THE FORGOTTEN POSSIBILITY.
CORRESPONDENTS are asking us every day whether, if no Unionist candidate is offering himself or is likely to succeed, Liberals who uphold the Union may honourably at this Election vote for a Tory representative ? We have no doubt they may, for three distinct reasons. First, the issue raised is one which concerns the existence of the country, and before such an issue, as in presence of an invasion, party con- siderations are of no account. We are, in truth, in presence of an invader who demands the cession of Ireland as his first condition of peace. Secondly, Unionists are bound by their agreement with the Tories, who have so far kept their pledges in all but one or two places with a loyalty which Lord Har- tington's followers are bound to acknowledge. And thirdly, if Unionists under such circumstances abstain from voting, they may find the country visited by a new misfortune, which scarcely any one has yet discussed. The Dissolution may prove to be without result. We hope that the pendulum will swing far, as it usually does in great crises, and that the national answer to the Unionist appeal will be decisive ; but the -hope may remain unfulfilled. We cannot blind ourselves to the facts that the masses rule, that as yet Unionists are only certain of the adhesion of the educated Liberals, and that both the ties of party and the belief in Mr. Gladstone as the only trustworthy leader remain exceedingly strong. It is quite possible that the Premier, while losing some seats in London and Scotland, may recover as many in Northern boroughs where the Irish vote is effective, may carry as many of the medium boroughs as before, and may secure fifteen additional county seats. That result, or any result resembling it, would mean that the appeal to the people had resulted in a tie, under circumstances calculated to make a tie a national disaster. If ne;ther party had a clear majority, the formation of a strong Government, or even a working Govern- ment, would be nearly impossible. The Gladstone Cabinet is, of course, in power, and would under such circumstances meet Parliament, according to the Premier's pledge, in August, and would, there is little doubt, present a scheme, revised or un- revised, for establishing a Parliament in Dublin. Mr. Gladstone could not recede from that principle,—first, because retreat would be fatal to his reputation ; and secondly, because if he did, the Parnellites would desert him, and he would be left, even by their abstention, in a hopeless minority. The influences which belong to power, the " concessions " made in the Bill, one of which would be a clause—utterly useless, but imposing in its form—recognising that fall sovereignty still remained with the Parliament at Westminster, and the fear of another Dissolution, would probably carry the second reading ; but the Home-rule Bill could never survive Committee. It would be wrecked upon the Ulster amendment, if upon no other, and there are other amendments bearing upon finance which will try the Parnellite discipline as it has never been tried yet. We need not, however, argue that point. All practical politicians will acknowledge that Mr. Gladstone could not force his Bill through the House without a majority, and if unable to pass it, how would the Government stand ?
No "coalition," it must be remembered, or arrangement between the disputing parties is practically possible. There is no middle way between granting and refusing Home-rule ; and if there were, the Unionists as a body and the Glad- stonians stand pledged to the very lips not to take it. They are elected to concede or to reject that principle, and could not depart from their pledges without destroying all confidence in public men, if not all faith in representative government. Indeed, if the leaders yielded for "reasons of State," the followers would not, for if Home-rule has with many become a religion, Unity has with as many more become the embodi- gtent of patriotism. The only possible "coalition" already exists, and is the basis of the Unionist Party, and the Govern- ment would, therefore, be driven into one of three courses. It might resign, and leave Lord Hartington or Lord Salisbury to
form an Administration based upon the principle of Unity, but proposing a large scheme of agrarian reform in Ireland. Such an Administration might succeed, for it might paralyse the Parnellites, who cannot quarrel openly with the Irish farmers, and it might receive occasional support from the numerous Gladstonians who detest Home-rule, but who vote for it at the bidding of their leader and their constituents. The Government, we say, might stagger along for a little while, though it would be without initiative at home or credit abroad. It is much more probable, however, that, with political passion at boiling-point, with Mr. Gladstone sitting in Parliament and resisting every attempt to "evade the true issue," and with Ireland seething with agitation, the new Government would be powerless, would be compelled to post- pone all English business, and would be unable to pass even a revised Crimes Act for both Ireland and England, without which there can in the former country be no social order. The Parnellites might even throw themselves across the legislative rails, and the parties being equal, there would be no power in the House of Commons to clear the way for the most ordinary business. Such a form of anarchy would be intolerable and would speedily produce the Dissolution which, when Mr. Gladstone found himself powerless to carry his Bill, would be his second alternative. Three elections within a twelvemonth would be unprecedented in our annals, and would create excessive disturbance and irritation ; but still, the power to decree one would be there the situation would seem to justify it, and the Cabinet might believe that the wearied people, shocked at the position into which affairs had fallen, and attributing it all to the presence of Irishmen, might, at the price of their departure, at last secure to Mr. Gladstone the necessary majority. That is not an improbable calculation, and if it seemed accurate, the second Dissolution would be risked, to result in all human probability in another tie. The parties would not give way, and there would be no reserve of electors sufficent to give to either of them a decisive majority. It is not in Parlia- ment only, it is in the country that opinion is irreconcilably divided.
It is the third course which would be attractive, and which, of all courses, we should most acutely dread. The Gladstone Cabinet, conscious of national danger and driven to its last resources, might tempt over the Radical Unionists to its side by concessions which would have the appearance of preserving Unity, yet would leave to the Parlia- ment in Dublin powers so formidable that Mr. Parnell and his followers would take them as an encouraging instalment. The Radical Unionists, who are obliged as it is to profess their keen hope of speedy reunion within the Liberal ranks, would be sorely tempted by such an offer. They have hardly thought out what they mean by "local government as in Canada ;" and we can conceive circumstances under which the offer would be accepted. The Bill would then pass the Commons, after a struggle fatal to every other project of improvement, and would be an infinitely worse Bill than the one just defeated. We should have a Parliament in Westminster, shorn of part of its powers, but ruled by an Irish minority, and a Parliament in Dublin, under a new Poynings' Act, possessed of many powers, boiling with passion, and direct- ing all its powers and its full energy towards the extor- tion of the national rights, "acknowledged," it would be said, "by half the House of Commons." The struggle would rapidly assume an acute form, and pledged as Mr. Gladstone and his followers would be not to employ force, and confident as they are that power may be safely granted, it might end, probably would end, in the ungracious concession of the very Parliament all Unionists believe to be so full of danger. Even if it did not so end, the struggle with Dublin would be as absorbing and as full of risks as the struggle with Mr. Parnell is now, nothing would have been gained, and.the whole question would remain to be fought over for years to the exclusion of all other and more beneficial work. We regard the possibility of an uncertain verdict as the worst among the many which threaten us, and hold it the peremp- tory duty of every Unionist and every Gladstonian to do all that in him lies to avert such a calamity. Every voter in the country ought to record his opinion, and to remember theta weak Government may produce even worse mischiefs than ho expects from the Government of his opponents. It is the Irish Question which presses, and no weak Government, whatever. its opinions, can hope to deal with Ireland.
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