THE INCONSISTENCIES OF TORY LEGISLATION.
IT would never do to rank consistency high among the politi- cal virtues, but there can be no prudishness in expecting that a statesman or a government should not have more than one opinion on a subject at a time. In an age when points of view are rapidly shifting, when even the stolidest politicians take fresh impressions, and change insensibly so as to be prepared for rapid education at critical moments into opinions they once detested, it is inevitable that those in the front of political life should commit many inconsistencies ; and when a thing is inevitable, it is seldom worth while to inquire curiously into the merit or demerit of those who have done it. Inconsistency in the treatment of different matters simultaneously dealt with even may be tolerated in some cases, as, for example, that a Government should maintain freedom of con- tract in a Land Bill and restrict it in a Shipping Bill ; but these are cases in which the inconsistency is only apparent, or only an inconsistency of language, the glamour of a phrase being relied on for silencing opponents in the case in which it can be so used with effect, while that which is done in either case is done purely on the considerations of expediency which are applicable to it. Local circumstances, too, may differ so much as to justify and even necessitate differences of treatment in similar matters ; for example's sake, it may be granted that tenants' compensation need not necessarily be calculated in England upon the system upon which it is calculated in Ireland. But a Government which, without any such justify- ing or extenuating considerations, deals with the same subject about the same time in two or more entirely different ways lays it- self open to the suspicion of having no opinion about the subject at all—it clearly cannot have an opinion it much values—and cannot be said to be doing well for its own dignity, or fitly con- sulting for the interest of the public. Either it is indifferent to principle, or it has no principle to care about, while the country has a right to expect from a Government that it should have thought out a view about any matter it deals with, and care enough about its view to apply it to all such matters. Mr. Disraeli's Government has erred and is erring grievously in this way, and that in matters of unquestionable importance,—to the importance of whichas own following, we should say, expect it not to be indifferent. The changes made in the measures it has proposed this Session have been frequent and striking enough to show that its opinions are in a state of flux, not so firmly grasped as not to be readily yielded either to influence
or reasoning ; but this is intelligible,—of the kind of inconsist- ency to which we are referring we can see no explanation whatever.
It is a Government of the landed interest, and has introduced several measures relating to the tenure of land. There is an Agricultural Holdings (England) Bill, an Agricultural Hold- ings (Scotland) Bill, and an Entail Amendment (Scotland) Bill—which last seems surer to pass than either of the others—and in each of these the rights of limited owners of land consequent on improvements made by them or with their consent are dealt with. The second Bill is an exact copy of the first, with the substitution of Scotland for England and a few formal changes ; and it is impossible to conjecture why it should have been made a separate measure, unless it be that Government de- liberately resolved not to pass a Bill for Scotland this Session. In both these, however, it is assumed that improvements of the least transitory sort, such as drains and farm-buildings, are exhausted in twenty years, and that they do not necessarily add to the value of the land ; the farmer's right to compen- sation is settled on this footing ; and so, also a limited owner's right to charge the land for compensation which he has paid. In the Scotch Entail Bill, on the other hand, it seems to be assumed that such improvements last for ever, and invariably add to the value of the estate, for the limited owner is authorised to raise, by mortgage on the land, the whole amount which he has expended. Now, why this difference ? Is it possible that the Government has two opinions so opposite about such a matter, or does it care too little about it to have any settled opinion at all ? It is plain that either it is going to cheat the tenant-farmers in the interest of the landlords, or that it is going to give the Scotch entailed proprietors an unfair chance of benefiting at the cost of their successors. And how does it come to do either the one or the other? Whatever the explanation, to propose that when an entailed proprietor himself makes an improvement it shall be presumed that it will last for ever, and that when he authorises his tenant to make the same improvement it shall be presumed to last for only twenty years—to enable him in the one case to charge the whole cost on his successor, while in the other restricting his right of charging to twenty years after the improvement has been made—is an inconsistency so strange and so flagrant as to involve something like disgrace to the Government which has committed it. It is the more wonderful, inasmuch as Lord Cairns, as Chairman of a Committee of the House of Lords on the improvement of land which sat in 1873, committed him- self—and for reasons which seemed sufficient—to the utter inadmissibility of the proposal now made in the Scotch Entail Bill by the Government of which he is a member. Lord Cairns had an opinion in 1873,—has he given it up, or is he merely waiving it out of courtesy to some of his associates? It may not be amiss to recall that, by the Irish Land Bill, limited owners, on paying compensation for improvements, were enabled to recoup themselves by annuities lasting for thirty-five years charged upon the land,—for improvements, that is, which might have been made without their consent, they got power of charging much below what is proposed to be given to Scotch proprietors who voluntarily go into expense. Can it be that more consideration is to be shown to the latter because their interest is, if possible, the more limited interest ? The consideration shown them is, at any rate, very remarkable, for, if we do not mistake, over and above what has been mentioned, something very like confisca- tion is proposed on their behalf. For disentailing, they require the consent of the two, and in some cases of the three, persons next in order of succession, and at present these consents must be paid for, and may be refused. The Government which has dealt so tenderly with the vested interests of Army officers, which, during the present Session, has passed the Ex- changes Bill on their behalf, proposes that only the next heir's consent shall in future be indispensable, and that the others shall have their expectancy valued by the Court—by reference it must be presumed, to tables of longevity —the result of which will be in many cases to cut the son of one of the latter out of a certainty of the succession, and to make the limited owner a fee-simple -proprietor at a very moderate expense. This may in itself be a good thing, but the means of producing it are not those we expect to be resorted to by the party which assumes to be the defender of property, and which has always seemed to attribute something of mystery or sacredness to rights of property in land.
Next to the land, the Church has always been the special charge of Conservatism ; but with respect to it, also, the pro-
ceedings of the Government have been contradictory and, if we may so say, unprincipled. It is feebly patronising a small measure for the prevention of the grosser abuses of patronage in England, and will almost certainly let it fall through ; and it sent the Public Worship Facilities Bill to a Select Committee, with the usual result,—a report upon which nothing can be done ; while in Scotland it has abolished patronage, showing no very great consideration for the rights of patrons, and replaced the parochial system by a species of Congregationalism, inconsistent with the pretension of the Established Church to be the Church of the nation. It has led the Scotch Church gaily on the road to ruin, and while, as regards England, it seems to have no opinions, it is ready to act on the matters which it settled for Scotland with a light heart, without a misgiving. It has in England created a new Bishopric, and cold-shouldered a Bill for the creation of new Bishoprics. It took up—through an unhappy desire to do something popular—and passed the Public Worship Bill, and has shrunk, fortunately for the Church, from the natural sequel of such a measure, a Bill for the cheap and easy ascertainment of the doctrine of the Church of England. When the Church has so fared, it is no wonder that the Judicature should not come well out of its hands. Whether it thinks the House of Lords a good Court of Final Appeal is difficult to say ; it has said that it is not, and it is going to retain it. It is consolidating the Judicature of England, but on every Government day there is a Bill upon the Orders which would virtually abolish the Supreme Court of Scotland. The Government has done little in the way of legislation for Scotland, but whenever it has moved in an important matter relating to that country, it seems to have done or proposed doing something different from and even opposite to what it would do or think of doing in a similar matter relating to England. Perhaps it is fortunate that it has legislated very little for Ire- land, since that might have committed it to a third set of principles different from those applied by it to either England or Scotland. What can be the meaning of this curious flexi- bility? It is obvious that people who held their opinions stiffly, as the Gladstone Cabinet did, who tried to work out principles of government, could not differ from them- selves so often and so strikingly as the present Ministry have done. But along with this pliancy of principle, there has been an excessive desire to conciliate, an excessive fear of giving offence. Working-men and employers, landlords and tenants, clergymen and congregations, political opponents, no less than political friends, whoever could do injury or could give support, Mr. Disraeli's Government has been striving to please them all round. This is amiable, but the results are not quite satisfactory. A Government which acts upon prin- ciple too rigidly may be overthrown by popular irritation. A Government which vacillates, which contradicts itself, which takes its cue from passing occasions, and seems to think anything or its exact opposite equally proper to be don_e, will no less surely sink under popular contempt.
Previous page
