TOPICS OF THE DAY.
MR. GLADSTONE'S FORTHCOMING SPEECH.
MR. GLADSTONE must make a great speech at Greenwich. The local dispute, the long preparation, the absence of ordinary political excitement, have fixed the attention of the nation upon the reception of the 28th, and less than a great effort and a great success will be felt as a disappointment. Indeed, a great speech is due even to his constituents. Green- wich stepped forward to the Premier's relief at a very critical moment ; and though there may have been selfishness in her offer, and there has been selfishness in her subsequent irrita- tion, still the Premier has, probably from accidental causes, appeared to neglect men who served him well. There is, too, a party necessity for a grand deliverance, which he will do well to comprehend. It is quite possible that although Mr. Gladstone is not a man to misunderstand or underrate his own powers, he is not quite aware how very much he is in his own Ministry ; how completely the rank and file of the Liberals look to him as the ruler rather than his colleagues ; how deep is the necessity for free intellectual communion between him and them. They are rather dispirited, and only he can inspirit them again. Except upon foreign policy, we have never been able to perceive the justice of the attacks upon Mr. Gladstone's own administration ; have never seen the measure, in which he was personally interested, which has fallen short of our expectation. The achievements of his term of office have been splendid, and have been due in great measure to himself, to the marvellous power with which, when once fairly interested, he can assimilate a multitude of embarrassing details, and, having assimilated them, propose a measure which, while providing for them all, is yet a great and consistent whole. This was the secret of his success in the attack on the Irish Church, in the reform of the Irish Land Tenure, in the Education Act, and, though in a very much less degree, in the Bill for the abolition of Pur- chase. But it is vain to deny that the party has of late be- come dispirited, perplexed, divided, or that this discontent has in no slight measure been directed against himself. In some instances, certainly in two, he has selected bad agents, and has adhered to them with annoying pertinacity. In some, notably, for instance, in the reorganization of the Army as apart from the question of Purchase, he has receded out of view as if from a reform in which he, the Premier, had no manner of interest. In some, as in all questions of foreign policy, and some questions of colonial policy, he has left the impression that he was out:of rapport with the popular mind, that he had suffered the peculiarities of his moral nature to cloud his judgment, and even to throw an utterly unjust sus- picion upon his moral courage. Meekness, and humility, and trustfulness are all Christian virtues; but the Englishman, when free to express his opinion, is always found to belong to the Cromwellian type of Christianity. A notion has sprung up that the Premier, though he can legislate, cannot govern, and has attained an influence which renders it imperative, if this Ministry is to go on, that it should be dispersed. We believe that it can be dispersed if Mr. Gladstone, recognizing the latent desire of his supporters and the outspoken demand of his opponents, will but address the nation on the work of Government as he has so often addressed it on special works of legislation ; if he can leave on it, as a ruler, but a part of that impression which he has so often left as a financier,—the impression that on finance he is not only always sound but always capable ; that no matter how new or how complicated the cir- cumstances, his judgment will always be correct ; that if he seems to err, it is only because his courage has carried him beyond the point to which his followers can ascend. To produce this impression on the points where Liberals doubt Mr. Gladstone, the first necessity is that he should be distinct. We trust that on foreign policy he may be also bold, for it is by his weakness in that direction that he has lost, so far as he has lost, his hold over the average British mind ; but dis- tinctness is the one indispensable requisite in his utterance. Is it the American policy of absolute non-interference in Europe which he advocates, the definite assertion that Great Britain, like the United States, stands outside that system, its interests, and its needs ; or, if this is not, as it is not, his policy, then in what cases would he intervene, and on what behalf ? Are the few remaining independent little States to exist henceforward by toleration, or in virtue of public law guaranteed by the strength of Great Britain, and of the great State which, be the assailant who he may, must be interested in baffling his purpose ? There never was such an opportunity- for a declaration of a foreign policy based on Right, for never before was Europe in a condition in which, if Great Britain would defend a small State, be it Holland, or Belgium, or Denmark, or Switzerland, or Turkey, from any assailant what- ever, she was so sure of a great ally. If Germany attacks there is France, if France attacks there is Germany, if Russia attacks there is Austria. We lay no stress, how- ever, to-day upon the policy to be maintained, our point- being that a policy of any kind, so that it be but large and consistent, would be eagerly welcomed by the people as a. relief from uncertainty alike as to their duties and their powers.
It is the same at home. One-half the difficulties which hamper Mr. Cardwell will disappear if Mr. Gladstone, with his powers of exposition, powers in which he is unrivalled,. not only in his own Cabinet, but in Parliament and the country, will but tell the people distinctly what he is driving, at with his Military Reforms and Military Budget, what kind of force he will have at disposal when his work is done, for defence or for attack. His colleagues have told the people two or three times, but with so little clearness, so little of homely,- eloquence, so little of apparent conviction in themselves, that to this hour one-half their supporters believe that the' Ministry has no definite plan of military organization, no idea of a result which, once obtained, would enable them to say, " We sought this, and this we have secured." Ask the first hundred electors in the street, and ninety-nine of them will deny absolutely that they ever heard of Mr. Cardwell's- nine great legions, or that the Hampshire camp contained less' than a seventh of the armies his plan ought, if it works, to hold ready for defence, for actual movement in the open, against an invading foe. It is the same with military expenditure. If the Liberal party is, as a party, childish upon any point, it is upon this of mili- tary expense. It is sickening to read the speeches of Northern members upon the subject. They will neither pay the sixpence demanded, nor affirm that sixpenn'orth is not wanted, nor declare—what is the truth,—that we want all the sixpence will buy, but ought to obtain it for fourpenee half- penny, the other three halfpence being waste. No one but Mr. Gladstone can set that right, no one but he himself present to his followers a definite policy, which they can understand and defend and make intelligible to the electors, who, till they hear it, naturally want safety, and freedom from conscription, and retrenchment all at once. It is the sharp, definite word of the ruler who understands his own purpose, and will have it or will resign power, which is wanted in a case like this, and which can alone give tone to a party scarcely aware of the necessity, and more than doubtful whether the Premier is acting on his own conviction or bending to what ho supposes to be theirs. The people are not seriously dis- pleased with the military expenditure, but only annoyed. with the doubt whether the men they trust are convinced. of its necessity, whether money is not being spent to. avert criticism, rather than to secure an end, whether in fact the country is being governed or only being managed. That is the impression, vague, but terribly powerful, which. Mr. Gladstone has in half-a-dozen departments of the adminis tration to dissipate, if he would regain all his influence over the body of the people. It is, we suppose, vain to expect a programme of the Ses- sion. It cannot yet have been prepared, and it is one of the worrying etiquettes forced on our statesmen by our unreal Constitution that no policy can be declared until it has been submitted to the Queen ; but it may be possible still to the Premier to state the principles upon which he intends to move in the inevitable social legislation, to say what he believes might be done, or must be left undone, by society for the poor ; to define how far he will push sanitary precaution ; to give the public some idea why in his judgment it ought to place confidence in Mr. Bruce ; to tell the exact truth about the licens- ing Bills ; and his own view of the restrictive action of the State ; and above all, to state with emphatic distinctness the policy of his Cabinet on education. Will he recede from Mr. Forster's scheme, or modify it, or maintain it ? What is the ideal to which he looks forward, and before all, what is the line on which, as regards the religious difficulty, he is de- termined to proceed V Even if he is himself undetermined, or rather determined to be determined by the House of Com- mons, it will be better to say so, than leave half his supporters perplexed as to the relation between the Government and their own immediate constituents. Definiteness, even hard- ness, is what we want at this moment from the Premier, and it would be wiser as a mere party move to risk revolt in the disaffected wings, and rely on the constituencies calling them to order, than to leave the party in its present condition of intellectual flaccidity. " Follow Mr. Gladstone" will not do as a cry, unless Mr. Gladstone will tell us unmistakably where he is, going, will stand forward distinctly as the man who can not only legislate, but govern.
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