THE REAL DANGER OF DEMOCRACY.
THE politics of the United States, which are commonly, and in a sense justly, considered to be absolutely without in- terest for Englishmen, seem to foreshadow the condition to which English politics are rapidly coming. We are not about to raise a cry of warning against the "Americanising of our institutions." In the sense which used to be attached to this phrase, the supposed danger never existed. England is not about to become a Republic, or to make the Judges elective, or to abolish the Peerage ; and she was no nearer taking any of these steps before the late Conservative reaction than she is now. The resemblance between the politics of the two countries relates to a matter more fundamental than any of these. It is easier to imagine England ruled by a President, or inhabited by a wholly untitled population, or submitting lawsuits to the decision of Judges chosen by the ratepayers, than to imagine Englishmen not divided into Liberals and Conservatives. Yet while there seems no chance of any of the three first contin- gencies occurring, the last is, in all probability, on the eve of being reduced to fact. The obliteration of political landmarks has been already accomplished in America. Republicans and Democrats are now preparing themselves for the Presidential canvas, and everywhere they are making the discovery that neither party have anything to unite their members among themselves, or to differentiate them from their opponents. The question of most immediate importance to the country is the currency, but though the relative merits of "hard" and "soft" money may divide the Union into fiercely hostile camps, the rivalry will not be identical with the traditional
party lines. Democrats and Republicans will be found alike among " inflationists " and " non-inflationists." The party names will still be used, but they will stand for different theories about money, according to the State to which those who use them belong. The advocate of a return to specie payments will be a Democrat in one part of the country and a Republican in another.
What is there to stand in the way of a similar confusion of political identity in England ? No doubt party managers on both sides will maintain that the distinction between Liberal and Con- servative is like the distinction between right and wrong. It may be obscured, they will say, fora moment, but it is too deeply rooted in human nature, or at all events in English human nature, to remain obscured for more than a moment. So essential distinction must admit of being exhibited in actual life. Those who maintain its eternity are bound to prove its presence in time. What, then, are the questions upon which we may fairly calculate that Liberals and Conservatives will be divided ten or five years hence ? The other day the Manchester Liberals decided that the next Liberal cry is to be the extension of the county franchise. It is a fair cry in itself, but for party purposes it is open to the fatal objection that it is more likely than not to be pre-appropriated by the Conserva- tives. Household suffrage in towns has served their ends so well, that they have no reason to fear household suffrage in counties. Indeed, if conceded with tolerable promptitude, it might possibly minister still more effectually to future Con- servative victories. It may not be incorporated into the Conservative programme just yet, because Mr. Disraeli seems indisposed to new experiments of any sort, but it is in the highest degree improbable that the Liberals would be allowed to come into power on the strength of it. The last Reform Act finally deprived the extension of the Suffrage of its association with a particular political party. The maintenance of the Established Church will appear to many persons to constitute a more solid ground of difference, but even here the line of demarcation does not coincide with the line of demarcation between Conservatives and Liberals. We do not know whether there are any Conservatives who favour Disestablishment, but it is certain that there are a large number of Liberals who very decidedly dislike it. It would be hazardous, at, a time when religious controversies have gained an intensity of interest which they have not possessed for two centuries, to prophesy that.Disestablishment may not shortly become a burning ques- tion ; but there are no present symptoms of this happening, and if it does happen, the distinction between Conservative and Liberal will assuredly give place to something less titular and traditional. Upon Education, again, there is an apparent division between the two parties, but it is one of no real vitality. There are many Conservatives who
in their hearts care very little about the religious element in teaching, and many Liberals who are keenly alive to its im- portance. It is possible that the antagonism which prevails between the Church and the Democracy on the Continent may some day extend to this country, and " Christian" and "Liberal" may be accounted as incompatible epithets as " Catholic " and "Liberal" are in France or Belgium. But if such a change should ever come to pass, the first evidence of its presence would certainly be a redistribution of existing parties. The lesser ques- tions which now furnish matter for Conservative or Liberal ora- tory are still less likely to survive as permanent political barriers. The incidence of local taxation, the limits of local government, the oceasions on which it is permissible to apply compulsion, are questions which in England involve no differences of prin- ciple. Neither Liberals nor Conservatives desire to lay taxes exclusively on the rich, or to exempt local communities from all control on the part of the central Government, or to make the influence of the central Government ubiquitous and omnipotent, or to leave individuals free to follow their own pleasure, to the injury of their neighbours. Parties will quarrel over these and similar matters, but the dispute will relate to the time and the manner in which certain things are to be done, not to the propriety of doing them at any time and in any manner. Conservatives may talk of the revolu- tionary legislation from which the accession to power of the present Government saved England, and Liberals may talk of the necessity of finding a good Liberal cry with which to go to the country. We believe neither in the salvation wrought by Mr. Disraeli, nor in the possibility of uniting the Liberal party upon some future measure of heroic proportions. Great social changes may hereafter be effected, and in the strife which will precede them new parties may be generated. But neither the professions nor the com- position of these parties will coincide with the professions or the composition of the Liberal and Conservative parties, as they have hitherto been known. If the old names are applied to them, it will argue not continuity of beliefs, but simply poverty of invention.
The subsidence into this Democratic dead-level is not a pleasant prospect. A society in which every class will have got, if not all that it wants, at all events all that the Legislature can give it, will probably be a society in which very little interest is felt in public affairs, and a society in which very little interest is felt in public affairs will almost certainly be a society in which personal and local sel- fishness will be the paramount forces. With all its fauna, political passion is still the salt of the community, and when poli- tical passion is extinct, it is hard to say what bond beyond mere association in business and the hope of common profits will remain to unite mankind. If party spirit would disappear with party principles, some compensation might perhaps be de- rived from the diversion of national energy into unfore- seen channels. But there is no reason to expect any such result. Experience shows that party spirit never burns more fiercely than when the only distinction known to the partisans on each side is the distinction between the colours of their badges. The rivalry of blue and yellow will arouse as much enthu- siasm and as much hatred as the disestablishment of a Church or the enfranchisement of a nation. But the difference between the two enthusiasms, as regards their influence upon the characters of those subjected to them, is infinite. Constitu- encies in which only local and personal considerations have any weight, will constantly tend to return Members who will apply a similar standard to Imperial politics. The House of Commons will be more and more closed against all who have not bought the good-will of the electors by lavish expenditure, or by still more lavish promises. The candidate who spends his own money without stint will find himself hard pressed by the candidate who is willing to spend the nation's money still more freely, and gratitude for bribes already reduced into possession will be balanced by hopes of " concessions" still to come. In such a state of things as this, what are likely to be the motives that will lead ordinary men to enter Parliament ? Not patriotism, for Parlia- ment will have ceased to represent anything more than the aggre- gate of local wants. Not ambition, at least in any noble sense, for neither the men with whom a politician will have to work, nor the ends for which he will find them working, will be such as to commend themselves to a man who wishes to make himself great by making England great. Personal and social ambition will doubtless continue to operate, and so long as these remain it will be easy work to keep the House of Commons full. To make money faster and to obtain a more ready entry into
society will be sufficient objects for getting into Parliament. It is to be hoped that they will prove equally adequate to keep men straight when they have got there.
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