TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE OPENING OF PARLIAMENT. THE opening of Parliament has not proved a very sensa- tional affair, but it has already produced a marked effect on the political imaginations of the people, by dissipating that curious sense of unreality which arose after the sudden rout of the late Government, in consequence of the necessary delay in the public appearance of the new Government in its place. With Parliament convened, but no Ministers in their places to speak with authority on the policy of the new Govern- ment, men began to fancy that the new order of things might, perhaps, be almost as unstable as the old. And when the small events that did happen were of the nature of warnings to the new Administration, rather than confitma- tions of the condemnations passed upon the old, this sense of unreality became unpleasantly strong. Now, all that politi- cal haze has been dissipated at once. We hear the new Government speaking in the perfect calm of commanding strength, and the Opposition offering the tentative and moderate criticisms of conscious weakness ; and we know that the change is real, and is not only real, but great. The criti- cisms on the avowed policy of the new Administration are hardly to be called criticisms at all. The Duke of Marlborough thinks that the Irish Peace Preservation Act, as carefully attenuated and diluted by Sir Michael Hicks-Beach, should have been renewed, but he fails to make out that it put any very valuable power into the hands of the Irish Government for repressing violence, which they do not still retain. Lord Beaconsfield rallies the Government on the use, in the Queen's Speech, of the word " institutions" in relation to Afghanistan, and asks whether the institutions referred to are to be of the nature of a House of Sirdars, or to consist in a single Representative Chamber, or in County Boards ; while Sir Stafford Northcote is very un- easy concerning the prospect held out that pressure is to be applied to Turkey. But the total impression made is just that which the country really intended to make, when it placed the late Government in so striking a minority, though the neces- sary delay in bringing the new Government before the country, had to some extent deprived the change of its completeness of effect. The Government is seen to be just what the people wished to create,—one intent on extinguishing, or atten- uating as much as possible, the serious moral mischiefs caused by the foreign policy of the previous Government, and on carrying at home those substantial reforms to which the Liberal party have been long committed.
What the Tories, of course, now desire to make out is, that whatever the Liberals do, whether in the east of Europe or on the frontiers of India, that is likely to be popular and use- ful, is done simply in pursuance of their own policy. They are indulging in ironical congratulations to the Government on endeavouring to carry out fully the stipulations of the Treaty of Berlin, and yet accompanying those congratulations by hints that the Liberals are prepared to run risks of war in so doing which so pacific a Government as Lord Beaconfield's would have earnestly deprecated. They are delighted that the Treaty of Berlin is to be carried out, but woe to the Govemriaent, if they endanger peace in carrying it out! They urge the Government to insist on their pound of flesh from Turkey, but, like Portia, insist that if they draw a drop of blood in the process, they are worthy of death. This is an odd line for a party to take which has made a purely spontaneous and superfluous war in Afghanistan, and risked war on the turn of a hair even in Europe, and that, too, without any certainty of allies. But the true drift of the warning is easily understood. The war in Afghanistan was justified only by the necessity of making an example to protect us against Russian intrigue. The threats of war in Europe were openly made in the same cause. For any bellicose action now undertaken in that cause, they would probably offer a patronising support even to the present Government, though descanting, of course, at the same time, on the discreditable inconsistency and tergiversation of their course. But for a drop of blood spilt with any other purpose,—say, to keep Turkey to her agreements, or to extract the wide-spread cancer of her administrative corruption, we may be sure that the Conservative leaders are not prepared. If that is risked, they will talk Peace principles at the top of their voice, and treat force menaced' or used in the name of the concert of all the Powers of Europe, as far More oppressive and unjust than force menaced or used by ourselves against the only Power in Europe which they really fear. However, there is no complaint to be made against the language of either Lord Beaconsfield or Sir Stafford Northcote on Thurs- day night. It was the kind of language which they had every right to use, and were quite certain to use, in relation to the promise of the present Government to carry through the terms of a treaty of which the Tories maintain that they have earned, the credit. All we desire to show is the remarkable difference between the policy which Mr. Gladstone and Lord Granville miunciate, and which the Conservative leaders now profess pro- visionally to approve, and the policy they themselves pursued. Note, first, Lord Granville's express declaration in answer to. the question, "What will you do, if your efforts to screw a real execution of the Treaty of Berlin out ofTurkey, fail?" It is an.
answer very different indeed from that which the late Govern- ment would have sanctioned to any question of the kind. "A short time ago, I pointed out to the Turkish Ambassador the extreme danger to the Turkish Government of neglecting the fulfilment of these conditions of the Treaty, and at the same time I told him I abstained from anything like threatening language ; but I hoped he would impress on his Government. that if we were obliged to give an intimation which I trusted.
would not be necessary, we should not fail to carry that inti- mation out. I am not going now to use a threat ; but I do believe, as I believed three years ago, that if you wish this great danger in Turkey to be removed, it must be by the united action of Europe ; that if that action is applied, it will be effectual ; and that if it is resisted, the resistance will be of the most feeble character." That, in official language, is not, of course, a threat ; but it is certainly a good deal more than an " anticipation-sketch-estimate " of a threat. It is a very distinct assurance that if threats are needed, threats will be used ; and that if threats are used, they will be more than threats,—threats enforced. And now take Mr_ Gladstone's language on the same subject :—"We are under the impression that the Ottoman Empire has imbibed, under modes more or less defined, the belief that this country recog- nises so profound and vital an interest of our own, separate. from that of the other Powers of Europe, in the maintenance of the Ottoman Empire, that it may, in the last resort, what- ever it may do, reckon on our support We do not share that opinion with regard to the separate and special interest of this country." And Mr. Goschen's mission is, in part at least, intended to remove it. Take these two assur- ances together, and we think it will be clear enough how greatly the political atmosphere has changed upon this Eastern . Question since the great political convulsion of April. .Turkey is to be told that we do not feel that any specially English interest is identified with the upholding of the Ottoman Power in Europe ; and she is told, also, that if the execu- tion of the Treaty cannot be got without an "intimation• of extreme measures by the concerted action of Europe, that intimation will be given ; and if it is given, it will be en- forced.
Nor could more explicit declarations concerning our Afghan. policy be possibly expected so early as this than those actually given. Mr. Gladstone says explicitly, "If we are happily able to make arrangements, or to assist arrangements,—for we are not desirous to be the makers of these arrange- ments, for we wish to reduce to a minimum our part in them, and only to discharge the responsibility which, in marching to Afghanistan, we have incurred,—if we can favour, concur in, or promote in any friendly manner, the esta- blishment of regular order, or rule in that country, under authority which the people may be disposed to recognise, we shall have succeeded in accomplishing the formation of those institutions which, I am afraid, have to a certain extent puzzled. the mind of my right honourable friend." That is as near to a promise to withdraw, and not to exercise any but a" friendly" influence, even over the condition of things which is to succeed our withdrawal, as a Ministerial announcement at such a moment as this could go.
On the whole, then, the Liberals have gained all they hoped for in foreign and Indian affairs ; and in Home politics, their• promises, though "modest," to use Mr. Gladstone's phrase, are not meagre, for so short a session. Justice to Ireland will be represented by the equalisation of the Irish and British borough franchise ; justice to the tenant-farmers by the measure as to ground game ; and justice to the Dissenters by the Burials Act. More, in less than three months, could. hardly be desired.
Previous page
