with most unusual regularity one way. From the day when
Mr. Chamberlain's proposal was sprung upon the country the Protectionists have only been able to carry and hold one seat previously held• by their opponents. Whatever the character of the constituency, the Government have lost ground, and this with at least three special advantages in their favour. One is that Pro- tectionists are almost fanatic in the sincerity of their belief in their doctrine, and bestir themselves to promote its success with most unusual energy. Another is that any new fiscal gospel attracts crowds of the unsuccessful, of the struggling, and of those who are convinced that their woes Inuit be_clue to excessive competition, which a new method of taxation would be sure to diminish. And the third is that Protection, or, as Mr. Chamberlain calls it, Tariff Reform, has been taken up by the man who is vaguely believed by men of all parties to be the strong man of current politics. The English like a, decided leader, and the nearest approach just now to a decided leader, a man, that is, with a will of his own and a way of his own, is Mr. Chamberlain. The disposition to support such a man, apart altogether from his programme, is always strong, and has repeatedly in our modern political history affected the balance of parties. .It induced Radicals to yote for a man like Lord Palmerston, and old Conserva- tives to be careless if Mr. Gladstone continued for a time to rule. There must be strong dislike, almost disgust, felt towards a proposal which when introduced by such a man elicits no popular response, nothing but that clear " No !" to which when he has once uttered it the British elector sticks. The voters at these by-elections have said,' and usually said most emphatically, "No! "to Mr. Chamberlain.
-"He may be a strong man, but he shall not do this thing," —that is the meaning of them all, as loudly and as angrily uttered as ever was the "No!" which crushed Mr. Gladstone and Home-rule. The friends of the Government try, of course, to conceal the fact. Some of them attribute defeat to the Education Bill, as if the majority of English voters were not, in name at least, members of the Established Church. Others moan gently over the admission of China- men into the Transvaal under restrictions which suggest slavery, forgetting that the Government were repeatedly beaten at by-elections before that evil experiment had been so much as suggested. And yet another set express a doubt whether, after all, the defeats may not be due to the Licensing Bill, and fail to see that that Bill must have brought to the side of the Government the whole strength of the liquor trade, and that in a case like Devonport the Government and the clergy and the publicans and the owners of South African mining shares' have all been beaten together. Even the agreement with France, which is genuinely popular, has made no difference. The electors believe that the Government intend to bring in Protection and abandon Free-trade, and they will not have it.
We have no doubt, in spite of all that is said in ,public and private about the "unassailable strength" of the Government in the House of Commons, that the by- elections have shaken, and will shake, their position. There are plenty of waverers, even in the Tory ranks, whose real attitude of mind is that they wish the people were Protec- tionist, but who, if they see that the people are stiff- necked, will ask the Government to abandon Protection finally and visibly, and if resisted, as they must be, will shrink from continuing their support at the price of their seats. They will not be able to bear the idea- of a Liberal " land-slide, ' which they see from the evidence of these by- elections is quite upon the cards if Mr. Chamberlain remains the veiled dictator. He himself, it is. said, is content to be defeated at the General Election, being confident that he will be triumphant at the next after, or the next after that ; but that will not suit the average Member at all. He does not want to quit Parliament, and so break his connection with his constituency, which in five or six years, even if Mr. Chamberlain is still "strong" and Protection is not a dead horse, may have found for itself another and more acceptable candidate. If be is convinced that Protection will cost him his seat, he will want to repudiate Protection with some decision before the Dissolution, and he can hardly do that without making it impossible for this Government to remain in power: Mr. Chaplin, we dare say, and a few -more like him, will be content with Mr. Chamberlain's policy; but for the average Member, and especially the average Tory Member, prophetic politics have little charm. They will want Mr. Balfour to speak out, and Mr. Balfour has chosen a policy, we will not say of shuffling, but of concealing his convictions about Free-trade. His speaking out will be a surprise, and on whichever side he speaks, will create in the minds of those who hoped for a different utterance a suspicion— probably unfair—of treachery or vacillation which would be fatal to any Government. Mr. Balfour has, no doubt, lost prestige with the country, which never understands or appreciates doubters ; but he is still the cement which holds the Unionist majority together, and when he has spoken out—in our belief, it is certain that he will speak out in favour of Mr. Chamberlain—it will be for one side or the other a disappearance. The fabric will crumble.
And lastly, the by-elections must have given the dominant party in the House a shock by revealing with painful clearness the fact that it no longer represents the body of the people. That is no reason, we quite admit, why the Government should resign. Members are not delegates, and the whole intent of septennial Parliaments is to enable the Legislature to survive sudden gusts of emotion, and even serious changes of opinion. But after all, the moral claim of the House of Commons to its supreme position in the State is its representative character; and when month after month constituencies of the most varied kind declare with one voice that it is no longer representative, that the majority in. the House differs widely on a cardinal point from the majority in the country, there can be no doubt that its authority is shaken though its legal position survives. Members very rarely acknowledge that this is the case, because they are rarely aware till an Election has occurred that the body of the people, and, those whom they themselves live among, are hopelessly at variance. They talk to each other, they read papers with which they agree, and they doubt if opinion among those who seat candidates can be so hostile to themselves as they are sometimes told. They think, they cannot help thinking, that the view of clubs and drawing- rooms must be more or less the view of the country, and that consequently they themselves must be in possession of fairly safe seats. The continuous stream of by- elections going one way wakes them out of that dream, and warns them, if they are sensible men, that the mass of the electors have not been attracted by Mr. Chamber- lain, and that even if they can persuade the middle class, the workers, who in the long run hold all power in their hands, are unpersuadable. They will not allow the taxation of food, and, without the taxation of corn and meat no Protectionist majority can in this country be brought together. That is the first reason why Mr. Chamberlain's policy must fail, the second-being that two generations have now enjoyed the prosperity produced by Free-trade, and any interference with it seems to the majority of working men nothing less than revolution. They will not be led, by arguments which they do not see, because they do not exist, to try so dangerous an experiment.
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