his Sovereign. In France, M. Waddington has only Little weight as it suited our Liberal leaders to assign to to be sure of the Marshal and M. Gambetta ; and in England, that speech at the time, it has been read with ever-increasing Lord Beaconsfield, having mastered the Crown, the House dismay among the shrewd Conservatives of the North, and of Commons, and the visible majority, could to-morrow de- we see the result in this first evidence of an ebb of the dare war, or announce a peace, without loss for the time of tide. The Cabinet certainly should ponder the election with as his ascendancy. Of course, behind these six or eight states- much anxiety as they would give to a despatch of Prince men stand many counsellors and mighty controlling forces, Bismarck's propounding a policy of his own. For this election which could not be disregarded, but still the initiative means that their influence is on the wane, that their policy, rests with them ; and the initiative for the moment instead of gaining ground, is losing ground in the country. is all. If the Emperor William and his adviser chose And what responsibility could be graver, than to rush into war definitely to say that they would join the Power which with a country already beginning to believe that the Queen first showed a readiness to give way, there would be no war. has lost her best advisers, and that the tendency of events is All the conditions alike of war or peace depend on the deci- towards a needless, reckless, and mischievous war, undertaken sion of the Emperor of Austria. If either the Czar or Lord through the resolve of a political charlatan to humiliate a Beaconsfield say out loud there must be peace or war, war or great Empire from which England has little to fear and much peace there will be. M. Waddington doubtless is more to hope controlled, but still it is M. Waddington who has the
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